IITs have been infamous for trying to ensure ‘purity’ of vegetarian spaces by forced segregation and penalizing ‘contamination’ by meat eaters for years. In 2018, IIT Madras had designated separate entrances, utensils and even wash basins for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students. In the same year, IIT Bombay also tried to enforce segregation by separation of plates for vegetarian and non-vegetarians, where non-vegetarians are not allowed to use the circular plates. In September 2022, mess caterers of Hostel 10 in IIT Bombay were fined Rs.50,000 for cooking vegetarian food in the stove designated for non-vegetarian food. In 2014, the HRD ministry  had asked the IITs and IIMs to examine demand for a separate canteen for vegetarian students on their campuses, as a response to a letter that claimed “non-vegetarian food leaves an adverse impact on person consuming it” and “leads the development of ‘Tamas’ (dark and unrighteous) nature”. Even before the ministry directed the IITs, IIT Delhi decided to go full vegetarian, where students claimed the prime reason was that many vegetarian students had expressed their displeasure at eating on the same table with non-vegetarians. Recently, Laxmidhar Behera, the director of IIT Mandi, had sparked controversy by urging students to pledge not to eat meat, claiming that non-stop butchering of animals is causing landslides and cloudbursts and this will lead to a “significant downfall” of Himachal Pradesh. In IIT Hyderabad too, the segregation of eating spaces was formalized this year.

In India, the relationship between people and their food habits is majorly determined by the hierarchical caste system. Historically, caste has played an important role in determining who gets access to ‘pure’ food and who are to consume ‘impure’ food. Members of the highest caste are said to be mostly vegetarians and does not eat meat which is considered impure (though there are numerous exceptions within the communities). If they were to eat or even touch meat, they would be declared to be corrupted and would have to go through numerous purifying rituals. Thus, associating meat as ‘impure’ and ‘polluting’ and those who does not eat meat as ‘pure’ becomes a symbolic way of reinforcing the superiority of savarnas over the others in the caste hierarchy. These concepts of ‘purity and pollution’ have influenced practices of food cooking, serving, eating and even of cleaning utensils.

Food has always been used by savarnas as a tool to show the marginalised their inferior place in the social hierarchy. Cultural hegemony using food has become more aggressive in schools, colleges, and offices in recent years. IITs have been historically dominated by savarnas, even now more than 95 % of faculties in IITs are savarnas, demonstrating their impunity in the brutal violation of reservation. But due to implementation of reservation, especially after OBC reservations in the past decade, the caste demography of a once majorly savarna student population of IITs started changing and is becoming more diverse. The demand for segregation and militant vegetarianism that we see emerging in the past decade is a way to protect and reinforce the cultural superiority of savarnas over the others. The savarnas (privileged castes) see the influx of Dalit-Bahujan-Adivasi (DBA) students into these spaces which they had been dominating for decades as a threat to their power. The administration of IITs, which are completely dominated by savarnas, fulfils this demand, and enforces this segregation with stringent penalties on the meat eaters, as seen from the imposition of Rs. 10,000 on the student protesting the segregation in IIT Bombay. Such a hefty fine for violating the rules of segregation is a modern form of untouchability, where mere presence of the Dalit Bahujans could ‘contaminate’ the ‘purity’ of savarna spaces. The food apartheid imposed on these campuses is a means to remind the DBA students that these academic spaces does not belong to them, that they are ‘dirty’ and ‘impure’, and they will be punished if they violate the rules of savarnas or question their casteist superiority.

In India, food is a marker of class, caste, religion, and even region. The hefty fine for a petty violation points the deep rooted casteism that is being enforced by the administration of these institutes as food apartheid. This strict segregation demanded by savarna students and enforced by the savarna administration seeks to reinforce prejudice against marginalized groups, by formally recognizing certain food as ‘pure’ and other ‘impure’.It is the casteist politics of pollution that seeks this institutionalization of untouchability.

In IIT Bombay messes, meat is not served as a part of regular mess food and students who want to eat meat must pay extra for it. In a country with more than 70% meat eaters, it is outrageous that the regular mess menu is fully devoid of meat. This is done to normalize the cultural dominance of vegetarians, despite them being a numerical minority. Special Jain counters are available in IIT messes to cater to their specific dietary requirements without any additional costs, but students who regularly eat meat, who comprises majority of the DBA students, do not get meat in their regular diet and are required to pay more. The savarna vegetarian food has become the norm even in canteens across institutes of higher learning and university dining spaces across the country. DBA students are sometimes forced to cook their food inside their room, away from the dining spaces out of fear of humiliation and abuse.

During a recent talk in IIT Bombay, Dr Sukhdeo Thorat, former chairman of UGC, clearly opined that educational institutions should not devise policy for segregation of eating spaces. Students can sit separately on their own, but institutions enforcing such segregation is promoting the casteist ideas of purity and pollution. Prof. Thorat emphasises that the decision of IIT Bombay to segregate eating spaces will further strengthen the idea of caste and pollution with food habits. “It must be recognized that what food to eat is the individual right of a person, but to treat vegetarians as pure and good and non-vegetarians as bad and impure and therefore both should be segregated from each other while sitting, is a wrong practice.”

The demand for segregation has not been raised by all vegetarians. They do not seek separate utensils, separate dining spaces and living spaces. Not all express disgust at the sight and smell of meat. Mixed dining is changing the ethics and aesthetics of food consumption in urban spaces. The caste-based superiority of Indian vegetarianism is facing a crisis and the rise of militant vegetarianism which feels disgust and anger at the very sight of meat shows this insecurity. Militant vegetarians seek to continually sustain this traditional (exclusivist) ethics and aesthetics of segregation and hierarchy in food consumption. There is also hidden anxiety among many vegetarian parents that their children might be attracted to meat, which leads to aggressive demands for the abolition of meat from all public and even private spaces. Casteist vegetarianism where savarna children are indoctrinated to hate the sight and smell of meat can be a subtle way of ensuring endogamy.

In an IIT Bombay survey conducted in 2021, even though more than half of savarna students responded that they do not want separate eating spaces or utensils, almost half (41%) demanded that they be provided separate spaces away from people who consume meat.

