– Kavyasree Ragunath & Manasi Mohan
After Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder* at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), the members of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA), UoH were at the forefront of protests demanding justice for Rohith, condemning state sponsored atrocities on students. The following are excerpts from interviews conducted with ASA members, highlighting the experience of symbolic and physical violence faced by marginalized students in university spaces.
Q: Though Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder is singular in the way it conditioned a nationwide protest and consolidated a movement both inside and outside the university, don’t you think the violent experience undergone by Rohith, from the social boycott to everyday forms of violence is a common factor many marginalized sections are facing due to the structure of the university system?
Umesh Bujji: All Indian educational institutions are established on the foundations to protect the secularism, to be anti-casteist, to promote democracy, to have a freedom of thought, etc. so that it can build inclusive and knowledge based society. But the casteist and brahmanical mind set and arrogance of owning knowledge by particular sections, could not digest the entry of marginalized sections in higher educational institutions. These caste proud people ruined the structure of university system by implementing and practicing caste visibly and invisibly.
Agnes Amala T: The growing intellectuality among Dalits and other marginalized sections, is not tolerated by the upper caste. Since their voices are there wherever there is an injustice, attempts are made to suppress them by just filing some false charges on them. Suspension or rustication of Dalit scholars is seen as an easy and normal course of action in the universities. The violence undergone by Rohith is one such example of violence undergone by thousands of Dalit students in universities. To stop this day to day violence, Dalits and marginalized sections need to have a stronger movement in the long run.
Vijay Kumar: We can say that there is systemic or institutionalized harassment that exists, which is not only faced by Rohith but by many students from marginalised sections who join the university. Only when our students take such kind of extreme steps like Rohith did, these kinds of issues are noticed and discussed. Before Rohith, Pulyala Raju, Madari Venkatesh lost their lives and we had protested against such violence happening to our students and the administration then accepted their mistake.
Dontha Prasanth: When it comes to the suicide of Rohith Vemula it is not only caste discrimination and caste based exclusion but also political victimisation because the incident clearly depicts how the voices of Ambedkarites were deliberately suppressed through the punitive mode such as social boycott. In villages, we can see that someone who violates the dictums of caste, who questions these caste hierarchies, who surpasses caste boundaries, will be punished in utmost brutal manner by the existing panchayats of the village. In a similar manner at University of Hyderabad, we five dalit research scholars chose to voice the concerns of Dalits, of minorities and the larger sections of Dalit bahujan masses of this country. We tried to talk about Dr B R Ambedkar’s ideas, his idea of nation, his disagreement with capital punishment which were clearly echoed in the Constituent Assembly, and our attempt to defeat RSS agendas of trying to appropriate Ambedkar. Then we were viewed as a threat by the RSS, BJP and ABVP. Thus, they have in a full-fledged manner planned and executed this entire episode. Their involvement is clear: starting from MLC Ramachandra Rao, Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya, local MLAs Raja Singh, Kishan Reddy—everyone has come and played their bit in this incident. Ministry of Human Resource Development itself had sent five letters, hence, we could see a clear plot of political victimisation. When social boycott sort of punishment was given against us, we could see from the minutes of the executive council that it has clearly reflected that the punishment was given as instructed by MHRD and not in accordance with principles of justice. Hence we believe that this is a selective and specific targeting of Ambedkarites consisting mostly of Dalits, a political victimisation of them in accordance with the agendas of RSS and BJP to make this nation a Hindu Rajya. So in this case of Rohith Vemula we can see the angle of caste as well as political victimisation. If you look at other suicides like Madari Venkatesh mostly the reason is the caste discrimination that is pertinent in the department, the non allotment of supervisors for dalit students irrespective of the merit of the students .
How do you perceive the systemic operation of violence in a university space from the entry to exit? What are the sites of such violence?
Umesh Bujji: From day one till you as a student leave this campus, your caste is open to all in this university. At the time of sending admission letter/on the day of declaring results student’s caste is disclosed. For instance; in admission letter the selected candidates are listed out based on the caste: for each caste community they give one mark—for all SCs they put *(star) mark before their name; for STs they give **(two stars); for OBC they give # (hashtag); ***(three stars) to PWD/VHD students. Hence, students can easily recognize who is what. Moreover, if the students belonging to SC/ST or OBC communities clear their exam in the general category, they will still put these caste marks before our names. They directly criticize reservation policy and the reserved students because we are thought of as getting our degrees easily. Many faculty members are not happy with the introduction of Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (RGNF), Maulana Azad National Fellowship for Minority Students (MANF) etc. as if they are giving the money from their own pockets. This administration will not simply sanction this fellowship as they do it to the JRF/CSIR fellowships. A few directly tell us that we are getting all these facilities as beggars. All these humiliating and provocative activities are done by individuals in the departments, or in the schools. There are a few schools where Scheduled caste, Scheduled Tribe students repeat their courses twice.
