The Enduring Curse of Caste
Of the many protests to convulse public universities across India in recent weeks, the one held on Feb. 23, in which thousands of students, faculty and activists marched through central Delhi demanding “Justice for Rohith,” was the largest and perhaps the most palpably indignant.
A month before, Rohith Vemula, a 26-year-old Ph.D. student at the University of Hyderabad, in southern India, hanged himself from the ceiling fan in a friend’s hostel room. Mr. Vemula was raised by his single working mother, who is from a “scheduled caste,” the lowest rung of the hierarchical system that structures traditional Hindu society, and which used to be deemed “untouchable” until India’s independence in 1947.… Seguir leyendo »