Ranjona Banerji: Degrees of discrimination

What is a nation worth How we treat our most downtrodden How compassi onate we are as a society How much money we make How free we are to express ourselves How we protect our rights These questions and others like them ought to be a constant Yet one might even argue that we have had to ask them all too often in India in the last 20 monthsStudents protest calling Rohith Vemularsquos suicide lsquoan institutional murderrsquo at the Hyderabad Central University yesterday PicAFPThere was an enormous backlash from rightwing and progovernment forces when writers intell ectuals and creative minds felt that there was a rising intolerance in Indian society fostered or allowed to thrive by the ruling dispensation The murder of writers by rightwing elements was the first trigger Since then we have been ldquoreassuredrdquo that India is ldquotolerantrdquo and that only antinationals would think otherwiseThis week PhD student Rohith Vemula who was suspended from Hyderabad Central University over a political fight killed himself days before his 27th birthday The charges against Vemula and four other students all of them Dalits came after a complaint to the Union HRD ministry by Union minister and BJP member Bandaru Dattatreya These students were part of an organisation called Ambedkar Studentsrsquo Association and they had clashed with the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad the studentsrsquo wing of the larger BJP family Dattatreya claimed that ASA members had beaten up an ABVP member The first university probe found no such evidence Strangely or perhaps not that first probe was soon overturnedThe ASA was seen as a ldquoradicalrdquo group mdash it protested against Yakub Memonrsquos execution in the 1993 Bombay bomb blasts case It objected to the ABVPrsquos activities on campus Its members were outspoken about atrocities against Dalits And so Vemularsquos suicide is being seen as one more in a long list of discriminatory practices against Indiarsquos lower castes not just in society as a whole but particularly in Indiarsquos institutes for higher educationUnfortunately some of Indiarsquos temples of education contain examples of some of the worst atrocities against Dalits Students far from being aware and highminded can be unacceptably biased and cruel A few years ago the Mumbai campus of IIT was the scene of massive antireservation protests by upper caste students even as stories of discrimination against Dalit students emergedPeople argue endlessly about how lower castes need more ldquoeducationrdquo but seem unaware of how difficult it is for Dalit and lower caste students to continue with higher education This is even after they have overcome enormous obstacles by getting a toe in the door as Vemularsquos act of desperation demonstrates The university had withheld his stipend He was struggling to survive the burden on his family was becoming intolerable It is as if institutionalised prejudice against Dalits is some sort of a badge of honour for some Indians After my last column about Dr BR Ambedkar in this newspaper I was called a ldquoderacinated nitwitrdquo by upper caste teachers and columnists for my proDalit and proAmbedkar views These are people who do not even feel ashamed to air their prejudices in public rather they are proud of themThe murky side of this episode also includes the role of the Union HRD ministry the letter of complaint by a minister against whom an FIR has now been filed and the alacrity with which the university jumped to please the ministry If indeed India is as tolerant as government spokespersons have been assiduously assuring us why instigate any action against Vemula and his friends at all There are many ways to protest against Vemularsquos views without destroying his education and ultimately pushing him to take his own lifeWriter Ashok Vajpeyi has set the cat amongst the BJPrsquos pigeons by apparently returning the D Litt given to him by Hyderabad Central University to protest Vemularsquos death Others feel that this young manrsquos suicide will bring caste discrimination to the forefront the way that terrible gangrape of 2012 made us confront violence against womenWhether or not this death is a watershed moment it is a reminder to all of us to reassess what the Indian conscience means to us Vemularsquos last letter says he regrets he will never be like his idol the scientist astronomer and thinker Carl Sagan Perhaps not But he can get us to start thinking Itrsquos the least we can doRanjona Banerji is a senior journalist You can follow her on twitter ranjona