Like Bhagat Singh, will Rohith Vemula's death serve a higher purpose?

How we live our lives is usually a matter of choice. How we die is seldom of our choosing. Few people choose the time, place and manner of death. Unfortunately, most of those who do so are victims of pressures perceived to be insurmountable. In death, they seek an escape. Others are victims of disorders brought about by chemical imbalances, which in turn are often caused by stresses and strains. Very few embrace death with a cool and calculated rationality for a higher cause and reason. Bhagat Singh fell into that category. His death was one of the few that captured popular imagination and galvanised a nation to fight for a greater purpose.

On October 30, 1928, freedom fighter Lala Lajpat Rai was assaulted by a British superintendent of police, James A Scott, during a protest. Though he died of a heart attack three weeks later, doctors believed that his death was hastened by the injuries sustained in the earlier incident.

Seeking revenge, Bhagat Singh assassinated John Saunders, another British police officer, the following month and escaped capture. On April 8, 1929, Bhagat Singh and BK Dutt threw a bomb in the Central Legislative Assembly “to make the deaf hear”, as their leaflets described. The duo then showered these leaflets into the chamber while shouting “Inquilab Zindabad!” and “Long live the proletariat!”.

Even though they could have escaped, Bhagat Singh and Dutt allowed themselves to be arrested. They wanted to use their court appearances to kindle patriotism in the hearts of the people. Bhagat Singh surrendered his automatic pistol, the same one he had used to kill Saunders, knowing fully well that the weapon would be the damning proof of his involvement in the assassination. He was convicted and hanged at the age of 23. His story stirred the nation and he still remains an inspiration to young India.

Was the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student at the University of Hyderabad, somewhat similar? While I have no doubt that some of Vemula's compatriots might think so, it is clear that the circumstances were very different. Bhagat Singh beckoned death and chose to make a statement of propaganda through it. Rohith Vemula – his rather eloquent suicide letter makes this amply clear – was a victim of an oppressive system, or one he considered so. In it, he expressed his inner turmoil and his reasons, both explicitly and succinctly:

“My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past. Maybe I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past. I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.”

While his suicide was tragic, it was not for the cause of “Inquilab Zindabad!”. The incident has nevertheless been truly politicised and is now at the centre of yet another political storm and churn. It may even have lasting consequences for the Sangh Parivar, and it is in this way that the suicide might yet serve a higher purpose, albeit a partisan one. This has prompted a virulent campaign on social media, unleashed by acolytes of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.

Sullying his legacy

Two criticisms currently predominate. One is that Vemula protested against the hanging of 1993 Mumbai serial blasts convict Yakub Memon. Why is this a litmus test of a person’s patriotism? There are several people in this country – the writer included – who perceive the hanging to be a miscarriage of justice. Most of those who opposed the hanging oppose the death penalty (myself included). But I also questioned the execution for other reasons. Memon was lured back to India by our intelligence officers with promises of leniency in exchange for inside information on underworld don Dawood Ibrahim – this promise should have been honoured.

Others want to make something out of unsubstantiated insinuations that Vemula was not a Dalit, that is in local terms not a Mala or Madiga, but a person belonging to the Waddar caste of stone cutters and quarry workers who are listed as a backward caste. The local police and the Telangana Rashtra Samiti leadership have been making much about the fact that Rohit Vemula was a Waddar and not a Dalit. Let us suppose that he is not a Dalit. Does it then mitigate the crime against him?

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and its parent Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh have allegedly been circulating a video clip of Vemula using acerbic language to denounce the notion of Hindutva. In this clip, ABVP supporters are seen interrogating Vemula and he tells them that he will fight Hindutva everywhere and anywhere. He is speaking in Telugu. The literal translation in English of the term he uses is a commonly used four-letter word.

In both English and Telugu, the crude word has many meanings. During the interrogation, Vemula is asked if he will **** a Hindutva poster in the campus. “Yes, I will,” is his defiant answer. He is then asked what he would do to a Hindutva symbol in his home. The answer is the same.

Now let’s be realistic. To say I will **** a poster doesn’t mean anything but to tear it down. Let’s not make too much of the language in a surreptitiously taped video. Many of us often use similar language to underscore our feelings.

One must also relate the events at the University of Hyderabad between the Ambedkar Students’ Association and the ABVP to the attempt by IIT Madras in June last year to ban the Ambedkar Periyar Study Circle there. In that case, too, pressure from the BJP fomented trouble. To understand what Hindutva ideologues think of Ambedkar, one must read the book on the Dalit icon by Arun Shourie – Worshipping False Gods. Presumably, the milk drinking stone Ganeshas are the true gods?

The tragedy of Rohith Vemula’s suicide is cause for introspection. Why did things happen this way? Why was he pushed to extinguish his life? Perhaps there is something we might yet learn from this? So far it doesn’t seem so. As in the words of the Don McLean song Vincent (Starry Starry Night):

“Now, I understand, what you tried to say to me

And how you suffered for your sanity

And how you tried to set them free

They would not listen, they did not know how

Perhaps they’ll listen now”