In response to the suicide, the institute saw widespread protest after which the administration took organised an open house at the campus where more than 2,000 students participated in this event, and raised various concerns related to mental health, placement uncertainties, limited flexibility in choosing academic guides, and other pressing issues. A survey was also conducted by the student body which reflected that there is a collective mood to address these challenges at their roots. Responding to the incident the IIT-Delhi administration has decided to defer the mid-semester examinations originally scheduled from February 21 to 24, according to the Indian Express.

According to the Free Press Journal, this incident is the fourth student suicide in the institute this academic year.

According to Maktoob Media, in July 2023, IIT-Bombay had tried to create and implement an anti-discrimination policy that would include both direct and indirect forms of caste-related abuse. This policy also mandated against commenting on or asking about students’ caste backgrounds and JEE ranks. However, Maktoob Media reported that several other IITs have yet to formally adopt and implement this policy.

Furthermore, just like the one conducted in the recent incident of student suicide, Maktoob Media reported that the IITs have been conducting Open House sessions to engage with students. However, during the last Open House at IIT-Delhi, the report said that there were police officials present at these open houses even though the goal is to create open and dialogue with students.

Earlier this year, a 29 year old research scholar was found dead in her room at the IIT-Kanpur on January 18. She had only joined the institute some 20 days prior to her death. Even prior to this, another student from a marginalised community, Vikas Kumar Meena was found dead due to suicide on January 11, just a week prior at the same institute.

The IITs continue to draw criticism for harbouring and not doing enough to tackle caste-based discrimination within the universities. In 2023, two Dalit students, Ayush Ashna and Anil Kumar, had reportedly killed themselves in the institute. In February 2023, even Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud talked about the issue of Dalit suicides at India’s premier institutes, and stated, “Incidents of suicides of students from marginalised communities are becoming common. These numbers are not just statistics. They are stories of centuries of struggle.”

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The post Another student lost to suicide at IIT-Delhi appeared first on SabrangIndia.

A deeper look into the departments these students belonged shows that there was no faculty who belonged to these communities present there. RTI data collected by the APPSC (Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle) IIT Bombay clearly shows that there was no faculty in the mathematics department of IIT Delhi who belonged to SC/ST community. The same is true for department of chemical engineering of IIT Bombay which Darshan Solanki belonged to. RTI Data collected by APPSC also shows that reservation is violated in faculty composition of all IITs. In IIT Delhi, only 2% of faculty are SC, 1% ST, and 7% OBC. The remaining 90% positions are filled by savarnas. Same is the case for IIT Bombay where 94% are savarnas, with just 2% OBC, 3% SC, and 1% ST. With these institutions blatantly violating constitutional provisions and neither the government nor the courts are holding them accountable, how can we ensure safe, diverse, and inclusive spaces for our students?

On July 10, 2023, the honourable President of India, Droupadi Murmu stated that students’ suicides are a matter of concern and educational institutions should make it their priority to protect and support students against stress, humiliation, or neglect in their campuses. On February 25, the honourable Chief Justice of India, D Y Chandrachud also lamented the lack of recognition of discrimination and harassment present in these institutions by the administration and pointed to their lack of empathy.

We cannot expect “empathy” for marginalised students in these institutions where even faculty from these communities are not allowed to work without hindrance, in peace. Professor Vipin Veetil who belongs to OBC community was humiliated and had to resign because he raised his voice against the administration of IIT Madras dominated by savarnas for their discriminatory attitudes and continuing elevation of only savarnas to administrative positions such as deans and heads of department. Despite calls by the government to fill the backlog vacancies for SC/ST/OBC faculties in all IITs, in “mission mode recruitment”, none of these institutes have filled these vacancies despite getting more than 100 applicants for each post.

Most IITs demand post-doctoral (Post-Doc) research experience as a necessary qualification for faculty recruitment. But none of the IITs implement reservation in Post-Doc appointments. In an RTI response to APPSC, IIT Bombay admitted that they do not implement reservation in Post-Doc admissions, and also accepted that there was no rule that exempted Post-Doc appointments from reservation. Post-Doc admissions happen mostly through academic networks dominated by faculty from among the savarna caste, where they recommend that their students to other faculty in different institutes. Students coming from Dalit Bahujan Adivasi (DBA) communities without any cultural and social capital find themselves outside these networks and lose the chance to avail of these positions entirely.

In such institutions dominated by savarnas, the entire culture is designed to ensure that students coming from marginalised communities find it difficult to grow, to survive. The discrimination starts from the process of admission where the savarna faculty ensure that seats reserved for SC ST OBC students remain unfilled, after which they bring more savarna students in their place.

PhD Admission data collected by APPSC IIT Bombay from 2016-2023 shows that despite having thousands of applicants from among the SC/ST/OBC categories, none of the IITs have taken the required number of students mandated by reservation norms. Even after raising these issues for the past three years, in 2023, IIT Bombay denied 80 seats that rightfully belonged to SC/ST/OBC students despite having 3079 applicants and admitted 95 more savarna students, more than the allowed limit for PhD. One department in IIT Bombay, Centre for Technology Alternatives for Rural Areas (CTARA) has not admitted a single ST student in last 9 years. If we comb through the PhD data from among all the IITs, we will find same pattern everywhere.

Even when students from DBA (Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi (communities somehow get admission inside these campuses, the dominant savarna culture and anti-reservation sentiment that is prevalent will work in tandem to ostracise and alienate them. The savarna students, staff and faculty openly taunt the DBA students and harass them on a day-to-day basis makes their lives a living hell throughout their course.

