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July 15, 2008
Caste Discrimination in IIT Delhi
Earlier in my blog I pointed out cases of discrimination against Dalit students in higher learning. Here is a current case researched and written by Anoop Kumar. When will this tyranny end?
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IITs: Doing Manu Proud – II[1]
Caste Discrimination in IIT Delhi
By Anoop Kumar
(On behalf of Insight & National Dalit Students’ Forum)
[anoopkheri@gmail.com]
“A caste-hindu by his very make up is incapable of showing any consideration to an untouchable candidate. He is a man with strong sympathies and strong antipathies”
- Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (The Untouchables and the Pax Britannica)
I. Termination of Dalit students
In June, 2008, 12 Dalit students (11 SC & 1 ST) [2] were terminated by the IIT Delhi administration citing their ‘low academic performance’ as the reason. 11 students are from 1st and 2nd year and 1 from the final year. After receiving the termination letter, some of these Dalit students complained to the National Commission for the Scheduled Castes about being victimised by the IIT administration due to their caste background.
They alleged that IIT faculty members are highly prejudiced against students coming through reservation provision and are very hostile to them. They complained of being graded poorly in some courses despite performing well. The SC Commission summoned the Director of IIT Delhi and asked him to investigate into the allegations made by the Dalit students and also to review their termination. IIT administration, then, formed a 4-member Committee (consisting of present and past IIT faculty members) that had its hearing on 23rd and 24th May, 2008.
On 1st July, the IIT administration submitted a 1-page report to the SC Commission stating that it has decided to revoke the expulsion of 3 students (2 SC and 1 Muslim) by showing leniency, as they were short of very less credits. The report further stated that ‘no case of caste discrimination was brought out by the students in their meeting with the Review Committee’.
This is a blatant lie on the part of the IIT Review Committee, as when the Dalit students tried to raise the issue of caste discrimination, the members of the Committee refused to listen to them. The members only inquired about their academic performances and refused to take up questions related to caste discrimination.
The last paragraph of the 1-page report submitted to the SC Commission by IIT Delhi reiterated that ‘IIT Delhi is very sensitive to the special needs of SC/ST students and faculty members spare no efforts in helping them, and indeed all weak students, to come up to our higher academic standards. It is only when we feel that a student is unable to cope up with studies, and would not be able to complete the degree requirements in the maximum allowed period of six years, that we terminate the registration so that the student can avoid further wastage of time and make an alternative education plan for himself.’ (emphasis added)
II. IITs and SC/ST Students
Every year, IITs select students through its Joint Entrance Exam (JEE) offering around 5500 seats for its various undergraduate (B. Tech and Integrated M. Tech) courses. Studies suggest that close to half the seats reserved for SCs and STs remain vacant and that of those admitted, a significant proportion, perhaps up to 25 percent, is obliged to drop out. Even though the IITs reserve 15 % of the seats for SCs and 7.5 % for STs, they are often unable to fill even half of this quota[3].
Now, if we do some simple calculation, we can very easily conclude that the SC/ST community looses about 773 IIT undergraduate seats out of the total allotted 1237 seats every year. That amounts to a massive loss of 62 % of the total allotted seats due to both, unfilled seats at the time of admission and subsequent drop outs.
Recently, a news paper article mentioned, taking help from the Right to Information Act, that “In IIT Bombay, 21 SC/ST students were asked to terminate their undergraduate B.Tech course in 2006-07, 20 SC/ST students in 2005-06 and 19 students in the prior year. The yearly average for SC/ST students’ termination in IIT Delhi and IIT Kharagpur is 11 and 8 respectively.”[4]
Except IIT Guwahati (founded in 1994) and IIT Roorkee (included as IIT in 2001), all the 5 other IITs are at least 45 years old. I would like my readers to calculate the total number of losses suffered by the SC/ ST community in all these years and critically analyse the impact of such losses for the community, that has been suffering the inhuman exclusion in every sphere of life and whose only life line has been the Constitutional provision of Reservation in education and in government jobs.
Hence, it becomes very important for all of us to ponder over two questions that emerge out:
Why even today, about half of the seats for SC/ST students remain unfilled in the IITs?
Why is there such a high drop out rate of SC/ST students in IITs?
To many, the obvious answer to both the questions is that SC/ST students are ‘weak in studies’. It means that on an average, SC/ST students cannot compete with general category students, both in the entrance exam as well as during his/her stay at IIT.
Before probing into the ‘weakness’ of SC/ST students, I would like to point out that -
The cut-off marks at IIT entrance exam as well as passing marks in particular subjects in IITs are not fixed.
