The Roopanwal Commission report is a whitewash and part of a wider conspiracy to shield central ministers & VC from the case pending against them under the Atrocities Act: Radhika Vemula
PL Punia, Chairperson, NCSCST to Sabrangindia:
"It is shameful that a person who has been a Judge of a High Court has behaved in such an unprofessional fashion. The Judge was hired to give a stamp of approval on what the BJP regime has been saying all over the country. He has gone way beyond the terms of reference that he was expected to adjudicate on. The Commission was not mandated to look into the caste of the Vemula family. He has given his opinion on something that was not part of his jurisdiction. There were only two terms of reference for the Commission: the circumstances under which Rohith Vemula committed suicide and the systemic and institutional mechanisms to address discrimination within the University. Why did he go beyond his mandate?" PL Punia
Photo Courtesy: Indian Express & India Today
Finally the Modi Regime has revealed its hand. Shamed and silenced by the countrywide agitation following Dalit scholar, Rohith Vemula's suicide, called an 'institutional murder', it has failed to respond to the demands of students to remove Vice Chancellor Appa Rao and dug it's heals in. From day one it employed energies to question Radhika Vemula's Dalit staus, Today, the Modi government's latest move is aimed at Rohith Vemula, now no more and his family especially mother Radhika Vemula. Ever since the death of the research scholar shook the country out of its complacency, a report of the one man judicial commission has accused Radhika Vemula of “ branding herself a Dalit.” On August 25 itself Sabrangindia had reported the possible conclusions of this committee.
The whitewash: Probe alleges Rohith Vemula’s mother faked Dalit status, blames him for his suicide
Speaking to Sabrangindia from Kerala where she is addressing a meeting, Radhika Vemula said, "This is a conspiracy of the Modi Regime to save its ministers and the VC from the Atrocities Act, " says Radhika Vemula. The case that is pending and is being dragged on in the Andhra Pradesh High Court seeks to implicate Appa Rao Podile, Bandarayu Dattareya and Smriti Irani herself. This Commission's report is nothing but a pathetic attempt to shield them from the consequences of the Atrocities Act. We shall fight on ans the struggle against the Modi regime will become stronger," she added.
The Indian Express today reports that Rohith Vemula’s mother “branded” herself as Dalit to avail the benefits of reservation ; expelling him from the hostel was the “most reasonable” decision the university could have taken; personal frustration, not discrimination, drove the 26-year-old PhD scholar to suicide; Union Ministers Bandaru Dattatreya and Smruti Irani were only discharging their duties and there was no pressure on the Hyderabad Central University authorities.
These are the salient conclusions of the inquiry conducted by the one-man judicial commission set up by the HRD Ministry on January 28 this year, 11 days after Vemula killed himself in his hostel room. Its 41-page report was submitted by former Allahabad High Court judge A K Roopanwal in August. It is based on the deposition of over 50 people, a majority of whom were university teachers, officers and staff members. The retired judge met five university students and members of the joint action committee which led the agitation on campus.
Strangely,though the judicial commission has observed that the university’s equal opportunity cell headed by the anti-discrimination officer is not functional and that the grievance redressal committee headed by the ombudsman should be made more effective, it does not explore why this has been neglected by the administration. It has left this aspect completely unexplored.
Shockinly the report states that Vemula’s decision to commit suicide, according to the probe, was wholly his own and not abetted by either the university administration or the government.When The Indian Express asked him about his conclusions, Roopanwal said he did not wish to comment on the contents of the report.
Here are the key findings of the commission whose mandate was to inquire into the facts and circumstances leading to Vemula’s death, review existing grievance mechanism for students at HCU and suggest improvements:
‘Mother not Dalit’
Roopanwal questioned Rohith’s caste in detail — four of the 12 pages on the final findings are devoted to this. Since Vemula was raised by his mother, V Radhika, the report has tried to establish whether she belonged to the Mala (read SC) community.
According to Roopanwal, Radhika claimed to be Mala to support the caste certificate issued to her son. Her claim that her foster parents told her that her biological parents were SC was “improbable and unbelievable,” said the commission. If Radhika’s foster family did not disclose the names of her biological parents, how could they have revealed their caste to her, Roopanwal asked in the report.
