Anatomy of a suicide - Part-1

The following article was written for MyIndMakers . Pasting it here for reference. 

An unfortunate incident occurred in Hyderabad on the night of January 17. A student, Rohith Vemula, pursuing his PhD, committed suicide. Politicians and media was quick to pick it up. Protestors claim the student was a Dalit and therefore committed suicide because of severe discrimination due to his caste. Since then Birth certificate of Raja Chaitanya, Rohith’s brother has surfaced. In this certificate their caste is listed as Vaddera, which falls in the OBC category.

Then people on social media put up a long-form detail on everything that has transpired since a few months that might have led to this suicide. Since many people are lazy to read long-form article,The Hindu has given us a box item that captures some dates.

We are told that in July, 2015 “12 students conduct a funeral prayer”. Notice how they don’t tell us whose “funeral prayer” it was. Here is where Social Media comes to the rescue. The 12 students and students of Ambedkar Student Association were doing this:

One might argue that protesting against hanging of a convicted terrorist is freedom of speech. Point taken. However I would urge you to look at the highlighted portion of the above image. I will translate it below:

“How many Yakub’s will you kill. A Yakub will emerge from every house.”

This basically means the group that is “protesting” here is threatening that a terrorist will be born in every house; a terrorist who is capable of creating mass destruction in the country. Now, that is illegal – and you don’t have to be a law expert to tell that. Our system is somehow not equipped enough to take action against such threats. I am sure you now understand why the Mainstream Media is not telling you whose “funeral prayer” was being conducted. Anyway, coming back to the point - ABVP guys protest against this protest and threat of ASA (and of their screening of some movie).

What happened next? The Hindu tells us that Susheel Kumar, a leader of ABVP had “incited” hatred against ASA by writing an anti-ASA post on Facebook. So writing an article is now equivalent to “inciting” hatred? Do you see the spin the media is giving to this episode now? “Inciting” of hatred happened because of an article, and not because of threatening of terror. Most importantly, what happened to “freedom of speech” now?

The very next day (or rather on the midnight of the same day), “a scuffle follows after 30 students demand apology from ABVP”.  We have multiple people who have given us the same version of this “scuffle” – 30 people (not necessarily students) beat up Susheel Kumar and force him to apologize – yes, force him to apologize, on Facebook. This happened in first week of August. Did you hear any of “Free Speech” warriors make any noise on this? No, you won’t – because it doesn’t fit their agenda.

Coming back to our time line, the University has to take a notice of this violence as most sensible people will agree. The cabal is blaming the University for acting against violence. How dare they take action against students involved in violence even after a committee in the University confirmed and verified violence?

So far, I haven’t talked about the Ph.D student who committed suicide. Rohith’s facebook page has some very revealing thoughts on what he thinks of SFI. SFI is Students Federation of India – typically associated with the Left Parties. Here is one snapshot from Rohith’s facebook:

His opinion - SFI is trying to create a wedge between Dalits. No wonder publications like The Hindu don’t want to refer to this. What business does SFI have to divide the Dalits? Do you hear anyone questioning this? All that you hear is that ABVP is involved, therefore ASA is right, and Modi must resign! Think about this – if in today’s day and age, publications like The Hindu are suppressing information, imagine what they could have done in the past. There are reports also such as this one about the ASA student attacks on ABVP students. What about those?

Rohith’s poignant letter also points out this – “I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster.” Why does he feel so? Perhaps he was forced into resorting to violence he is not familiar with? If so, by whom? Perhaps he saw too much of wedge being created by bodies like the SFI? Perhaps he was not getting respect, and was only being used as a tool? If so, by whom?

Rohith has written in his letter that no one is responsible for his act. The Hindu tells us this about this revelation - “His suicide note, which was posted on social media, states categorically that no one is responsible for his act, a statement that should not be taken at face value.” 

N.Ram should perhaps tell us what statements should be taken seriously and what should be not? The condescending attitude of what the reader should or should not think is simply mind-boggling. Despite the entire gamut of  the available evidence, it is a shame that the media has gleefully picked up this issue exactly the same way the scavenging political parties want! I picked The Hindu to put across my point, but this is pretty much the same story across all English papers/channels.

Rohith deserves the privacy he requested for. Sections of the political and media industry don’t want that to happen. The Hindu editorial tells us that 18 dalit students have committed suicides in the last 4 years. This TOI report says 9 students committed suicide in Hyderabad in the last 10 years. In 2008, another dalit student committed suicide. Do you remember any of this outrage then? Do you remember people asking for resignation of ministers? Merely because one minister, who represents Secunderabad in Parliament, wrote to the HRD ministry – how can this be linked to the suicide? Especially when the sequence of events and action of the VC were done much before the said letter was written?

This incident should serve as a wake up call to cleanse our universities of student politics – or rather involvement of mainstream political parties in the politics of students in universities. Unfortunately, the debate now is binary in nature – You are either with BJP or against it!