“I am Rohith Vemula and I am a Dalit”

What more do you need to prove anything ? How long will you drag this like everything else, endlessly. The young man is dead and all of us are responsible for it in our own way, directly or indirectly.

When he was alive his Dalit identity was repugnant to us. Now that he gave up his fight, we have to disprove his Dalit status as that would mean punishment to those responsible for driving him to suicide.

In this video, shot just days before the tragic end to Rohith, we see him talk . Just listen in and think – you will understand the enormity of the crime that killed an youngster so full of life.

It must be recalled here that the district administration of Guntur conducted an enquiry immediately after Rohith’s death, when this same question of his Dalit identity was first raised and the District collector of Guntur, after thorough verification of government records, certified his Dalit status.

This is in stark contrast to the HRD ministry’s one-man commission report by Roopanwal saying that Rohith’s mother, Radhika Vemula had faked her Dalit status by wrongly obtaining SC certificate. The report further puts the reason behind Rohith Vemula’s suicide as personal frustration and not caste discrimination. By accusing Rohith’s mother of faking Dalit status the report has made a mockery of justice and has tried its best to protect its masters in the ministry and the Central university, who are all liable for immediate arrest and persecution under the SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.

No action has been taken on the perpetrators by the ruling government in the centre. A pretense of arrest and bail was also abandoned. Instead the Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao was brought back to Central university after a period of hibernation,under heavy police protection and the protesting students manhandled and arrested. We all now know that the status quo has been maintained in the campus- nothing has changed after Rohith Vemula died. Except perhaps we have changed and become conscious of the social and economic injustice around us.

Let things be. As the saying goes, even if you keep repeating a lie, it cannot become the truth.

Is this government still trying to project itself as Pro-Dalit?

-UDAAN