Rohith Vemula Library- The new face of revolution

Rohith Vemula, a young PhD scholar at Hyderabad University, committed suicide on January 17, 2016 prey to systemic oppression and institutionalised discrimination. His suicide triggered a new political wave throughout the country and brought to forefront the presence of caste, a reality rejected by many in the political space, and gave way to a movement bringing debates around caste to the centre stage. One result was the formation of Rohit Vemula Education Centre and Library in Phule Nagar, Powai, Mumbai.

One enters the lane of Phule Nagar, near IIT Market, a slum community, to see the houses clinging to each other as one, people sitting and standing around their front doors, dogs running and sleeping around, feeling best at home, children playing and bustling around, all signs of a community which is both warm and welcoming. But a sign where the existence of a private space or it’s concept is next to impossible.  In the midst of all this bustling, next to the statue of Baba Saheb Ambedkar, which on further observation also informs any visitor of the ideologies of the population of Phule Nagar and their allegiance, is the small one room education centre, named after Rohith Vemula in the aftermath of his death by suicide. The centre, according to the coordinators who belong to the same community as Vemula, represents the voices of those that have long been unheard and unaccepted.  The wooden cupboard inside the one room space of the education centre works as the library for the community around and takes forward the spirit that reading and receiving knowledge is the right of all and ascription of a caste does not decide who receives it and who doesn’t.

An act as simple as making accessible to all a cupboard full of preparatory books for competitive exams, a few literature books and some blank notebooks reaffirms one’s belief that no idea is too big to implement and no fight is too small. This simple gesture has also given birth to a dialogue around the existence of personal and the communal, and of how one navigates through these spaces in an environment such as Phule Nagar which is at all hours bustling with people. The coordinator, Praful who takes care of the education centre, says that it is very difficult to find private time and space for reading a book or preparing for the many competitive exams that the youth of the community have been aspiring for in the recent times. Praful and his other friends who help him at the centre, Siddharth and Akash, faced this difficulty in their youth, of finding a private space as well. Neither could they find guidance related to their career choices. This experience led them to create a space in their own community for the youth who seek career guidance and a personal space to be able to read and learn. This space proves to be an ardent example of an in-between space that we create in our communities, that becomes a link between the private and the public. Praful, who works full time at a not-for-profit and takes care of the centre in his remaining time, has been struggling to find a private space to be able to prepare for his competitive exams. This centre has become his private abode. Siddharth and Akash also feel that the library has offered them a space for learning and reflecting in the chaotic everyday of their lives.

Every week there are classes that are held at the centre, mostly related to English language and a few subjects such as maths and economics. Siddharth, who has a master’s degree in economics says that they get a lot of help from the Phd students from IIT, Mumbai which is near the community. A lot of the students have donated their books to the library. Most of the books are course books for higher standards, or for preparing for competitive exams. However the coordinators proudly tell you that they do have a few English literature books and novels for the youngsters in the community who might want to improve or work on their English language. They believe that they are offering their community an opportunity that they never had, an opportunity to access a space which is private and can be a window to a world which transcends social class or caste, a world where there is a chance to excel for everyone, equally.

Libraries have since the beginning been a symbol of knowledge and learning, a space where one gets information about the world at large. However, institutions of academic learning have become increasingly defined by privilege in our times, and libraries that offer access to such learning can also become agents of social control with access constrained by social and economic status. Thus, the struggle to breach the walls of class and caste is a long one that takes many forms.

For these young coordinators at Phule Nagar, the Rohith Vemula library represents a milestone in this long struggle. They questioned the system when they decided to set up a library space in the midst of a slum community that has long been denied the right to learn or to even aspire towards leaning. Even as the community struggles for basic facilities, the library stands in recognition of the fact that the battle is on many fronts. The small room with a wooden cupboard full of books is creating a bubble of private space within a chaotic neighbourhood, a bubble that all have access to, allowing young people a chance to find a new way of negotiating that chaos. Revolutions come in myriad ways and this space named after Rohith Vemula, celebrates not just Vemula’s belief that knowledge is key to change, but also throws up the larger question, who does knowledge belong to?