AICC vice president Rahul Gandhi urged Prime Minister Modi to look into the possibility of bringing a law to prohibit discrimination in the universities in India.
Addressing the students at Hyderabad Central University after sitting on a day-long hunger strike along with the supporters of Rohit, Rahul said if the government doesn’t come forward to bring in a law, then the student’s would look into it.
Rahul who arrived in Hyderabad last night, joined the students on the campus in their candle vigil first then the mass hunger strike today.
At the end of hunger strike noted social scientist professor Kancha Ilaiah offered lemon juice to Rahul.
Rahul said he was appealing earnestly to the Prime Minister to study the possibility of enacting a law that targets the discrimination on campuses.
” The discrimination is there everywhere. Anybody can fall victim to it if not today, tomorrow, irrespective of the caste, religion and gender,” the AICC president warned.
“My message,” Rahul said, ” to every single student of this country is- when you let what happened to Rohith happen, it will happen to you one day.”
“I want to say without any animosity and with respect- Modiji, if you want India to progress,you have to unleash the power of these students. With the discrimination all around, how can the power of youth gets unleashed,” he asked.
Recalling his conversation with a fellow Japanese passenger on a flight once, he said, what was amiss in India was an atmosphere that promotes innovation and it was the result of barriers created by the discrimination.
” I asked the Japanese passenger why Japan was the land of innovations and India not. He said in India, you had caste system. Caste system, the Japanese friend said , was a barrier for the information flow that was essential for innovations,” Rahul recalled.
Talking about the suicide of Rohit, the AICC vice president said, “Rohit, who was forced to commit suicide amid discrimination, is not alone, Rohit is not one community and is from different communities. What happened to Rohit will happen to you or me or somebody else one day. It doesn’t matter who you are? My main opposition to Prime Minister Modi and RSS, they are trying to crush students by imposing one idea. I suggest to you (students) to speak out your ideas, talk about your ideas and put your ideas in market place of ideas,” he said.