There is no end to this absurd segregation once sub-categorization begins where students are separated for eating garlic or no-garlic, sattvic, or egg-vegetarian. Such distinctions can multiply endlessly, fragmenting the community and undermining the very essence of unity and diversity. It can also extend to separate hostel rooms and other separation of spaces within educational institutes, which is not conducive to the inclusive ethos of an educational institution.

Dr Veena Shatrugna, former Deputy Director at the National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, also questioned why people consuming milk, which is also derived from animals, has never been a source of contention. This reinforces the fact that the issue extends beyond the simple matter of dietary impositions but has to do with the larger context of caste prejudice. Such policies based on the casteist notions of purity is incompatible with the core values of scientific education. Segregation based on dietary choices sends a disturbing message to students that their food preferences define their purity and worth. This notion contradicts the essence of scientific inquiry and rational thinking, which should be central to any academic institution, particularly one that is supposed to teach science and technology like IITs.

Educational institutions should be transformative multi-cultural spaces where students have an opportunity to interact with peers from diverse backgrounds. These interactions lead to personal growth and intellectual expansion, recognizing personal privileges and unlearning prejudices. Food can be a unifying factor that fosters cultural appreciation and help people come together. Imposing segregation would impede this process of cultural exploration and hinder opportunities to utilize the diversity and unlearn biases. Instead, these practices contribute to further dehumanization and harassment of marginalized communities. Students belonging to DBA communities have been facing abuses and discrimination based on their food choices in these institutes.

A couple of months ago, a video clip of entrepreneur Sudha Murthy declaring herself a “pure vegetarian” and sharing her anxieties about sharing spoons with non-vegetarians when travelling abroad, went viral. Her comments led to outrage about ‘Brahmanical’ food segregation practices that have historically been used by savarnas to discriminate against oppressed sections of the population. Prof Ravikant Kisana, a professor of Cultural Studies, points out that her anxiety is not merely a food issue but a symptom of casteist prejudice and this mindset is not restricted to her alone.

In September 2017, a scientist from Indian Meteorological Department in Pune, filed a police complaint against her cook for violating her ritual purity because the cook did not ‘declare’ her ‘true’ caste at the time of appointment. She vehemently accused the cook of violating her hygiene standards and filling her kitchen with filth. This preference for savarna cooks and perception of brahmin or upper caste food as clean and edible is the manifestation of a deeply engrained hatred towards DBA and the persistence of untouchability.

Power dynamics of caste creates and perpetuates the belief of superior and inferior food cultures. Smell is used a means to ostracize and demonize DBA communities as causing a civic nuisance. The food consumed by DBA communities is portrayed as ‘dirty’ or ‘smelly’ to reinforce the dominant narrative of ‘pure’ vegetarian food.

This is visible in exclusive housing associations restricted strictly to vegetarians and the savarnas. Here, cooking and eating meat are presented as a civic nuisance that disturbs the peace and aesthetics of the place. This justifies the exclusion of people who cook and eat meat to maintain the savarna status quo and food culture.

Food intolerance is prevalent when searching for places to live. For instance, even landlords, neighbors and housing associations find the food cooked by DBA and religious minorities in the privacy of their homes, “stinky and revolting”. Savarna landlords uses the dietary habits to turn down residence to people belonging to DBA communities. Neighbors often raise complaints about cooking meat and such fights often become regional.

Three Jain trusts and one individual moved the Bombay High Court to demand a ban on meat advertisements, on the grounds that such advertising was a violation of their right to life, to live in peace, and to their privacy. In the earlier case, the high court had stated that being vegetarian or non-vegetarian was a personal choice and no meat shop could be ordered to close for the comfort of vegetarians. In this instance, the high court stated to the petitioner, religious trusts that there was no law in the land that could be evoked to ban meat ads.

Dr Sylvia Karpagam, a public health doctor and researcher, talks about Exaggerated Vegetarian Fragility Syndrome becoming associated with the constant promotion of vegetarianism in India, which reinforces the perceived superiority of those who consume vegetarian food. It also has long reaching impact in public health policies in a country like India, which has a high malnourished population. The demand for removal of meat and egg from noon meal programmes of government schools can adversely impact the lives of millions of children, especially those belonging to DBA communities and stunt their physical and intellectual growth.

Demonising meat and meat eaters plays an important role in maintaining the savarna hegemony in these institutional spaces. Assertions from DBA communities are necessary to challenge this dominant narrative of savarna superiority. Academic spaces should not succumb to militant vegetarianism and try reinforcing caste superiority. These spaces should instead encourage mixed dining where people can come together shedding their prejudices and learn about different cultures. These educational spaces should invest in scientific temper and higher learning that celebrates diversity, not hierarchy.

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are the author’s personal views, and do not necessarily represent the views of Sabranginia

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For over a year, there has been a stand off between the central government and several IITs, NITs and IIMs. Concerned about academic autonomy apart from potentially hurting patent prospects (several officials in these institutions have opined that uploading PhD thesis on the digital repository would seriously affect patent prospects), the institutes have been compelled to give in. The government’s stated aim behind launching Shodhganga project is an aim to build an open access digital resource centre on “new knowledge.” The institutes gave in reported The Telegraph after the Centre tied submission to rankings.

These elite institutions reversed course after the government decided to consider research data uploaded on Shodhganga for granting ranks under the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). The top 100 institutions under the NIRF are granted certain exemptions from University Grants Commission regulations, which allows a degree of autonomy.  

The Modi government’s Shodhganga repository is maintained by Inflibnet, a sister concern of the UGC.

Until now individual institutions had, been sending data on students’ strength, faculty strength, research output, number of PhDs granted and facilities offered, among other things, to the NIRF team for rankings.

However, from this year, 2023, the data-capturing system of the NIRF will also collect from Shodhaganga the PhD data of each institution. The institutions have been asked to submit copies of theses of all PhD candidates in a digital format to Shodhganga. The repository will withhold public access to patentable materials for periods of six months to a year, which is much lower than the three years offered by several IITs.

