Trigger warning: The following article contains references to suicide. Please avoid reading it if you are disturbed by the subject
Radhika Vemula, 57, has spent the past 24 hours in turmoil. It’s 5.20 p.m. on a Saturday. She steps out of a hired cab and walks into the intimidating University of Hyderabad (UoH) campus. The guards don’t stop the woman wearing a white sari with a shawl. Everyone knows her as Rohith Vemula’s mother, a single woman who has been fighting for justice for her son. Rohith ended his life in a hostel room of UoH on January 17, 2016, after leaving behind a suicide note that alluded to caste discrimination.
On May 3 this year, the Telangana Police submitted a 60-page closure report in the Telangana High Court that detailed the circumstances of the death of the 26-year-old, a PhD scholar. The report says the reasons for the suicide were “personal”, thereby negating allegations that a series of other factors, such as the withdrawal of his fellowship money amounting to ₹1,77,403, and him being barred from hostel and public spaces in the university had anything to do with it. As the report circulated on WhatsApp, Radhika began receiving calls from journalists and Rohith’s former classmates.
Angry students of UoH marched around campus, shouting slogans and demanding accountability. By 7.30 p.m. that day, another message began circulating on social media: “Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy is going to meet Radhika Vemula, mother of Rohith Vemula on Saturday morning.” The students then retreated to their rooms to strategise.
“My son’s degrees are original. He was a brilliant student. He got scholarships in both arts and science streams. Very few students can match what he did. The police report suggesting that he ended his life because he could not cope with studies is obnoxious,” says Radhika, who has been carrying on a sustained campaign for justice for her son.
Political colour
On campus, Rohith was affiliated to the Ambedkar Students Association. On August 3, 2015, the president of the right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Susheel Kumar posted on Facebook: “ASA goons are talking about hooliganism — feeling funny”. The ASA students confronted Kumar, who was forced to delete the post.
The chronology of events takes on different perspectives, depending on whether they are police officials, university officials, Union Education Ministry officials, or ASA or ABVP students. The sequence of events climaxed with the Executive Council meeting headed by the then Vice Chancellor P. Appa Rao deciding: “The above students (Dontha Prashanth, Rohith Vemula, Pedapudi Vijay Kumar, Sheshaiah Chemudugunta and Velpula Sunkanna) are permitted to be seen only in the respective schools/ departments/ centres, the library and academic seminars/ conferences/ workshops of their project. They are not permitted to participate in the student union elections, enter the hostels, administration building and other common places in groups.”
The Proctorial Board had earlier recommended for suspension of one semester, but the Vice-Chancellor modified the punishment and expelled the students from the hostel until their course was completed. The expelled students retreated to an open space in the Students’ Centre and started living and protesting there. It was from this space that Rohith walked away on January 17 to a hostel room, wrote a letter, and ended his life.
Now, a plaster-of-Paris bust of Rohith Vemula is the centrepiece of the open space. On Saturday evening, flanked by student leaders of ASA, Radhika offered floral tributes here. Behind Radhika was a banner with Rohith’s photo, with a line from the note that he left behind: ‘From Shadows to The Stars’.
Dalit identity and DNA test
“I am a Dalit. My son is a Dalit, as I brought him up. No one can dispute that,” says Radhika, as she talks about the closure report which mentions ‘caste’ 109 times, ‘suicide’ 54 times, and ‘Appa Rao’ 10 times.
The Investigating Officer (I/O) put it on record in the report that he wanted to conduct a DNA test of Radhika to prove her caste identity. Caste became key to Rohith’s identity after his biological father revealed himself to be a Vaddera (from the community of stone cutters), which is categorised as a person from the Other Backward Classes (OBC). To deny Rohith’s identity as a Dalit was to move the case out of the purview of SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989.
After hearing similar petitions about caste and identity in different courts, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment issued a directive in October 2019 that said: “In view of above observations by the Supreme Court and Delhi High Court, where it is established that the child has been brought up in the surroundings of a notified community to which the mother belongs and has suffered the deprivations, indignities, humilities and handicaps like any other member of that community and he or she was always treated as a member of the mother’s community, not only by that community but by people outside the community as well, then such a case child of separated/ divorced/ single women has to be treated as a member of the Scheduled Caste community and would be entitled to receive benefits as such.”
