[The following is the text of a note posted by Mohan Guruswamy on his FB timeline.
ROHITH VEMULA SUICIDE. I am here in Hyderabad and closely following the events at the University of Hyderabad leading to the suicide of PhD candidate Rohith Vemula. Among the people I spoke to was a senior police officer with jurisdictional authority over the area. There seems to be no doubt that Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya took extraordinary interest in the matter at the behest of the ABVP to have the dalit students punished. Smriti Irani's HRD ministry wrote 5 letters to the VC in just a fortnight demanding action. The hapless VC succumbed and expelled the dalit students from the hostel. Dattatreya is not being truthful when he claims locus in the matter claiming that the University of Hyderabad is in his Secunderabad constituency. The UoH is in Chevella constituency and Dattatreya had no business poking his nose in the matter. The Hyderabad Police has filed a FIR naming the minister. The KCR government must insist that the matter be fully investigated.] http://www.countercurrents.org/cc190116.htm Rohith Vemula's Body Cremated Secretly By Countercurrents.org 19 January, 2016 Countercurrents.org [Photo of the cremation site] The body of Rohith Vemula, one of the five rusticated students of Hyderabad Central University who committed suicide was secretly cremated by the police. Police informed the student community that his body will be cremated at a certain crematorium, and then his body was taken secretly to another crematorium at Amberpet and burnt it. None of his friends were present. His body was found hanging in a hostel room Sunday evening. Hundreds of students gathered around the hostel and prevented the police from removing the body. In morning hours of Monday, police brutally beat up around 100 students gathered around the hostel , arresting many of them and took away the body. After finishing the formalities the police secretly cremated Rohith’s body. The whole process was directed by a local BJP leader. [Facsimile of the cremation document] Chittibabu Padavala, a friend of Rohith, managed to get some photographs from the cremation ground and posted it on Facebook. His Facebook post said, As we know, for all the centrality the death has in Brahaminical culture, in fact, in its life itself, including in its festivities and humor, conducting the grave occassion of death decently is the last thing it does. It knows not the dignity even in death, particularly in the face of or wake of death. It is probably the most ineradicable aspect of their religious practice. That this shocking insensitivity, probably endless sadism was the work of public authorities and not religious institutions of precolonial times doesn't make such tricks any less brahmanical. It is the brahmanical mind-set that afflicts our institutions that make such things possible. >From disposing the body of Rohith Vemula in secrecy and hurry, by misleading the grieving students and family members and other who might want to pay tributes to him one last time, what happiness can possibly be derived by anybody? Is it that the police and the Sangh biggies thought that it would create a law and order problem? Or they don't want to see a huge show of strength and solidarity for the 26-year, dead PhD scholar? One of the only (sometimes) useful thing Sanghis do, as opposed to their mostly harmful and ocassionally useless things is conducting funerals of unattended dead bodies. The police-Sanghi coordination here seems to to reverse the equation to get rid of the dead body of Rohith (comrade, you are scaring them even after death. probably more now) as if it was an unclaimed, unrecognized body remains of an unidentified dead to deprive you of a martyr's farewell. I cursed you upon hearing the news of your death, tried to tell myself defensively and dishonestly that it was your betrayal to the cause, to life and to me. It didn't work. I was wrong. You really scared them. It helps that they believe in ghosts. A spectre will haunt the Brahmanical Academia, the spectre of Rohith Vemula! The heroism, martyrdom, victimhood, sacrifice of yours they want to deprive you of will backfire. We will make your name, spirit, deeds, legacy, memory, ideals a permanent presence all around us. Your name will not be any indistinct trace that all erasures must leave behind, your name will be an evergrowing presence. Scarily spectral to them, progressively looming large inspiration for us. Ultimately all too real for all of us. -- Peace Is Doable -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
