The suicide of a young Dalit scholar, Mr. Rohith Vemula, in the University of Hyderabad is not merely the death of an individual. The sordid saga behind what made Rohith take this extreme step exposes all the pretensions of the Indian state and its institutions. It shows how six decades after independence, elitist Brahminical domination succeeds in mobilising the entire system against underprivileged caste groups, the poor and minorities. Rohith’s suicide is another example of the absence of the concept of justice in India, and its impact upon free speech in the country.
Caste-based discrimination is fundamentally the negation of equality, particularly the concepts of equality before the law, and justice. It is the suppression of the disadvantaged by those in control. It is violence against the weak by the powerful, understood in all its cognate expressions and present in every aspect of life.
Rohith’s suicide is not an isolated incident. Eight students at the University of Hyderabad had chosen to end their lives before Rohith. Enquires into some of these deaths, allegedly due to discriminatory practices against the students, have led to some riveting conclusions. It indicates alarming practices of injustice meted out against poor students or those from the minority communities studying at the University. Similar incidents have been reported from other educational institutions across India like the Indian Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, Government Medical College, Chandigarh, and the Indian Institute of Science in Mumbai and Bangalore.
The recurring deaths suggest that most universities in the country do not have a grievance redress mechanism that has earned the trust of the students. In essence, universities, institutions that should instil notions of justice in the students have shamefully failed in their fundamental duty of care. They have denied their students this precious learning experience.
Equally reflected in Rohith’s case is this alarming reality in India: anyone can level accusations, with criminal intent and impunity, against an unsuspecting person and get away with it. The false accusation by an incumbent minister in the Union Government, that some students at the University of Hyderabad are engaged in anti-national activities is an example. It highlights the criminal mindset of Indian politicians, who exploit the country’s fallen justice system against anyone whom they perceive as a threat. Mr. Subramanian Swamy’s statement in September 2015, that the Jawaharlal Nehru University is a breeding ground of anti-national forces, is yet another reprehensible example of this “accuse and kill” tactic employed with impunity.
In countries where justice institutions of the police, the prosecution and the judiciary function to provide redress for genuine grievances, no one dares make false allegations against an innocent person. If they do, and the accusations are later found to be false, the person who made them will be held criminally liable. In these jurisdictions justice institutions function within legitimate boundaries set by their mandate, and are accountable for all their actions and inactions. In India this is not the case.
It is in this setting, augmented by a failed justice process, that has resulted in a retarded notion of justice in India. It has facilitated the smothering of free speech and expression in the country.
The average Indian mind is tempered in a cast of deep-rooted prejudices, aggressively promoted from time immemorial by Brahminical subjugation. It dominates the country and all of its institutions. It has succeeded in uprooting and totally destroying the Buddhist concept of justice and equality although there was an attempt to bring back this notion into India through the Constitution.
It would be a flagrant lie to claim that a sense of justice and equality has taken root in India, post 1947. The surge of right-wing Hinduism is the direct result of the retarded growth of the notion of justice.
In the recent past, India has witnessed numerous incidents where Brahminism and elitist right-wing Hindus successfully exploited a failed justice framework and smothered free speech and expression. This was reflected in its raw form when, in January 2015, Mr. Perumal Murugan was forced to withdraw all his books from circulation. A further example is the murder of Dr. Malleshappa Kalburgi in August 2015 where up to now the state has been unable to identify the assailants.
A shameful celebration was organised by the Hindu right-wing groups upon the demise of Dr. U. R. Anandamurthy in August 2014. The sordid war cries by Hindu right wing politicians, ministers, influential and organized religious bigots against anyone and anything that they perceive as threat to their right wing agenda, is an alarming prologue to an impending danger. This danger is a communal and Hindutwa extremist flare-up that India will undergo.
A statement was made by Mr. V. K. Singh, of ‘why the Union Government should be blamed for someone stoning a dog.’ This was in comparison with the burning to death of two infants by the dominant Rajput community in Faridabad in October 2015. It showed how deeply set this attitude is within the Indian state. Through Singh, the Indian state was speaking to its people, of its appalling and disgraceful disrespect for the dignity and life of the poor. This is a defining character of the Indian state.
Indian media and Indian civil society has put up only a feeble voice of resistance against this threat to the future of the country.
It is the duty of every free Indian to stand-up against the annihilation of free speech and expression in India. Universities are abbeys where students are expected to learn the value of freedom and teachers are expected to instil notions of justice and equality in their pupils. Unfortunately, it is these very universities that are systematically targeted by right wing groups, as their ancestors in the past have succeeded against Pushpagiri, Nalanda and Takshashila.