Concerned on these requirements, IIT Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri said the institution had its own repository where theses were displayed for public access. However, the documents are uploaded after the patents are filed when there is a likelihood of patentability of specific work done by graduates.

If we upload the theses before filing patents, it will affect their grant of patents because the material is already in the public domain. It takes time for displaying the thesis. It is a problem for us if we give all our thesis copies for immediate public display to Inflibnet,” Chaudhuri said.

Hence, Chaudhuri said IIT Bombay had decided to share only those theses where there was no patentable material.

“We have asked our faculty members to say if any of their students’ thesis needs to be held back because of patentable material. We will not be able to share those specific theses with Inflibnet,” Chaudhuri said.

Meanwhile an official from the UGC told The Telegraph that Inflibnet had a policy of maintaining the confidentiality of any thesis for a period of six months to one year. However, certain IITs want a three-year embargo period. No decision has been taken so far, the official said.

The UGC’s regulation on the award of PhDs in 2009 wanted all higher educational institutions to send their theses to Inflibnet for open access.

“The purpose was to check duplication of work by researchers and plagiarism. If any scholar  plagiarises, they can be easily caught. Also, open access helps in the spread of knowledge to a wider audience,” the official said.

However, the centrally funded technical institutions (CFTIs) such as IITs, NITs and IIMs did not send their theses to Inflibnet while central universities complied. The UGC does not have any regulatory control over the CFTIs, so it did not take any action.

After the government’s decision to link NIRF ranking to the Inflibnet database, nearly 70 CFTIs including IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta have joined the Shodhganga repository.

Till the end of December 2022, nearly 4.12 lakh theses have been uploaded on Shodhganga. Out of about 1,100 higher educational institutions, nearly 800 have signed agreements with Inflibnet to send their theses. Nearly 150 others are expected to join soon, the UGC official said. The remaining institutions are new ones which may not have produced PhDs, he added.

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Politics in education or politics of education?

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10 days ago, scientists from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) had used a mathematical model to predict that India’s Covid graph could peak at 33-35 lakh active cases by mid-May and decline thereafter. But the same scientists have now revised their predictions upwards.

Now, these scientists from IIT Hyderabad and Kanpur say that the peak numbers could range from 38-48 lakhs between May 14 and 18. They also say that the daily infections could go as high as 4.4 fresh cases between May 4 and 8. Given how, we are already recording over 3.5 lakh new cases every day, the number doesn’t seem that far off.

How was the model designed?

The scientists used a model called Susceptible, Undetected, Tested (positive), and Removed Approach’ (SUTRA) to arrive at the numbers. Maninder Agrawal, professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, IIT-Kanpur, has been posting the findings on Twitter and predicts that while cases in West Bengal will peak between May 1 and 5, in Kerala they will peak between May 5 and 10.

Adding Kerala as it appears to be stabilizing. Peaking during May 5-10. pic.twitter.com/ffw2bUt65k

— Manindra Agrawal (@agrawalmanindra) April 26, 2021

The SUTRA model uses contact rate, reach and the ratio of detected to undetected cases as the three main parameters to predict the course of the pandemic. While, prima facie this seems sound, one cannot ignore that the quality of data available may be unreliable in the first place. This is not only because of poor contact tracing mechanisms, but also under-reportage of cases and even deaths due to Covid. SabrangIndia has been reporting on several such instances in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.  

Growing international condemnation and flight bans

Meanwhile, the Indian administration has been at the receiving end of scathing criticism from international publications. On Wednesday, French newspaper Le Monde squarely blamed Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying, “Such a backlash cannot be explained solely by the unpredictability of a virus and its variants. The lack of foresight, the arrogance and demagoguery of Narendra Modi are obviously among the causes of a situation which today seems out of control and requires international mobilization. The Prime Minister, after having paralyzed and traumatized his country in 2020 by decreeing brutal confinement, abandoning millions of migrant workers, completely lowered his guard at the beginning of 2021.”

Many countries including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Honk Kong, Indonesia, Italy, New Zealand, Kuwait and UAE have instituted varying degrees of bans on people travelling from India. The US Center for Disease Control has issued an advisory to Americans not to travel to India.

Apathy and arrogance displayed by the government

Meanwhile, several public events and gatherings continue to be conducted and planned in India. Uttarakhand appears to be tempting fate announcing Char Dham Yatra, even though thousands of participants of the recently held Kumbh Mela were diagnosed with Covid-19.

The attitude of those in power ranges from insensitive to outright apathetic as they appear to be more interested in furthering their own political agendas. While Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar tried to brush aside allegations of mismatch in Covid death data with a shocking “dead won’t come back to life” remark, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath has ‘warned’ hospitals that put up notices saying they have run out of oxygen, accusing them of spreading false panic.

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The All India Forum for Right To Education (AIFRTE) on December 21, 2020 condemned the central government’s decision to exempt IITs of SC/ST quota in faculty appointments.

“The AIFRTE condemns the government’s blatant and unconstitutional instruction to dispense with SC/ST reservation in faculty appointments. We had cautioned that the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 with its promotion of so-called ‘merit’ and no mention of reservation policy was headed in this direction. We demand immediate withdrawal of this instruction. Reservation is a core basis of the principle of social justice and the government must publicly re-affirm that it stands by this policy and will fully and sincerely implement it,” said Chairperson Professor Jagmohan Singh in a press release.

Earlier, a government-appointed committee directed to suggest measures for effective implementation of reservation in students’ admissions and faculty recruitment made this recommendation under the Central Educational Institutions (CEI) (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act 2019. They said that diversity issues should be addressed through outreach campaigns and targeted faculty recruitment of faculty as opposed to specific quotas.

The committee chaired by IIT Delhi Director V. Ramgopal Rao with IIT Kanpur Director Abhay Karandikar, representatives of the departments of Social Justice and Empowerment, Tribal Affairs, Department of Personnel and Training, Persons with Disabilities and registrars of IIT Bombay and IIT Madras, submitted a five-page report to the Ministry of Education, on June 17, 2020.

The report suggested that IITs should be added to the “Institutions of Excellence” list mentioned in the Schedule to the CEI Act that exempts “institutions of excellence” from providing reservation.

