Five years ago today, #RohithVemula, a Dalit scholar, took his life after he and four students from the Ambedkar Students’ Association were suspended from the University of Hyderabad under pressure from Bandaru Dattareya, then a BJP MP, and Smriti Irani, then the HRD minister.

Replug | For around a month, there had been protests against the administration’s decision to bar these five young Dalit students from using their hostels and the university’s public spaces. But support for the protests was flagging.

On the evening of 16 Jan 2016, the mood on the campus was mellow. Two days earlier, the students tried to step up their demonstrations by occupying the administration building. But they were outmanoeuvred by the VC, Appa Rao Podile, who rallied some of UOH’s staff against them.

That evening, a group of students gathered at the main site of the protests: a shack in the quadrangle of the campus’s shopping complex. The students called their protest site a velivada—the Telugu word for Dalit ghettos situated on the peripheries of villages. #RohithVemula

Replug | One Dalit activist struck up a beat on a dappu, a disc-shaped drum, and began to sing. The others in the velivada joined in. Seated across from him, #RohithVemula also sang along, repeating verses and joining in full-throated for the chorus.