HYDERABAD: Coming down heavily on a media report, which said Rohith Vemula was not a Dalit, his brother Raja on Wednesday lashed out at the BJP government and said: “The Guntur magistrate is the only competent authority to decide or certify which caste we belong to. That report certifying him as a Dalit came out in June this year.”
In a fresh twist to the months-long case caste debate of University of Hyderabad PhD scholar Rohith Vemula, a one-man commission’s report by former Allahabad High Court Judge, AK Roopanwal, appointed by Smriti Irani, former HRD Minister, reportedly says Rohith was not a Dalit.
“This one-man commission is the extended conspiracy of the BJP government to deny justice to my brother, us and punishment to Appa Rao, VC UoH This judgment goes against the report submitted by the Kantilal Dande, Guntur district collector to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) in the month of June this year,” he said.
Raja also pointed that according to the Supreme Court guidelines, an individual is free to adopt the caste of either of the parents. “Even the Hyderabad High Court says the same. Our mother is an SC and my father belongs to BC category. We were raised by our single mother and grew up in the SC colony of our village. I have been living as a Dalit for the past 25 years, since 1990 also the time when my parents started living separately,” shared Raja.
Though separated then, Raja’s father paid visits to their home.
“Nothing came out of these visits except my mother being abused. They eventually divorced in 2006,” he further informed.
The family has received no benefits from the father throughout. “Since they have been separated, we got nothing from him and we come from an economically poor background. The only motive I see in this is protect Appa Rao, nothing else,” he said.