Currently, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), National Brain Research Centre (NBRC), North-Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Science, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Physical Research Laboratory, Space Physics Laboratory, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing and Homi Bhabha National Institute and all its 10 constituent units are covered under the Section 4 of the law.

According to the Indian Express, the suggestion drew a sharp reaction from IIT Bombay’s Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) that denounced the committee for casteist ignorance. The APPSC said the committee put the blame on candidates from reserved categories for not being ‘qualified enough.’

Further, as an alternative to the first suggestion, committee members said that reservation should only be given at the level of Assistant Professor while Associate Professors and Professors should be exempted.

They suggested that vacancies not filled up with adequate representation of SC/ST and other reserved candidates in a year due to non-availability of suitable candidates may be “de-reserved” next year with the approval of the Board of Governors.

 Similarly, for recruiting suitable PhD candidates from the reserved category, they recommended a two-year “preparatory programme” funded by the department of Social Justice and Empowerment.

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In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic threat, there is a raging debate is going on regarding the holding of the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Mains, the preliminary examination required to be cleared for admission to prestigious Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and other engineering and technology institutions, from September 1-6, 2020, by the National Testing Agency (NTA), in which 8,58,273 candidates are to appear. Subsequently a JEE Advanced will be held for 2-2.5 lakhs candidates selected from the above mentioned, for final admission to IITs and other institutions. Some students approached the court with an objective to get the JEE Mains postponed but the court has decided to support the NTA’s decision to conduct the examination. Now there is pressure being exerted through various channels including leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party and its allies for the postponement of this examination.

Some IIT professors think the examination should be postponed in view of the imminent threat of Covid-19, some think only one round of examination should be conducted and some are suggesting innovative alternatives. For example, Professor Kannan M. Moudgalya of IIT Bombay, through an article in Indian Express, has suggested postponing the examination by two years and allowing the students to enroll in a branch of their choice in any engineering college during the interim and use NPTEL/SWAYAM video courses to study. Professor P.R.K. Rao, formerly of IIT Kanpur, has suggested an admission process without entrance examinations in which students seeking admission to IITs would not be eligible for non-IIT engineering institutions and vice-versa. Students seeking admission to IITs will be allowed to specify a maximum preference order of 2-3 IITs with a maximum preference order of 2 branches. Students admitted to IITs will give an undertaking that they will withdraw from the programme if their performance falls below a specified level. Admission process will follow a first-come-first-served rule in a fixed time frame. 

There are 23 IITs now in the country, one in each state in mainland India except for Uttar Pradesh which has two, and for the entire Northeast and Sikkim there is only one in Guwahati. There are total of 15,53,809 seats available in 3,289 engineering colleges of India which are recognized by All India Council for Technical Education. The ideal situation is one where nobody who has an aspiration to study engineering is denied admission. The number of students appearing in JEE Mains held twice a year is about the same as number of seat available in all engineering colleges. Hence, it is physically possible to accommodate each aspirant without conducting any examination for elimination.

Each of the 23 IITs should take responsibility for assigning seats available in their state (region, in the case of Northeast and Sikkim) to the students from their state (region). For example IITs at Kanpur and Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi will take responsibility for allotting 1,42,972 seats available in 296 colleges of UP to students from UP. Of course, any excess students in any state will have an opportunity to fill vacant seats in a state of their choice.

Considering that 15,53,809 (equal to number of seats available) students have to be offered admission, each IIT’s burden will be about 67,557 students. Assuming that there are an average of 200 faculty members at each IIT, each faculty member over a 15 minutes one-on-one interview during 8 hours a day on an online platform, after verifying the identity of the student, can interview all the 338 students in his/her share in ten and a half days evaluation process. This evaluation process will essentially determine capability of the student and accordingly allot him/her to an institution whose rigour can be matched by student’s capability. The choice of branch of study should be left to the student. The selection process should be mindful of allotment of appropriate number of reserved seats to students from that category in each institution. A good proportion of girl students should also be allotted to each institution to maintain the gender balance to the extent possible. This one online interview will replace the JEE Mains, JEE Advanced and the counseling which decides the Institute and Branch choice for admission.

This seat allotment process will be subjective, as different faculty members at different IITs interview different set of students and individual inclinations will come into play. A deterrent to selecting an undeserving candidate for a seat will the public knowledge about who selected whom displayed on the particular IIT’s website. To exclude the possibility of individual biases panels can be formed, which will obviously be interviewing a larger number of students. But it is important that all faculty members are involved to share the load. As a correction mechanism, just as there is provision for branch change within an institution at the end of first year depending on the performance of initial year, an opportunity can be given to the students to change their institute based on their performance. Hence a student who was not allotted an IIT in the first year can by his/her hard work move from a private college or state engineering college or a National Institute of Technology to an IIT in the second year. For a student not sufficiently prepared a reverse process can also be adopted.

The entire seat allotment process will save time, resources and bureaucracy invested in conducting the JEE. Additionally, the students will be attending an institution close to their home akin to the idea of neighbourhood school. This will correct the regional imbalance in representation among student community at IITs and also that created because of coaching institutions.

The biggest gain will be making the selection process free from extortionist and grueling coaching institutions, which is one of the stated aims of New Education Policy (NEP) recently delivered to the country. There will be simply no need of them. Every desirous student will be able to study engineering. This is akin to universalisation of education, a long cherished dream of every educationist.

It is also likely that a major complaint of faculty members at IITs that students coming through the coaching institutions are not interested in engineering but they just need the IIT brand to move on to something more lucrative, like a career in finance, will also be addressed to some extent. It is high time we encourage students with an interest in particular subject to which s(he) is seeking admission, like in other countries to which Indian students migrate for undergraduate or graduate education.

The suggested seat allotment process could be studied for a few years. If it appears to be advantageous over the current selection process than it could be adopted in long term too.

*The writer has taught at IITs at Kanpur, Gandhinagar and BHU, Varanasi and has conducted examination free evaluations of students in all his courses.

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The HRD Ministry recently directed the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) to collate data on the research output of each teacher, The Telegraph reported.

