© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Earlier this month, Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi wrote to Chief Ministers of the three Congress-ruled states – Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Karnataka – urging them to implement the ‘Rohith Vemula Act’.
Aiming to prevent caste-based discrimination in educational institutions and named after the University of Hyderabad research scholar, who died by suicide in 2016, the so-called Act is a promise the Congress had made in its manifesto. The Congress dusting off the same now and Gandhi putting his weight behind it coincide with the party’s caste-focused electoral narrative.
A student at University of Hyderabad, Vemula was 25 when he died by suicide in 2016 following his expulsion from his hostel following a tiff with leaders of the ABVP. He left behind a letter saying “My birth is my fatal accident”, alluding apparently to his caste, triggering protests across the country.
What further ignited tempers was the emergence of a letter by the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development written to the university days before Vemula’s death, seeking action against four Dalit scholars, including him for their “casteist, extremist and anti-national” activities.
One demand of the protesters, led by the Ambedkar Students’ Association on the University of Hyderabad campus, was an anti-discrimination Act in Vemula’s name.
The Congress, which was in the Opposition in Telangana at the time, was one of the parties that backed the protests sparked by Vemula’s suicide and sought that those who allegedly abetted it be punished. Gandhi, then the Congress president, and several party leaders also participated in the protests on the University of Hyderabad campus.
In the run-up to last year’s Lok Sabha elections, the Congress promised to enact an anti-discrimination law if voted to power. Following the Congress’s defeat, the promise remained in cold storage, till Karnataka minister Priyank Kharge raised the issue again in January.
“The Rohith Vemula Act was recommended because of the caste-based discrimination that has been happening in institutions of higher learning. In his death note, if you recollect, he explicitly wrote about it. Students coming into institutions of higher learning through reservation and merit are being discriminated against. Such discrimination will become a deterrent for students who come from historically marginalised communities,” Kharge had told The Indian Express in an interview.
Sources in the Karnataka Congress said that each state will devise its own legislation, after holding consultations with all stakeholders, including the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR). Along with Dalit students and faculty leaders, the NCDHR had drafted an anti-discrimination law back in 2017.
This particular draft, ‘Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Eradication of Caste-based Discrimination and Promotion of Inclusive and Equitable Learning Campuses in Educational Institutions at All Levels – 2016’, says the Act will “effectively prevent all forms of social exclusion, inequity, marginality and discrimination faced by SC and ST students, especially female students from these communities in all levels of education starting from pre-primary schooling to higher levels of education”.
The draft says educational institutions at all levels must totally prohibit several practices “which are identified under the category of caste-based discrimination”. Among other provisions, the proposed draft seeks to penalise offenders for denying admission to a person from the SC/ST communities, demanding money for admission and not providing amenities as may have been promised or required to be provided by the institution.
Non-Dalit and non-tribal students, teachers and non-teaching staff are also liable to be penalised for violating the provisions.
In addition to charges that the violator is liable to face under the SC/ST Act, the draft mandates that educational institutions suspend the accused from administrative posts/academic classes to “prevent interference with the inquiry”.
Apart from the Congress’s focus on caste census and a campaign around that, party insiders say another reason behind the push for the legislation is Vemula’s 10th death anniversary falling next year.
“We are committed to drafting and implementing the Act so that no educational institution or person would ever discriminate against students who hail from SC/ST backgrounds,” Kharge had said.
