‘Dalit Lives’ in the University

Reading the letters and testimonies written by Rohith Vemula, the essay attempts to understand the social existence of the ‘Dalit’ Subject in the University. The attempt to engage with the discrimination experienced in the science laboratory, the appeal made by Rohith to the vice chancellor with regard to Dalit students in the university and the letter written before his death provide us three instances to theoretically understand this subjectivity.

“Life is essentially itself”
Talal Asad

“Thinking involves not only the flow of thought but their arrest as well”
Walter Benjamin, “Thesis on the Philosophy of History”

Bruno Latour in his famous work We have never been Modern underlines the “illusions of modernity” which we all have been living into. But for Latour “modernity” is not a teleological culmination where we all are destined to reach. Modernity, according to Latour therefore is fraught with inherent contradictions embedded in it, to simultaneously ‘unmake’ what it aims to ‘make’. A similar contradiction can be seen in our university spaces. Though the University is claimed as a “modern” institution which professes all such values that can be the markers of “modernity”, namely; liberty, equality, fraternity and rationality etc., this claim can only be made on the perils of overlooking a large set of questions that emanate from the kind of social reality we live in.

Experience as theory: The ‘Particularity’ of Rohith’s Experience in the Science Lab

Rohith wanted to express the lived reality of being a student in the school of Life Sciences and the discrimination he faced in the laboratory, through an academic paper. He had sent an Abstract to the annual sociology conference to be held in the university. The Abstract was titled “Discovering Caste Prejudices in Science Laboratories: Unheard Narratives” which read as following:

Rohith’s questioning of the pre-assumed rationality of science and science laboratories emanates from his own experience of being a student of Life Science in the University for the last four years. How this space becomes a terrain for the reproduction of caste inequalities, is brought to the fore by means of his experience. As pointed out by Latour the inherent contradictions of the “modern” space of the laboratory brings back caste inequality to get itself perpetuated. This, Rohith claims occurs through the mode of a ‘consensus building’. All consensus be it the idea of nation or any other conglomeration, are built upon ‘differential sacrifices’ which essentially implies that differences are neither celebrated nor appreciated but structurally marginalised (Pandian 2009: 66). This is ordained through the act of silencing.

Caste therefore becomes a “taboo” and hence has not to be spoken of in the public. This ‘unspeakability’ of caste makes the consensus possible which is ordained by a section or a group which holds the authority. Rohith wanted to “create theory” from this experiential reality of his life but his paper was unfortunately rejected.

Language of Moral Appeal and Shaming

After his suspension from the university, Rohith wrote a letter to the VC of the university making the following appeal. The letter was given the subject head as “Solution for Dalit Problem”

Social ostracism as a mode of punishment for the untouchables may long have been outlawed formally but that does not guarantee that its extinction in real forms. By using a language of emotional and moral appeal, Rohith tries to shame the upper caste sensibilities of the administration and the VC, and tries to make a radical intervention. Being conscious of the larger politics of self-respect of the Dalits in campus, Rohith praises the VC for his ‘historic’ intervention. Caste and its practices like that of “social boycott” are therefore a historical reality which can be seen in continuity. But by historicising it, Rohith also gives a pervasiveness to caste both in terms of space and time not merely constrained by teleological time in history.

Asking for an “easy exit” from this vicious ploy of discrimination and hatred, Rohith suggests the VC for facilities of “passive death” or Euthanasia which is the only way out for students who are in to his situation.

Language of Universalism and Emancipation

Rohith’s letter written before his death, makes a departure from his earlier letter written to the VC of the University. Rohith’s letter makes an intervention in the authoritative Public Sphere where he infuses it with his own experience and transcends the language of rationality. This language also emanating from a deep realisation within, about the action he was going to perform seeing a “liberating” potential in it. His death, as Guru points out, is an “exit” from the larger phenomenon of “social death” that Dalit students and teachers face through everyday forms of discrimination and worse humiliation (Guru 2016). Guru goes on to argue that in spite of his continuous victimisation, Rohith lived a life of the mind that was in contradiction with the caste of the mind (Guru 2016). The letter written by Rohith before his suicide read as the following:

The recognition of this letter merely as one which only expresses personal anguish, sense of alienation from society would be to reduce the larger philosophical reflection embedded in Rohith’s letter. Rohith chooses to speak in a language of universal human values as he addresses to the larger world outside the university through his last letter.