The move from the HRD reportedly came in after only 3 IITs featured in the recently releasedQuacquarelli Symonds and Times Higher Education rankings of global universities. These three IITs featured in the top 200 and none in the top 100.

The human resource development ministry had written to the 23 tech schools seeking the details for discussion at the September 27 meeting of the IIT Council, headed by the HRD minister.

If 50% of existing teachers at IITs, which face a faculty shortage of 15-35%, are not doing good work, the institutes are barely surviving with just 30% credible teaching staff, said a senior professor of an older IIT told LiveMint, requesting anonymity.        

Another IIT professor said that the discussions at the council meeting had led to the introduction of a ‘tenure track system’. Under the tenure track system, they would be safe for five-and-a-half years before facing a sterner test by external reviewers, with a presumably higher likelihood of the sack.

In 2011, the then environment minister Jairam Ramesh had kicked up a storm when he publicly said that the IITs were “excellent because of the quality of students, and not because of the quality of research or faculty.”

DheerajSanghi, a professor at IIT Kanpur, said: “The scrutiny of research should be left to the individual institution. The government should focus on incentivising performance.”

IIT-Kanpur got a research score of 24.5 and citation score of 35.2. Compare this with China’s Peking University, which has a research score of 90 and citation score of 73.2. Citation score is based on the number of times a research work has been referred to by fellow researchers, globally.

He further argued: “Faculty members in the humanities streams write books, so scrutinising their published papers cannot be a good tool to assess their performance.”

An IIT Delhi teacher said that the current policy of paying a uniform salary to teachers, irrespective of their current research output, left them with no incentive to pursue research.

Expressing disdain over this demand of the HRD ministry, an IIT Bombay teacher said that this microscopic scrutiny of individual teachers’ research output showed the lack of confidence the government had in the institutes.

Are the IITs Doing Enough?
To generate more funds for their operations, the IITs had recently hiked their fees for Master of Technology courses tenfold. However, increasing funding alone is not the only way to create a prominent university. Issues of politicization, bureaucratic control and nepotism that currently plague the university system need to be tackled.

In IIT Delhi, the HRD ministry under the current government has sought to force the institution to accept a student’s admission despite being initially rejected, and R K Shevgaonkar and Anil Kakodkar, former governors and chairpersons of IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay respectively, have in the recent past resigned from their posts citing an increase in government interference—Shevgaonkar was pressured to release funds to pay BharatiyaJanata Party member Subramanian Swamy “salary dues,” while Kakodkar quit over alleged disagreements with then HRD Minister SmritiIrani over appointments to the IIT board. 

Also, it is to be noted that the IITs that were modeled on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) must stop emulating it and carve their own path in research and development. Scientific research also needs to be ‘de-bureaucratised’ and placed in the hands of the private industry.

Experts say that the IITs must innovate after understanding the social processes that produce certain demands and how goods are to be distributed in an unequal society. They need to better engage with the social realities in the country.

Higher education secretary R. Subrahmanyam defended the government’s letter and tried to ally the teachers’ fears, saying the data would be placed before the individual institutes’ boards of governors “for review and action”.

“The IITs are public-funded institutions. We are saying, how many faculty members have not published anything? There is nothing wrong (in it),” he said.

“They (the institutes) will place the data before their boards of governors for review and action.”

This situation where the HRD has asked IITs to report with professors’ report outputs feels like a teacher taking a kid to task for not doing well in the exams. Will this punitive move pay off?

Related
Students protest against 900% MTech fee hike, demand rollback
IIT Gandhinagar’s Opaque Admission Norms: Bias Against SC/ST Candidates?
Abuse & Discrimination Blacken India’s Institutes of ‘Higher Learning’
 

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Hundreds of students under the banner of All India Engineering Student Council (AIESC) gathered at JantarMantar to stage a protest demanding a rollback of the fee hike for MTech courses announced by the council of IITs last week.

The IIT Council led by Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ had on last Friday approved a proposal to the hike the fee of the master’s programme and bring it to the level of the BTech courses.

The students protested saying that the hike will be an excess burden on ‘serious students’ which count to 50% of total admitted students who are ‘surely a large number and the government cannot be ignorant towards those who want to pursue their career through MTech’.

Students’ List of Demands
In their list of demands, which is trending on Twitter under the hashtags#mtechfeeshike and #engineersatjantarmantar, the aspirants demanded the revocation of the fee hike. They asked for the student stipend to be restarted to cope with the expenses of B.E / B Tech courses.

The fee hike, students contended, compelled most students to take more loans, thus discouraging students to choose MTech in IITs. Rather, they will choose any private institute where they’ll get a stipend.

They also demanded the council to make the M Tech course industry / market ready. They complained that while the government was in a hurry to increase the fee, they did nothing to improve the degraded quality of the courses which were outdated and not attracting any placement opportunities.

The Petition
The AIESC also wrote a letter against the fee hike to the MHRD with the signatures of the protesting students. Close to 68,000 students signed the online petition demanding a withdrawal in the fee hike and the petition is now doing the rounds on social media platforms. Several students have also appealed to the Prime Minister to take back the decision of increasing the fee for the M Tech programme.

The letter stated that the decision to hike up the fee would shatter the dreams of students who wished to pursue higher studies. It also said that the admission to M Tech is already heavily skewed against the students from rural and economically weaker backgrounds. The fee hike would not only hamper their goals, but also stop the spread of education amongst the masses.

The letter also stated that the students lacked job clarity and asked the council to review the support system in IITs, especially for students from economically weaker sections who found it difficult to cope with the new environment, language, culture, etc. during their stay at IIT campuses. The students demanded a complete centralised structure for this process where the less privileged (those securing lower ranks) should not be deprived of any opportunity.

The petitioners requested the authorities to withhold the fee hike, the discontinuation of the stipend and the introduction of the ‘exit’ program.

Earlier, the IIT-Delhi Director V RamgopalRao termed the recent hike in course fee a ‘surgical strike’ saying, “The freebies we have been doling out with taxpayers’ money to students who are uninterested and into systems which have become unaccountable need to stop at some point.”

