Death of a dalit scholar

Many people had laid at the door of the right wing Hindu party BJP and its patrons in RSS of what had happened in the case of Muzaffarnagar and surrendering of Yakub Memon and his ultimate hanging. In the two or scores of other such cases the action was initiated much before. But it was ignored screened off from the public eye because the right wing party and its patrons wanted to hunt the excuse. The archetypal pattern of sidelining was the juggernaut of building the temple by demolishing Babri. Meticulous planning went itno it. The trail of destruction and barbaric violence perpetrated by LK Advani and Narendra Modi organizing the rathyatra in the name of building temple at Ayodhya left thousand dead. Thereafter followed the cataclysmic demolition. Bal Thackery’s incitement in the name of teaching a lesson to the Muslims and the slaughter and shielding of those who supplied arms to the Shiv Sainik and police taking direct part in the killing stopped only when the underworld used its resources to smuggle RDX and the serial bomb blasts. Apart from the bomb blasts the judicial procedure totally ignored the trail of horror that was seen for several years that led to the Armageddon. In the Aesop’s fable The Wolf and the Lamb the moral is Any excuse will serve a tyrant. Once upon a time a Wolf was lapping at a spring on a hillside when, looking up, what should he see but a Lamb just beginning to drink a little lower down. “There’s my supper,” thought he, “if only I can find some excuse to seize it.” Then he called out to the Lamb, “How dare you muddle the water from which I am drinking.” “Nay, master, nay,” said Lambikin; “if the water be muddy up there, I cannot be the cause of it, for it runs down from you to me.” “Well, then,” said the Wolf, “why did you call me bad names this time last year?” “That cannot be,” said the Lamb; “I am only six months old.” “I don’t care,” snarled the Wolf, “if it was not you it was your father.” In the case of Hyderabad Central University the two cases mostly foregrounded by the Hindu right confirms what the 18th century scholar Dr Samuel Johnson had remarked. The last refuge of the scoundrel is patriotism. Yakub Menon and the pogroms of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar were phenomenon of Muslim bashing. Some people saw it clearly as repetition of further suppression and oppression of the weak. Those who perceived this truth were outraged and one such was the dalit scholar Rohith Vemula. This is that perception of truth. It cannot be ignored and there is no provision in the Indian Penal Code to punish those who have insight in the matter. But the powers that be have additional advantage of suppressing even this in order to put on the people’s eyes saffron tinted glasses to view the matter according to their own ideology. The university on the other hand has the sanctity of holding free discussion on it. The Akhil Bharti Vidhayarti Parishad had prevented it by throwing the first stone. They had attacked the dalits in the first place which the police and administrators ignored. In the case of Muzaffarnagar also they refused to view the initial attack following a traffick incident. Some days passed and then they organized the people to attend the mahapanchayat and started the action in the name of saving daughters and daughters in law from the Muslims. A whole week had passed between August 27 and September 7 2013. The same was the case in the molestation of Sophia at the Godhra railway station on February 27, 2002 and vandalizing of the canteen arrangement of Muslims and assaulting the caterers. Thereafter followed a full fledged genocide of Muslims that goes to the credit of Narendra Modi the new chief minister then and now the Prime Minister of the country. The truth is irrepressible as even dalit leader Sunil Baliram Gaikwad, BJP MP from Latur, said: “Just because he (Rohith) had joined the protests against the hanging of Yakub Memon, you cannot brand him anti-national. This is a democratic country and it is a citizen’s fundamental right to express his views on issues.” [1] Those who oppose Rohith hanging himself say that if Ambedkar had to undergo discrimination Rohith should not have taken to his heart his expereience. But such people forget that discrimination was rampant then. In free India committed to eradication of discrimination in the name of religion and caste, discrimination is unjustifiable, un-onstitutional, and simply unacceptable. The MP from Secunderbad should have abstained from recommending the action against Rohith to the HRD minister Smirthi Irani without taking a holistic approach to the whole issue. The heart of the matter is that the government of BJP party had the time and place to choose, Rohith had none. That drove him to the wall. For, Muzaffarnagar will be happening over and over again elsewhere. That is underscored in the message he wanted to give out. It is those who want it to replicate that like Ashok Singhal the option is open and would do it ad absurdum. Afterall Singhal and his ilks have made the campuses what the even MP from Secunderabad Bandaru Dattatreya knows well “a den of casteist, extremist” elements. As an after thought he added “and antinational politics.” That last tag is from the diction of “cultural nationalism.”[2] And it was ABVH leader who called Susheel Kumar who had called the dalit leaders as “goons.’ The Proctorial Board who made inquiry into the assault on him found no proof of injuries. Even so the Executive Council suspended the dalit leadsers and ignored the ABVP. [4] The Ambedkar Students Association knew that they were up against the rock of identity politics and had no chance of getting justice and so in the suicide note Rohith put his finger at that: “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 star dust. In very field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.” ------ [1] http://indianexpress.com/article/india/politics/for-bjp-being-dalit-not-the-issue-rohiths-support-for-terrorism-is/#sthash.yCJxj6fH.dpuf [2] http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/dalit-scholar-s-suicide-takes-political-colour-pressure-mounts-on-govt/story-U3LNZY7YtFeqfcllSraKiP.html [3] http://www.hindustantimes.com/india/dalit-scholar-s-suicide-takes-political-colour-pressure-mounts-on-govt/story-U3LNZY7YtFeqfcllSraKiP.html [4] The Companion http://www.countercurrents.org/samar180116.htm