The cut-off marks for SC/ST students in IIT entrance exams, in any year, is normally 10 % less than the general category cut-off in that year.
The IITs follow relative grading in course work. There is no fixed minimum passing marks. Even if any IIT student has scored 60 % in any particular subject, there are chances that he/she might be declared failed, if the average score of other students is slightly higher. Or he/she might not be failed. Since there is no fixed passing marks, to pass students who have scored less than average becomes the prerogative of individual faculty members.
I came to know about the termination of Dalit students from IIT Delhi in the second week of June. While interacting with these students and listening to their stories, I became aware of how the IIT administration deals with Dalit students. To have a better understanding, I decided to interact with more Dalit students from IIT Delhi as well as some of the ex-students. The present report is based on my interactions with them.
III. The manufacturing of ‘weak’ students and the construction of ‘merit’ in IITs
While interacting with IIT Delhi’s terminated Dalit students, three questions came to my mind.
Were these students ‘weak’ in studies and were not able to cope up with the rigorous studies in IIT Delhi?
Or/ and did they just not apply themselves and study hard?
Or were there other factors involved that might be beyond these students?
The truth that emerges out is shocking, to say the least. Dalit students who are admitted in IITs are marked as ‘weak’ and ‘non-meritorious’ from the very beginning and their stay in IITs are made as painful as possible. Such behaviour has been institutionalised and has been perfected into a fine art by many faculty members.
According to the IIT administration, all SC/ST students entering into the IITs are ‘weak’, as they come through Reservations. They use each and every opportunity, both inside as well as outside the classes, to make sure that these students are kept aware of this fact that ‘all general category students are meritorious whereas SC/ST students don’t deserve’ to be in IIT’.
However, the truth is that most of the Dalit students entering into the IITs are often toppers of their respective schools. They are, mostly, second generation literate and hail from lower-middle class, rural or semi-urban backgrounds with non-English medium schooling. In comparison, the general category students are invariably from upper-middle class, urban, upper-caste, English medium backgrounds. Not only are there marked differences in the backgrounds of the students from these two categories but also their routes to IIT differ immensely. And I would like to argue that this is where the ‘merit’ is constructed.
‘Merit’ via coaching centres
A recent study conducted by ASSOCHAM reveals that private coaching centres that train students for entrance exams of the IIT and other prestigious engineering colleges ‘mint Rs.100 billion ($2.30 billion) a year - an amount that can fund 30 to 40 new IITs’[5]. In fact the city of Kota in Rajasthan, which boasts of the best coaching centres in India, is flocked by aspiring IIT candidates from all over the country. One particular coaching centre in Kota, in fact, claims that 1 out of every 4 IITians is their ‘product’.
As we all know, studying in these coaching centres is not cheap at all. On an average, a student spends more than Rs. 1 lakh for an 8-month coaching during his/her preparation for IIT entrance exam. As a response to the impact of the coaching industry and the undue advantage that it gives to their students, IIT has recently made changes in their admission procedure by fixing the number of attempts a student can take and have also made changes in the examination pattern. However, these cosmetic changes have not been able to restrict the number of students flocking to the coaching centres.
Now, the question is who are those students who flock to these coaching centres to crack the tough IIT entrance exams? The answer is not that difficult if one interacts with IIT students, from both general category and SC/ST category.
The majority of Dalit students have cleared the IIT JEE exam through self-study or by taking private tuitions, as they were not in a position to pay huge fees for these centres. In comparison, it is very rare to find a general category student who had not studied in one or the other big coaching centres. Due to this, the general category students are much better equipped for IIT JEE exams and this reflects in the merit list of the general category which has higher cut-off marks. Still, some of the SC/ST candidates are able to score higher than that cut-off and reach to the general category list. The lower cut-off marks for SC/ST students thus becomes the first indicator that points towards the notion that ‘SC/ST students are weak’.
There is not even a single voice that opposes the coaching centres and the undue advantage they provide to the rich, urban, upper-caste students in comparison with those who, without money, are left to do self- preparation.
The IIT JEE exam is one of the toughest exams. Why? ‘To attract the best minds in India’ is the stock reply. If this is so, then what are these coaching centres with Rs.100 billion annual turnovers doing? They are, in fact, manufacturing ‘best minds’ from those who have deep pockets in this country and are aiding in the unequal competition between students from different backgrounds. However, no body acknowledges this fact, as these coaching centres are boon for ‘upper’ caste families, since they help them in their claim of being ‘meritorious’.
English language as another marker of ‘Merit’
Majority of the Dalit students entering into IITs are from non-English medium schools, whereas the medium of instruction in IITs is English. Once admitted in IIT, these students find it very difficult to follow the classes since they are taught in English, which results in their low performance in initial years, as compared to other students.
