Offer truth and hope, not drama: Teachers
The following is an open letter written by the SC/ST
Teachers' Forum & Concerned Faculty, University of Hyderabad, to Union HRD
minister Smriti Irani:
Dear Ms Irani,
Thanks to your stunning performance, we, many faculty
members from the University of Hyderabad, are compelled to do what we should
have done in the last one month or so, but could not bring ourselves to -
write, write about Rohith, write about our other students, write about the
state of academics, write about ourselves and write about society at large.
Our first acknowledgement to this therefore goes to you for
revealing yourself and for bringing us back from grief, from reflection, from
teaching and from various other mundane things we do as part of our job. As we watched you in disbelief on our TV
screens on 24th February 2016, you, in a voice choked with emotion, again and
again referred to the "child" whose death has been used as a
political weapon. We were left bewildered.
At what precise point, Madam Minister, did this sinister,
anti-national, casteist, Dalit student of the University of Hyderabad transform
into a child for you? Definitely not in those five rejoinders from MHRD (the
ministry of human resource development) between 03-09-2015 and 19-11- 2015 with
the subject line "anti-national activities in Hyderabad Central University
Campus"? Definitely not when you chose to overlook and endorse what can
only be read as extraordinarily aggressive and unfounded allegations by a
minister in your own government, Mr Bandaru Dattatreya?
Ms Irani, your constant reference to him as a child is
nothing but a patronising attempt to dehumanise his reality. It is also deeply
disrespectful to Rohit's mother whose child he actually is - because she knows
how ironic your appropriation of him is, considering your culpability in his
death.
Only after more than a month of his death Rohith becomes a
"child" for you "whose death was used as a political
weapon". A political weapon by whom, honourable Minister? By the other
four students who were expelled with him and who spent those cold nights out in
the makeshift velivada (which loosely translates as Dalit
ghetto), with nothing but each other for company and succour? By the other
students and friends who stood by him? Because you definitely seem to imply
that when you say this child could possibly have been revived and yet his body
was hidden and no doctor or police was allowed near him.
By now incontrovertible facts have emerged that belie this. However,
we would like to go beyond those facts and appeal to your heart. You were not
there that night, Respected Minister. You did not see the grief or the shock,
nor were you there to feel the despair. How could you even begin to fathom how
desperate the students were when they called faculty members and the medical
doctor of the university's health centre as soon as Rohith's body was found
hanging by students and security officials? As Dr Rajyasree, medical officer,
has stated, she rushed to the hostel at 7.30pm and declared Rohith dead at
7.40pm, all recorded in his case sheet on that fateful night of 17-01-2016.
The police arrived at the scene immediately after this.
Iraniji, it is beyond our simple comprehension to understand how you with your
meticulous preparation, evident in the Lok Sabha speech, ignored these crucial
medical documents/preliminary evidences. This also includes the post-mortem
report that declares Rohith was dead at least 18-24 hours before the body was
examined the subsequent day. From all the medical and post-mortem reports,
statements by friends, faculty and university officials - it is clear that
Rohith's body was found hours after he hanged himself.
Not only are your claims factually incorrect but they point
to an utter lack of respect and sensitivity for the grieving family, friends
and students. You are clearly disconnected from the heartbreaking grief of his
friends, palpable to anyone present that night or the accompanying anger
knowing the injustice that led to this tragedy. Does it befit our honourable
minister to implicate these very grieving people in the death of their beloved
friend?
Respected Minister, you have also repeatedly claimed that
the committee which suspended Rohith Vemula and four other Dalit students was
not constituted by your government, but by the UPA regime. You have also
emphasised that there indeed was a Dalit faculty member in that committee.
We are astounded that you can so smoothly pass on the
responsibility for this tragedy to someone else. Being at the helm of the MHRD,
we are sure you must know that the Executive Council's Sub-Committee that took
the fatal decision to suspend the Dalit students from hostels and other common
spaces was expressly constituted by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Appa Rao,
following five rejoinders from your ministry goading the university to take
action against the Dalit students.
