SAN FRANCISCO, California, USA—Community leaders from various Indian diaspora groups will gather at the Indian Consulate in San Francisco for a protest at noon today. Protests have already erupted throughout India over the circumstances around the suicide of Dalit student leader Rohith Vemula of the University of Hyderabad.
As a second-year PhD student, Rohith studied life science and advocated for the equal rights of low-caste minorities with the Ambedkar Student Association. In an attempt to stifle the group’s political speech, the University revoked Rohith’s student stipend, began to investigate the campus organization, and proceeded to suspend Rohith and four other students for their political views. On Sunday, January 17th, the pressure from the University proved too much and Rohith took his own life.
“Rohith’s death is the consequence of the caste-based policies that flourish in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government,” said Arvin Valmuci of the Organization for Minorities of India. “As a people, as a community, and as society, we need to do better to protect the rights of the underprivileged and oppressed people of South Asia.”
Formerly known as the “untouchables,” Dalits are the outcastes in the Hindu caste system. Despite a Constitutional ban on the practice of caste in 1950, the social structure is still widely embraced throughout India, particularly in more economically underdeveloped regions which has led to widespread discrimination and violence against the Dalits.
“Rohith’s suicide continues to demonstrate how casteism dominates India’s social institutions.The impact of caste discrimination on the Dalit community is not terribly different than the American Jim Crow laws,” says Bhajan Singh, founding director for Organization for Minorities of India. “It is evident from the circumstances that government-driven caste discrimination created the conditions for Rohith’s depression and suicide.”
First-hand testimonies from community leaders will highlight the challenges that minorities continue to face in India today.
Please read and research all the facts of the case before staging protests
Are you really trying to defend the indefensible sin of caste on a Sikh website?! All human beings are born equal and equally beloved of Waheguru no matter what family they are born into, no matter their race, creed, gender, skin colour etc. ALL. There is NO divine willed strata with Brahmins on the top and Dalits at the bottom. Anybody who believes and practises otherwise is openly defying God’s Hukam and is has no place in Sikhism. And before any dimwits try to suggest that caste exists in Sikhism IT DOES NOT. Those who call themselves Jat Sikhs or Ramgarhia Sikhs or Majbi Sikh etc are NOT SIKHS and could not defend themselves when it comes to Sikh doctrine, slavishly / heretically hanging onto Hindu relics of their cultural past. Sri Guru Gobind Singh Ji nailed this lie that caste is somehow acceptable in 1699 when he created the Khalsa and dispensed with all surnames that denoted a person’s previous caste status. From that moment on he obliterated caste within Sikhs by telling all males to append their names as Singh and all women Kaur. Caste is an abomination in the eyes of God and no Sikh can condone or excuse it let alone practise such discrimination.
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RSS Harinder you should hang your head in shame that you and your RSS / Hinduvta brothers are promoting the cause of such misery in India with your belief in caste.