Clarifications by the Ministry
After the AISEC staged their protest, the HRD clarified that there was no fee hike for the existing students and for the new admissions, the hike will be gradual over a period of three years or more, as will be decided by the respective board of governors of IITs.

The Ministry also said that the needy students would be provided necessary financial support and all concessions and scholarships for SC/ST/OBC and others would continue without change.

To protest against the fee hike and save the future of engineers of the country, please sign the petition at – https://www.change.org/p/mhrd-india-m-tech-fee-hike-take-it-back
 
Related Articles:
Fee Hike in JNU: Another Attack on Higher Education
Marginalised students resume protest against TISS Guwahati over fee hike
 
 
 

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Guwahati: The Gauhati High Court reversed a decision made by IIT Guwahati to rusticate a Scheduled Caste boy from Rajasthan because of poor academic performance. It also asked premier institutes like IITs to focus on students from such backgrounds and give them more attention.
 
The HC observed that students from backward communities are required to be given some special care and attention in higher education institutes, especially in IITs, so that they are able to overcome their inherent deficiencies and are able to compete at par with others. Justice Achintya Malla Bujor Barua observed this while considering a plea of an IIT-Gauhati Student who belonged to a Scheduled Caste Community in Rajasthan who got terminated because he failed to show any improvement in his academic performance. The student, Amit Kumar Khoiwal of Bhilwara district, was admitted to BTech degree course at IIT-G after he cleared the Joint Entrance Examination in 2011.
 
But he could not perform well in the Semester-I examination and his Cumulative Performance Index (CPI) of 1.67 was far below the minimum CPI of 4. He did not fare any better in Semester II examination but was till allowed to register for the third semester. He could not score above CPI 4 in the 3rd semester as well but was again was again allowed to register himself for the 4th semester where he again failed to cross the minimum CPI.
 
In 2013, IIT-G authorities issued a letter of termination, informing him that his name would be struck off from the rolls of the institute. He made an appeal, which was disallowed. The authorities allowed him to appear for nine semesters but he continued to perform poorly.
 
Relying on a Supreme Court judgment in Avinash Singh Bagri vs. Registrar. IIT Delhi 2009, Amit approached the high court challenging the decision of Senate of IIT Guwahati terminating him from the institute. In the said case, the apex court had allowed some students to continue their studies. Amit submitted that he is a person belonging SC community and he is similarly situated as the petitioner before the Supreme Court in the said judgment.
 
“If the petitioner had fared badly, under the proposition laid down by the Supreme Court in Avinash Singh Bagri (supra) as well as under the spirit of the Constitution of India to bring the persons from the backward community to be at par with others, there is also a duty entrusted upon the respondent IIT Guwahati for providing at least some additional care and attention to the petitioner,” the court added.
 
Justice Malla Barua, in his order, noted, “In the judgment by the Supreme Court, a proposition was laid that a candidate from a backward class is entitled to special care and attention, more particularly in an institution of higher education like that of IIT, so that they are able to overcome their inherent disadvantage to compete at that level. In the instant case, it is taken note of that the petitioner, who is from an SC community in Rajasthan, belongs to a backward community and may also have an inherent disadvantage of competing in an institute of higher education like that of IIT.”
 
The court was then told that Amit has been granted a further opportunity to continue with his studies in the IIT Guwahati by providing certain conditions therein that he shall undertake all the efforts required to come out successful in the course. Recording the submission, the court allowed the writ petition and directed the IIT Guwahati to give him extra care and attention, so as to enable him to perform better.
 

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Image Source: The Royal Conservatory 

In 2015, writers, scientists, artists and academics came together to speak up against the unmaking of India. Part of this unmaking, which continues to this day, is the steady erosion of a scientific outlook in the country.

Superstition and fraudulent claims are parading as science. The spirit of enquiry, speculation, debate, and questioning based on an actual examination of the world, are attacked. Both education and research, essential in the quest for knowledge, are under threat by the self appointed experts in the thought police, or by the withdrawal of state funding and support.

The rational quest for knowledge, and the questioning, debate and dissent involved: this is what brings the cultural fraternity and the scientific community together, as indeed it does all our citizens.

This is why we writers endorse the call for a March for Science on August 9, 2017 in several Indian cities. We call on all writers and members of the cultural fraternity to join in this march that will insist on a rational, scientific outlook in our classrooms, in our public discourse, and in our daily lives.

The call from a broad group of scientists and academics says:
“… Science in India is facing the danger of being eclipsed by a rising wave of unscientific beliefs and religious bigotry, and scientific research is suffering serious setback due to dwindling governmental support.
We note with deep concern that financial support to even premier institutions like IITs, NITs, and IISERs has been slashed. Universities are facing shortage of funds to adequately support scientific research. Research funding agencies like DST, DBT and CSIR are reportedly impacted by reduced governmental support. Scientists in government laboratories are being asked to generate a part of their salary by selling their inventions and from other sources.

While we can justly be inspired by the great achievements in science and technology in ancient India, we see that non-scientific ideas lacking in evidence are being propagated as science by persons in high positions, fuelling a confrontational chauvinism in lieu of true patriotism that we cherish. Promoting scientific bent of mind can certainly help improve the social health of our country where incidents of witch hunting, honour killing and mob lynching are reported regularly.

We feel that the situation demands the members of scientific community to stand in defence of science and scientific attitude in an open and visible manner as done by scientists and science enthusiasts worldwide. We appeal to scientists, researchers, teachers, students, as well as all concerned citizens to organize ‘India March for Science’ events throughout the country, particularly in the state capitals, on 9th August 2017, with the following demands:

1.    Allocate at least 3% of GDP to scientific and technological research and 10% towards education
2.    Stop propagation of unscientific, obscurantist ideas and religious intolerance, and develop scientific temper, human values and spirit of inquiry in conformance with Article 51A of the Constitution.
3.    Ensure that the education system imparts only ideas that are supported by scientific evidence.
4.    Enact policies based on evidence-based science.

We support the scientists in their call for a March for Science on August 9th. We call on all writers and members of the cultural fraternity to join in this march that will insist on a rational, scientific outlook in our classrooms, in our public discourse, and in our daily lives.