Since all the SC/ST students, on being admitted in IITs, are already marked as ‘weak’, the initial low performance of non-English medium Dalit students feeds into this stereotyping and they easily become the poster boys of ‘quota students’ in the highly prejudiced IIT campus. A few Dalit students who are from relatively better backgrounds (read English medium) are able to escape such ignominy, getting an opportunity to pass off as a general category student, leaving behind these hapless students to suffer the punishment of being ‘quota’ students.
Instead of acknowledging the difference in background and the problem of medium of instruction, the IIT faculty members also, due to their casteist prejudices, quickly brand these students as ‘undeserving’, ‘not up to the mark’ and ‘forced into IIT through reservation’. Rather than supporting students to cope up with English and gradually come at par with the other students, they are hostile or at best indifferent to their plight.
On the pretext of their low performance in IIT, many faculty members humiliate and demoralise these Dalit students, both inside and outside the classes, by making remarks on their academic capabilities implying, “since you don’t deserve to be here, now you suffer”.
It is their way of retaliating to the reservation provisions and since they cannot stop these students from entering into IITs, they try to punish them for that ‘crime’ through such behaviour. To counter reservation, there is a strong urge to prove that Dalit students are weak and what better way to do it than targeting those who are already little handicapped in the IIT environment!
The rigorous IIT schedule from the day one does not make things easier for these Dalit students either. By the time they are in a position to cope up with the IIT culture and rigour, they are already under heavy backlog of many courses and find themselves to be on the verge of being terminated due to ‘low academic performance’. Many of them drop out by the end of their 1st and 2nd year and those who some how pass, barely manage to get their degree in 4 years. Most of them take another 1-2 years to get their B. Tech degree, their stay being further marked by demoralisation, stigma and huge alienation.
More than 80 % of the children in India, those who are fortunate enough to pass 10th std., do their schooling in Hindi or other regional languages as their medium of instruction. Yet IITs, that claim to be the institutes of ‘national’ importance and teach in English, have failed to develop a proper mechanism to counter the problems faced by these students once admitted in IITs. Is it due to the incompetency of the IITs or are they simply not bothered, as they believe that the ‘best minds fit for IITs’ can only be found in urban, English-educated, upper caste students? I believe both reasons to be true; besides, it gives them a big stick to beat reserve category students with.
Engineering colleges in India have copied their entire syllabi from the knowledge produced in the west. The faculty members teach from the western texts and techniques, which they had learnt from there in the 1960-70s. The academic research and development of syllabi is in such a sorry state in this country that there is hardly any innovation in teaching, both in texts and techniques. During interaction, IIT students tell you how these professors teach in the class, through their old notes (known as kharra in Hindi slang), promoting only rote learning and discouraging any discussions in the class.
Apart from their incompetency, IIT faculty members are also not interested in developing any mechanism to resolve the question of language, as it does not affect their caste and class interest. IITs have turned themselves completely into institutions for providing lucrative jobs both in India and abroad for the kith and kin of the urban, English-speaking, upper caste, middle class and in the process completely sidelining their basic objectives of providing scientists and technologists to the country. It also suits multinationals very well, as they need English-speaking labourers. Also, the knowledge of English gives them the sense of superiority vis-à-vis the lower caste, which they don’t want to lose at any cost. Like Sanskrit earlier, now English has become the marker of their ‘merit’ and ‘knowledge’.
If IITs remained true to their real objectives of promoting research and development in sciences and technology for the country, it could never have afforded to create an environment that promotes rote learning and found the ‘best brains’ in a very small segment of the country, branding others as ‘merit-less’ and ‘incompetent’.
IV. Institutional Mechanisms
If the Dalit students admitted in IITs through JEE are so ‘weak’ that it results in such a high drop-out rate, my question is, has the IIT administration devised any mechanism to support these students to come at par with others? Let us examine -
a. Orientation Programme
There is no such programme for SC/ST students at any point of their stay in IIT, leave alone at the time of their admission. Such programmes, in the beginning, would help Dalit students immensely and provide them the confidence in IIT administration. There are hundreds of studies available in many parts of the world that prove the efficacy of such programmes for those who face marginalisation in the society.
b. Remedial Classes for English language and proficiency
In the first semester, IIT Delhi offers one course in English language to all those coming from non-English backgrounds. It is of 3 credits and the faculty teaches XII std. level English grammar. It usually has 1-2 classes per week. Thus, IIT expects these students to become proficient in English by attending 18-20 classes which are held in one semester. The interviews with students revealed the non-seriousness of such efforts. Every body said that this course is absolutely ineffective, as the teacher concentrates only on the English Grammar, which anyways they have studied in the schools. The students also allege that even this is not taught seriously and students just try to pass in this course in order to get the very valuable 3 credits. Some of the students even fail in this course and have to repeat the course next year.
