“I have to confess that for a long time I hated my father for causing my mother’s suffering, which, as a martyr, I took upon myself for us both.” - Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever: A Memoir, 1992, p 42.
In memory of Rohith Vemula (1989–Forever)The closure report filed by the Telangana police in the case of Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder can equally be considered as a chargesheet against him.
The same punitive logic of our casteist society that duly punished and expelled him from his hostel and excommunicated him from the university by prohibiting him from using the library, administrative buildings, and other public places within the campus while he was alive, has not spared him in his death either.
The closure report claims, without much evidence, that he forged his caste certificate, that he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, and speculates that he took his own life fearing the disclosure of his “real caste identity”.
But most media reports are citing the Telangana police in concluding that Rohith was not a “Dalit”, as if the real name of the Dalit—a word asserted and claimed by Rohith on record—is the same as the merely governmental and bureaucratic category of Scheduled Castes.
“I have to confess that for a long time I hated my father for causing my mother’s suffering, which, as a martyr, I took upon myself for us both.” - Louis Althusser, The Future Lasts Forever: A Memoir, 1992, p 42. In memory of Rohith Vemula (1989–Forever)
The closure report filed by the Telangana police in the case of Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder can equally be considered as a chargesheet against him. In absolving the former vice-chancellor of the Hyderabad Central University, some ministers and MPs of the Bharatiya Janata Party government, and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad ruffians, presumably based on Rohith’s letter which pleaded that his friends and enemies should not be troubled after he is gone, the closure report does nothing but criminalise the dignity showcased by Rohith in his last letter towards those he was leaving behind.
The same punitive logic of our casteist society that duly punished and expelled him from his hostel and excommunicated him from the university by prohibiting him from using the library, administrative buildings, and other public places within the campus while he was alive, has not spared him in his death either. The closure report claims, without much evidence, that he forged his caste certificate, that he did not belong to the Scheduled Caste (SC) category, and speculates that he took his own life fearing the disclosure of his “real caste identity”. But most media reports are citing the Telangana police in concluding that Rohith was not a “Dalit”, as if the real name of the Dalit—a word asserted and claimed by Rohith on record—is the same as the merely governmental and bureaucratic category of Scheduled Castes.
