We Have Not Come Here to Die

On 17 January 2016, PhD research scholar and Dalit activist Rohith Vemula committed suicide, unable to bear persecution from a partisan university administration and caste supremacists. His suicide note, which argued against the “value of a man being reduced to his immediate identity” galvanised student politics in India. Over the following year thousands of students all over broke the silence around their experiences of caste discrimination in educational institutions and have started a powerful anti-caste movement. The film tracks this movement that is changing the conversation on caste in India.

We Have Not Come Here to Die, produced by Deepa Dhanraj, is a documentary film on the controversy surrounding the death of Rohith Vemula, Ph.D. scholar and Dalit activist. I offer access to this film in honor of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar whose birthday is celebrated on April 15. Jai Bhim!

(password: UoH-Vemula2015) (Active until Monday April 8).

About the Director
Deepa Dhanraj is a writer and award-winning filmmaker and has been actively involved in the women’s movement – with a focus on political participation, health, and education – for more than four decades. She was one of the founding members of Yugantar, a feminist film collective that produced pioneering films about women’s labor and resistance to domestic violence. The caste question and the myriad forms of discriminations that Dalits experience and the rise of Dalit assertion is another theme that Deepa Dhanraj explores in many films. She has a special interest in education and she has worked extensively with Government schools to create pedagogy suited for problems faced by first generation learners who come from Dalit and Adivasi communities.
Deepa’s films have been screened and awarded at national and international film festivals, such as Mumbai International Film Festival, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam IDFA, Berlinale, Dok Leipzig, Oberhausen Film Festival, Festival International Du Film Documentaire Nyon, Switzerland and Cinema du Reel, International Documentary Film Festival, Paris and Film Southasia, Kathmandu.