Shazia Iqbal’s Dhadak 2 may not have minted money at the box office, but it has done what few films before it did. The Siddhant Chaturvedi and Triptii Dimri-starrer is being praised for being that rare mainstream Bollywood movie that has unflinchingly examined caste discrimination. It has also, through one of the film’s important characters Shekhar, put the spotlight on late Rohith Vemula, whose death by suicide in 2016, showed the harsh reality of India’s caste discrimination.   

Vemula, a Dalit student at the University of Hyderabad, was one of the five Dalit students protesting against their suspension — a result of allegations that they attacked a member of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad — from the fellowship and the university’s housing facility. Reportedly upset over the disciplinary action taken against them, he died by suicide in January 2016.

Rohith Vemula