The inquiry concluded that Vemula’s mother “branded” herself as Mala only because she managed to get the caste certificate from a person named Uppalapati Danamma, then a corporator, with whom she stayed for one and half years. “To me it appears that this caste certificate has no value and that in order to take benefit of Scheduled Caste she (Radhika) anyhow obtained the Mala Caste certificate from the corporator, Uppalapati Danamma in whose house she remained for one and half years,” the report states.
The retired judge has also cited Radhika’s application for her younger son Raja Chaitnaya Kumar’s birth certificate in 2014 as evidence against her SC status. At that time, she disclosed her caste as Vaddera, which is a backward class. The report states that Vemula’s caste certificate was issued without proper inquiry. Since his mother is not a ‘Mala’, her son’s certificate is not genuine either.
“The evidence on record shows that she belongs to Vaddera Community and, therefore, the Scheduled Caste certificate issued to Rohith Vemula cannot be said to be a genuine one and he was not a Scheduled Caste person,” the report states.
In an earlier report, Rohith’s brother Raja had rejected this conclusion. Speaking to The Indian Express, he had said: “We lived like Dalits. We were raised in a Dalit community. Yes, my father is from a backward class, but whatever we know is from our experience of living like a Dalit. We have been discriminated against all our lives. Rohith referred to this in his letter too.”
‘No political interference’
The report dismissed the possibility that Vemula could have faced discrimination. It rejected claims that the university’s decision to expel him and his batchmates from the hostel was taken under political pressure. The commission has justified this on the ground that the interim report of the nine-member proctorial board, which suggested that a strong warning should be issued to Susheel Kumar as well as Vemula and four other expelled students, was submitted on August 12, 2015. Dattatreya’s letter to Irani was written on August 17 and, hence, could not have influenced the interim report of the proctorial board.
“Moreover this cannot be believed that the report which was prepared by nine persons could be obtained by pressure. How nine persons could be influenced by anybody, political or non-political when none of them was directly under the control of anybody?” the report states.
The inquiry also concluded that the subcommittee of Hyderabad University’s Executive Council, which looked into matters afresh, was also not influenced by any political interference and “enquired the matter independently. It has described HCU’s decision to expel Vemula and his batchmates from the hostel as “most reasonable” and lenient in comparison to the proctorial board’s recommendation for complete suspension from the university.
As for the intervention by local BJP MLC Ramachandra Rao and Cabinet ministers Bandaru Dattatreya and Smriti Irani, Roopanwal has said they were merely discharging their duties as public servants. “Being the public representative, Shri Ramachandra Rao, MLC, took the issue up with the university authorities, Shri Bandaru Dattatreya, Minister of State for Labour and Employment wrote the letter to Smt. Smriti Irani, HRD Minister as the MP of Secunderabad Constituency and the letter written by HRD Minister was just to pursue the matter with the university authorities on the letter of Shri Bandaru Dattatreya.”
‘Suicide unrelated’
Since the university’s decision to suspend Vemula and his batchmates from the hostel was challenged in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh and the matter was pending on the day of his suicide, it could not have been the reason for Vemula killing himself, the inquiry concluded.
“His suicide note is on the record which shows that Rohith Vemula had his own problems and not happy with the worldly affairs,” the probe report says. “He was feeling frustrated for reasons best known to him. He wrote that there was no urgency for understanding love, pain, life and death but he was rushing after them. It indicates that he was not happy with the activities going around him. He also wrote that he was all alone from childhood and was an unappreciated man…He did not blame anybody for his suicide. If he would have been angry with the decision of the university certainly either he would have written in the specific words or would have indicated in this regard. But he did not do the same. It shows that the circumstances prevailing in the university at that time were not the reasons for committing suicide. The whole reading of the letter shows that he was not feeling well in this world and under frustration ended his life.”
The commission discounts Vemula’s letter written to vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile on December 18, 2015, in which he alleged discrimination and sought cyanide and rope for Dalit students. The fact that the suicide happened one month after the letter, the report claims, is evidence that the anger “did not continue.” Roopanwal said, “But I feel that in view of the suicide note the anger shown in this letter cannot be the reason for suicide. It is because of the fact that the suicide was committed after about one month and by this time the expulsion from the hostel had been challenged in the High Court. He did not mention anything in his suicide note which were mentioned in the above mentioned letter. This shows that if there was any anger that did not continue by the date of suicide otherwise something regarding the anger shown in the letter would have been indicated in the suicide note.”
In June 2016, the Collector that is the revenue authority under law to determine Rohith Vemula and his family's caste had given an unequivocal finding. This had been reported by Sabrangindia.