The main problems faced by the freshers in IIT are that they are unable to catch the accent of most of the professors and also find it difficult to comprehend the text books in English. So, what is important here is the ‘language’ of science and not English grammar per se and its remedy is not just one course in English grammar.
The remedy lies in individual faculty members identifying students with such a problem and supporting them by giving some extra time and promoting an atmosphere where the students feel confident to interact with them. However, for such an environment, it is important not to treat all such students as ‘weak’ and victimise them due to their poor English. Given the level of students-teachers interaction (it is one sided), insincerity and incompetency of IIT faculty members, asking for this is really a very tall order.
c. SC/ST Cell or Equal Opportunity Office
Every university and college in the country has an SC/ST cell to monitor the implementation of reservation as well as to redress the grievances of the SC/ST students. But IIT Delhi has probably never heard of it or they have given themselves the clean chit of being a caste discrimination-free campus! Hence, the IITs have no such mechanism and the SC/ST students have no space where they can share and interact with the administration on their specific problems. Such a cell also works as a grievance redressal mechanism against caste-based abuses and discrimination suffered by Dalit students. Given the tendency of IIT faculty members to hurl casteist abuses and indulgence in discriminatory grading, such mechanisms are absolutely necessary.
d. SC/ST Course Adviser
According to the IIT prospectus (page 17), “A number of measures exist for helping students belonging to SC and ST categories. A senior faculty member is appointed as adviser to SC/ST students for advising them on academic and non-academic matters.”
However, the truth is that not even a single Dalit student was able to tell the name of the Professor who is supposed to look after the problems of SC/ST students. Nobody was even aware of this provision and had never come across any information or notice regarding it.
e. Standing Review Committee (SRC)
This Committee composes of a number of faculty members including the Dean for under-graduate students and is supposed to identify students, whose performance is not up to the mark starting from the end of the 1st semester and work with him/her to solve those problems. However, if one interacts with the students, one will hear many horrifying stories of how in SRC, instead of patiently dealing with the student’s problems, the members literally rag the students and create an atmosphere where the Dalit students feel like criminals in front of police officials. Getting one’s name in the SRC becomes another marker of being a ‘weak’ student. The list is sent to the faculty members and that information is used by many faculty members to humiliate Dalit students in the SRC list, as then it is ‘officially proved’ that these students are ‘undeserving’ and ‘not fit for the IITs’.
f. Student Counselling Service
IIT Delhi runs a Student Counselling Service under the aegis of Board for Student Welfare, for ‘assisting students in sorting out their difficulties and dilemmas in an environment where they can talk freely and in confidence about any matter which is troubling them.’ The staff includes psychologists, a psychiatric, and is also drawn from faculty and student volunteers.
Many of the IIT faculty members believe this Counselling service to be the panacea for all ills. So, if a student is facing difficulties in a course, the professor often suggests, “to visit the counsellor and get your mind checked”. During my interaction, the Dalit students gave mixed reaction on the efficacy of the counselling services. Many of them are of the opinion that they visit counsellor for the problems that is purely academic and hope that these are conveyed to the concerned faculty members but all of them were unanimous in its ineffectiveness in dealing with the caste problem. More over, the counsellor also treats them as ‘weak’ students, as one incident narrated by an ex-student shows. In 2002, when this student went to the Counsellor with his problems, he was categorically told that he was having such problems as he was a reserved category candidate and would never able to cope up with the IIT atmosphere.
g. SC/ST faculty members
Since IITs are ‘institutes of national importance’, there is no provision of reservation in faculty recruitment. While interacting with the Dalit students, none of them were able to name even a single professor from these two categories. However, later we were able to identify one Dalit professor, who retired 6 years back. It is shocking to know that in all these years following the inception of IIT (more than 45 years), it has failed to recruit faculty members from marginalised backgrounds. This itself is a testimony of the type of exclusion practised by the IITs.
h. Support System
Dalit students not only lack institutional mechanisms but they themselves also cannot help each other, as IIT Delhi has banned the formation of any students’ groups in the campus, other than those that are run by the administration (for extra-curricular activities). In the past, some of the students have tried to organise themselves informally but were not successful, as the administration started harassing them. Also, it was difficult to interact with all the SC/ST students clandestinely, due to the difficulty in identifying students from other departments.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the USA, on which IITs are said to have been modelled, have a plethora of recognised student bodies of different minorities (for example, a very strong Black Students’ Union) and run various programmes that provide the much needed space for these students to interact with each other, which helps them in articulating their problems and negotiating with the administration.
