Nearly 10 years after the death of a Dalit PhD scholar Rohith Vemula by suicide at the University of Hyderabad (UoH), the Siddaramaiah-led Congress government in Karnataka has come up with a Bill named after him in order to curb caste-based discrimination and harassment in the public and private colleges and universities in the state.
The Siddaramaiah government is likely to table the Bill in the state Legislature during its winter session to be held during 8-19 December. The legislation is being brought following a nudge from top Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
The Bill, called The Karnataka Rohith Vemula (Prevention of Exclusion or Injustice) (Right to Education and Dignity) Bill, 2025, seeks to address the “caste realities” in higher educational institutions (HEIs). Some academic and legal experts, who have gone through the Bill, say that upon its enactment, this law would curb “discrimination, harassment and atrocity on the basis of caste”.
The proposed legislation seeks to address “direct, indirect and institutional discrimination and harassment” on the basis of caste, providing for “civil remedies for survivors in cases of discrimination and penalties on the perpetrator for harassment”.
According to the draft Bill, the civil remedies include raising a complaint before an Equity Committee – which would be similar to the Internal Complaints Committee for cases of sexual harassment – within the educational institutions. The matter could then be taken to the district courts and high courts.
An aggrieved person can be a student, faculty member or non-teaching staff of any institution of higher learning. The Bill deals with a wide spectrum of discrimination in “conduct, behaviour, omission, treatment, policy, custom, criterion or practice”.
The Bill states that the discrimination could be both “indirect and institutional”. Indirect discrimination would include actions that “appear to be neutral or unrelated to caste, but has an adverse effect on any individual or group of individuals belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes”.
It defines “institutional discrimination” as any action which is “part of the structures of an institution, which may include statutory mandates, or establishment and functioning of governing bodies such as executive council, academic council or research review committees and the like, and which create or perpetuate an adverse effect for individuals belonging to Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes”.
The Bill also makes a distinction between atrocity and discrimination, defining atrocity as “any act described under Section (3) of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and as amended from time to time”.
It defines HEIs as places “of work and residence in the educational institution, digital and offline spaces of instruction, research, administration and communication including hostels, health centres, sports grounds, staff quarters, public places (including parks, streets and lanes), canteens and transport facilities etc, where the students, faculty and / or staff fraternise and associate with each other on the University campus or any other space”.
The Bill imposes different penalties on individuals and institutions for various offences under its provisions.
For individuals, the Bill prescribes written apology to be the least of penalties when it comes to discrimination, stipulating stricter penalties for atrocities. For instance, the first offence under its atrocity provisions will attract a punishment of one year imprisonment and a fine of Rs 10,000, and empower the courts to grant compensation payable by the accused to the victim, which may extend to Rs 1 lakh. Repeat offence of atrocity under the Act will be penalised with a three-year jail term apart from a Rs 1 lakh fine.
If an institution violates the provision of being “open to all classes, castes, creed, gender or nation”, then it will attract a minimum penalty of 1 lakh and a maximum penalty of Rs 10 lakh. Moreover, the state government “shall not provide any financial aid or grant to such institution” violating the provisions of the Bill.
The Bill also says SC/ST persons have the right to “overcome caste-based prejudice” or disadvantages by “taking any lawful action to address caste bias… refusing to participate in events, activities that reinforce caste prejudice”. They could resist boycott, negative performance appraisals or penalties for asserting their views against caste besides “approaching appropriate authorities to revise curriculum that reinforces caste prejudice” and “exercising informational autonomy over one’s identity as SC/ST”, states the Bill.
An academic notes that “The Bill stipulates that any harassment, discrimination or atrocity, which happens anywhere in an institution of higher learning is punishable. It prevents administrators from shrugging off responsibility when it comes to discrimination in hostels or playgrounds too.”
The Vemula legislation was part of the Congress manifesto for the May 2023 Karnataka Assembly elections.
In April this year, Rahul Gandhi sent identical letters to Siddaramaiah and the CMs of two other Congress-ruled states – Telangana CM A Revanth Reddy and Himachal Pradesh CM Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu – urging them to bring a legislation named after Vemula to prevent caste-based prejudice in educational institutions.
Vemula ended his life inside a hostel room on the UoH campus on January 17, 2016, weeks after he was expelled from the hostel over a dispute between his Ambedkar Students Association (ASA) and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). In his suicide note, Vemula protested caste discrimination, stating that “My birth was my fatal accident”.
His death triggered widespread protests across the country over alleged discrimination and harassment against Dalits and other oppressed communities in educational institutions.