Anand Teltumbde on anti-caste struggle in University of Hyderabad and Gujarat.
"Rohith’s institutional murder is too well known to be discussed here. But the manner in which it is sought to be suppressed is no less criminal than the original murder. The Gachibawdi Police had filed a case under the Atrocity Act against Appa Rao Podile, the controversial vice-chancellor of the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Bangaru Dattatreya, the BJP MP and minister in Modi’s cabinet and N Sushil Kumar, the president of ABVP in the HCU for abetting the suicide but the police never acted upon it. His death sparked off a massive agitation of students who formed Joint Action Committees all over the country. It forced Appa Rao to flee the campus.
But on March 22, after two months, when the tempers had receded, he made a sudden comeback. Naturally, the agitating students staged a protest at the vice-chancellor’s residence, surrounded by abnormally huge contingent of police, where he held a meeting. When the protesting students sighted ABVP members inside the building, they were shocked and wanted to get in. Making an alibi of the scuffle at the door, the police resorted to a severe lathi charge. The two faculty members who pleaded with the police were also not spared. They chased students into the bushes up to kilometers thrashing students and molesting girls.
In all 27 students and two faculty, Prof KY Ratnam and Tathagat Sengupta, were shoved into two police vans and a new round of brutal assault was mounted on them as the vans made rounds of Hyderabad for hours. Until late evening, there was no news about their whereabouts. They came out on bail only after seven days of incarceration. There was no question of doing justice to Rohith; instead those who demanded it were punished.
As if this was not enough, the professors who were arrested were later suspended. When they protested with an indefinite fast outside the gate of the university a flood of support poured in from the public and several progressive organisations. Scared of the consequences, a sense dawned on Appa Rao to take back the suspension orders.
Smriti Irani, the controversial minister, singularly unqualified to head arguably the most important ministry of human resource development, displayed her theatrical skills in Parliament reeling off lies after lies in justification of her and her minions’ actions. Instead of regret over what happened, she aggressively attacked those who agitated for justice to Rohith. There were hideous attempts to divert the issue by questioning Rohith’s caste as though his dalitness would have brought him instant justice and lack of it would lessen the crime of the culprits.
The full force of the Telangana state – for which nearly 600 people, many of them Dalits, gave their life – was unleashed on the aggrieved mother to prove her caste. Despite Rohith possessing a caste certificate as Dalit, despite having lived and died as a Dalit, the Telangana administration spread a canard that he was a Vaddera and not a Dalit. The family was made to run around to prove that Rohith was indeed a Dalit, leaving aside their pain of losing him. Fortunately all the tricks of the government failed and Rohith’s dalitness has been established.
Expectedly, it made no difference to the culprits. They are well ensconced in their respective positions of power, while the students who are struggling for justice are driven to their wits end as Appa Rao removed the Dalit vidhi, the temporary shelter Rohith and his four expelled friends had erected at the Shopcom, which worked as symbolic pivot for the current agitation. Ambedkar’s bust therein was stolen and Rohith’s portrait at his makeshift memorial was disfigured."
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