Why Suicide, V. Rohith?

By NaSa

I just love my life and haven’t ever been able to understand why people commit suicides?

Despite all kinds of happenings going on in the world around me, I thank God daily for giving me such a beautiful life. For me the beauty of this life lies in being born in a family that has respect in the society and that has never been subjected to bias and/or racism, in having a name that didn’t have to struggle for its equality amongst others, in the democratic political set up I live in where I can follow my heart, speak my mind, make my ideological choices and pursue my interests, in a society which is not judgemental about the clothes I wear or the hairstyle I make and in all the love that I get from my family, friends and neighbours.

However, if someone asks me, if I try not to take a clear stand on any political or religious matter on social media fearing any consequences of any type? I would say yes.

If someone asks me, if there was possibility of my getting a different kind of acceptance in the society had I been born in a different caste than my present one? I would say yes.

If someone asks me if I would have considered my life equally beautiful and would have been equally in love with it sans the above mentioned blessings? My answer would not be a straight yes. I would have to think about it.

Probably, this unsure state of mind helped me in reading between the lines of the suicide letter of V. Rohith and in understanding his reason for suicide.

Vemula Rohith, a Dalit PhD scholar at the University of Hyderabad has recently committed suicide. His body was found hanging at a central university’s hostel room located on the varsity campus on Sunday. Although Rohith writes in his letter that it was his personal decision to commit suicide and nobody instigated him in any manner, it is being alleged that his action was the result of his expulsion from the university over an alleged altercation between scholars of Ambedkar Students Association and Akhil BhartiyaVidyarthi Parishad over the hanging of Yakub Menon.

Following is the suicide letter of V. Rohith.

“Good morning,

I would not be around when you read this letter. Don’t get angry on me. I know some of you truly cared for me, loved me and treated me very well. I have no complaints on anyone. It was always with myself I had problems. I feel a growing gap between my soul and my body. And I have become a monster. I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.

I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan.

I loved Science, Stars, Nature, but then I loved people without knowing that people have long since divorced from nature. Our feelings are second handed. Our love is constructed. Our beliefs colored. Our originality valid through artificial art. It has become truly difficult to love without getting hurt.

The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.

I am writing this kind of letter for the first time. My first time of a final letter. Forgive me if I fail to make sense.

My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

May be I was wrong, all the while, in understanding world. In understanding love, pain, life, death. There was no urgency. But I always was rushing. Desperate to start a life. All the while, some people, for them, life itself is curse. My birth is my fatal accident. I can never recover from my childhood loneliness. The unappreciated child from my past.

I am not hurt at this moment. I am not sad. I am just empty. Unconcerned about myself. That’s pathetic. And that’s why I am doing this.

People may dub me as a coward. And selfish, or stupid once I am gone. I am not bothered about what I am called. I don’t believe in after-death stories, ghosts, or spirits. If there is anything at all I believe, I believe that I can travel to the stars. And know about the other worlds.

If you, who is reading this letter can do anything for me, I have to get 7 months of my fellowship, one lakh and seventy five thousand rupees. Please see to it that my family is paid that. I have to give some 40 thousand to Ramji. He never asked them back. But please pay that to him from that.

Let my funeral be silent and smooth. Behave like I just appeared and gone. Do not shed tears for me. Know that I am happy dead than being alive.

“From shadows to the stars.”

Uma anna, sorry for using your room for this thing

To ASA family, sorry for disappointing all of you. You loved me very much. I wish all the very best for the future.

For one last time,

Jai Bheem

I forgot to write the formalities. No one is responsible for my this act of killing myself.

No one has instigated me, whether by their acts or by their words to this act.

This is my decision and I am the only one responsible for this.

Do not trouble my friends and enemies on this after I am gone.”

Image credit: Pixabay