When a girl named Nirbhaya was brutally raped and killed, did anyone question her caste? Then why is Rohith’s caste under question here?” Radhika Vemula reportedly asked this on 23 January amid claims that her son Rohith, whose suicide is being seen as the fallout of caste discrimination, was not a Dalit.
The 49-year-old who is divorced from Rohith’s father and raised him and his two siblings working as a tailor also refused the Rs 8 lakh ex-gratia offered by the University of Hyderabad. “We do not need your money. Not Rs 8 lakh, even if you give Rs 8 crore, we do not need it,” Rohith’s sister Neelima said.
Radhika, accompanied by Neelima and son Raja, was on the campus to meet the seven students on the fourth day of their fast at the university’s protest venue. She told them, “You are all like my sons. If you need anything at all, I will help you. I will be here to support you, help you.”
Later in the evening, all the seven students were shifted to the university health centre after their condition deteriorated. UoH security officials took police help to shift the students, amidst protests by the Students’ Joint Action Committee. They have been put on IV fluids. Clarifying the caste issue, Radhika said while her husband was an OBC, she herself was from the SC Mala community.
“From the age of five, I grew up in a Vaddera family (Vadderas are OBCs), with whom my SC Mala family left me. Since I was raised by a Vaddera family, they married me to a Vaddera man in 1985. After three children, my husband and I divorced and I brought up the kids on my own. Since I am from the Mala community, I brought them up like that. We used to live in a lane in Guntur where, even today, only SC families live. My children are as much Dalit as I am.”
A certificate issued by the Revenue Department of Government of Andhra Pradesh, on June 16, 2015, clearly states that Rohith belongs to the Mala community. “My question is why I am being asked all these questions instead of being given the reasons why Rohith was suspended?” Radhika said. “Why is the issue being diverted?”