Nayantara Sahgal
K. Satchidanandan
Ganesh Devy
Keki Daruwalla
Githa Hariharan
Samik Bandyopadhyay
Shanta Gokhale
Adil Jussawalla
Shashi Deshpande
Bama
Sarah Joseph
Paul Zacharia
N.S. Madhavan
Jerry Pinto
Ranjit Hoskote
Atamjit Singh
Chaman Lal
Geetanjali Shree

Courtesy: Indian Cultural Forum

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Aniket Ambhore, a 22-year-old dalit student of electrical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay fell to his death from the sixth floor of an Institute hostel in September 2014. Discrimination and derision based on caste can leave dalit students feeling that they are undeserving of their admission to higher-education institutions. Photograph provided by Sunita Ambhore.
 
Concerned, the Ambhores–Sanjay, a bank manager, is a dalit from Akola district, Maharashtra, Sunita, a junior-college lecturer, is not–met one of Aniket’s professors, who told them their son could not cope with IIT workload and would be happy in “normal” engineering colleges (with lower standards). He implied, they said, that scheduled caste students took up to eight years to complete a course that normally took four years. The professor suggested counselling to help Aniket focus on studies and named anti-depressants he could take.
 
The comments were a shock to Sanjay and Sunita, they said, who were until then mostly unaware that such attitudes existed in higher-education institutions.
 
Some high-caste professors consider dalit students “uneducable”, wrote educationist Kurmana Simha Chalam in an 2007 book, Challenges of Higher Education.
 
Reflected in Aniket’s response to his professor’s outburst, casteist expression can leave dalit students feeling that they are undeserving of their admission to higher-education institutions, concluded this 2013 King’s College London study of an Indian university, now a book, Faces of Discrimination in Higher Education in India: Quota Policy, Social Justice and the Dalits.
 
“Aniket did not find anything wrong with what he (the professor) had said, maybe because of the way it was said, as a well-meant suggestion,” Sunita told IndiaSpend.
 
Instead, Aniket–who scored 93% in his class 10 CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) board exam and 86% in his class 12 Maharashtra state board exam–possibly influenced by disparaging talk of affirmative action, told his parents that he wanted to reappear for the Joint Entrance Examination, the IIT admission test, which he cleared in 2011–and study engineering at an IIT only if he could crack the test without affirmative action.
 
Between then and August 2014, the Ambhores consulted three psychiatrists to help their son regain confidence. It made no difference. Gradually, the talented Aniket (click here to hear him singing at an IIT Bombay festival) turned into a student with low self esteem.
 
In August 2014, a joint meeting with Aniket’s head of department and the head of the Academic Rehabilitation Programme (ARP)—a programme for academically deficient students that Aniket had been enrolled in the previous year headed by the same professor they met in 2012–went particularly badly. The ARP head suggested that another exam failure would devastate Aniket, so it would be best if he dropped out, perhaps joined an NGO and considered a career as a teacher.
 
On September 4, 2014, Aniket fell to his death from the sixth floor of an IIT-B hostel. It isn’t clear if it was an accident or he jumped.
 
Some bias does show up on campus: IIT Bombay director
 
Media reporting of Aniket’s death–such as this September 6, 2014, report in the Times of India–suggested he struggled with academics, but did not mention that his parents “had repeatedly asked the HoD (head of department) if there was any way of reducing the academic load on Aniket”, to quote from their 10-page testimony submitted to IIT-B after his death.
 
Despite asking, they were not informed about the possibility of converting the dual degree M Tech programme Aniket was enrolled for to a shorter B Tech programme.
 
Aniket’s death was described as an accident and reporting included comments from unnamed friends that he did not appear to be “anybody who would commit suicide”.
 
Media reporting also did not mention Aniket’s growing preoccupation with religion and spirituality–he was raised in an atheist household–as he tried to navigate academics and his SC origins.
 
The IIT system provides for an SC/ST adviser for the redressal of caste grievances, and there is acknowledgement that caste plays some role in the life of SC students (and tribal students, for whom an additional 7.5% of seats are reserved).  
 
“Some caste bias does shows up on campus, mostly as upper-caste students expressing their discontent with the reservation system,” Devang Khakhar, director of IIT Bombay, told IndiaSpend.
 
Questions have arisen over the efficacy of the redressal of caste grievances. Filmmaker Anoop Kumar of the 2011 documentary Death of Merit said that 80% of those who committed suicides in the IITs between 2007 and 2011 were dalits, and none of these institutes had a grievance-redressal mechanism to address caste-based discrimination.
 
Sunita now wonders if Aniket’s downward turn began when he stepped into IIT-B as a dalit, within months believing his academic woes were a result of his inability to reconcile with his origins. This left him with the belief that he was undeserving of a seat at India’s premier engineering college–an attitude confirmed by the King’s College London study.
 
Could it have helped Aniket if there were at least some professors who shared his background? There are, for a start, very few dalit professors in India’s 23 IITs.  
 
1.1% of IIT faculty is dalit. Would more make a difference to dalit students?
 
The quota system policy was designed in the 1950s as an early form of affirmative action to ensure that higher education institutions retained 15% of their places for dalit students; the same proportion of faculty was also expected to come from this background.
 
–Faces of Discrimination in Higher Education in India: Quota Policy, Social Justice and the Dalits
 
In July 2016, IndiaSpend reported how affirmative action helps students from disadvantaged backgrounds get college admission.
 

Source: American Economic Review

Hover over the chart for more details.

BC-A, BC-B, BC-C, BC-D refer to sub-categories A, B, C, D of Backward Caste. SC: Scheduled Caste, ST: Scheduled Tribe.
 
A 2008 government order instructed the IITs to employ 15%, 7.5% and 27% SC, ST and other backward caste (OBC) faculty, respectively–in line with the quota system being implemented for student admissions since 1973–at the entry-level post of assistant professor and lecturer in science and technology subjects and across all faculty posts in other subjects.
 
Almost a decade on, you can count the number of SC and ST faculty in the IITs on your fingers.
 
