Nothing more than another botched
up political attempt by BJP to damage control in the issue that has outraged
the whole nation after a Dalit Ph.D. scholar of the University of Hyderabad
(UoH) was forced to commit suicide due to political interference in a matter of
student politics.
Reports say that the Union Human
Resources Development ministry wrote five letters to UoH to pressurize the
university administration to act against Rohith Vemula and his four other friends,
members of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA).
We have all the reasons to
disbelieve BJP, Smriti Irani, the ABVP student leader of UoH N Susheel Kumar,
UoH administration and its vice-chancellor (VC).
And we have every reason to
believe every word of Rohith Vemula’s letter, written or unspoken, versions of
his friends and their allegations.
What UoH did today, has in fact
lend more credence to these voices demanding justice. Today, UoH revoked suspension
of four others who were suspended along with Rohith. Now we can only lament on
such a blasphemy that aggravates our collective outrage even more. It is
absolutely nothing and is unacceptably late.
An individual’s life is the
primary driving force of a democracy. Yes, that is the ideal scenario enshrined
in our Constitution and we are far from that as a society with the prevailing socio-political
milieu.
But this basic tenet takes the
sense of urgency whenever we found ourselves in a state of collective mourning
and outrage over loss of a human life – like it has become so in the case of
Rohith Vemula – a bright and talented human being – whose life was cut short by
some unabashed political masquerading of the system.
And our collective mourning, our
outrage and that producing echoes of Rohith’s name – a person unknown till
January 17 – are the best possible tribute to this man – who has stirred our
sentiments.
Rohith’s letter exonerates anyone
and everyone of the guilt behind his act but it, in fact, blames each of us. It
is, in fact, his dying declaration that puts us all in the dock. And even our
legal judicial system accepts the sanctity of someone’s dying declaration –
without any further evidence.
Rohith’s highly intellectual last
letter is also a contradictory one. He says he is happy in embracing death but
he also regrets about his past life and childhood and writes about his
disenchantment from the society.
And when we see some past months
in his life, we feel why BJP has been utterly wrong in dealing with the crisis
and how misplaced the party’s logics have been.
Smriti Irani first painted a very
sincere image of her on the crisis saying she was ready to resign in case she
was proven wrong and then she came with her misplaced rhetoric yesterday that
said that the politicking over the issue was creating a false impression of ‘Dalit
Vs non-Dalit’ struggle. And she used ‘wrong facts’ to bolster her claims which
fell flat today when UoH teachers said there was no Dalit teacher in the panel
that punished Rohith Vemula.