However, IITs believe that there are only two types of students – General Category and ‘weak’ students that don’t deserve to be in IIT. Hence, they copied every thing from MIT but forgot to replicate the democratic institutional spaces provided by MIT for students from different backgrounds.
i. Study on problems faced by SC/ST students
It is interesting to note that IITs have not carried even a single systematic study of problems faced by the Dalit students. One look at the website of MIT will tell you about the number of studies conducted on the problems faced by women and African Americans and the steps taken by MIT to solve those problems. However, IITs here are not at all interested in doing such a study and making efforts to solve the problems of Dalit students, as they believe that all SC/ST students are born inferior.
V. Experiences of Dalit Students in IIT Delhi
During the course of my interaction, I interviewed 20 Dalit students from IIT Delhi, where they shared their experiences of the campus. But I have included only a few narratives in this report and have not mentioned their names to prevent their identification. There are many narratives which I have not included where I felt that the nature of the incidents might betray the student’s identity, even if I did not reveal their names. Needless to say, these incidents were much more overt in nature.
Student No. 1 (Final Year B. Tech) -
Professors in IIT are undoubtedly better from rest of the country, but there are some who need to be corrected. They ask the students’ caste and category when they perform poorly. They believe that all SC/ST students are weak and all weak students are SC/ST. In my first semester, the Physics professor was taking my viva and I was not able to answer, on which she became very annoyed and asked me, “Are you from quota?” I said, “No.” Then she explained, “Quota means SC/ST.” I again answered, “No.”
She was asking the same question to the general category students, if they were not able to answer in the viva. What is this mentality of the professor? Is it correct for professors to ask the category if one is not able to answer? Throughout her classes, I had the fear that if she came to know my category, she would do something wrong in my grading. So, I was quite nervous and never went to her for any help or to clarify my doubts. I don’t understand why professors create these kinds of situations.
Student No. 2 (IInd Year, B. Tech) -
I was doing a course in the Bio-Tech department. Due to my illness, I didn’t appear for one of the exams in that course. There is a rule that if the student has not appeared in examination due to medical reason, he/she is allowed to sit for the re-exam, after submitting the medical certificate. When I asked for my re-examination, the professor immediately replied, “Reservation lekar IIT mein aa jate ho aur exam bhi nahi dete.” (You come through reservations in IIT and then don’t even sit for exams).
I could not say anything because here students don’t speak anything before the professors, as our fate lies ultimately in their hands. They may fail us if they wish. However, I kept on requesting for re-examination. Later, he agreed but I was failed in that exam. One more time I had gone to the same professor to clarify something related to my term paper. He immediately said, “No, I don’t know anything”. I never went back to him again then. Due to such behaviour from IIT faculties, we are forced to feel like a criminal in front of the police.
Student No. 3 (IInd Year, B. Tech) -
Last year, I was attending a course and by then, I was already in the SRC list. This list is sent to the concerned faculties. When my professor got the list, she told me, “SC/ST students are very poor and if I ask something from you, I don’t think you will be able to answer that”. When I protested on her statement, she said, “Oh! so you want to fight with me!”
After that she became very hostile to me. Whenever I went for some clarification, she used to get angry and rebuke me for not being able to understand ‘simple English’ and always made very discouraging comments like, “Are you always sleeping in the class? Why did you join IIT if you don’t know English?”
However, unlike other students, I persisted in meeting her, as I needed continued support. One day, she got very angry and told me, “I think you are mad. You should get medical check-up. Go and visit the counsellor”. Then I realized that it was getting tough to cope up with her. I called my father and then both of us went and met the professor. She was very rude to both of us and told my father that there was something wrong with me and I must consult a doctor. My father tried to talk to her but in vain. The professor did not budge from her point that I am mad. At the end, I failed in the subject. I paid the price of asserting myself and asking guidance from the professor.
Student No. 4 (Final Year, B. Tech) -
In one of the classes of Energy Studies, in 2006, the professor started saying that reservation is unjust, as undeserving students from reserved category are selected while upper caste students, who are meritorious are left out and indulge in theft and robbery. All the students listened to him quietly but I wonder what would have been the response of the professor if any SC/ST students had argued with him in the class.
Student No. 5 (IIIrd Year, B. Tech) -
In the last semester, I was giving viva exam for Energy Conversion lab. When I was not able to answer the question, one of the professors asked my lab partner whether I was from reserved category. He replied “yes”. The professor uttered “Ohh!” and did not ask any further questions from me.
