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Dalit student’s suicide exposes rot in India’s higher education system

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Dalit student’s suicide exposes rot in India’s higher education system
BY GAUTAMAN BHASKARAN on JANUARY 19, 2016 in ASIA TIMES NEWS & FEATURES, INDIA

The suicide of a Dalit student in the University of Hyderabad on Sunday is a shocking reminder of an India which, while stepping into state-of-the art science and technology, remains steeped in caste politics and prejudices.


Police use water cannons to disperse students during a protest in Delhi on Monday over the suicide of PhD scholar Rohith Vemula at University of Hyderabad

The student, Rohith Vemula — who was pursuing a doctoral thesis and who belonged to a low caste, called Dalit in the Hindu religious hierarchy — had for long been facing social discrimination.

Once considered as “untouchable”, a Dalit, despite a quota or reservation system in education and government employment, has to still grapple with biases that are sometimes cleverly camouflaged. This kind of hostility in society is most seen and felt in rural India that makes up for about 60% of the country’s total area.


Rohit Vemula

Vemula’s woes began last December when he and five of his fellow research scholars — all Dalits and who were part of the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) — were suspended following an alleged brawl with students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), part of the Right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules in New Delhi and under which the university falls.

A conflict between the two groups is said to have risen last July after a reported ASA protest over the execution of the terror accused, Yakub Memon.

However, a probe by the university’s proctorial board gave a clean chit to Vemula and the four others stating that there was no conclusive evidence to prove that the Dalits were involved in the brawl.

But the tide turned against the Dalits when the federal minister of state for labour and employment from the BJP Bandaru Dattatreya stepped in and wrote to the federal human resource development minister Smriti Irani (also from the same party).

Dattatreya’s letter said that the university had become a den of “casteist, extremist and anti-national politics”. He accused the university of being a mute spectator to such anti-national activities as the protest over the Memon hanging.

Days after the letter, the same proctorial board found the five Dalit students, including Vemula, guilty and the university administration suspended them.

It was a strange sort of suspension which while allowing the Dalits to continue with their studies, barred them from hostels, the administrative buildings and other common areas on the university campus.

This was a social ostracism, most blatant against the five Dalits, a community that is socially and economically disadvantaged – in 21st century India!

In fact, Vemula comes from a very poor family which lives by rearing pigs. It was the dream of this Vemula, a good scholar and poet, that hung from a rope that Sunday.

Meena Kandasamy, a writer and poet, wrote in a column in The Hindu: “Vemula’s suicide lays bare the true state of our educational system: a vice-chancellor (Appa Rao) with a decades-old history of rusticating Dalit students, the involvement of Central ministers to settle scores on behalf of right-wing Hindu forces, the entire administrative machinery becoming a puppet of the ruling political forces, and the tragic consequences of social apathy.

“Education has now become a disciplining enterprise working against Dalit students: they are constantly under threat of rustication, expulsion, defamation, discontinuation. In a society where students have waged massive struggles to ensure their right to access higher educational institutions through the protective, enabling concept of the reservation policy, no one has dared to shed light on how many of these students are allowed to leave these institutions with degrees, how many become dropouts, become permanent victims of depression, how many end up dead”.

(Police cases have been filed against Dattatreya and Appa Rao for abetment of Vemula’s suicide.)

Tragically, the caste system is still a potent force in India, where Dalits among other groups from the lowest rungs of Hinduism (divided into castes and sub-castes) face all kinds of discrimination — from being denied entry into some temples to the use of well water in villages.

Unfortunately, even in renowned institutions like the University of Hyderabad and many of the Indian Institutes of Technology, castes prejudices are seen, sometimes thinly disguised, sometimes blatantly exhibited. It is unimaginably shocking that professors, who have mastered physics and chemistry and quantum economics can harbour such narrow-minded parochialism. One writer calls this “caste terrorism”.

Such bias also takes the ominous form of murders committed on young lovers. Bikas Ranjan Mishra’s recent film, Chauranga talks about the murder of a young Dalit boy who is bludgeoned to death when his younger brother, a teenager, writes an innocent love letter to a schoolgirl from an upper caste. Her father, who is instrumental for the murder, has no compunction, though, about sleeping with the boys’ mother!

Such is the hypocrisy of a section of India that still and unashamedly feels a sense of casteist superiority, and what is most terrifying is that this group also includes the highly educated members of society — who sometimes egged on by reactionary forces push bright young men like Vemula to death.

Gautaman Bhaskaran is an author, commentator and movie critic, who has worked with The Statesman in Kolkata and The Hindu in Chennai for 35 years. He now writes for the Hindustan Times, the Gulf Times and The Seoul Times.

(Copyright 2015 Asia Times Holdings Limited, a duly registered Hong Kong company. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
 
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The true rot in Indian system is opposition parties and news media ganging up on the current party on every unrelated event.
I am from the same university and know this issue to a better extent.
First off, he is not a Dalit. He was only associated with that organization.
Second, he was suspended for a proper reason, which was, he and his friends assaulted another student for a post on facebook that they did not like. That is their tolerance.
Third, he was still allowed to attend classes.
They recently started protest again during which he decided to take his life.

