The rot that you left behind to travel to the stars has now become
even more stinking. The big doors of educational institutions have now
become more narrow for Dalits, tribals, backward and deprived. The
space for dialogue at these places is shrinking day by day. Yes, the
opium which has been used to make the weak and socially deprived
people sleep for centuries, is definitely increasing. All the institutions
are doing the same to suppress the raised voices and clenched fists
for their rights, all the institutions are doing what Central University
Hyderabad did with you. You wanted to be a science writer like Carl
Sagan. How nice it would be if you lived and traveled to the stars,
telling their truth. The hypocrites in this country have made even stars
a tool of business. People are being made fatalists by scaring them in
the name of stars. All the hypocrites who have sprung up like
mushrooms are eager to make people murderers by inciting violence
in the name of religion. They are also protected by the same power,
Under whose pressure you and your colleagues were suspended and
evicted from the hostel. We know you weren’t just under immediate
pressure. If only he was there, you would probably have fought him.
But your vision was not private. Studying in a university means
transforming personal vision into social vision. But you probably found
the university shrinking. You have seen that instead of promoting
scientific thinking and the idea of humanity in educational institutions,
the dominance of caste pride, religious blindness, deceit and stupidity
is increasing. Wolves hiding in the arrogance of caste superiority are
finding it difficult to tolerate the talents of students from poor economic
background coming from Dalit, tribal and deprived society. To break the
morale of such talents, they are harassed. For centuries, Shudras,
Dalits and women did not get the right to read and write. In the myths,
the head of the ascetic was taken off. The thumb of the practitioner of
Vidya was cut off. Then a law was made in the Smritis that whoever
tries to listen to the Vedas, molten lead should be poured into his ear.
Dalit women were forced to bare their breasts for centuries.
Somewhere a pot was tied around the neck of Dalits and a broom was
tied around their waist. Ascending in the morning and descending in
the evening, their exit was restricted, So that the self-proclaimed
superior caste exploiters do not become unholy by their long shadow!
This society was fighting a double battle in the freedom movement.
The system of caste exploitation was more dangerous in the twin
slavery of foreign imperialism and domestic feudalism. The
Brahminical caste system had made the oppressed handicapped.
That is why Babasaheb Ambedkar had said in Nashik on April 15,
1920, “The end of casteism is necessary. Supporting caste is a crime.
Caste is the biggest obstacle in the progress of our society. The
question is, has this obstacle ended after 75 years of independence?
You wrote in your first and unfortunately last letter, “My birth was a
terrible accident!” This statement describes the naked truth of the
caste system. The life of crores of people is just an accident. People’s
destiny is decided on the basis of caste and gender as soon as they
are born in this country. There have been victims of this terrible
accident even after you. In 2018, Akhil Thajanat, a Dalit student of the
Central University of Kerala, slit his wrists after being fed up with the
harassment by the administration. A blood-stained letter was found in
his pocket, which read, “I cannot express the pain, cruelty and neglect
I have suffered.” In 2019, Payal Tadvi, who was studying medicine in
Mumbai, committed suicide after being harassed by caste abusers.
Rohit, like you, she also wrote to her parents, “I know how special I
am to you and you are my world, but now things have become so
unbearable that I cannot spend even a minute with them Could.
Similarly, Fathima Latif, a topper in Madras IIT, committed suicide after
being upset with religious slurs. The list is too long, Rohit! Those who
were meant to be the stars of the earth, will now be somewhere
among the stars of the sky like you; Where there will be no suffocating
atmosphere of caste and religion. After you left, the student movement
had arisen all over the country. Student organizations and various
social organizations from universities like JNU, DU to Hyderabad
Central University came on the road. Lakhs of people had tears in
their eyes after reading your letter. He wanted that no Rohit should
say goodbye to him again. That’s why they came out on the road and
united in the campuses. Candle march was taken out. There was a
demand to enact the Rohit Act so that again no youth becomes a
victim of caste oppression. But what happened after that, you want to
know? The students of JNU, who expressed their anger over your
martyrdom, were called Tukde-tukde gang. JNU was maligned by the
conspiracy of media and power. The students there were even labeled
as traitors. After this, all the intellectuals and litterateurs of the country
stood up and protested against it. Gave an academic challenge to
authority. There was a dialogue on nationalism. Your issue was
discussed in the Parliament as well. But you already know, what is the
ideology of those who are sitting in the Parliament and in all the
institutions. Do they love the country and its people? No, they only
love power. They have been occupying social power for centuries. But
the constitution made all the citizens equal. To maintain their
supremacy, they now want to reverse the text of the constitution. So
they first tried to defame you and then also defamed those who stood
by your thoughts and dreams. Such public intellectuals who are
supporters of the constitution and democracy in this country, who are
supporters of the upliftment of the downtrodden and their rights, were
also defamed. They were called Urban Naxals. Not only this, many
intellectuals like Anand Teltumbde, Sudha Bhardwaj, Father Stan
Swamy were put in jail in the Bhima Koregaon case. The rulers and
their supporters are full of arrogance. The oppression of farmers
continues. Education is becoming expensive. The prices of medicines
have increased five times. On one hand the number of poor and
beggars is increasing and on the other hand Dhannaseth is becoming
wealthy. The youth do not have jobs. So what will happen to your
dreams? What will happen to those who keep those dreams alive?
Dear Rohit, even today those who were jealous of your talent while
alive are afraid of your independent thoughts and democratic thinking.
Drunk with power, they abuse those who love you. Watch events to
share your memories and thoughts. They know what your name
means! it means : Having free thoughts, having dialogue, having a
sense of democratic system based on equality and justice. In fact,
these caste exploiters also want to kill the original ideas, independent
consciousness and desire for change of the youth coming from the
deprived sections.
But we assure that the teachings given by Babasaheb and your
struggle will never go away. As long as there is life inside, we will fight.
Those people are cowards who are afraid of your opinion, who live in
fear in this world. Those people will never know our history. We will
write, we will tell who was the light of our society and what is the real
history of Babasaheb, from today Savitribai Phule we will tell
everyone and we will fight till there is life, we will struggle, even if we
have to go anywhere for this, whatever we want to do. For
centuries we have been enslaved and even today we are being
cheated in the name of religion and caste. We have to
get down from these friends, because we want to take this society and
this country forward. If we want to go, we have to break the caste
system, which teaches the lesson of inequality to the people of the
society. Dear Rohit, to take forward your thoughts, your dreams, your
work, an organization named Kalingamitra Trust has been formed in
Odisha. For the child who is behind education, the child
who is meaningless, that organization is doing many things, due to
which every child can study who cannot afford. Many things
are happening in this country, every child is not able to handle his
mental pressure at home, outside, in school, college, university,
everywhere and it is obvious that nowadays everyone in this world
says that we will teach our daughter and son. Will teach them but in reality
they don’t care much because those people are put under mental
pressure due to which they leave their studies and end up sharing it. I
agree that a family has a lot of pressure from society, but it does not
mean that by increasing that pressure, put that much pressure on your
child. The society is pressurizing children in the name of caste, in the
name of religion, if we family members also start doing the same, then
it will be parallel. We families should support our children, we families
should give our children the education that Babasaheb gave us, what
Savitribai Phule gave us, Jyotiba gave us, we should tell them
those things. If we really want to take revenge on Rohit Vemula, then
we have to study, go to the higher position, go to the position in which
we will have this right, we will have this power, whatever we do, that
will be everything.

AUTHOR – HEMSAGAR
B.A in History
MOTTO: CREATE THE HISTORY
AMBADOLA