A Dalit research scholar named Muthukrishnan Jeevanantham was found dead at his friend's home in the Munirka area of Delhi on the evening of Monday, March 13. The 27-year-old was a research scholar at the Centre for Historical Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi, and before that had studied at the University of Hyderabad.
The police, who were called to the spot after being informed that he had been found hanging from the ceiling of his friend's room, conducted a search of the premises but found no suicide note. They have been quoted as saying in reports that Jeevanantham had been depressed about "personal issues."
The police first received a call about the incident at 5:05 pm on Monday, and were informed that Jeevanantham had locked himself inside the room. They rushed to the spot, broke open the door and found him hanging from the ceiling. His friends later informed the police that he had come there to have some food and then went into the room on the pretext of wanting to sleep for a bit.
The Delhi Police told reporters on Tuesday that Jeevanantham's teachers over allegations that he had been discriminated against in college. They also said a team from the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) would thoroughly probe the incident.
Dalit discrimination?
Jeevanantham — a resident of Salem in Tamil Nadu — had reportedly been heavily involved in Dalit activism, having written posts on Rohith Vemula after the latter committed suicide in Hyderabad and then there was a huge controversy over it following allegations that he had been discriminated against on account of being a Dalit.
However, it is one if Jeevanantham's more recent posts that caught the fancy of social media, where like-minded activists were seen posting about him. He had written in the post on March 10: "There is no Equality in M.phil/PhD Admission, there is no equality in Viva - voce, there is only denial of equality...When equality is denied everything is denied."
Activism on social media
It was the last part of his post that seemed to have fired up passions among the activists. Many of them started writing about him with the quote "When equality is denied everything is denied." And some of them even went on to equate him with Rohith Vemula, over the nature in which both of them had allegedly ended their lives over discrimination.
