As Ambedkar Association grew, so did its assertiveness

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Initially, the members kept largely to themselves and held low-key programmes on uplift and discrimination of Dalits, human rights and women’s rights. After 2000, it began to hold elections within while lending support to various unions during student elections. In 2010, ASA contested its first general elections on campus in alliance with SFI. In 2011-12, ASA’s Dontha Prashanth was elected president of the students’ union.

Prashanth is one of the five scholars suspended, including Rohith. Sources on campus alleged Prashanth is aggressive and often gets into confrontations. ASA’s president Ramji Chintagada, elected last month, said neither Prashanth nor any of the others suspended ever created trouble. “This is false propaganda spread by ABVP members. In fact, the ABVP is responsible for small skirmishes over petty issues. ASA and ABVP members had minor clashes but these never got out of hand,” said Ramji, who had lentRohith Rs 40,000 over five months.

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“Susheel Kumar (ABVP) wanted to contest the elections,” Ramji said. “To play up our protest against the ABVP attack for screening the documentary Muzaffarpur Baaqi Hain, Susheel posted a nasty comment on Facebook. When we confronted him and he was forced to apologise, his ego was hurt and he decided to make it a bigger issue by accusing ASA members of assault. ABVP made it appear as if we were protesting against the hanging of Yakub Memon when in fact we were protesting against capital punishment. It ended in the tragedy of Rohith suicide.”

The ABVP has often accused ASA of unwarranted aggression. Krishna Chaitanya, general secretary of ABVP, said, “We are not opposed to ASA because it is a Dalit organisation. We are against its methods like using unwarranted aggression in the name of asserting equality.

They hold everyone in contempt except themselves. ASA members also intimidate other Dalits who follow other political ideologies. In most skirmishes, they escape punishment by accusing officials of discrimination and this has encouraged them to beviolent as they feel they will get away with anything. Anything that is not favourable to them, they label ‘Brahminical’.”