HHYDERABAD: A few days before his suicide on January 17, University of Hyderabad (UoH) research scholar Rohith Vemula appeared in a video in which he says, “I’m a Dalit from Guntur district.”
The video is now going viral on the Internet. His supporters mean it as a rebuttal to the ambivalence of the Roopanwal Commission on Vemula’s caste status. The video was shot last January, the very month in which the research scholar committed suicide.
While the writings he left behind clearly show his pain over social exclusion, the one-man commission appointed to probe the circumstances concluded that there was no clear proof that Vemula was indeed from a Dalit caste.
Incensed that Vemula’s Dalit credentials are being questioned, his friends point to what the scholar himself says in the video: "My name is Rohit Vemula. I’m a Dalit from Guntur district. My mother raised us."
In the video, which emerged a few days after Justice Roopanwal's findings were leaked from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Rohit speaks about his tussles with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students on the UoH campus and the university administration’s decision to expel five Dalit students - including him -- from the hostels and restricting their entry into public spaces.
The five students protested by living in a makeshift tent on campus at a place they christened Velivada.
The video was shot at Velivada a few days before Rohit's suicide by a member of the Ambedkar Students' Association (ASA), Gummadi Prabhakar.
Prabhakar said he made the video to document the social background of the five protesting scholars. "I thought of shooting a 10-minute video on each of the five Dalit research scholars and I started with Rohit. He left midway when someone called him away and I could not complete the video," Prabhakar said.
Sannaki Munna, who uploaded the video on Youtube, said after the video was shot in January, it wasn’t until a month or two after Vemula’s suicide that someone remembered it and tried to find it. But it was thought to be lost.
"A research scholar found the footage while cleaning his laptop and he called me. I uploaded the video, now," Munna said.