Nine months after his death and amid the unsettled debate over his caste, a video of Rohith Vemula describing himself as a ‘Dalit from Guntur’ has surfaced online.
“My name is Rohith Vemula. I came from Guntur,” says Vemula, whose suicide on January 17 caused national outrage. The video purportedly shows Vemula making his introduction sitting in a makeshift tent, popularly called ‘Veliwada’ on the University of Hyderabad campus, where he and four other students slept after their suspension from the hostels. Vemula is seen talking about his suspension.
“Recently, the university expelled us from the hostel premises and the notice which we got served says our presence in public places in hostel premises and administration building can be treated as criminal acts,” he says in the video.
As he continues describing his upbringing, Vemula dithers when talking about his parents and says his mother raised him.
“I came to the university, into the den, as a student of biotechnology but I changed my subjects to sociology because of passion towards social sciences and social aspects,” Vemula says, adding that he bagged a Junior Research Fellowship that helped secure a seat in the general category.
Vemuala also describes what he called his ‘spat’ with ABVP as not being new. “In 2012, ABVP filed a case against me in Chandanagar police station where I was detained for two days,” he says as the video ends before Vemula explains why he was detained.
Rohith Vemula’s death and the allegations of complicity made against union ministers Bandaru Dattetreya and Smriti Irani called for a single-man Justice Roopanwalla commission, set up to enquire into questions raised following Vemula’s death. The commission ruled out that Vemula was dalit.
“We lost this video when there was lathi charge on the campus. But we found it later on a computer. Now, after Rohith’s death and given that so many issues about his caste exist, we thought this video would be a reply to Roopanwalla commission’s report,” said Sannaki Munna, convenor of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) and a researcher in the social sciences department, who uploaded the video. According to Mr. Munna, the video was taken about a week before Vemula committed suicide.
