It's not just Rohith's death that we should look at, but his life, senior journalist and founder of People's Archive of Rural India P Sainath said when he visited Hyderabad on Monday. A video of him addressing the students and talking about the state of affairs in education has been uploaded on YouTube.
In the video, Sainath takes on a range of issues, including the structural inequalities that Dalits and adivasis face in the country. He quoted data from the Socio-Economic data, saying that 3 percent of rural India made to higher educational institutions, and this percentage was even lower for Dalits and adivasis.
Rohith came from this background to his PhD on merit, and was ranged against an education minister who was a college dropout, Sainath said.
However, he said that he did agree with HRD Minister Smriit Irani on one thing. He said that she was right when she said that it was not a Dalit vs non-Dalit issue. "It is an upper-caste Brahminical issue vs every Dalit, non-Dalit and decent human being". Watch the 20-minute video in full: