The following is a guest post by SOLIDARITY FOR AMAR SINGH

We are writing this quite late. On 27 July 2015, a Monday, a young person named Amar Singh passed away in Lucknow. We came to know it very late, only on the other day, since we no longer reside in the city and, to confess, do not remain in regular touch with the happenings there. A leading Hindi daily’s Lucknow edition had reported this death two days later in a small column which we have just recovered. The report provided information about his father as well as about his native place, Faizabad. Though the daily did not state his caste in its description of what could be discerned like an accident, it made a note of his name, his age, his father’s name, and the job he was doing. But we knew Amar’s background. Amar was a dalit. He was Hela by caste and hailed from a poor family. His death could well be an accident, though what exactly happened remains mysterious. People who know a little about the incident are however emphatic that it was not suicide. But what appeared very intricate is how his death was reported and how the whole incident was handled since then, in the well-known public spheres—not only of Lucknow but also of other places.

The daily, Dainik Jagran, indeed reported it on 29 July 2015, stating that on Monday night at Nishatganj, a young man passed away under mysterious circumstances, and that he was a sanitation worker at the Moti Mahal lawns. It also informs that his relatives had asked for an investigation by the police. The report reads further like this: “Originally from Faizabad, the son of Ram Ratan, Amar Singh (23) had gone to his employer’s house at Nishatganj on Monday. Soon after leaving the premise there, he was found on the road in a state of unconsciousness. The passersby took him to a private hospital where he passed away.” The report ends there. It had appeared as an insignificant column at the left bottom of page 9 of the daily, with one of the most common headings one can come across, “a young man dies under suspicious circumstances”. But who was this employer here? Who were the passersby? Continue reading A Dalit Employee’s Death and Its Aftermath – in a Central University: Solidarity for Amar Singh →