Vijay Kumar: Every semester when the registration to the new semester begins we have to fight with the administration because the university doesn’t release the scholarships on time and if our students don’t receive scholarships they will have mess dues and wouldn’t be able to register for the new semester. Ultimately sufferers are Dalits, Adivasis and Muslims. The system fails to understand the social and economic background of the students, that they depend solely on their fellowships because their parents are not able to support them financially. Even the state government doesn’t release the scholarships on time. The university is not considering these things even on humanitarian grounds and fails to support students. We cannot show any hard evidence to prove these kinds of atrocities or point at some person and say that this person has committed this. It is being normalized and made part of the system.
Coming to academics and classrooms, when a student from a village background joins the university we cannot expect him to suddenly reach the levels of the professors who have completed their studies from prestigious institutions, their way of teaching will be different and our students find it difficult to cope with this. In my department when we approached our professors saying that we are not able to cope with their way of teaching and requested them reduce their level of English so that we can also follow it they replied that it is a central university and it is we who have grow up to their expectations. These kinds of reactions are another kind of atrocity and here also we cannot show a single person as responsible for this. University should take the responsibility to understand the aspirations and dreams of the students and support them in difficult times whoever he or she is, whether from upper caste or lower caste. Due to these kinds of atrocities they are not able to pursue their courses and many of our students are leaving the courses in middle and some are made to pass securing a very low percentage of marks which will not be of any use in the future for higher studies or jobs.
Agnes AmalaT: Victimizing them and giving minimum pass mark or fail marks in the degree level and in PhD level delay in allotting research supervisors, not signing in the fellowship forms at the needed time, making the students meet [the supervisors] at frequent intervals without any reason… In a larger context, since all the key and high positions are with the upper caste faculties they do not allow Dalit students to finish their course on time whether it is PG, M. Phil, Ph.D. These make them emotionally weaker and academically make them to lose interest. This is a systemic discriminatory practice, which is being followed in all universities and institutes.
Would you say something about the strategies and activities that ASA as a formation has undertaken to counter the institutional violence?
Agnes Amala T: ASA as the oldest organization in the Hyderabad university campus [has been the] forerunner for many new organizations. ASA being the first organization started a help desk for [new] students during their admission to solve admission related doubts and queries. ASA organizes many lectures on contemporary issues relating to democracy, caste, atrocities etc. apart from that many protest rallies condemning various acts of violence on Dalits and other marginalized sections.
Umesh Bujji: ASA organizes nearly 40 lectures in an academic year by inviting the available scholars across the country, conducts political classes on Dr. B R Ambedkar to make them conscious how caste prevails in the campus, the forms it takes, and recent trends in caste atrocities, harassment and violence too. Mostly, we organize lectures on democracy, freedom, caste atrocities, and institutionalization of caste, on Ambedkar, on liberty, on secularism, on communal violence, on caste discriminatory practices, on education, and on recent issues in debate. We have representatives in each hostel and in each department, so that, identifying the students who are facing problems is very easy and we will take up issues and solve them. If administration is not ready to solve the problem we organize protests, rallies, dharnas, hunger strikes etc. We also fought and led many struggles related to undemocratic policies, or decisions related to the freedom of thought or student rights etc. In my ten years of experience in the campus, ASA has dealt with hundreds of issues on the rights of students and has fought to establish the democratic atmosphere, and we have democratized the university. I am not saying this as an ASA member, it has been said by many professors in the Campus. ASA has contributed a lot to make this campus more democratic.
Vijay Kumar: From its inception ASA has started its fight against the brahmanical attitude within the university. Even today the university is operated by a handful of brahmins only, majority of the professors belongs to upper caste that too from the brahmin community. So ASA was started to help the people, the students from the marginalized section. From its inception till today ASA is fighting with the motive to help people in terms of their academic as well as in solving their financial problems within in the campus, in making them aware of their political status and to bring all the students belonging to marginalized section under one political umbrella and give an answer to the administration, they are striving for it. When I say strategies, it includes political strategies like ASA contested in the elections with left organizations and all the other Dalit organisations like BSF, DSU, TSF. For the benefit of marginalized sections some of its strategies worked and some we lost like SFI and some left organisations at times turned against ASA and these became obstacles. So still there are many obstacles for ASA and other organisations for marginalized communities to reach out and achieve its goals.