So I repeat. the rot is in the idiots who peddle their own agenda without any concern for the truth.
 
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The headline of the thread is misleading. How can India's higher education system be at fault here ? In fact it was because of the affirmative action that existed in University because of which they were given a platform to build their career. A university should be a place to study. A student may have a political view but protesting against Yakub Memon's hanging is a serious contempt of court. Besides the suicide victim didn't categorically blame anyone, although I consider the university authorities to be solely responsible for this. Honestly when we were in college we would mind our own business in studies instead of wasting our times in needless protests that hardly affected our lives. The victimhood card is strong here. I myself being from Scheduled Tribe category is of the opinion that sometimes these things are blown out of proportion. This case reminded me of Student Periyar Circle of IIT Madras and the protests that was carried out because of its banning. These people are Educated Mayawatis.
 
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What a dumb post!You people should know the fact first..He was suspended cause he was involved in rallying against Yakub Menon hanging & many anti national protest..He was sole responsible & did suicide like coward.
We are already given reservation in every field,even helped with food & money throughout our academic.
These ranting are politically motivated & parties like Congress & #AAPTARD are flaming it further..
 
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The true rot in Indian system is opposition parties and news media ganging up on the current party on every unrelated event.
I am from the same university and know this issue to a better extent.
First off, he is not a Dalit. He was only associated with that organization.
Second, he was suspended for a proper reason, which was, he and his friends assaulted another student for a post on facebook that they did not like. That is their tolerance.
Third, he was still allowed to attend classes.
They recently started protest again during which he decided to take his life.

So I repeat. the rot is in the idiots who peddle their own agenda without any concern for the truth.

Agreed .
But what was that minister(Centre Labour minister) doing in campus ?Who is he to interfere in campus matters ?

On topic :We know some people are very eager to link a student suicide with politics .Only thing they know dirty politics .
He himself wrote noone influenced him for such extreme measures .
Yet people are crying unwantedly for what ?
If they have some problem then they should go for court .Medias and political parties dont have any right to unwantedly judge others in this matters.
 
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It was a strange sort of suspension which while allowing the Dalits to continue with their studies, barred them from hostels, the administrative buildings and other common areas on the university campus.

This was a social ostracism, most blatant against the five Dalits, a community that is socially and economically disadvantaged – in 21st century India!

Source: Dalit student’s suicide exposes rot in India’s higher education system

Stupid journalist, that is the general punishment people are given for less severe acts like ragging. They are usually kept off the hostel.

But apart from this, I can believe that University of Hyderabad is riddled with caste politics/discrimination, nepotism, fake credential professor-hiring, money for job scams, money for marks(may be), stupid violent student fights and such evils.

And Dattatreya obviously was an idiot to mess with student fights like this. The poor VC is usually a dummy who is there to look the other way from all the rot on campus, but he was forced to take action by the HRD minister who seems to be good at only forwarding complaint letters to Directors and VCs of higher education institutes than managing HR in India.

The author alleges that IITs are showing caste discrimination. Anyone heard of something like this for real? :undecided:
 
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Seriously did the OP actually read the news and understood the scenario, or just opened a thread for India bashing purpose.
 
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What???:o::o::o:. I need more information on this. Every presstitute is reporting that he is a Dalit.
@indiatester @Tshering22 The Congis are using this students death to take Dalits away from the BJP![ This tactic won't work in AP/TG, everybody here knows Bandaru Dattatreya is a BC & as fought for the rights & welfare of the poor including SCs]

But firstly regarding the student

No He is NOT a dalit!!

He is a Veddara- a OBC/BC caste in AP/TG. THis has been uncovered after his death!

These delhi media guys are idiots. They should stick TO Delhi.. & Where were these heroes when Hyderabad was burning since 2004-2014?

Showing some proof which is available to me now. :-
1) The FB page of a politically active & aware Hyderabadi:-
So, finally it turns out to be that... - Suresh Kochattil | Facebook
So, finally it turns out to be that Rohith who committed suicide in UOH is not a Dalit. He birth certificate shows that he was from the stone cutter Vaddera community, which is an OBC in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and that does not qualify him as a Dalit. So what happens to all the 'dalit' scholar suicide media coverage by ‪#‎Presstitutes‬ and political chest beating by vultures likes of Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal?

2)The twitter page of the above person:-
This is the birth certificate of his brother which shows he was a Veddara.
CZFYG4yUMAEfXQ4.jpg
@Bombermanx1 anna,@itachii anna & @Srinivasgaru can confirm!!

3)
His grandma vindicates the above(if this women is his grandma).
 
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He is an OBC as per my friend in univ. Could be wrong though.

@indiatester
No He is NOT a dalit!!

He is a Veddara- a OBC/BC caste in AP/TG. THis has been uncovered after his death!