Dalit faculty made up no more than 1.12% of IIT faculty positions in December 2012, according to this statement made in the Lok Sabha (parliament’s lower house) that year: 0.12% of IIT faculty were tribals, while OBC faculty were 1.84%. The proportion of SCs and STs were 16.6% and 8.6% respectively, as per the 2011 census.
 

Source: Lok Sabha; *Based on the sanctioned strength of 5,706
 
As on June 2015, according to an answer received by a right-to-information request by a former student, quoted in this June 26, 2015, report in The Hindu, 2.42% of faculty in IIT Madras were SC or ST, based on faculty positions filled, while the similar figure for IIT Bombay was 0.34%.
 
This lack of SC/ST faculty could affect students from traditionally disadvantaged groups.
 
“Considerate and supportive faculty who are genuinely sympathetic to student’s problems are few,” said sociologist Virginius Xaxa, professor of eminence, Tezpur University, who has studied the adverse attitude–as this commentary details–towards SC/ST students in Delhi University.
 
“The pervasive attitude,” said Xaxa, “is that students coming through quotas are undeserving.”
 
Why do IITs lack SC/ST/OBC faculty?
 
Too few applicants: That is the overriding reason for not having enough SC/ST faculty, the directors of IIT Bombay, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras told IndiaSpend.
 
“We have very few scheduled caste faculty because we receive too few applicants from this category,” said IIT Bombay’s Khakhar.
 
“We receive too few good-quality applications from SC/ST candidates who meet the minimum threshold for an IIT faculty,” said Indranil Manna, director, IIT Kanpur. “While we are committed to the law and our social obligation, we are also keen to protect the IIT brand, a globally recognised Indian brand that has taken fifty years to build.”
 
Could prejudice impede the employment of faculty from disadvantaged communities?
 
In August 2016, the Madras High Court concluded that IIT Madras had committed “gross irregularity” in passing over associate professor WB Vasantha–a faculty member from a backward caste–for promotion in 1995, and then again in 1997, for lesser-qualified candidates.
 
“There is no corner of India where prejudice against dalits doesn’t exist,” said Anand Teltumbde, senior professor, Goa Institute of Management, formerly with IIT Kharagpur.
 
“It took the public sector many years to overcome resistance to employ dalits at managerial levels,” said Teltumbde, the grandson of BR Ambedkar, the writer of India’s Constitution. “India has reconciled itself to admitting dalit students in the IITs, but resistance to admitting dalit faculty is still very strong, a dalit must expect to fight the system.”
 
Some IITs are bending rules to increase SC/ST faculty, others do nothing
 
Some of the IITs that IndiaSpend contacted for comments have started to bend the rules to increase the number of SC/ST faculty. Some are doing nothing.
 
“We have not taken any specific measures to increase the number of faculty members belonging to the scheduled castes,” said Khakhar.
 
Almost all the SC/ST faculty on the rolls of IIT Delhi today were hired a couple of years ago during a special recruitment drive, a senior faculty member, requesting anonymity given the sensitivity of the topic, told IndiaSpend.
 
IIT Madras has considered conducting a special recruitment drive for SC/ST faculty, over and above its six-monthly recruitment cycle. However, “so far, a special drive does not seem like an idea that will give us more candidates as we are constantly on the lookout for SC/ST candidates during regular recruitment”, said Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT Madras.
 
IIT Kanpur’s Manna sees rolling advertisement on the website as a better option to recruit SC/ST faculty than a separate, one-time recruitment drive. “A drive would only provide access to talent existing at a given point of time,” he said.
 
SC/ST applicants compete against general category applicants in regular recruitment. Does that increase the odds against them? .
 
Manna does not think so: “SC/ST candidates would not be disadvantaged because they are treated under a separate category with a different level of expectation,” he said.
 
At the entry level, applicants need not possess “a superlative record”, said Manna. A doctoral degree from a “decent” university, a good academic background, some good publications and a couple of years of work experience.
 
“I would definitely prefer the SC/ST candidate if I had three candidates of different social status but comparable merit and qualification,” said Manna, who added that IIT Kanpur would only relax the work-experience requirement for an “exceptional” SC/ST doctoral candidate and “appoint such a candidate on a contractual basis with scope for regularisation in due course”.
 
“We relax the age and work experience norms for OBC/SC/ST candidates to ensure more candidates from among those who apply are called for interview,” said IIT Madras’s Ramamurthi. “We also ensure representation from reserved categories in the selection committee when we have OBC/SC/ST applicants. They make allowance for skills which can be picked up with experience.”
 
Improve the learning environment, offer training to increase SC/ST faculty
 
At a December 13, 2016, meeting of directors of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs)–India’s chain of prestigious management institutions, where too the government has urged faculty quotas–to discuss ways to increase faculty from traditionally disadvantaged communities, the IIM Kashipur representative described special fellow programme in management for SC/ST doctoral students, who will simultaneously be trained for faculty positions.
 
Asked whether he could consider absorbing his institute’s own fresh SC/ST/OBC doctorates as junior faculty, Manna said: “The IITs follow a strict policy on preventing inbreeding. We would prefer that our doctorates work away for a few years, then return to us if they are interested.”
 
Instead, he suggested that the government take on the training of SC/ST doctorates with potential, with the intention of bringing them up to the IIT standard.
 
“It isn’t enough to legislate and require IITs to employ a certain number of SC/ST faculty,” he said. “Surely a group of 100 SC/ST entry-level faculties can be created to start with?”
 
IIT Madras has relaxed the prevention-of-inbreeding condition for SC/ST doctoral scholars. “But like our PhD scholars from the general category, our graduating SC/ST scholars often join other centrally funded technical institutes, national laboratories, industry, foreign universities, etc.,” said Ramamurthi.
 
Improving the learning environment and training potential candidates in-house would likely help retain more SC/ST doctoral scholars.
 
“Students aware of the environment in the IITs may be reluctant to join as faculty,” said Tezpur University’s Xaxa “Academic progress depends greatly on how comfortable you feel in an environment.” Aniket, clearly, did not.
 
(Bahri is a freelance writer and editor based in Mount Abu, Rajasthan.)

Courtesy: India Spend
 

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