The suicide last Sunday by a research scholar, Rohith Vemula, of University of Hyderabad, following seemingly strong-arm administrative methods by the university authorities, is an incident that causes shock as well as abhorrence on account of the casteist and anti-backward class shadow that appears to fall on the case. The protests by students and others have snowballed and reached the national capital as ministers of the Union government appear to be in the eye of the storm, not just the university vice-chancellor.
The state police has filed an FIR against Union minister of state for labour Bandaru Dattatreya, a BJP MLC, and a leader of the ABVP, the BJP-linked students’ body, and the vice-chancellor. The sections under which the Central minister and others will be investigated — and possibly tried — include abetment to suicide as well as prevention of atrocities against the Scheduled Castes and Tribes.
The police investigation must not be influenced by the fact that a Union minister is in the dock. Whatever shape the case takes, the facts that have emerged place Mr Dattatreya as well as Union HRD minister Smriti Irani in poor light. In fact, the HRD minister looks to be fast acquiring a reputation for meddling in the affairs of universities and institutions of higher learning, breaching their autonomy.
It appears the dead researcher was an activist with a student body named after the dalit national icon B.R. Ambedkar, and that this organisation was politically at loggerheads with the ABVP, one of whose leaders complained to the Union labour minister that he had been assaulted by the dalit students. Instead of letting the issue be settled at the university level, Mr Dattatreya wrote to Ms Irani, accusing the dalit students of being casteist, extremist, and anti-national — strong allegations without an ounce of proof.
In spite of her seeming denials, it appears that the HRD minister leaned on the university authorities through an email and several letters, all but demanding action against the five students, including the deceased, accused by Mr Dattatreya on the strength of nothing more than the complaint of the ABVP leaders. The students were suspended from the university and later expelled from the hostel.
The circumstances suggest that a distraught Vemula, who had ambitions to be a scholar and writer, then took his own life in despair. The issue is likely to rock Parliament when it opens for the Budget Session in a few weeks, and will have an all-India resonance, given the anti-backward class bias evident in the case, besides the unrestrained use of authority by all concerned. Since Central ministers are named, it will be in the fitness of things if a parliamentary committee goes into the matter.
