The Karnataka government is soon expected to release the draft of the Rohith Vemula Bill for public consultation. It may be tabled during the upcoming budget session of the Assembly, according to some party sources. While there is no formal statement yet from the Siddaramaiah government, Higher Education Minister MC Sudhakar recently told the media that the bill, which aims to protect Dalit and Adivasi students from caste discrimination in higher education, is in the final stages of drafting.
The draft of the anti-discrimination law emerged through months of intense debates and discussions between the government and campaigners pushing for the anti-caste law in the state. But it has gained media attention following the recent controversy over the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) equity guidelines.
Unlike the equity guidelines, the anti-discrimination law being considered by the Karnataka government is focussed only on caste-based barriers faced by Dalit and Adivasi students in higher education. The UGC guidelines make a special mention of SC/STs but also include other marginalised groups such as OBCs, minorities, women, Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and the disabled.
Ambedkarite student leader and PhD scholar Rohith Vemula died by suicide on January 17, 2016 at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) due to alleged caste harassment. Named after him, the Rohith Act is a civil law unlike the SC/ST Atrocities Act, which is a criminal law with stringent punishments.
This civil law aims to resolve cases of caste discrimination within the campus and, as far as possible, outside courts and police stations. Institutions will have to set up internal committees against caste harassment, much like the Gender Sensitisation Committee Against Sexual Harassment (GSCASH).
Many of the offences described in the Rohith Vemula Act can also be booked under the SC/ST Atrocities Act for all practical purposes. But this new law is founded on the view that students should be treated differently.
Laws that apply to the dystopic world outside should not be used in the utopic setting of an educational institution. Punishments for offending students, as well as teachers and administrators, should be designed to reform them and not destroy their careers.
Something like this has never been attempted in India. These are decisive steps toward addressing the widespread institutional persecution faced by Dalit and Adivasi students in higher education. But anti-caste groups, which have waited generations for a law like this, as well as the Congress leaders backing this cause would do well to tread cautiously from here.
There is history to show that the four pillars of our democracy – the legislature, judiciary, bureaucracy, and media – have turned into hoops of fire for every piece of social justice legislation ever attempted. There is little reason to believe that the journey of the Rohith Vemula Act will be any different.
The BJP’s worst nightmare
The Hindu nationalist party that is openly hostile towards Muslims and Christians has always struggled to explain its relationship with the Dalits of Hindu society. Rohith Vemula’s name brings back bad memories for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and exposes the greatest contradiction of its core ideology.
The death of Rohith Vemula was connected to a series of chaotic, politically charged events in 2016. During his last days, Rohith and his comrades from the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) were involved in several tense standoffs with the university management as well as their rivals from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyrathi Parishad (ABVP).
Their ideological battles against the management and ABVP’s Hindutva push on campus earned them the wrath of national level leaders of the BJP. Their pressure led to five Dalit PhD scholars from the ASA being evicted from their hostels – Sunkanna Velupula, Seshaiah Chemudugunta, Vijay Peddapudi, Dontha Prashanth, and Rohith Vemula.