Student No. 6 (IIIrd Year, B. Tech) -
I want to narrate one of my experiences of SRC (Standing Review Committee) meeting which is supposed to monitor the student’s performance but actually does nothing. The objectives remain on paper only. It is never helpful in sorting out student’s problem or to improve his performance. No one wants to hear our problems. Only your past examination marks are asked and then you are grilled / ragged for that and that is why most of the students don’t want to go to its meetings.
Before the SRC meeting, we are supposed to fill a form stating our problems. In the meeting, one of the professors sits with all the records, and briefs other faculty members about the concerned student. In one such meeting, I was also called. I filled up the form where I mentioned all my problems. When I went inside, one professor showed my records to the two neighbouring professors and said in a hushed tone, “SC student”. Then one of the professors said, “Ok, let him go”. No body asked anything about my problems. I felt it was utter waste to attend the SRC meetings. I didn’t understand the purpose of filling up the form if they did not ask anything.
Student No. 7 (IIIrd Year, B. Tech)
Here in IIT, we cannot form any group. Pravin Togadia and Ashok Singhal can come and speak in the IIT hostel (they came in the tenure of the previous IIT Director) but the students cannot organise Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti in the campus. Since the last 2-3 years, the SC/ST Employees Association is organising Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti, as the administration has not been able to harm them but 3-4 years back, when some senior Dalit students had tried to organise that, they faced stiff resistance from the IIT administration and were categorically asked the rationale for celebrating Dr. Ambedkar’s birthday in IIT campus.
If any Dalit student wants to organise an orientation programme for SC/ST freshers, he is harassed by the faculty members like anything. It happened with one of our seniors. Since IIT does not organise any such programme, he tried to contact the IIT administration for organising this. Immediately, a letter was sent to his home saying that, “your son is involved in politics”. Later, he was harassed by the faculty members also.
One funny incident that I want to share will reflect the prejudices and ignorance of IIT faculties. A few years back, on Dr. Ambedkar Jayanti, the SC/ST Employees Association invited IIT Director as the chief guest. When asked to speak, he just said one sentence, “In IIT, there is no caste discrimination” and went back to his seat!
VI. Interview with ex-students of IIT Delhi
“Do you think all of us should carry audio recorders while attending classes?”
- Shibu (name changed), a Tribal ex-student of IIT Delhi, who teaches in one of the state engineering colleges, shares his experiences in a telephonic interview.
Q. Sir, some SC/ST students of IIT Delhi have raised the question of caste discrimination. What is your opinion? What has been your experience in IITDelhi?
A. There is no doubt that casteism prevails in the campus very much. The faculty members strongly believe that all SC/ST students are weak and that is why they treat them as inferior. We keep hearing their comments in the class about how weak we are. If we don’t do well in our exam, they blame it on our being from SC/ST category. They will never encourage you in your studies. Once I asked my professor to allow me to work in certain project under him. He flatly refused saying that this project was beyond my capabilities and I could not manage such a project. It was very heart breaking for me.
One reason why they are able to comment on us without any fear is the absence of SC/ST faculty members. There are no single faculty members from these two categories and that is why Dalit students face so many problems. There is no body to check them. Students cannot confront, as their entire career depends on these teachers. They are the ones who will give you marks.
Q. So, is there no way in which Dalit students can protest against such comments?
A. Dalit students cannot form any group here and general category students also maintain a very safe distance from them. Most of them try to avoid the Dalit students, as they also suffer from the same disease and believe that they are superior. I have seen very minimum level of interaction between the two groups. A few Dalit students who are from relatively well-off positions might be able to penetrate in their groups but otherwise Dalit students suffer huge alienation both in the class and hostel. That is why, he has no other choice than tolerate silently all the adverse comments. There are not many cases of physical violence in IIT against the Dalit students but in all other state and regional engineering colleges, this is a huge problem. The majority of cases of physical violence have been against Dalit students.
Q. Is there no mechanism for redressal relating to caste abuses and prejudices in IIT like the SC/ST Cell or Equal Opportunity Office?
A. No, there is nothing of this sort. At least I am not aware of that. May be officially they might have some but none of us were aware of any such mechanism during my stay in IIT Delhi. There is so much mental harassment of Dalit students. How are you going to prove that? There is no evidence. How will you prove that the teachers made some bad comments about SC/ST and are hostile? Do you think all of us should carry audio recorders while attending classes? I was always asked to answer tough questions in the class by some faculty members. I knew I was targeted being the only reserved category student. But they could very easily say that by asking questions regularly they are in fact trying to persuade me to work much harder. Such a logic can be very convenient for them. But I can see the real intentions in their eyes. They want to humiliate me but I cannot prove it. It is so subtle. They have turned caste discrimination into a fine art and have mastered it very well. I don’t think many SC/ST students can escape from this. You have to suffer.
