Teen suicide does not make headlines in India, which has one of the world's highest rates of such deaths among people in the 15-29 age group. Almost daily, there are reports of suicide by youngsters who fail in exams or are unable to win the hoped-for grades. University/college authorities high-handedness also leads some to acts of desperation. Still if the suicide on Jan. 17 of Rohith Vemula, a Ph.D. student at Hyderabad University, has led to a nationwide stir in India, it is because it has once again drawn attention to one of the root causes of social inequality in the country: Caste. Vemula was a Dalit — a member of India’s untouchable caste. “My birth is my fatal accident,” Vemula wrote in his suicide letter.
It was on Sept. 11, 2015 that the process, which led to what Dalit activists describe as “institutional murder” of the research scholar began. The 25-year-old Vemula, who was active in a student Dalit group on his campus and four fellow Dalit research scholars were suspended by the university for an alleged attack on a leader of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in August 2015. The proctorial board, which investigated the event, cleared the five students in its first report. A subsequent report recorded a U-turn in the statements by witnesses. All five students were suspended. This was subsequently revoked when students protested the decision. However, on Nov.
27, 2015, the executive council of the university decided to ratify what its own subcommittee had recommended — that these students be allowed to continue with their studies. Worse still, they were not to be allowed to stay in hostels at the university till they completed their respective courses/programs. They were barred from participating in the students’ union elections, entering the hostels, and other common places in groups.
Vemula, in particular, was deeply affected by this humiliating turn of events. Colleagues say the Hyderabad police misinformed and misled them about his death and burial. He was supposed to be buried but they cremated the body. Students were planning to go in buses to pay their last respects to Vemula. Then they got information that the body had been cremated in Amberpet. No family member except his mother was allowed to attend the ritual conducted quickly and quietly.
Following protests by students, a case has been filed against Union Minster of State for Labor and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya and Vice Chancellor Appa Rao Podile for atrocities against Dalits and abetment to suicide.
Dattatrey, a Cabinet minister from the state where the university is located, reportedly took up the complaint and sent a letter to Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani, depicting the campus as “a den of casteist, extremist and anti-national politics” — after which Ms. Irani’s office allegedly demanded that the university punish the students. Such intervention by federal ministers, Vemula felt, foreclosed his chance at a better future and pushed him over the edge of despair.
Even without intervention by higher-ups, it is said there is enough in almost all universities and institutions of higher learning to make Dalit students despair. They face pervasive discrimination from higher-caste fellow students, faculty members and administrators.
In the long-term, the university has to take steps to give a sense of confidence to the most vulnerable sections of its students. In the short-run, there is an immediate need for a vice-chancellor who can get students of all affiliations to come together. This means that the present VC and acting VC have to go as demanded by Joint Action Committee, an umbrella group of 14 student organizations. The federal government should also reassure students that if the judicial commission that has been set up to investigate the incident establishes a link between the suicide and two of Narendra Modi's Cabinet colleagues, suitable action will be taken against them.
