On 17 January 2016, Rohith Vemula, a Dalit PhD student at Hyderabad Central University (HCU), hanged himself in his friend's hostel room. The university administration had suspended him, along with four other students, ordering them to evacuate their hostel rooms two weeks earlier. He had already stopped receiving his monthly stipend of INR 25,000 (USD 365) since July 2015. His involvement with the Ambedkar Student Association (ASA), particularly in protesting the death penalty and judicial execution of Yakub Menon and condemning the attacks by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) during the screening of Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai on campus had caused a university backlash, leading to the eviction of the five students from their hostel room.
The Hyderabad Central University is an institution that has been awarded an A Grade by the National Accreditation and Assessment Council, which denotes an institution of excellence as per academic indicators. However, this university has the dubious distinction of repeatedly rusticating students predominantly from marginalised groups. Eleven students in Hyderabad have taken their own lives in the past eight years. Rohith Vemula, who wanted to be "a writer of science, like Carl Sagan", has now been added to this statistic.
Education is supposed to be the instrument with which to usher in radical social transformation and liberation, enabling oppressed communities to overthrow centuries old social-cultural burdens. However, any avenue for social transformation is met with deep resistance from a brahmanical social system unwilling to relinquish its reins on power. In this context, Ambedkar's slogan to "educate, organize and agitate" is extremely relevant as it is an important means for marginalised groups to overthrow their slavery. Needless to say, the Ambedkarite Constitution reflected these values when the provision of affirmative action was legally legitimised so as to enable an opportunity of representation to the hewers of wood and the drawers of water in Indian society.
"I used to proudly tell everyone in my village that my son was doing PhD at Hyderabad University. Today, I have come to collect his dead body" Rohith's mother said on the day after his death. In a Facebook photo album, Rohith had put up a picture of his mother's sewing machine, acknowledging the labour with which she had supported the family till he started receiving the junior research fellowship. Any individual who attempts to thwart the social hierarchy has a long history of struggle to gain access to resources like education and employment. This journey is very cruel, the path strewn with humiliation. Often at its end is an unexplained death like that of Senthil Kumar whose parents rue the day their son went to study at HCU. Or Pulayela Raju, also from HCU, whose death is dismissed as a suicide over a failed love affair. Mudassir Kamran, a student at the English and Foreign Languages University at Hyderabad also committed suicide after he was arrested by the police. An interpersonal issue was allowed to fester and the administration failed to settle the grievances or ask both the parties to go for counseling. Humiliated by the police treatment, Mudassir killed himself.