Month: January 2016

Rohith Vemula was not just any son. He was a Dalit son, and to ignore his caste is to ignore the significance of his life and death.

Rohith Vemula allegedly hanged himself in his hostel room.(HT Photo)

We did not flinch at the news that an eight-year-old Dalit boy had his arm amputated after he was thrown into a sugarcane crusher for ‘not working properly’ in Jaunpur, Uttar Pradesh.

We were not repelled when a seven-year-old Dalit child was hospitalised for six days after his teacher thrashed him for picking up a plate reserved for upper-caste kids for his midday meal at a government school in Osian, near Jodhpur.

When 17-year-old Anil Parashurama Methri was bludgeoned to death in Karnataka’s Mijri village in July after being caught trying to deliver a love letter to an upper-caste classmate, where was our outrage?

Submerged within the banality of violence, the death of Rohith Vemula might have ended up as a stray paragraph in the papers, but for the sustained agitation that began with a group of students of the Ambedkar Students’ Association at the University of Hyderabad.

That outrage has now spread to 12 universities. Demonstrations have been held in Mumbai, Pune and Delhi even as they continue at Hyderabad where students remain on hunger strike and 20 faculty members have quit their administrative posts.

With the protest gathering steam, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally broke his silence, after five days, to express his anguish over the death of a ‘young son of my country’. But after days of sustained bluster by BJP leaders, the regret could not stem the anger.

The postdoctoral research scholar was not just any son. He was a Dalit son, and to ignore his caste is to ignore the significance of his life and death.

Following a clash with the ideologically opposed ABVP, the student wing of the BJP, Vemula was suspended along with four other students of the Ambedkar Students’ Association, had his stipend suspended and was banned from his hostel and the dining hall.

That this social exclusion happened not in some dusty mohalla, but in a university is tragic — but not unusual. We expect universities to be the crucible of change, where students fired by idealism will at least believe in the idea of a new India where there is no caste or hierarchy.

Yet, within these crucibles, 11 students, mostly Dalit, are reported to have killed themselves in Hyderabad alone between 2007 and 2013. In north India, the toll is believed to be 14, between 2007 and 2011. In any university, anywhere in the world, students dying in such large numbers would have been an emergency.

In 2014, the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-2) findings on untouchability found that one in four Indians — upper-castes, other backward castes, Muslim, Sikhs — admitted to practising some form of caste untouchability.

This is not the routine discrimination rampant in villages where a survey of 562 villages in 11 states by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights found segregation practised in 38% of government schools. This is not the normalised rape of Dalit women by upper-caste men that continues in the villages of Haryana.

This is discrimination practised in our largest cities where we deny access into kitchens in the name of ‘hygiene’. We are squeamish about cleaning our own toilets — and just as squeamish about sharing them with those that do.

How does caste-discrimination continue in a modern, upwardly mobile society? In a week where we have just celebrated our 67th Republic Day, you cannot look at the death of a son of modern India devoid of its larger social context of exclusion.

In December 2012, the brutal gang-rape and murder of a young medical student led to nationwide protests and a conversation on gender equality and rights that continues to this day.

Already Rohith Vemula’s death has sparked new questions. On a news website, one writer documents how she had hidden the fact that she was Dalit. Now she can no longer remain silent. Her moving confession leads to a torrent of stories tumbling out and Yashica Dutt is now documenting them on dalitdiscrimination on tumblr.

Rohith Vemula wanted to be a scientist and a writer, not a martyr. Inadvertently he may well end up as one.

The author tweets as @namitabhandare. The views expressed are personal.

The arrest of a comedian sends a clear message: Religion is out of bounds. Given the volatility of mob sentiment, perhaps a place to start would be for the Supreme Court to draw a line between religion and politics. We might make a tentative beginning with simply scrapping sections in law that today have become convenient tools to ban and intimidate inconvenient voices.

Comedian Kiku Sharda after being produced in a Kaithal court on Wednesday.(HT Photo)

Late in December, actor/comedian Kiku Sharda did the unthinkable. He made fun of the head of the Dera Sachcha Sauda (DSS) sect. In the clip I have seen, Sharda emerges on stage in a shimmery costume astride a bike in what is apparently standard practice for the sect’s guru — or at least seems to be if you’ve had the misfortune of watching MSG: Messenger of God.

The followers of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh were not amused and filed complaints in various police stations in Haryana, where the sect is based, under the dreaded section 295A of the Indian Penal Code that makes it a crime to outrage religious feeling.

I’m not sure how DSS qualifies as a religion or whether Gurmeet Singh’s endorsement of the BJP in recent assembly elections have anything to do with events that unfolded. On Wednesday, Haryana police arrested Sharda along with eight others.

Singh knows a thing or two about outraging religious sentiment. In 1997, he was on the receiving end when he offended the Akal Takht by dressing up as Guru Gobind Singh. The offence led to violent clashes between the DSS and Sikhs in Punjab and Haryana and an eight-year-long feud that reportedly ended last year when Singh apologised.

Unlike Pakistan, we have no blasphemy laws. Yet, where religion is concerned, we do place restrictions on freedom of speech. The idea is to prevent both disharmony and ill-will between religions (section 153A) and deliberate and malicious intent to outrage religious feeling (section 295A).

But if we look at how these laws are applied, it seems evident at least anecdotally that complaints are more about intimidation and less about deliberate and malicious outrage. Sharda’s arrest, for instance, sends a clear message to actors and comedians to think twice in the future before assuming gurus and godmen are fair game.

We’ve now reached a stage where it is safest to assume that religion is out of bounds.

A 2013 Business Today cover of cricketer MS Dhoni as Lord Vishnu has led to cases filed in different police stations. The Catholic Church is offended by Agnes of God, a play about the death of a newborn whose mother is a young nun. And a group of Buddhists are hurt because actress Raakhi Sawant poses in a bathtub against a statue of the Buddha.

Our reaction in most cases is to laugh, but the outcome isn’t always funny. After sustained bullying, a writer announces his retirement.

After threats of legal action, a rationalist seeks asylum away from our shores. Bit by bit we watch our freedoms slip away.

What happens when outraged religious sentiment spills over into the street? The full facts are yet to emerge, but in Malda and Purnea, angry Muslims have been demonstrating against Kamlesh Tiwari, head of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha for his statement against the Prophet. Tewari is in jail but that has not stopped protesters from torching vehicles and even a police station.

The Hindu Right complains that governments ‘pander’ to minority, specifically Muslim, sentiment by banning books and arresting individuals. Yet even liberals fall short of castigating the state for failing to protect individual rights in the name of law and order. The crux is this: Is freedom of expression, including the right to cause offence, worth dying for? Most of us, myself included, would say no.

So, where do we even begin? Given the volatility of mob sentiment, perhaps a place to start would be for the Supreme Court to draw a line between religion and politics. Perhaps we might make a tentative beginning with simply scrapping sections in law that today have become convenient tools to ban and intimidate inconvenient voices.

Take away the legal sections and you still have public opinion and the threat of action that imposes restrictions on speech. But scrap 295A and you at least take away the tool that enables people like Gurmeet Singh’s followers from filing complaints that lead to the arrest of actors and comedians.

Unless we make that beginning, we stand to lose whatever is left of our right to free speech.

(The author tweets from @namitabhandare. The views expressed are personal)

Read More:

Comedian Kiku Sharda arrested for mimicking Gurmeet Singh, apologises

The channel’s team should have flagged objectionable act: Kiku Sharda

These actors were charged under section 295A before Kiku Sharda