When equality is denied everything is denied
On the 13th of March 2017, Muthukrishnan Jeevanathnan also known as Rajini Krish, a Dalit research scholar in JNU committed suicide by hanging himself. His death and his writings when he was alive all speak to the nature of caste based discrimination faced by dalit scholars all over the country in various educational institutes. Despite his articulation we hear a repeated assertion of old tropes of Dalit scholars not being able to ‘cope up’ with the pressure at Universities.
It is only a little over a year after RohithVemula was found hanging in a hostel room in the University of Hyderabad, that now another young student, Muthu, of Jawaharlal Nehru University has been found hanging in a room of a friend. Muthu too struggled to enter esteemed institutions of higher education, far from his native home, with the hope of changing a destiny written by a Brahmanical caste ridden history. He was a cheerful presence at all the protests against Brahmanisim at the University of Hyderabad, but he was primarily focused on getting admission in JNU. Muthu was well aware of the weight of historical deprivation that students like him carried when they entered such institutions. A student of modern Indian history, his efforts appear to have been to make sense of this past, recognise its manifestations and find ways of addressing it. Continue reading
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