In a survey conducted by the SC/ST Cell at IIT Bombay, in February 2022 — a year before the death of Darshan Solanki, students had shared accounts of the constant harassment and discrimination they face daily. Students are marked by asking their ranks when they step into the campus which discloses their category. The survey revealed that one in three students was asked his/her rank by fellow students in a bid to know their caste identity. The savarna students exclude SC/ST students from their groups and even when clubbed together, deliberately avoid, or discards their ideas and opinions in group discussions. Casteist slurs are often hurled at students, and even cases of untouchability, where students avoid touching water bottles belonging to them were reported. Even after having this data on the ways and practices of how students are facing casteism, the administration of IIT Bombay did nothing to protect the students and sensitize the savarnas. They did not just ignore the issues, the Director of IIT Bombay shamelessly claimed that there is no caste discrimination on campus, just the day after Darshan’s death.

When an anti-reservation Facebook post by the head counsellor of IIT Bombay was reported to the administration in June 2022, they ignored it and took no action. Further enquiry by APPSC showed that there were no SC ST Counsellors. The counsellors were not caste aware and discarded the casteist harassment faced by SC ST students as “just inside their head” further worsening students’ mental health and denied the presence of caste discrimination in campus.

APPSC filed a case against the administration’s inaction to the National SC/ ST commission who called out the director, IIT Bombay and ordered them to remove the counsellor and appoint new counsellors from SC ST communities. Even now, the administration of IIT Bombay has not complied with these orders and they have not removed the counsellor who harbours anti-reservation sentiments. These actions by the administration shows their disregard to the mental health of DBA students in campus.

None of the IITs have a proper functioning SC/ST cell. According to the RTI filed by APPSC IIT Bombay, only two IITs out of 23 allocate funds for these cells, only three have allotted rooms and only five have conducted any events. The existence of these cells has only been mentioned by 12 IITs on their websites. These cells exist as just namesakes and does not address the issues of SC/ST students, does not oversee the proper implementation of reservation, not does it conduct any sensitization process for their students.

Unless we hold these institutes accountable and force them to take in more faculty and students from within the DBA communities, enforce democratic decision-making and break the dominance of savarnas, these spaces will never be either safe, peaceful or productive for marginalised students.

Views and opinions expressed in this article is solely that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views or position of SabrangIndia and this site.

[1] Privileged castes

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The post Indian Institutes of Savarnas: Graveyards for Marginalised Students appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On July 8, Ayush Ashna, a final-year B.Tech student in Mathematics and Computer Science at IIT-Delhi, was found dead in his hostel room. The deceased student, aged 20, hailed from Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh. According to reports, Ayush was staying at the Udaigiri Hostel on the campus and was enrolled in the institute’s summer course. As per media reports, the police is calling the said incident to be prima facie.

What is the reason for the students’ outrage?

According to a report by The Hindu, the institute’s director informed all of the students and employees of Mr. Ashna’s passing by email, referring to it as a “sad and untimely demise”. However, as per a report by News Minute, the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), a student’s organisation at IIT Delhi, had issued a statement pursuant to the email, stating that even as Ayush was from a Scheduled Tribe (ST), the institute made no mention of it in their condolence email. The organisation further alleged that this highlights how unwelcoming the institute is for students from Scheduled Castes and Tribes to address “institutional casteism, bullying, and constant questioning of SC/ST students’ merits.”

There was unease on campus once students learned that Mr. Ashna came from a marginalised background, and yet there was no mention of it in the director’s email. On July 12, a condolence gathering was subsequently scheduled by the institute. One of the students, who was a part of the condolences meeting, stated, “The Director’s communication did not even mention that Ayush was a ST student and that his death was a suicide.” Students initially thought Mr. Ashna was an Adivasi, but according to a report in The Hindu, members of the school’s official SC/ST Cell have established that the boy is from a family that belongs to a Scheduled Caste.

Furthermore, as per the Hindu’s report, at the condolence meet, the Dean of Student Affairs said that the only introspection to be done was that “we have to do more”, and the Director Rangan Banerjee said “we need to have a more humane institute”. However, Shainal Verma, the student representative of the SC/ST Cell, said it was important to examine why students from marginalised backgrounds experience the campus so differently and asked the administration what it was doing to address these concerns.

Students from Ayush’s department later expressed disappointment that the institute had not made more of an effort to let people on campus know about the condolence meeting. “Even from the department, there was only one professor as a representative,” one of them said.

Soon after the condolence meeting, senior faculty, including the Director and the Dean of Academics, initiated talks with representatives of the SC/ST Cell, constituted and given a mandate just three months ago, about measures that could be taken to address the issues of the experience of marginalised students on campus, including possibilities of surveying students on campus, as per the Hindu’s report.

Not the first suicide, but will it be the last?

It is essential to note that Ayush’s death has come merely months after the death of Darshan Solanki, a Dalit student of IIT Bombay. Darshan, aged 19, was a chemical engineering student from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, who had died by suicide at the campus on February 12, 2023, a day after his semester exams ended.

After much uproar by the students and citizenry, a 12-member committee was formed at IIT Bombay to investigate the reasons behind his death and a report submitted by them ruled out caste discrimination and alleged that he was upset due to his poor academic performance. However, his father Rameshbai rejected the findings of the report and told the media that he did not trust the committee to bring out the truth as it did not have members from outside the institute.

Only last week, on July 6, the Supreme Court had heard the petition mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi and deemed caste-based discrimination in higher education institutions to be a ‘very sensitive matter’. The matter was being heard by a division bench of Justice AS Bopanna and Justice MM Sundresh. Both Rohith and Payal had faced caste-based discrimination in institutions of higher education, which had led to them dying by suicide. The Supreme Court had sought the University Grants Committee’s (UGC) response, specifying the specifying the guidelines already taken, and planned, by them for creating an enabling environment for students belonging to SC/ ST communities in higher education institutions.

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