Science as a realm of inquiry is ordained by natural laws which means nature governs objects and there is therefore an agentless authority that pervades the scheme of things in the natural world. The question of morality is therefore not applicable to nature (Sarukkai 2015). Rohith’s love for nature emanates from the fact that this universe is untouched by a moral rendering of things. It is such a realm where morality has not to be harped upon while the realm of the social is fraught with all kinds of moral subjectivities. Sarukkai points out that since caste draws its legitimacy from Hindu religious texts like the Vedas and the Smritis, and these texts do not have an author, there is an agentless authority even to these texts. The traditions function as the authorless authority in implementing caste rules and practices. As nature is not limited by any morality since it is ordained by an authorless authority, the authorless authority of the Vedas too insulate them to ethics and morality. Thus the social of caste is naturalised. Rohith thus wanted to escape from this social realm of caste and enter the natural and the universal world of stars where no such naturalisation of hierarchical practices of caste gets naturalised. It is here that Rohith points to this anomaly of people no longer being the part of that natural world.

Rohith then takes up another universal metaphor of the mind. The universal entity of mind which all human beings are endowed with is in clear contradiction with what Rohith refers to as ‘immediate identity and nearest possibility’. While Rohith may speak a language of universal it essentially emanates from his own immediate social identity.

Birth becomes a fatal accident for Rohith as caste is ordained by birth in Indian society while at the same time it also becomes a marker to gain access to different kinds of public spheres in Indian society. This segregation of the mind is what makes him feel lonely and alienated. Rohith claims that this alienation persists from his very childhood which the mind always remained unappreciated. Although a ‘dalit’ may obtain many accomplishments in his life, this is rarely recognised in the larger mainstream caste society as recognising the worth of the mind of the dalit is to refute the hierarchical place of it in the caste order. The Brahmin thus becomes the marker and the benchmark in imagining the other who will always stand subservient to it.

Conclusion

The conundrum of modern history, for Walter Benjamin, is its stormy forward movement but the conundrum of radical political action lies in the need to break this stream of history, to interrupt or arrest historical processes in order to inaugurate another possibility or “actuality” as Benjamin would refer to (Brown 2002: 156). The Ambedkar Student Association’s attempt to “arrest” the historical process unfolding in the larger mainstream politics was an attempt to break from the existing socio-political realm so as to open up possibilities to actualize a rather radical intervention in the realm of mainstream politics practiced at that historical conjuncture. The methods of intervention can be infinite but it is also determined by the avenues available at a given point of time. It also depends on the creativity of certain actors in “actualizing” this process of radical transformation.

Gopal Guru one of the leading dalit intellectuals of our times argues that social science practice in India has a marked hierarchical division of an inferior mass of academics who pursue empirical research and others who are the self-appointed theoretical pundits (Guru 2002:5003). Thus Indian social science, according to Guru’s formulation is divided into Theoretical Brahmins and Empirical Shudras (Guru 2002:5009). Guru therefore suggests that doing theory for Dalits is a moral and social necessity rather than an instant recognition in the academia (Guru 2002: 5009). Taking cue from this argument of Guru, Pandian argues that certain kinds of “radical empiricism” can transcend the divide between theory and fact and open spaces for alternative politics for subaltern groups (Pandian 2008:34). He goes on to claim that forms such as fiction, poetry, autobiography and testimony need not be seen as a compensation for the theoretical deficiency of Dalits but rather a compensation for the deficiencies of dominant mode of doing theory in social sciences (Pandian 2008:35). Not bound by objectivity and authorial neutrality, these can serve as enabling descriptions of life world and the re-imagination of the political (Pandian 2008:35). While in Social Science theory making belongs to the “discourse of causality”, dalit texts belong to the “discourse of participation” (Pandian 2008:40). Not constrained by mere objectivity such a process of theory making embedded in the lived realities of the dalit subject in the university and its resistance to dominant structures and practices of power, theory can transcend its canonical definitions and provide a ground of ethical and emotional appeal (Pandian 2008:40). “This contradictory engagement with modernity by the lower castes has an important significance for all of us: That is, being one step outside modernity alone can guarantee us a public where the politics of difference can articulate itself, and caste can emerge as a legitimate category of democratic politics. Being one step outside modernity is indeed being one step ahead of modernity” (Pandian 2002: 1741).

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This article was presented as a research paper at the Graduate Students Conference at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences held at the IIT Delhi in April, 2016 on Caste as Identity in the City: Urbanity, Space and Power. I would like to thank Milind Wakankar, Manohar Kumar, Ravinder Kaur and the participants at the conference for their comments and criticisms.

References:

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Johari, Aarefa (2016), How Hyderabad’s Ambedkar Students’ Association grew to establish a national footprint, Scroll, 21 January, http://scroll.in/article/802184/how-hyderabads-ambedkar-students-association-grew-to-establish-a-national-footprint

Latour, Bruno (1993), We Have Never Been Modern, trans, Catherine Porter, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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Senthilkumar Solidarity Committee (2008), ‘Caste Higher Education and Senthil’s Suicide’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 43, No. 33, Aug. 16 – 22.