- "Please serve 10 mg of Sodium Azide to all Dalit students at the time of admission. With direction to use when they feel like reading Ambedkar."- "Supply a nice rope to the rooms of all Dalit students."I like to think of myself as a hard-nosed man, even a bit cynical at times and rarely stunned into silence. But when I read the lines above from the letter PhD candidate Rohith Vemula wrote to the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Hyderabad on December 18, 2015, I was left horror-struck. I found myself groping for not just words but thoughts.
Here was a fine young man, so evident from his scholastic achievements and powers of expression, crying out for help from the head of his institution. A month later, Rohith was dead, driven to suicide by an insensitive university administration, an environment of toxic intolerance, and a society indifferent to the complex issues that trouble the minds of not just young students, but particularly young Dalit students, battling millennia of prejudice.
Five students of Hyderabad University, all members of the Ambedkar Students' Association, had been protesting following their suspension from the institution. The suspension was instigated by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student arm of the BJP. The ABVP was trying to capture the campus and combine political muscle with social bigotry - there is no other word to describe it.
The entire establishment - the local MP, a BJP union minister, the HRD Ministry, now run by a tweet-first-think-later star of the ruling party, and the pusillanimous Vice-Chancellor - simply played second fiddle to the ABVP. The result is a monumental tragedy, not seen on our campuses for years now.
How do I know all this? How am I so convinced? It is because I have seen all the necessary documents and spoken to the students - Rohith's four friends and his other associates. They are remarkable young people - articulate, intelligent, able to marshal facts, capable of running a movement. They contacted us just after Rohith's death. After ascertaining the details, we offered to hold a press conference or a protest in Kolkata, or to visit Hyderabad. They asked us to come.
I flew to Hyderabad on January 19 as the head of a two-member Trinamool Congress delegation; my colleague Pratima Mandal, accompanied me. We were with the students for two hours from 9:30 pm to 11:30 pm, well after the cameras had gone. It was an educative, emotional and inspiring conversation. Those young people are heroic.
The following day, January 20, the students began a relay hunger-strike. They asked me to be present. I was honoured and said a few words. We were being accused of politicising a tragedy. I said, well, if seeking justice for Rohith and his family was politicisation, then so be it. The Congress Vice-President had already visited. The Delhi Chief Minister and a Janata Dal (United) delegation were expected. The CPI(M) and the YSR Congress too had come to show their solidarity. Clearly a disgust with the noxious atmosphere of intolerance that the BJP and its various frontal organisations have created across the country since the election of 2014 has united us. Of course, this is a confrontation. This is a confrontation between tolerance and intolerance. This is a confrontation between justice and injustice.
The students, the friends and associates of Rohith, who are demanding justice for him and compensation and a job for a member of his family, are not political in the party sense. The 14-member Joint Action Committee they have formed comprises students who are otherwise members of different, even disagreeing parties. For them, this is not politics; it is justice for a friend, and a community. It is a determined quest for social justice.
At such moments one cannot be neutral. The self-important news television anchors going on and on about "rent-a-cause politicians" and "parachute politics" have to answer to their conscience. I am at peace with mine.
I write this as I prepare to leave Hyderabad. I have promised the students I will be back whenever required. Trinamool stands by them. The young and brave friends of Rohith, many of them Dalits like he was, deserve that. They are aghast at the Goebbelsian BJP
parivar propaganda on Twitter and other social media platforms that seeks to dispute even Rohith's caste. Imagine the mindset - to quibble and quarrel over a dead boy's caste! Can politics fall to lower depths?
I left the students with two pieces of advice. Keep the movement above party politics. We formal politicians are the side cast. The students are the protagonists and the moral soldiers. Stay united, don't break into factions. Your unity is your biggest strength. Don't let the establishment break it, as they will try and do. Fight the good fight, as Rohith would have wanted you to. And as Rohith did.
(Derek O'Brien is leader, Parliamentary party Trinamool Congress (RS), and Chief National spokesperson of the party)Disclaimer: The opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of NDTV and NDTV does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.