ohithVemula, a PhD student, fo-
cused on the interstellar spaces
and Carl Sagan. In a different lo-
cation, a sewage cleaner looks
for live cockroaches in the sewer,
which ironically give him a sense of secu-
rity: he can now clean the sewer without
fearing death from foul gases. One day he
miscalculated. He died. One is a real life
character, the other from a masterpiece
film, Court. But they are two sides of the
same reality.
Rohith had a life of the mind, and he
wrote sensitive prose, reminding us of the
reflective student in our university days,
exactly the one we chose to share our se-
crets with.
At this point, the Dalit in him becomes
irrelevant. He could well have been one of
us. That is why his suicide touches us
more than the self immolation of a teen
aged girl in Telangana: her parents did not
have the money to build a toilet. She was
ashamed.
Reams and reams have been written on
Rohith’s predicament and there is yet no
end to the things in the heart. One reason
for the endless outpouring maybe our in-
capacity to access an educated, 28-year
old Dalit’s mind.We are groping.
Sisyphus, the giant, has been asked to
push a boulder up the mountain. From
the peak, the boulder comes rolling down
and Sisyphus has to resume his labour -
push the boulder up again.
In the 60s, every University coffee
house existentialist contemplated Sisy-
phus, as the ultimate metaphor for life’s
futility. It was a fad. But for a Dalit tailor’s
son, life’s meaninglessness must seem
very real because now an educated mind
has been placed on his shoulders. This, as
the establishment’s walls grow higher
each day even as universities churn out
more and more Dalits, some quite as ex-
ceptional as Rohith. The Rohiths of this
world have no network, no ties of school
or blood to enable them to clamber onto a
higher rung. The sewage cleaner has no
aim other than a mechanical desire to
keep sewers clean. Rohith has been
cursed with aspiration. They represent
two tragedies.
Visit a five star hotel and statuesque
men and women, impeccably clad, popu-
late the main lobbies, arrival desks,
restaurants. In sharp contrast are the
keepers of the toilets: these are smaller
men and women of weaker bone struc-
ture, more frugally dressed. These are Dal-
its, (I believeValmikis are preferred) hired
on contract from private agencies. The
picture is similar in shopping malls, hos-
pitals, airports, restaurants.
Placing Dalits on the rolls of these es-
tablishments would be risky: men and
women employed to clean toilets and
keep the establishments tidy would begin
to look for upward mobility outside areas
of sanitation. This would upset the un-
stated caste balance in the job market.
Caste hierarchies are thus regularized
in collusion with the state. How would the
state expect hundreds of thousands of Ro-
hiths to cope with this confusing reality.
Some years ago, there was a minor agi-
tation in the All India Institute of Medical
Sciences against three upper caste candi-
dates (two Brahmins) who inveigled
themselves into the sanitation depart-
ment. Marxist leaders intervened to call
off the agitation. They thought the trend
should be encouraged. Brahmins joining
as sanitation labour was a revolutionary
social advance.
The reality was different. The upper
caste men never touched the broom or
actually worked as sanitation labour. Soon
enough, they were promoted as supervi-
sors and accommodated in departments
far removed from sanitation. Entry as san-
itation labour was a ruse.
The prime minister’s Swachh Bharat
Abhiyan may be trapped in a paradox.
Dalits can’t be made supervisory officers;
officers will not pick up the broom.
A look at some of New Delhi’s garbage
dumps revealed a startling new reality.
The new safai mazdoors at these dumps
are not the traditional sanitary workers;
many of them are Muslims. Sachar Com-
mittee report on the socio-economic con-
dition of IndianMuslims may be in urgent
need of revision. All of this is not unre-
lated to the condition of a sensitive Dalit
like Rohith.
Nothing in recent years has encapsu-
lated the Dalit predicament better than
“Court”, the film I mentioned at the out-
set.
Narayan Kamble, a folk poet extremely
popular among Dalits, is arrested on a
ridiculous charge - that his poetry may
have been responsible for the suicide of a
sewage cleaner, who died by drowning in
the sewage.
The police has been used by the system
to silence a poet whose hold on the Dalits
may be exploited by the political opposi-
tion. The voluntary act of suicide denies
the sewage cleaner any sympathy for
dying in his line of duty. His death is a po-
litical act.
The prosecution lawyer argues against
the poet being given bail. The Sessions
Judge obliges. There is absolutely no con-
nect between those administering justice
and those in need of it. In the latter cate-
gory is Rohith too.
R
Saeed Naqvi
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RohithVemulaAndOther Dalits
At this point, the Dalit in Vemula becomes irrelevant. He could well have been one of us. That
is why his suicide touches us more than the self-immolation of a teenaged girl in Telangana
Opinion
News India Times
February 12, 2016
4
here is considerable evidence that
DonaldTrump has built his na-
tional lead in the Republican presi-
dent primary on a powerful
combination of economic anxiety,
frustration withWashington and, in particu-
lar, concerns over immigration. Interviews
with voters reveal it again and again, and so
do public opinion polls.
You can see signs of it in a nifty newWall
Street Journal interactive that shows 4 out of
5 Trump supporters believe all immigration)
hurts the United States more than it helps. A
majority say free trade is bad for America.
Other groups of GOP voters look more
kindly on trade and immigrants.
More directly, two questions in the latest
Washington Post-ABC News poll show how
Trump is drawing lopsided support in the
Republican field from voters who worry
about the economy and about immigrants.
The poll asked respondents how con-
cerned they are that they will be able to
maintain their current standard of living.
That’s a straightforward test of whether peo-
ple believe their personal economic situa-
tion is likely to improve or get worse. A
quarter of Republicans said they’re very wor-
ried about maintaining that standard of liv-
ing. AndTrump is winning a wide plurality
of those voters – 42 percent. Among those
who are not worried, he’s only winning 28
percent. That’s a statistically significant dif-
ference, according toTheWashington Post’s
polling guru Scott Clement.
No other candidate has a statistically sig-
nificant difference in support between those
groups. This suggests Trump is playing ex-
ceptionally well among the most economi-
cally anxious Republican voters.
The divide grows evenmore on immigra-
tion. The poll asked whether immigrants
mainly strengthen or weaken American so-
ciety. Trump barely leads among Republi-
cans who say immigrants strengthen
America. But he holds a 33 point lead – com-
manding a solidmajority – among Republi-
cans who strongly believe immigrants
weaken society. Trump also draws a majority
of Republicans who say they want a political
outsider to be the next president, compared
to 18 percent of those who want someone
with experience working in the system.
Those numbers suggest that Trump is
winning because he has tapped into a par-
ticular set of concerns and dominated his ri-
vals on all of them. Indeed, the Post-ABC
poll finds a majority of Republicans trust
Trumpmore than any candidate to handle
the economy and bring needed change to
Washington. A near majority trusts him the
most on immigration and on terrorism (an
issue he has repeatedly linked to immigra-
tion). He fares worse on the question of
which candidate is closest to you on issues
in general and which would best handle an
international crisis. But those questions do
not appear to be moving voters to the same
degree.
– TheWashington Post
WhyTrump IsDominatingTheField
By Jim Tankersley
T
The voluntary act of suicide
denies the sewage cleaner any
sympathy for dying inhis line
of duty. His death is a
political act.
