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Rohith Vemula, Dalit scholar hanged himself in protest

‘The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. ‘

Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
'I always wanted to be a writer - a writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write,' wrote Rohith Vemula in his suicide note. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
By Harsha Vadlamani
Published On 1 Feb 20161 Feb 2016
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Hyderabad, India – On January 17, 2016, Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula, a Dalit research scholar at the University of Hyderabad in southern India, hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his friend’s hostel room.

Two weeks earlier, Vemula and four of his friends, all Dalits and associated with a campus political group called the Ambedkar Students Association, had moved out of their hostel rooms after being suspended by the university administration.

The students say they were allowed to attend classes and other academic sessions, but were barred from entering the hostels and common areas in groups and participating in student union elections. Lacking the means to afford private housing, they pitched a camp in front of the university shopping centre and started a hunger strike protesting against their “social boycott”. They called their camp Velivada – Dalit Ghetto. 

The traditional caste system still has influence over India’s Hindu population. 

At the bottom of the caste hierarchy are groups like the Dalits, who were traditionally given jobs considered ritually impure, such as rubbish collection, street sweeping, the cremation of dead bodies, and the disposal of human waste.

People unfortunate to be born into a family deemed Dalit have been battling prejudice and discrimination which they face daily, within and outside their own communities.

Rohith and his friends were entangled in a rivalry between student groups. 

Susheel Kumar Nandanam, the leader of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, accused the five suspended students of assaulting him. The accusation led to the formation of an inquiry committee by the vice chancellor.

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Protesters allege that the university’s final decision to bar the students from hostels and public spaces on January 3, 2016, was heavily influenced by a series of letters written by union ministers Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani, describing them as “anti-national” and “casteist”. 

The university was rocked by protests soon after Rohith’s suicide, with angry students saying it was yet another case of discrimination against Dalits on campus.

Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
The funeral pyre of Rohith Vemula at the Amberpet crematorium in Hyderabad. 'The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility - to a vote; to a number; to a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind, as a glorious thing made up of stardust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living,' Vemula wrote. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
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Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
A friend's room in the NRS Hostel where Rohith hanged himself on January 17, 2016. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
A portrait of BR Ambedkar lies among Rohith's other possessions at Velivada, where he camped for two weeks before taking his own life. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Students and other protesters gather on January 21, 2016, as Arvind Kejriwal, chief minister of Delhi, expressed solidarity with those seeking justice for Rohith Vemula. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
A friend accompanies Vaikhari Aryat, one of the seven students who sat on an indefinite hunger strike, at the protest site. The students have been demanding the resignation of the Vice Chancellor Podile Appa Rao and action against ABVP leader Susheel Kumar and union ministers Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Raja Chaitanya Vemula, Rohith's brother, holds their mother Radhika at the memorial at the protest site. Radhika was born into a Dalit family but adopted by a higher caste family. She was married off when she was 14. A single mother, she worked as a farm labourer and tailor to provide for her three children and even studied together with her sons to finish her degree. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
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Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Students manning the information desk look at a poster that was taken down by volunteers for using offensive language. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Students form a barrier around the freshly erected memorial for Rohith Vemula to protect it from the crowds as Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi was about to arrive to console Rohith’s family on January 19, 2016. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
A volunteer tries to push away a protester who was raising slogans against some faculties' visit to the protest site. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Students break into tears as Vijay Kumar, one of the five students barred from public spaces in the university, talks emotionally about the hardships he had to endure growing up as a Dalit on January 22, 2016. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
University police forcibly move a fasting student from the protest camp on January 23, 2016. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Uma Maheshwar Rao resists as doctors try giving him food and medicines at the university medical centre after the police disrupted their fast. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Students from the Arts Faculty at University of Hyderabad work on an art installation at the protest site on January 25, 2016. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]
Rohith Chakravarathi Vemula/ Do not use/ restricted
Volunteers of the Samata Sainik Dal [Army of Soldiers for Equality], a social organisation founded by B R Ambedkar with an aim to establish equality among Indians by annihilating the caste system, pay their respects to Rohith Vemula on what would have been his 27th birthday on January 30, 2016, at the protest site. [Harsha Vadlamani/Al Jazeera]


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