Paper short abstract:

The student protests surrounding the suicide of Rohith Vemula have raised serious questions about caste discrimination in higher education in India. This paper looks examines the experience of Dalit students in elite institutions and comments on the changing nature of caste discrimination.

Paper long abstract:

The student protests surrounding the suspension and subsequent suicide of Dalit leader and PhD student, Rohith Vemula, at the University of Hyderabad have raised fresh questions about caste discrimination in higher education in India. This paper looks takes a broad look at caste on campus and the experience of Dalit students in elite institutions. The conflict in which Rohith was involved was in many ways unique but he was not the first Dalit student either to have experienced discrimination or committed suicide at university. Indeed, there appears to be a pattern. Bearing in mind the idiosyncracies of Rohith's case, I seek to examine some of the factors that make life for many Dalit students difficult, and occasionally untenable. I do this using two sets of data: interviews with Dalit students undertaken in 2005, just after another incident of caste conflict had taken place around that time, and secondly, conversions with Dalit students in March this year in the midst of the protests surrounding Rohith's death. The analysis of students' experiences will be made with a view to making a broader comment about the nature of contemporary caste discrimination more generally.