Q. I have heard that there is a provision of a separate course advisor for SC/ST students, who is supposed to advise and support Dalit students in their studies? What was your experience with him?
A. I was completely unaware of such a course advisor during my stay.
Q. What about the campus placement process?
A. Not many Dalit students get proper placement from the campus. There are many instances where, in the whole batch, only SC/ST students are left without jobs. We are not aware how this elimination process during placements works but the fact remains that private sector companies don’t hire Dalit students. In our placement CVs, our category is mentioned by the institute. Since private companies do not give any reservation, then what is the need of mentioning our category? And moreover, many good companies don’t allow students with CGPA less than 6.75 to sit for their placement exams and interviews and not many Dalits have such CGPA. They, by then, have been so much demoralized by the whole environment that they are concerned only about getting their degrees. Even in those companies where there is no such CGPA criterion, the chances of getting a job are very less for Dalit students. They are forced to only think of less lucrative government jobs like the Public Sector Units.
Q. What is your experience while teaching in one of the reputed state engineering college?
A. The situation remains the same even if an SC/ST becomes a faculty. They try to harass you here also. Here also, they try every possible means to force you out of the institute. Once you join, they will immediately start giving extra works- both teaching and non-teaching. They will speak very softly but you will immediately get tough courses to teach. Some of them might even provoke students against you. Normally, Dalit faculty members are very student-friendly, as they genuinely want to support students, being aware of the problems faced by them. However, most of the time, this gesture becomes counter- productive, as students start believing that you are a weak person and start taking you for granted. In my institute, there are only two more Dalit faculty members and I sometimes listen to their harrowing experiences and wonder how they managed to stay in that institute for so long.
“I knew I was stigmatized for ever”
- Rakesh Kumar, a Dalit ex student of IIT Delhi narrates his experience
I completed my B. Tech Course from IIT Delhi in 2003. When I was in my first year, I was attending the Chemistry class (one of the first few classes) and some of the students after giving their attendance, tried to escape from the class through the back door. One of the students (with surname Srivastava) was caught. The professor got very angry and started scolding him and asked the names of other students who had run away. There were 5-6 students. One of them had surname ‘Meena’, which is a Tribal surname. As soon as the professor heard his name, he became angry all the more and started making derogatory comments like ‘I know how they come here’, ‘these SC/ST students don’t deserve to come to IIT’ and ‘they are ruining the IIT atmosphere’. He spoke for more than 15 minutes giving a ‘discourse’ on how ‘un-teachable’ SC/ST students were. I was sitting in the class listening to him.
Now when I look back and reflect about my four years of stay in IIT, I can understand how that one particular incident had marked my student life there.
How could I trust the IIT professors when they had already passed the judgment on me? I could not draw courage to reveal my caste identity to my friends in IIT. I knew I was stigmatized for ever. Since I knew English, I tried to pass off as general category student in front of my class mates. But that was not a happy solution. I used to feel so much uneasiness. I used to hear lots of derogatory remarks about Dr. Ambedkar, Mayawati and about other Dalit students within my friend circle but I could never reply.
After completing my B. Tech, I worked for six months and then joined Jawaharlal Nehru University for my post graduation. Here, things were far better. I came in touch with the Dalit students’ group working there and slowly became assertive about my identity. I started appreciating my background much more. I belong to khatik caste. My forefathers used to take out the skin of dead animals. My family had migrated to Delhi long back and both my parents have raised me by working in tanneries, skinning dead animals. Why should I be ashamed of my parents, my identity? Now, I am very much comfortable about my identity and in fact feel proud about my parents.
VII. Brand IIT: The Myths and the Reality
Many efforts are being made to cleverly create a façade of IITs as great, ‘quality’ institutions, producing ‘brilliant’ researchers, engineers, etc. Why this façade is being created?
It is to hide a very important fact.
The Indian Parliament envisioned that the IIT system would “provide scientists and technologists of the highest calibre who would engage in research, design and development to help building the nation towards self-reliance in her technological needs”[6]. A Central statute, the Indian Institute of Technology Act, 1956, & 1961 declared the IITs to be “of national importance”, thus paving the way for huge financial support from the government as well as for the conferring of a high degree of autonomy.
However, instead of providing scientists and technologists for the country, IITs have turned themselves into institutions for providing lucrative jobs both in India and abroad for the kith and kin of urban English speaking upper caste/middle class and in the process completely sidelining their basic objectives. That is why the ‘quality’ of IITs is being marked in direct proportion to the pay packages offered to the students by the multinationals and not by any technological innovations.
