On the otherwise desolate campus of Telangana’s University of Hyderabad aka Hyderabad Central University (HCU), 40-odd students sit in front of a building, sharing the onus of ingenious slogans and calls for justice for a friend they have recently lost, Rohith Vemula. The guard sitting on the other side of the locked grill watches on wordlessly. He has lived this scene every day for close to two weeks now.
A little ahead there’s a makeshift platform covered in blankets and shawls. Like the batch of seven students before them, seven more sit on this platform now. After two straight days of fasting, they’re mostly quiet. A lone cardboard placard does the talking for them. “Hunger Strike,” it says.
