Rohith Vemula’s death is the unforeseeable climax of a struggle that he was spearhead

[prasad1]

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The suicide of a Dalit student is not just an individual exit strategy, it is a shaming of society that has failed him or her. Rohith Vemula’s death comes as the sad, unforeseeable climax of a struggle that he was spearheading against casteist, communal forces. One of the five Dalit scholars who were expelled from the University of Hyderabad on charges moved by the right-wing student organisation, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, he kept the spirit of resilience alive until his last moments. Even as Rohith being driven to death shows us the vulnerability of our most militant students, it also lays bare the true state of our educational system: a vice chancellor with a decades-old history of rusticating Dalit students, the involvement of Central ministers to settle scores on behalf of right-wing Hindu forces, the entire administrative machinery becoming a puppet of the ruling political forces, and the tragic consequences of social apathy.


There could not be a more potent image of the caste system at play than the expulsion of these five Dalit students. Even though the ensuing strikes highlighted the sense of solidarity among the Dalit Bahujan student community, the act of expelling these students itself carried grim reminders. Just as the Manusmriti ordains the outcaste to leave the caste quarters, the very ritual of punishment appeared to have all the symbolism that accompanies a caste cleansing. Education has now become a disciplining enterprise working against Dalit students: they are constantly under threat of rustication, expulsion, defamation, discontinuation. In a society where students have waged massive struggles to ensure their right to access higher educational institutions through the protective, enabling concept of the reservation policy, no one has dared to shed light on how many of these students are allowed to leave these institutions with degrees, how many become dropouts, become permanent victims of depression, how many end up dead.

That Dalit students like Rohith Vemula enter universities to pursue a doctoral degree is a testament to their intelligence, perseverance, and a relentless struggle against caste discrimination that attempts to destroy them from the first day. Textbooks ridden with caste hegemony, the atmosphere that reinforces alienation within college campuses, classmates who take pride in their dominant caste status, teachers who condemn them to miserable fates and thus enact a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure — these are the impossible challenges for Dalit students to surmount. Caste which ingrains the notion of intellectual superiority, when replicated within the boundaries of academia, becomes a poison potent enough to kill and consume lives. Classrooms, instead of becoming sites of resistance and subversion, become assertions of unbridled caste power by those who believe in the twice-born, sacred threads of knowledge transmission, and who are inherently obliged to maintain the status quo.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-...na-kandasamy/article8120922.ece?homepage=true

I am sure this is one POV. I do not know the full extent of the problem. The post is only a View on this topic.

 

[prasad1]

 

[prasad1]

[h=2]"As a Dalit I know the struggle that students from the community go through," says Former Union minister Sanjay Paswan.[/h]
Former Union minister and member of the BJP national executive Sanjay Paswan made a not-so-veiled attack on the government headed by his own party over the suicide of University of Hyderabad scholar Rohith Vemula.
Mr Paswan, who had also headed the party's Scheduled Caste Morcha in the run up to the General Elections of 2014 tweeted that "the stake holders of power politics must take serious note of Rohith Vemula episode or be ready to face wrath, revenge, revolt, reactions."

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...dent-suicide/article8123441.ece?homepage=true

 

[prasad1]

[h=2]Rohith Vemula’s suicide exemplifies continuing politicisation of educational institutes[/h]
Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide once again highlights the politicisation of India’s education system. The 26-year-old PhD student of University of Hyderabad hanged himself after his pleas to reverse the varsity’s decision to first suspend him and four others and later bar them from the hostel and common areas were ignored. The matter started in July when Rohith and his fellow scholars were allegedly involved in a brawl with activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) – the students’ body aligned to RSS – over Yakub Memon’s hanging. But initial inquiry found no conclusive evidence of Rohith’s impropriety.
Subsequently, however, Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya’s letter to HRD minister Smriti Irani urging action against Ambedkar Students Association – to which Rohith and his fellow scholars belonged – for ‘anti-national’ activities saw the matter revive. There’s substantial evidence to suggest that the university was under pressure to act against Rohith and others at the behest of the HRD ministry. That a small case of campus brawl required central government ministers to intervene speaks volumes about the autonomy of our educational institutions. The latter have become tools to disburse political patronage – the result of a process that has been going on for decades.
Under the current NDA dispensation at the Centre, education is being handled with even less finesse than before when the need of the hour is to unshackle education, if youth aspirations are to be met. Whether it was the issue of serving non-vegetarian food in IIT canteens or the rolling back of the four-year undergraduate programme in Delhi University, the HRD ministry stands accused of micro-management of institutions. Further, there are allegationsthat key posts are routed to political favourites. Such an approach militates against meritocracy. It creates an environment where academic proficiency takes a back seat to political affiliations.
This is precisely what happened in Bengal under the erstwhile Left Front regime, resulting in an exodus of bright young minds from that state. In the same vein, Delhi’s AAP government’s attempts to recraft admission criteria to private schools again exemplify undue political interference when public schools themselves are poorly run. It’s time that governments, both at the Centre and states, adopted a hands-free approach to education. Authorities’ job is to assess outcomes and release funding or other facilities to institutions accordingly, rather than get into the nitty-gritty of administration. Only a meritocratic system which permits autonomy can transform India into a global knowledge hub, besides curbing thousands of suicides triggered by India’s dysfunctional education.

http://blogs.timesofindia.indiatime...&utm_campaign=TOInewHP&utm_medium=Widget_Stry

 

[prasad1]

Once more, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Smriti Irani, has become the focus of national outrage after a series of inter-connected events ended with the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula, a 28-year-old Ph.D scholar in Hyderabad University.

A left-leaning Dalit activist, Vemula was often at odds with the right-wing elements of his institution, where he was a second-year research scholar from the Science, Technology and Society Studies Department. His many protests included a 'beef party' and protests against the death penalty during the hanging of Yakub Memon.


It was for this protest that he initially clashed with ABVP leader N Susheel Kumar. The accounts of the clash vary. Members of the Ambedkar Students Association, of which Rohith was a founder, say they were falsely accused and claim to have a written letter by Susheel stating that no assault took place.

Susheel says he was assaulted by 30 members of the association and wrote the letter under duress.


Eventually the college board found in favor of Susheel and decided to remove Rohith and four others from the hostel, and forbid them from conducting activities, other than attending classes, within the University. Susheel was let off with a warning.

onsider this simple truth - a standard form of discrimination against Dalits in India is social exclusion. They are forbidden from inhabiting the spaces reserved for the general populace. This is precisely the punishment the University gave the five Dalit students after the clash.

Punishments by themselves are not wrong, If you broke a rule, then you must pay the penalty. But the lack of social awareness by the University is disturbing.

Ultimately the fact remains that a minor fight between two student groups need not have involved an MLA, a Union Minister and the Union Minister for Human Resource Development.
http://www.sify.com/news/sacksmriti...ommit-suicide-news-columns-qbtpUSdjfhibg.html

 

[balaji7820]

Not supporting anyone here but why is a PHd student doing politics. He should be concentrating on this PHd. Taxpayers money is spent on his stipend. What has been his output for the stipend given? Just blaming one group because another is perceived as a lower community is not going to help. If he enters politics and cannot bear the heat of day-to-day politics then he bit more than he could chew. The British and Mughal indoctrination of all Indians of pitching one community as higher and another as lower by misrepresenting our scriptures is a bane for inter caste feud in Vedic society.