One Day, I Will Resurrect: Rohith Vemula’s Poetry Lives On

The Quint pays a tribute to the Dalit scholar through his poetry.

Rohit’s words resonate with young minds.

(Photo: Liju Joseph/The Quint)

(This article was first published on 17 January 2018. It is being re-posted from The Quint's archives to mark Rohith Vemula's death anniversary.)

I always wanted to be a writer. A writer of science, like Carl Sagan. At last, this is the only letter I am getting to write.

Rohith Vemula

These were the words of a young Dalit scholar in his last note before he committed suicide on 17 January 2016 inside the University of Hyderabad’s hostel. His heart-wrenching letter resonated with the masses, as it flashed out how the Indian education system has constantly dismissed Dalit students.

On Rohith Vemula’s death anniversary, The Quint pays a tribute to the ignited mind whose death sparked a storm in the country and also rendered voices to thousands of young souls like him.

‘One Day’ is a poem written by Rohith Vemula, which was translated by the Centre for Translations, St Stephen’s College in 13 different languages — Hindi, Punjabi, Kannada, Malayalam, Assamese, Bengali, Telugu, Kashmiri, Urdu, Odiya, Tamil, Nepali and French, so that his voice could reach far and wide.

One day you will understand why I was aggressive.
On that day, you will understand
why I have not just served social interests.
One day you will get to know why I apologised.
On that day, you will understand
there are traps beyond the fences.
One day you will find me in the history.
In the bad light, in the yellow pages.
And you will wish I was wise.
But at the night of that day,
you will remember me, feel me
and you will breathe out a smile.
And on that day, I will resurrect.

Cameraperson: Abhay Sharma
Video Editor: Ashish MacCune