Showing some prrof:-
1) The FB page of a politically active & aware Hyderabadi:-
So, finally it turns out to be that... - Suresh Kochattil | Facebook
So, finally it turns out to be that Rohith who committed suicide in UOH is not a Dalit. He birth certificate shows that he was from the stone cutter Vaddera community, which is an OBC in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and that does not qualify him as a Dalit. So what happens to all the 'dalit' scholar suicide media coverage by ‪#‎Presstitutes‬ and political chest beating by vultures likes of Rahul Gandhi and Arvind Kejriwal?

2)The twitter page of the above person:-
This is the birth certificate of his brother which shows he was a Veddara. @Bombermanx1 anna & @Srinivas can confirm!!

3)
His grandma vindicates the above(if this women is his grandma).

I came here to say this. Just did some research (bharatmatrimony and jeevansathi helped:p:). Vemula is a subcaste of Vaddera. Vadderas are OBCs.
 
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This is the ABVP person who was attacked by those leftist goons:-
CZBBu7uUkAIqjAG.jpg


@magudi @Echo_419 @JanjaWeed @kaykay @Star Wars
Am posting more about this incident & what really happened in a series of tweets, beware it is very long:-
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "4. Many students/unions protested against this unjustiable 'under pressure from goons' withdrawal decision by Univ and filed a court case."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "5. Court asked Univ to inform of action taken against the 5 assaulters, else the court would have to take action. Univ set anothr committee"
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "6. Susheel approached Dattatreya, who wrote to Edu Minister explaining how Hydrbd Univ was a hub of casteist,extremist anti-Nat activities."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "7. He mentioned how ASA students had protested against terrorist Yakub's hanging, & when ABVP students condemned ASA's support 4 a terrorist"
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "8...in a FB post calling them goons, Susheel was assaulted by ASA. Dattatreya asked for Ministry intervention but there was none.."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "9. On 18th Dec 15, Rohith wrote to the VC saying '5 students r being socially boycotted in Univ. Two suggestions -One, at time admission.."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "10. ..give every Dalit student 10 mg potassium cyanide, as this will come in handy when they read Ambedkar. Two, Chief warden should give.."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "11. ..all Dalit students a rope so they can commit suicide'. Strange he wrote this to VC after Univ had been so lenient with ASA students..."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "12. Clearly Rohith was pressured by activists for sake of politics.A fact which becomes clear frm his suicide note 'Reduced to a mere vote'"
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "14. university threatening Islamist/communist goon by Dalit-Muslim Activists of Hyderabad... (Conti)"
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "15. Due to Court deadline, Univ finally on 30 Dec15 decided to be humanitarian & not expel the 5guys,JUST asked them to move out of hostel."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "16. And intimated the courts of the same. Rohith and ASA guys sat on 'sleep in tents' protest in Jan 2016. Finally came the suicide..."
Sumedha Sarvadaman on Twitter: "18. As we can see there are no 'Dalits' here. Nor Rohith nor Dattatreya nor others.. Dalitism is a Communist/Islamist #BreakingIndia Agenda."
 
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Look at the viciousness with which he hates saffron!! Please see te videos in the given links

@SrNair This is the letter written by Hon. Minister of State Bandaru Dattatreya
CZGN1SiUkAAY_3T.jpg


Stupid journalist, that is the general punishment people are given for less severe acts like ragging. They are usually kept off the hostel.

But apart from this, I can believe that University of Hyderabad is riddled with caste politics/discrimination, nepotism, fake credential professor-hiring, money for job scams, money for marks(may be), stupid violent student fights and such evils.

And Dattatreya obviously was an idiot to mess with student fights like this. The poor VC is usually a dummy who is there to look the other way from all the rot on campus, but he was forced to take action by the HRD minister who seems to be good at only forwarding complaint letters to Directors and VCs of higher education institutes than managing HR in India.

The author alleges that IITs are showing caste discrimination. Anyone heard of something like this for real? :undecided:
Caste Politics, Student Politics etc all such nonsense which u mentioned above go on a lot over there..

Whhy don't students focus on their studies instead of beating each other up over Yakub Memon & Kasab who are totally unrelated to their subject??

& Yes, I have heard of discrimination against STs & SCs at IIT, but it is pretty rare.

 
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Chronology of events in the tragic suicide of Hyderabad student Rohith Vemula

-The Left wing student organization ASA (Ambedkar Student Association), which Rohith was a member of, protested in the University campus on the hanging of Yakub Memon with some very provocative posters.

-ABVP students take offense of this, one student posts on facebook calling these students ‘goons’ and ‘anti-national’.

-Member of ASA assault that ABVP student, ABVP complains to the University authorities which constitutes an enquiry.

-A second enquiry holds 5 students guilty (previous enquiry absolved them for lack of medical evidence which was provided to the second enquiry)

-ABVP students approach local MP who writes to HRD Ministry for action.

-University, based on the second enquiry report suspends 5 students (including Rohith Vemula). Please note that enquiry reoprt was submitted before BJP MP wrote to HRD ministry for action.

-The suspension was revoked after a month.

-Much later, Rohith commits suicide, blames no one in the suicide letter. Indicates he was academically ambitious and was disillusioned over being used for politics.
 
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