Rohit Vemula’s suicide was not a lone incident. It has happened in most institutions of higher education in the country, IITs, Central universities, even colleges in the rural belt. But it is one suicide that hit hard and caused quite some repercussion and eventually led to open discussions on the issue of Dalit discrimination and the reservation system. Poet and activist Meena Kandaswamy was quite vocal on the topic in the discussion on ‘Consciousness of Indian Religion and the suicide of Rohit Vemula’ at the Kerala Literature Festival in Kozhikode on Saturday.
“Our Prime Minister, in his delayed response to the incident, managed to make it about himself through his theatrics. But the positive outcome was the militancy of the students who were not afraid of the consequences,” Ms. Kandaswamy said.
She said the system of reservation in India was such that a teacher knew the caste of every student and those who belonged to the lower caste were isolated even before they got to prove their intelligence, on the basis of reservation.
'An important solution'
“Reservation is not the answer to Dalit backwardness, but it is an important solution. The recent debate in Kerala on taking away caste-based reservation to be replaced by reservation-based on financial status would lead to a very tricky situation. If the middle class Dalits were denied their reservation, there may not be any more Dalits in the academic system,” she explained.
Ms. Kandaswamy appreciated the role of the social media in swaying a big chunk of people who were yet to be convinced, through right interventions.
However, its drawback was that people thought their job was done once they liked a post and made a comment. The number of people who actually act are very less, she said. Ms. Kandaswamy opined that the caste system would be wiped away in a few generations through inter-caste marriages.
“Women who hold their castes high should remember that even upper class women were as oppressed as Dalits. Throwing out caste will only empower them,” she told Shahina K. Rafeeque.