It is in this light that Radhika’s fight for justice becomes clear. “His fellowship was stopped. He was expelled from the hostel. He was not allowed to use the common spaces of the campus. His studies were affected. He faced discrimination everywhere in the university. But the closure report as well as the Roopanwal Committee report [that came out in 2017 and received backlash] conclude that he ended his life because of his caste and inability to study. This is travesty. Even the sequence of events is forgotten, while Rohith is blamed for his death,” says a student who was among the first to file a complaint after Rohith’s death.
One of the damning conclusions reached by the I/O in the closure report said that Rohith was aware that he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste community and that his mother got him an SC certificate. “This could be one of the constant fears as the exposure” of this could have cost him his degrees, and he would have been “compelled to face prosecution”.
Eight years later, the pain has not dulled for many of the students. “Freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, which are a basic expectation from a public university, are going down. Academics have been affected. Free thinking and critical thinking have too. The atmosphere in the university has not changed,” says a student who identified herself as just Solanki.
Overseen by the Education Ministry
Officials from the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) sent five e-mails to varsity officials between September 3 and November 19, 2015. Three of these had the sentence: “anti-national activities in Hyderabad Central University premises and violent attack on Susheel Kumar”. However, the report erases the role of people who acted in concert to drive action against the protesting students of ASA.
“The report completely absolves the then Vice-Chancellor Appa Rao, BJP leaders Bandaru Dattatreya, Smriti Irani, and N. Ramachandra Rao, and ABVP leader Susheel Kumar of any responsibility for the murder of Rohith Vemula by replicating the exact narratives fabricated by the BJP and the ABVP,” says Gnaneshwar, a student of Political Science who is coordinating the protest meet now.
Watching the university entrance from a distance, a student who was suspended along with Rohith remembers the time. “We were so naive that we raised our voices against the security staff and officials, while there was a systematic effort to corner us. Given a choice, we would have acted differently. The trauma remains. I have finished my studies and work in a private organisation, but somewhere deep inside, I feel hopeful. Some day justice will be done and the abettors of Rohith’s suicide will be brought to justice,” says the student who completed his doctorate and works with an NGO.
Political fallout of closure report
The Congress party had promised a Rohith Vemula Act during its 85th Plenary Session in Chhattisgarh in February 2023. In November that year, Radhika walked with Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra. “The Chief Minister [Revanth Reddy, from the Congress] has promised us a fair and unbiased inquiry into the matter. He assured us that Avinash Mohanty (Cyberabad Police Commissioner) is an upright officer and will ensure that true facts come out,” says Radhika, recalling her interaction with Chief Minister Revanth Reddy at his residence in Jubilee Hills, a plush locality in Hyderabad.
Rajya Sabha member and Congress leader, K.C. Venugopal, tried to clarify matters and wrote on ‘X’: “Rohith Vemula’s death was a grave atrocity that completely exposed the anti-Dalit mindset of the BJP... The Congress government in Telangana will leave no stone unturned to ensure justice for Rohith’s family. Not only that, when we form a government at the Centre, we will pass a Rohith Vemula Act specifically addressing the issue of caste and communal atrocities on campuses to ensure no student coming from socio-economic backwardness has to face the same plight as Rohith ever again.”
After 2016, students say caste-based discrimination has reduced slightly. “There is a systemic change. Earlier, faculty members would know the names of the students who planned to pursue doctoral programme under them. Now there is a merit list and enrolment number. Only after a student joins the programme, the faculty members come to know about them,” says Vivek Kumar, a student of the Hindi department at UoH, hailing from West Champaran district in Bihar.
The tension on campus has subsided over the years, but between 2014 and 2021, there has been a 44% spike in the enrolment of SC/ST students in institutions of higher education, as per All India Survey on Higher Education data.
This is not the first report that has rankled the aggrieved students of UoH. Justice Ashok Kumar Roopanwal report which was tabled in Parliament had a similar effect. “Our goal is to secure justice for Rohith and a democratic, free, and open university which embraces everyone irrespective of their caste, background, and ideology: a place of ideas,” says Laxminarayana, adding he hopes the CM’s commitment leads to a factual report. Laxminarayana is currently touring Telangana to raise voter awareness about the need for a caste census and flaws in the implementation of the Economically Weaker Section quota.
Meanwhile on campus, Radhika says, “I am not going anywhere. All the people who drove my son to suicide deserve harsh punishment, and I will ensure they are brought to the law.”
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