This is the reason behind so much hostility against SC/ST students in these campuses, as their entry into these institutions will threaten the chances of the ruling class in the job market. They want to monopolize these opportunities and don’t want to share it with any marginalised community in the country.
Hence, the need behind all the chest thumping, talks of ‘merit’ and IIT being the ‘centre of excellence and quality’ becomes necessary in order to hide the fact that the IITs, rather than preparing students for research and development (the reason for their creation), have completely metamorphosed themselves into institutions that cater only to the interests of the parasitic upper caste/middle class and the multinationals.
If the IITs remained honest towards their basic objective of facilitating the development of the country through research, they would have gladly accepted the entry of students from the communities that have been directly involved in the production processes like Dalits and Tribals, instead of stigmatising these students as inherently ‘weak’, based on their performance in entrance exam.
IITs: Foreigners’ benevolence towards a Third World country
The ‘upper’ caste IITians- both faculties and students- bemoan a lot about the reservation policy for SC/ST students, claiming that it downgrades the quality of Brand ‘IIT’. However, the truth is that these IITs, themselves, are products of the largesse of the developed countries. These countries, in the name of ‘aid in development for a Third World Country’, not only, provided them technical and financial support to start with, but are still helping them to upgrade and to remain at par, through liberal scholarships and various other assistance, so that the Indians could run such ‘institutes of excellence’.
IIT Bombay was founded in 1958. It was set up by UNESCO and the erstwhile Soviet Union. IIT Madras was established in 1959 with the technical, academic and financial assistance from the Government of the erstwhile West Germany. IIT Kanpur was established in 1959 by the US government and a consortium of nine USuniversities helped to set up the research laboratories and academic programmes there. Similarly, IIT Delhi was established in 1961 by the benevolence shown by the former colonial masters United Kingdom. Till now, not even a single IIT has been able to stand on its own in terms of research, cutting edge technology, training, even after guzzling huge amount of money from the Indian exchequer and huge financial aids from various other sources including foreign countries.
A large number of today’s merit-mongers (the IIT faculty members) benefited from these foreign scholarships together with an opportunity to study in liberal foreign campuses. It would have been interesting if the citizens of these countries had opposed these opportunities provided to Indians, arguing that such efforts were diluting the ‘quality’ of their campuses and taking away opportunities from their own deserving candidates!
Ranking of IITs at the international level
In the Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s Academic Ranking of World Universities (2006), IIT Kharagpur was the only engineering college from India listed among the top 500 universities worldwide and that too among the lowest bracket (below 400). The purpose of this ranking by the Chinese university was, “to find out the gap between Chinese universities and world-class universities, particularly in terms of academic or research performance.”
This ranking is an honest attempt by the Chinese to improve their universities and technical institutes. In contrast, nobody has ever heard of such an attempt from India. Except one, no other IIT figures in the list of top 500 institutes worldwide. It is intriguing that the IITs, monopolized by much ‘meritorious’ upper caste community, are not able to compete with foreign institutions, even after years of continued support and assistance from many reputed institutions and at the expense of huge public money, the budgetary allocations for IITs for the year 2005 being a whopping 650 crores!
[1] ‘IITs: Doing Manu Proud’ was a report brought out by the Dalit Media Network, Chennai in December, 2000. It can be accessed on http://www.ambedkar.org/research/IITs.htm . This report looked into the cases of caste discrimination in IIT Madras. It is probably the first of its kind and therefore I have put this report as part II to acknowledge it.
[2] There is a lot of confusion regarding the total number of students that have been terminated. Despite all our efforts, the IIT administration has refused to provide any information regarding the same. There are conflicting reports regarding the numbers and IIT has deliberately tried not to clear the air. In fact, the IIT Director lied before the Scheduled Caste Commission and said that only 7 Dalit students have failed. However, IIT Delhi has now acknowledged in the media that 12 Dalit students have been terminated. The Dalit students allege that the numbers are much more. Around 20 Dalit students have been terminated this year, they say.
[3] ‘The IIT Story: Issues and Concerns’, Frontline, Vol. 20-Issue 03, Feb 01-14, 2003
[4] ‘Quotas are route to inequality at IITs and IIMs’, DNA NOW, June 24, 2008
[5] ‘ IIT coaching classes a Rs 10K crore Industry?’, The Times of India, 3rd July 2008 http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3190000.cms
[6] India’s PM Jawaharlal Nehru’s address on the first convocation at IIT Kharagpur, 1956
Posted by klajja at July 15, 2008 10:50 AM