How does the logic of casteism work in a university space? How do you see them in relation to the blatant caste practices outside the university?
Agnes Amala: As our voices in villages are being suppressed by the dominant castes as they own land, when it comes to daily wage or atrocities [we] could not raise our voices, we were not able to mobilize, to gather and assert our voices and fight for our rights. Think of how they kept our forefathers ignorant without awareness of their rights. In the same way, in educational institutions also though majority of Dalits get high cutoff [marks] and get admission in general category once they come to university all the oppressive attitudes of the caste people are showered on our students, destabilizing them and projecting them as incapable of doing their studies. If we mobilized together and assert our rights by educating ourselves this is not tolerated by these casteist people. And that results in filing false allegations and ruining our lives. Since they cannot democratically do anything they use all the possible undemocratic methods to curb our rights and voices—which is a traditional caste system being practiced in villages. i.e. suspension of Dalit students can be directly equated with the a Dalit family that is being isolated from the main village for a period of time if they enter into caste Hindu household, drink water from the common well, enter into the temple etc. In the universities, it happens if raise our voice against Hindutva forces and question our loss of rights etc.
Dontha Prasanth: …but the only difference is that there in the village it comes through direct violence—like if anything happens the person will just be killed. Here psychological violence will be more. Violence will be inflicted on the minds. The torture will continue on a day to day basis. That fellow may not beat you but he will torture you every day with extra assignments and tough things. That is how there is a difference in the functioning of the caste system.
Vijay Kumar: Outside we can clearly find out what are the ways in which caste is being operated, but in the universities it is much more difficult to find out how caste operates. As in this case we cannot say Apparao has directly killed Rohith and we cannot ask the government to book him under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocity case although he is directly involved in the case, but outside it is operating in direct way, a person might directly perform an atrocity on the Dalits or Adivasis but here [it is] not like that. Here it functions through its own systems like the academic system and administrative mechanism, and in their operation atrocity and untouchability is being practiced. They are making and directing our lives to end up like Rohith, Raju and Venkatesh or otherwise leave the courses as it is happening in Mathematics department. Whenever a Dalit gets admission in that department he will leave the course within two or three months, most of the MA students who left the course from Mathematics department are Dalits. Why only Dalits are leaving, that is the indirect way of operating untouchability.
Umesh Bujji: Actually, the dominant caste people don’t like to lose their social hierarchy, therefore, on whatever thoughts they come here to the campus, they will continue the same casteist mind set with no respect or esteem for the Dalits. They are not ready to change their mind set [because] it may result in the loss of their social power which is related to economic, political, cultural dominance. So, literally, they follow brahmanical attitude and show their caste domination here in the campus. So, whenever there was a voice from the suppressed section they cut it off. I think this educated brahmanical, fundamental, conservative mindset is more dangerous rather than the village brahmanical mindset. If it is in village, if they boycott us, we will leave that place and go somewhere and live. But, here, we can’t leave because of degree, we can’t lose our future, here there is no way to except fight backs to solve the problem to reach the Dr. Ambedkar’s aim or to survive. They feel that whole knowledge is their own, all our lives are in their hands, so, whatever they do is accepted. But, as Ambedkarites, we realize that constitution is ultimate and freedom of the people is more important. Freedom from the caste system is important.
Manasi Mohan and Kavyasree Raghunath are M Phil students in translation studies at the University of Hyderabad and can be reached at manasi.mohan23@gmail.com and kavyasurumani@gmail.com.
*Notes
The term ‘institutional murder ’ is a widely used critical re-signification of what have so far b een dubbed dalit student “ suicides” in institutions of higher education. It has been used by Mayawati (BSP leader and the ex-CM of UP), widely by the English media, by the writer Satchitanandan very soon after Rohith died, and by several other activists and thinkers. This term has challenged the casteist naming of these “tragic exits from social death“ as occurring due to fatal personal flaws (weakness of character, failed love ffairs, etc.) in individuals who cannot cope. This powerful renaming is reminiscent of the way in which the death of young married women in the 1970s which were termed suicides, were renamed ‘dowry deaths ’ in the 1970. In both cases, the critical renaming has brought out the truth of these deaths as the ultimate step out of unbearable circumstances.
Resident Editors