Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid an emotional tribute on Friday to a young scholar from India’s lowest Dalit caste who committed suicide last week, a death some have blamed on social discrimination.
Modi said India had “lost a son” when Rohith Vemula, a 26-year-old doctoral student, was found hanged on Sunday after he was barred from some parts of Hyderabad University campus.
“(It is sad) when there is news that a young son of my country, Rohith, was compelled to commit suicide… India has lost a son,” a visibly emotional Modi said as he paused to fight back tears.
“Reason can be on one side, politics on the other, but the truth is that a mother has lost her son and I feel the family’s pain very well,” the premier said in a speech at a university in the northern city of Lucknow.
Television footage showed university students dragging out protesters who shouted anti-Modi insults during his address.
Vemula was one of five students, all Dalits, who were suspended by the university after they were accused of assaulting the head of a right-wing student political group — a charge they denied.
His suicide has triggered protests in Hyderabad and in the Indian capital New Delhi by protesters who said the students were punished because of their social status.