Return the Rule of Law and End Caste Discrimination on Indian Campuses
President of India
We are asking all citizens of India, the Indian Diaspora, and our progressive allies around the world to sign the below letter to the President of India. In the last week we have seen an unprecedented escalation of violence against Dalit and Bahujan students on the University of Hyderbad campus. This has led to the illegal holding of over 36 Students and 3 faculty members, while the remainder of the campus has remained on a lockdown. This lockdown included the stopping of all utilities including water, internet, banking, and dining facilities. While also physically not allowing students and faculty to leave campus at the same time as not allowing independent human rights organizations and media outlets to report independently on the rapidly declining situation.
While the students continue to resist and lay their bodies and their voices on the line we ask now for all to join us in demanding the President of India to end caste discrimination on campuses and return the rule of law. Please join us at this dire moment.
Jai Bhim
Petition by
To:
President of India
From:
[Your Name]
To,
The President of India
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi: 110001
Subject: This letter aims to draw your attention to our condemnation of the casteism and unconstitutional use of force on protesting students at the University of Hyderabad.
Respected Sir,
As a group of anti-caste, inter-faith, and political organizations in India and the Indian diaspora, we have been continuing to witness, with dismay, the incidents that have been taking place at the University of Hyderabad since the institutional murder of Rohith Vemula.
Rohith Vemula experienced unwarranted suspension of his scholarship and access to University facilities along with four other students who were all from the Dalit community and part of Ambedkar Students Association (ASA). Several reports have labeled the accusations against them and disciplinary hearings that meted out their suspensions, partisan. In addition, Minister Smriti Irani and her Ministry of Human Resources (MHRD) have been seen to have had an inappropriate level of influence over the decisions of what should be, an independently-acting public University.
Following the unfortunate passing of Rohith, we witnessed large scale protests demanding #JusticeforRohith, from Telangana to Punjab, throughout this nation. Vice- Chancellor Dr. Appa Rao Podile was strongly condemned for his implicit role in driving Rohith to death and his immediate removal from his post was requested. There is strong evidence to support the claim that Dr.Appa Rao’s mismanagement of the unrest between student groups, buckling under state pressure and wrongly punishing the five students has claimed the life of a sensitive, intelligent and powerful young man, Rohith Vemula.
His passing is especially painful, as his poignant suicide note bore witness to his progressive thoughts, his love for science and the deep hurt he felt at the discrimination that he faced. However, Dalit and marginalized students suicides, are not uncommon in India as Universities continue to remain places where castes thrive. At University of Hyderabad alone, the past ten years, have seen the suicides of nine Dalit students.
As the protests, hunger strikes and the struggles of the students against the murder of Rohith Vemula and others like him, continued, they observed with dismay the return of Dr. Appa Rao Podile as the Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad (UoH) on March 22, 2016, after only two months since Vemula’s death.
Dr.Appa Rao along with others including Minister Smriti Irani, ABVP leaders Susheel Kumar and others all remain deeply culpable. Dr.Appa Rao, still faces a non-bailable charge under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act that has been registered against him.
Students protesting against his return were then subjected to fierce police brutality. The media reported that students were violent and needed to be placated with force. However independent fact-finding reports state that several sources, including eye-witness accounts, photographs and footage reveal that, peaceful students and faculty members were brutally attacked without provocation. This includes the lathi charge, police sexually assaulting several students, the threat of rape, ripping of clothing, and the dragging and violent assaults against many. In addition several female students were not handled by female police officers as mandated by the law.
Post this incident, the University went into a state that can only be described as an imposed state of emergency. Messes have been denied food, hostels and buildings had no water, no electricity, and there was an appalling block of internet and cell phone service. Unbelievably even campus ATM's were blocked. Some students, peacefully attempting to cook food for hungry peers were then again severely beaten by the police and then taken to the hospital as a result of their injuries.
Currently 37 Students and 3 faculty members were arrested under Prevention of Damage to Public Property Act. Arrested citizens were not produced before the magistrate within 24 hours of detention, as law mandates and their bail petition has not been heard
Among the arrested is Professor Konda Yesu Ratnam a widely respected Dalit teacher and founder of Ambedkar Studies Center, Dontha Prasanth of Ambedkar Students Association, and Research Scholar Udhay Banu who was so severely beaten up, he is now in an intensive care unit. The crime stated against them was “cooking in public place”.
Radhika Vemula, Mother of the late Rohith Vemula has also not been allowed into the HCU campus by security personnel.
We as members of the Indian Diaspora together with concerned human rights organizations around the world demand an immediate response from the Indian government.
Is the University a battleground in a tyrannical casteist surveillance state or is the University a site of learning in a modern democracy?
We condemn the actions of the University of Hyderabad Administration, Dr.Appa Rao Podile, Telangana police, ABVP leaders and MHRD Minister Smriti Irani.
We also demand the following:
– Immediate unconditional release of Prashant Dontha of Ambedkar Student Association, along with other 36 students and 3 faculty members.
– Immediately arrest and take action against the Vice-Chancellor Rao under SC/ST PoA Act. The act of re-joining office by the VC, while the case is still in the process of investigation is aborting justice and scuttling it.
– Immediately remove all police from University of Hyderabad premises.
– Restore all basic facilities to the student body.
- Allow students and faculty to leave the campus, and allow the entrance of human rights observers and fact finding teams to continue oversight of the restoration of law and order.
– Consult Students and Faculty in the Entire Process.
– Mandate that MHRD to ensure campuses are free from police brutality and violence.
– File FIR's against Vice Chancellor Rao and all Police and University Administration staff who participate in this violation under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.
– Immediately enact the Rohith Act to act as a safeguard against exclusionary practices.
The issues raised by Rohith Vemula and the students of the University of Hyderabad are core to the structure and morality of our country
Universities must be the places in which unpleasant but true social questions can be freely asked, discussed and answered. They must be places where knowledge and freedom can thrive. We stand in solidarity with the spirit of Rohith, with the strength of Radhika Vemula, and marginalized students throughout the institutions of this nation. We ask that the state act as a constitutional democracy and not as authoritarian regime and respond to our demands immediately.
We the Undersigned,