Dalit student Rohith Vemula's memory will endure and damage the BJP

by Thanjai Nalankilli Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:05 am

http://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/dalit-student-rohith-vemula-s-memory-will-endure-and-damage-the-bjp/story-ZGHa9LISSJa3RQQXRkIxcM.html

by southindian Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:07 am

by Thanjai Nalankilli Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:11 am

southindian wrote:How?

The "induced" suicide of 26-year-old Dalit Research Scholar Rohith Chakravarthi Vemula, who would have turned 27 on January 30, has left many like me belonging to the same age group and associated with the students movement and campus politics, deeply perturbed. Rohith's "murder" (as many of his friends and supporters expressing solidarity not just in Hyderabad Central University (HCU) but across campuses are terming it) was not merely a function of the convenient silence of the Union Human Resource Development Minister over the issue nor was it only a result of the BJP's Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya's unjustified pressure tactics, through his August 17 letter to Smriti Irani, where he virtually labelled and accused Rohith and his compatriots from the Ambedkar Student's Association (ASA) of being "casteist, extremist and anti-national" for holding a political view that was different from that of his own party and its student wing, the ABVP.

His murder was not just a fallout that of the highest authorities of the HCU dancing to the tunes of their political benefactors and unleashing a series of flip flops that eventually paved the way for the suspension of Rohith and his four comrades, forcing them to vacate their hostel rooms, sit on relay hunger strikes to protest the "social boycott" that had been imposed upon them. Bandaru and others may have been booked for "abetment" to suicide but what ought to be put on trial is the archaic Manuvadi ideology and Hindutva brand of politics that has virtually justified the relegation of Dalits as "untouchables", "second class citizens" even as it has painted a saffron target of xenophobia on the backs of minorities, particularly Muslims.

The roots of this political ideology must be traced back. Often referred to as "Guruji" by the entire Sangh Parivar, MS Golwalkar, the second Sarsanghchalak of the RSS (which is the ideological mother of the BJP) virtually justified the existence of the caste system in his book "Bunch Of Thoughts" that also labelled Indian Muslims and Christians as "internal threats". He went on to say "…Castes, there were in those ancient times too, continuing for thousands of years of our glorious national life. There is nowhere any instance of its (caste system) having hampered the progress or disrupted the unity of society. It, in fact, served as a great bond of social cohesion. If the caste system had really been the root cause of our weakness, then our people should have succumbed to foreign invasion far more easily than those people who had no castes…"

This is not the only instance where "Guruji" became an apologist for an archaic system that took pleasure in viewing a section of fellow human beings as "untouchables"! Golwalkar praised Manu, the author of Manusmriti, a text that laid the entire foundation and edifice of the unjust caste system, as the "greatest law giver" mankind ever had. It was the same book, copies of which were burnt by Dr. Ambedkar in his pursuit of getting justice for the Dalits. In current times, Golwalkars' successors in the RSS demanded that the Indian Constitution be replaced by the Manusmriti! How then does the BJP which derives its cadre, ideology and political existence from the RSS, attempts to co-opt Ambedkar is itself an irony of sorts made only more curious by the fact that the earlier avatar of the BJP, the Jan Sangha, opposed every reform measure proposed by Ambedkar to the Hindu personal law. Eventually, sick and tired of the venomous attacks on him by his "co-religionists" who refused to see him and millions of Dalits as equal, Baba saheb converted to Buddhism.

In a sense much like Rohith's social boycott from the HCU, Ambedkar, too, had been forced to leave his own religion. These are not opinions but hard facts that can be ascertained by anybody. They are not in dispute. Today, the question that arises is whether the Sangh Parivar, particularly the RSS and its political wing - the BJP have been able to reconcile themselves with a new orientation of politics of the Indian Republic, where our constitution puts a serious limit on exploiting feudal, parochial and communal instinct for political gains. Have they been able to adjust to the fact that we are inalienably and permanently committed to a secular ethos and the equality of man, irrespective of the skewed Hindutva spin given by para-intellectuals and right wing apologists of the RSS who have infiltrated the media and other institutions? If so, can the RSS tell me if they have had a single Dalit Sarsanghchalak since its inception? Why do they all belong to an exclusive upper caste orientation primarily?

Celebrating Constitution Day after abusing and opposing Ambedkar for decades smacks of sheer opportunism, but to even concede that the question must be asked. What did the PM do when his own minister VK Singh likened Dalit children to dogs? Was he sacked? From Rs 43,000 odd crores in 2014-15 the SC Sub Plan had been chopped down to Rs 30,000 crore the following year. Is this the BJP's idea of "Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas". The RSS chief, in Sangh parivar magazine, prior to Bihar elections had suggested that reservations should come to an end. He did a U-turn after various electoral considerations. But many of the supporters of BJP continue to hold on to that ideological inclination that Dalits and OBCs do not deserve any reservation. They live in denial of the history and context of discrimination faced by Dalits, which sadly continues even today in a place like Gujarat where Dalit students have been allowed different classrooms to sit in or in Haryana where being a Dalit is enough to get you killed. What is worse is that the ruling dispensation that courts Ambedkar and Dalit icons to suit it's political narrative are often at the epicentre of the atrocities meted out to them as seen in Rohith's case.

While many in the media will close this chapter after some low level arrests are made to cool down tempers, will the BJP sack its own minister for abetment to suicide? Will it distance itself from its creator the RSS that perpetuates, covertly if not overtly, the Hindutva Manuvadi politics that has Dalits on its cross hairs? The answers to these questions will be the only closure we can offer in memory of Rohith.

http://m.ibnlive.com/blogs/politics/shehzad-poonawalla/bjps-hindutva-politics-killed-rohith-vemula-11000-1192053.html

by Thanjai Nalankilli Thu Jan 21, 2016 8:17 am

https://twitter.com/umasudhir/status/689350305134186496

by ashdoc Thu Jan 21, 2016 1:17 pm

http://yugaparivartan.com/2016/01/19/india-should-stop-turning-criminals-like-rohit-into-martyrs/

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Dalit student Rohith Vemula's memory will endure and damage the BJP

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