We may also point out that the two-member committee
constituted by the MHRD itself points out a curious anomaly - the EC and its sub-committee
is the very same body that recommends and ratifies - this simply cannot be.
Just in case your busy schedule has not allowed your
attention to the following, permit us to point out further contradictions:
That this subcommittee was composed of all upper caste
members except for one. We fail to understand how this one member is expected
to overrule the will of five.
Most importantly, Prof. Prakash Babu, the sole Dalit member,
was co-opted as the Dean, Students' Welfare and NOT as an SC/ST representative.
Kindly refer to the constitution of the EC sub-committee in its minutes of
meeting dated 24-11-2015.
That the EC sub-committee did not hear out the key
stakeholders or consider the counter-affidavit filed by the Commissioner of
Police on 3rd October 2015 and simply concurred with the much contested
Proctorial Board's decision is matter for another enquiry.
Now let us come to the punishment itself. Let us think of
the lives and struggles of the five boys who were suspended - four of them
being sons of agricultural labourers and one without both parents. For them,
suspension from hostel meant denial of food and shelter. Add to that, denial of
right to access common spaces effectively amounted to social boycott in caste
terms. Students who had surmounted unimaginable obstacles to reach the
university were pushed back right into the velivada, the
"untouchable" fringes of the village.
Do you not believe that the administration should have
reached out at least when Rohith wrote that 18th December 2015 letter asking
the VC to provide Dalit students "(a toxic inorganic compound) and a nice
rope" at the time of admission itself?
Ms Irani, for all practical purposes, it was a cry for help.
This was an opportunity for us to help this "child" and we lost that
opportunity. And we have never heard you quote from this letter that was
acknowledged as received by the VC's office.
For a despondent, beleaguered Rohith, hounded and ignored by
the powers that be, death was probably the only way to freedom and the
limitless wonder and beauty of the universe that so moved him! Perhaps it was
the only way out for someone as conscientious, brilliant and reflective as
Rohith was. This was Rohith's assertion of dignity, a dignity that was not
allowed to him or his friends in their lives.
Their lives, in the words of Gopal Guru, mirrored social
death, smeared with indignities of caste. To say that his "suicide
note" of 17-01-2016 does not name or implicate anyone amounts to gross
opportunism and abandonment of moral responsibility.
Permit us to remind you, dear minister, that the VC did not
think/feel it worthwhile enough to meet the grieving students on that fateful
night. We are reminded ad nauseam of the threat that students posed to him and
continue to pose to him. Students who already had lost a dear friend were
accused by the ABVP of violence, and, this is important - students who throughout
their struggle since those intense first days following Rohith's death until
now have maintained their poise, their maturity, through all their struggles
and protests and have never resorted to violence.
Could the Vice-Chancellor of the University not meet and
console them in that most vulnerable, heartbreaking moment? Even when nearly
300 teachers requested the VC to come and assured him of a space to meet
students along with them, the VC's sense of authority prevailed over his sense
of duty and responsibility. This was a defining moment Ms Irani, when the VC
could have regained his moral stature and humanity in the eyes of the students.
He clearly let history slip through his fingers.
Rohith is not there with us any more. His four friends
suspended along with him are, his larger group of friends in this university
and growing group of friends across the country are. What we expect from you is
very minimal. Do not turn this into a fight against students who have nothing
to rely upon, no power - political or social - no connections, no money, not
even a home.
Please understand this - the minority status you love to
claim for yourself cannot in any way be equated with the state of disprivilege
and dispossession that many of these students battle on a daily basis. All our
students have is the hope of a future which education can possibly bring - to
quote Rohith - "from shadows to the stars".
Do not blight their hopes, their dreams. Help us ensure each
one of us is sensitive to cater to their needs inside classrooms, in labs, in
hostels, outside, everywhere. As teachers, as ministers, we have much more to
offer - truth, equality, justice, hope and inspiration. Not melodrama.
The Prime Minister has extolled your speech tweeting " Satyamev
Jayate".
Whose Truth? We ask.
SC/ST Teachers' Forum & Concerned Faculty, University
of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.
