Press Release

Reply to the false narratives of Mr Amit Shah on Rohith Vemula and the movement.

The Minister of Home Affairs, Amit Shah, in an interview, belittled the Rohith Vemula
movement as politics of provocation and polarisation of SCs and STs. His views reflect that the
BJP has maintained from the beginning that Rohith Vemula is not a Dalit. To his sinful
misleadings, we would like to put forward some facts:

Rohith Vemula is Dalit, to which no defence needs to be made as his life itself speaks of the
quantum of discrimination and struggle, which Amit Shah and the bandwagon of BJP have no
clue of, as they represent dominant caste interests.

Rohith Vemula submitted his caste certificate as SC upon admission to Intermediate College at
the age of 15. Hindu College of Guntur, where he graduated, had his certificate recorded as SC.
At the University of Hyderabad, where he spent the rest of his life till 2016, his certificate is
recorded as SC. All the accused, be it Nandanam Susheel Kumar of ABVP, Podile Apparao, or
the ministers from BJP, had not challenged his status as SC till he was alive. In fact, they have
committed atrocities because he was a Dalit and a Dalit who read Ambedkar.

It was only after his death that the BJP initiated a false complaint stating Rohith Vemula is
not a Dalit. It was filed by Darsanapu Srinivasa Rao, who went on to contest on a BJP
ticket from the Vemuru assembly constituency in 2019. Prior to the initiation of this
complaint, the District Collector of Guntur had issued an order that Rohith Vemula is an SC; the
National Commission for Scheduled Castes had also reiterated that Rohith Vemula is an SC. It is
the BJP which has used its power to initiate false and malicious proceedings against Rohith
Vemula in order to evade the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act. The district collector, who had
stated that Rohith Vemula is an SC, was made to issue a show-cause notice to Radhika Vemula to
prove their caste status. She has responded, and a decision is yet to be made. She has been
fighting against these malicious attempts since 2016 and is made to undergo agony, harassment
and humiliation on top of losing her child, Rohith Vemula.

These diversionary tactics are employed simply to distract the public from the role of ABVP, BJP
and the then Vice-Chancellor Podile Appa Rao (appointed during the BJP regime). Here is a
short brief detailing their role in Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder:

1) ABVP’s General Secretary Krishna Chaitanya had registered a false and malicious
complaint of an allegation of assault on then ABVP-HCU President Nadanam Susheel
Kumar against the Students of ASA in the Proctorial Board. On the basis of the evidence
of the Duty Security Officer and the Medical Officer, the allegations of the assault were

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 dismissed, and the Proctorial Board issued a warning to Nandanam Susheel Kumar for
his objectionable post, along with an apology from the members of ASA for questioning
him.
2) Then BJP MLC Ramchandra Rao trespassed into the University campus and conducted
a Dharna to take action on the ASA members with the fraudulent case filed by Susheel.
3) Bandaru Dattatreya, the then Minister of State for Labour and Employment of the
BJP Government, wrote letters endorsing the same false complaint and pressurised the
MHRD to initiate action against the Ambedkarite students.
4) After the intervention of the MLC and the letters from Union Minister Bandaru
Dattatreya, the students of ASA were suspended. As the suspension was contradicting the
first proctorial board, and there were grave irregularities, it was revoked by
Vice-Chancellor R.P.Sharma with a clause of conducting an enquiry afresh.
5) The MHRD Ministry, then headed by Smriti Irani of the BJP Government, without
ascertaining the facts of the incident, issued a series of letters to the University of
Hyderabad to report on the action taken against the Ambedkarite Students.
6) Apparao Podile, the new VC appointed during the BJP regime, in order to respond to
the letters from MHRD, went against conducting an enquiry afresh; instead conducted a
review of the revoked proceedings of the proctorial board and illegally imposed a social
boycott on the five Dalit scholars of ASA including Rohith, which led to his institutional
murder.

The chronology of these incidents speaks of how the BJP leaders had misused their power to
intervene in the codes and procedures of the University to criminalise the asserting Ambedkarite
Scholars. Therefore, if there was any politics involved in Rohith’s murder, it was the Dalit
hatred politics propelled by the leaders of ABVP-BJP!

The closure report filed in the High Court by the Telangana police, which was to investigate the
involvement of these perpetrators in the killing of Rohith, ignores all the evidence of the case
only to peddle the narrative of him not belonging to the Scheduled Caste community.

The statement of Mr Amit Shah that Rohith was never a Dalit is evidence of the fact that the
closure report filed by the IO in the High Court is nothing but a mouthpiece of ABVP-BJP,
which ignores all the evidence that proves that these ABVP-BJP leaders were responsible for the
murder of Rohith Vemula. The police investigation, which was to look into the case of Abetment
of Suicide and SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, misleads the entire investigation into probing
Rohith’s caste. The report to prove that Rohith was not a Dalit goes to the extent of propelling a
lie to the honourable High Court that the enquiry into the issue of his Caste Certificate has been
concluded, and it is ascertained that Rohith belongs to the Vaddera community.

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The issue of Rohith's Caste Certificate was challenged by his mother, Radhika Vemula, and
witnesses were also produced thereafter. The matter is still pending with the collector, and
therefore, the endorsements of the Telangana police closure report are nothing but blatant
lies!

The Rohith Vemula movement not only exposed the existing Caste discrimination in Higher
Education Institutions but also swarmed Dalit students to enter universities. The Rohith Vemula
movement attacked the fundamental ideology of the BJP government to expose their hatred
towards the Dalits of the country. It erupted an era of self-respect by uniting the oppressed
sentiments against the BJP-RSS rule. To dismiss Rohith as not a Dalit is a strategy to belittle the
phenomena that the Rohith movement sparked worldwide; it is to erase the history of how
ABVP-BJP killed an assertive Dalit Scholar who was committed to Babasaheb Ambedkar’s
emancipatory mission.

Enclosure:

Caste Certificates of Rohith Vemula issued by competent authorities.

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For Queries, please contact :

Raja Vemula, Brother of Rohith Vemula: +91 90526 59192

Naresh S, President, ASA : +91 96771 54186
Deepak Kumar Arya, General Secretary, UoHSU: +91 88606 17258
Adv. Bheems Rao: +91 98851 77757