Rohith’s Suicide a Crime, Not a Caste Issue: Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Rohith Vemulla’s death is a crime being politicised in the name of caste, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar tells The Quint.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar at the Art of Living International Ashram at Bangalore (Photo: The Quint)

Spiritual guru and the founder of Art of Living Foundation Sri Sri Ravi Shankar believes that Rohith Vemulla’s death is ‘an act of crime’ and must not be politicised in the name of caste.

Speaking exclusively to The Quint, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said:

There are many cases of disturbances, dis-harmony in society, every day you find a crime happening here or there. Having said that, we as citizens have a role to play in society. But when politics enters any conflict it is blown out of proportion.

Rohith was a member of Ambedkar Students Association at Hyderabad. (Photo: Altered by The Quint)

‘Society Reacts on the Basis of Caste and Religion’

Rohit Vemulla, a research scholar allegedly killed himself after he was expelled by the University of Hyderabad. He was embroiled in a fight between two student groups. His death created a political storm and the issue has since, become one of discrimination faced by Dalit students.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says that it is unfortunate that society reacts to an act of crime on the basis of the victim’s religion or caste.

A criminal act should be seen as a criminal act. And if you want to politicise it, you bring all the other aspects in, because it’s an easy target. If that person was a Muslim, you know what would have happened. Suddenly many countries would be voicing concerns against it. But if the same person would have been a Brahmin, we don’t know what the response would have been. So, I would say in colleges, in schools today, caste system is not playing that big a role as it used to play once upon a time. It does exist, but more on a political level.

Caste No Longer a Social Reality?

On being asked if caste is no longer a social reality he said, “We have many IAS and IPS officers. There are engineers who are from all castes and they are brilliant engineers. And I’m not aware, at least to my knowledge, that there still exists such a huge discrimination, as it was 20-25 years ago when we were growing up. That discrimination was much different. So in today’s society, we cannot see the truth from a past glass and hold on to that. We need to move forward.”

Citing that the society has changed, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar said that even upper castes can be economically weak and in distress.

Today, you can see poorest of the poor of Brahmins at the New Delhi railway station. There are rickshaw pullers who are upper caste and then there are higher officers. So the class and caste difference are really blurred in India today. No doubt it is not where we would like it to be, but we are very much moving in the right direction. 

Students in Delhi protest against the death of Rohith Vemula. (Photo: PTI)

On being asked, if caste activism has been hijacked by the politics, he said, “It’s blown out of proportion today. It’s an exercise to divide society. A crime happens. Someone dies and you think only persons of that caste will have feelings for that. That’s nonsense.”

We must remember that all well meaning people of this country have stood with Rohith.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar believes that, “bringing caste factor, religion factor and politics to such issues messes up everything.”