Rohith Vemula and his family is and were always Dalit, says the Guntur District Collector, Kantilal Dande
NCSC thereafter directed the Cyberabad Police to file act on the Prevention of SC/ST Atrocities (POA) charges against Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and Vice-Chancellor, HCU P. Appa Rao
As the Guntur District Collector has certified that Vemula’s caste was Hindu Mala (Scheduled Caste), “Telangana police will have to act on atrocity charges pressed against the accused in the PoA case, failing which they will be in violation of constitutional provisions and the law”, Mr. Punia had then told The Hindu.
Further, the media has reported that the National Schedule Caste Commission (NCSC) will direct Cyberabad police to act on Prevention of SC/ST Atrocities (PoA) charges slapped against five persons including Union Minister Bandaru Dattatreya and Vice-Chancellor of University of Hyderabad P. Appa Rao in connection with Rohith Vemula suicide case. This was stated by the NCSC Chairman P.L. Punia in Hyderabad on Wednesday.
The Commission’s direction will be based on Guntur District Collector’s report on Mr. Vemula’s caste status, Mr. Punia has said. “In the meeting which is to be convened next week, the Commission will table the report and ask Cyberabad police to act on it,” he said adding that the Guntur Collector has already sent a copy of the report to both the investigating officer and Cyberabad Commissioner C.V. Anand.
The NCSC Chairman said that the District Collector is the highest authority in issuing caste certificate. “The Collector’s certification in this case was based on the data and documents provided by Revenue Divisional Officer and Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Guntur. As per the documents, a permanent Caste certificate was issued to Rohith Vemula by the Guntur Tahsildar in 2005. His caste was always recorded as Mala (SC) and with the Collector certifying this, the police should go ahead with the proceedings,” Mr. Punia said. The NCSC is legally bound to ask police an explanation if a PoA case goes unattended, he said.The NCSC received the Collector’s report last week, Mr. Punia confirmed.
On February 25, Teesta Setalvad had, in Sabrangindia raised pertinent questions about the speech made by the minister for human resources development (MHRD), Smriti Irani in parliament. Among the questions raised were, 'Is it or is it not true that senior functionaries of the GOI, including two central ministers (both women) have questioned the authenticity of Dalit identity of Rohith?' Secondly, 'After January 17, 2016 and the tragic step that Rohith Vemula took, did or did not the GOI appoint Ajit Duval, National security Advisor the Task to investigate the real caste of Rohith Vemula? Moreover, the writer had asked, 'Did the trail not begin politically: with the Vice President, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Hyderabad, Nandanam Diwakar writing to Central minister Dattareya, (August 10, 2015), seven days before the latter writes to Irani, a letter in which wrong and exaggerated accounts of ABVP student, Susheel Kumar’s injuries are given as well as a litany of political opposition to Ambedkarites listed? '
Further, the Times of India also reported on June 16, that the delay in the investigations under the SC/ST Act was because the Hyderabad police was deliberately delaying investigations. Reportedly, the Vice Chancellor is yet to be interrogated despite the NCSC having given the green signal for it, sections of the faculty have alleged.
In a vindictive action that has drawn further protest and outrage, the university administration hassuspended two professors, KY Ratnam and Tathagata Sengupta for supporting the peacefully protesting students on March 22. The suspension order is dated Hune 13 and there has been a relay protest since June 14. The administration and the Modi regime appear to be taking full advantage of the vacation period when students numbers diminish at the university.
Is the University of Hyderabad (UoH) management working hand in glove with the police to `protect' Appa Rao Podile? Most definitely, allege students and faculty members, pointing to the lackadaisical attitude of the police in fast-tracking probe into the Rohith Vemula suicide case, which names vice-chancellor Podile as an accused. And this, despite the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) green-flagging the VC's interrogation, they say .
“Minutes of the NCSC meeting reveals that the commission had instructed the police to go ahead with the investigation -nearly two to three weeks ago -on the basis of the brief submitted by the additional district magistrate of Guntur. Despite this, the police has not questioned or arrested Podile. It is clear that political pressure is leading to the delay in this matter,“ alleged Prashanth Dontha, a close friend of Vemula. He hoped that the police will soon interrogate the VC under the SCST Atrocities Act. Accusations about the powersthat-be trying to “safeguard“ Podile are being voiced even by faculty members, who have condemned the police for deliberately dragging its feet on the case and making “lame excuses“ to delay the process.
