The attitude of the ruling BJP government towards the death of Rohith Vemula has been confusing and contradictory. Or has it? For the first few days after Vemula’s suicide note started doing the rounds, various BJP leaders and ministers assured the nation that Vemula had not been discriminated against, that he was not a Dalit as was being claimed, that he was, in fact, “anti-national”, that they had to do something when a member of their students’ wing ABVP was assaulted, that Vemula supported terrorists, that the university had not done anything wrong, that there was no oppression of lower castes in India. All right, I made the last one up but it may well have been said.

Cops try to control the crowd of Dalit students outside Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, protesting the suicide of Hyderbad Central University scholar, Rohith Vemula, on Monday. Pic/Sayed Sameer Abedi