Alienation of Dalit students is worrying

A fractured polity in which Dalits feel more and more estranged helps nobody

Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary this weekend was marked also by protests over the suicide of University of Hyderabad graduate student Rohith Vemula. Students at his alma mater fasted in his memory, where they were joined by Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi. Turmoil at the university refuses to die down despite the vice-chancellor, P Appa Rao, going on leave, and the suspension order on the five students that had sparked Vemula's suicide being withdrawn. The agitating students have vehemently opposed the vice-chancellor's duties being taken up by the senior-most academic, Vipin Srivastava, as it was he who headed the committee that recommended punishment for the students in the first place. The students are also citing another Dalit suicide which took place under Prof Srivastava's watch in 2008. The Union government, whose "advice" the vice-chancellor must have followed, has continued to react in the wrong kind of way.

Two issues have emerged from this tragedy and its denouement. One is the way in which the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the students' wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, has been pursuing a strident agenda (the Hyderabad confrontation began from its complaint against the Ambedkar Students' Association). The reported physical retaliation against ABVP by some members of the Ambedkar Students' Association is regrettable, but the way the political establishment of the day appears to be ready to help push ABVP's agenda forward is even more disturbing. The latter is plunging campuses into political turmoil. The Union human resources development (HRD) ministry, instead of calming passions, has been playing the opposite role. HRD Minister Smriti Irani's argument that it is wrong to "politicise" the Hyderabad University suicide and that it is not a Dalit issue needs to be strongly contested. Politicisation, even if bad, in fact started with her ministerial colleague, Bandaru Dattatreya, wading into the issue and unilaterally declaring that the Dalit students' activities were "anti-national"-and then raising the issue to a Cabinet-level complaint. If the ministry was serious about respecting the autonomy of the central university, it should have told Mr Dattatreya so-instead of sending as many as five reminders to the university on the matter he raised. In fact, the appointment of the new vice-chancellor may have been political, with some BJP leaders at the Centre reportedly pushing for it. The Congress and the Left started the politicisation of campuses but the BJP has taken the country further along.

What is most disturbing is the trend of enforced alienation of Dalit students. Dalit students in IIT-Madras too seem to have been acted against for harmless activity. The University of Hyderabad itself has a history of conflicts with Dalits while enquiry reports have found anti-Dalit sentiment in hostels of elite educational institutions like the All India Institute of Medical Sciences. A fractured polity in which Dalits feel more and more alienated helps nobody-least of all the BJP, which emphasises that a united India is a strong India.