Hyderabad University crackdown: Rohith Vemula's legacy can be Modi’s undoing

The legacy of Rohith Vemula, the University of Hyderabad (UoH) PhD student who committed suicide, is evolving into a mass student movement, and Vemula is turning into a national Dalit icon.

The latest clashes at the UoH campus and at Fergusson College, Pune are definite indications of Vemula living in the collective imagination of students and his ideas finding expressions in their anger and emotional outpourings.

This anger, its subterranean and visible expressions, is helping in the reconstruction and reassertion of Dalit identity. Its major impact will be seen in the Punjab and UP assembly elections with Dalits forming a majority of voters in both the states.

The rising anger in campuses should have rung alarm bells in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mind. It’s ironic that Modi is trying to appropriate BR Ambedkar’s legacy while the BJP’s student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), is violently contending what Ambedkar bequeathed and the thoughts Vemula left behind.

The BJP should have reined in the ABVP if the party really wanted to claim Ambedkar. Evidently, the BJP is not serious about Ambedkar’s ideals. It doesn’t foresee the potential of the Vemula movement. That’s why the BJP and the central government seems to have chosen a confrontational, instead of conciliatory, path with students.

The violence in protest against the return of UoH vice- chancellor P Appa Rao, who was named as an accused in the Vemula suicide case and is facing judicial inquiry, and the police retaliation against the students are signals of more trouble ahead. Dozens of students and at least two professors were manhandled and arrested in the clashes. The university authorities shut down the campus mess, disconnected water, power supply and the internet.

The Joint Action Committee for Social Justice, an umbrella group of student organisations, also alleged assault and molestation of women students.

JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar who had gone to UoH for a meeting was barred entry into the campus. Vemula’s mother too was denied entry. 

In Fergusson College Pune too, the ABVP clashed with Dalit and left-wing students. The ABVP was holding a discussion on "Truth of JNU" when the clash took place.

The clashes at campuses between pro and anti-BJP students over Vemula and JNU incidents indicate escalation of clash of ideas. At the centre of the clash is conflicting readings and interpretations of nationalism. The BJP is determined to push its version of nationalism down the throats of all. This is facing tough resistance, especially from students. 

The movement against oppression of Dalits, discrimination against Dalit students in universities and institutions of higher education is no longer a subtext to the nationalism and intolerance debate. It’s acquiring an independent form to challenge the Modi dispensation. The Left and the anti-BJP voices are galvanising to join Dalit protests.

Dalits form over 16 per cent of the country’s population. Together with sections of the Other Backward Classes and minorities who have traditionally voted against the BJP, it’s a huge mass of people stacked against Modi.

In Vemula, the splintered Dalit movements have found a new voice, a rallying cry. The protests that began at the UoH and later found its echoes at the JNU, Jadavpur, Kolkata and Allahabad universities are crystalising into a nationwide movement. A new chapter in the chequered history of Dalit struggle for equality and justice is about to be written.

The new Dalit voice is a result of years of affirmative action, besides many other factors, in places like JNU and other educational institutions. The number of Dalit students acquiring liberal education has been steadily growing.

This education is making them aware of their constitutional rights and their sufferings owing to the system’s discriminatory behavior in the universities and outside. The hiatus between what the state promises and the manner in which their constitutional commitments are trashed is a cause of major disenchantment and anger among students who come from the weaker and oppressed sections of the society.

In universities as well as in the larger social and political spheres, Dalits find the BJP’s ideas as intruding on their cultural consciousness and space. The BJP and the ABVP are, therefore, at the centre of Dalit students’ ire.

Dalits have also been in a search of a new political icon. The Bahujan Samaj Party leader Mayawati has held on to her Uttar Pradesh citadel but she has failed to increase her area of influence. The Vemula legacy can provide a fresh momentum to her.

The assertion of Dalit identity implies the days of tokenism are over. No party can claim ownership over Dalit votes. No party can succeed in attracting Dalit votes by paying lip service to their welfare, by promoting symbolic leaders such as Ram Vilas Paswan and Jitan Ram Manjhi.

The spread of Vemula movement on the campuses is not confined to Dalit students. It’s becoming a focal point for all who are opposed to the BJP’s hardline Hindu-centric ideology. It’s unlike any other student protest movement. Dalit and Ambedkarite students are at the centre of this movement. Liberals and leftists are part of the movement. A new alliance is being formed.

By pitting itself against the movement, the ABVP is provoking a backlash that can ultimately be the undoing of Modi government.