Students and alumni say that faculty members as well as other students routinely harass students from lower castes, and express anti-reservation sentiments openly.
A PhD student from IIT Bombay – a campus which also witnessed Dalit students’ suicides – wishing anonymity, explained to The Wire that SC/ST students have faced harassment on these campuses where mostly faculty belong to the upper castes. The PhD student, who is a part of the Ambedkar Phule Periyar Student Circle (APPSC), said that reservation policies were not being followed during recruitment at IIT Bombay. APPSC students have filed RTIs from which it can be gleaned that around 90% faculty are upper castes.
“This affects the overall atmosphere on campus and in classrooms. There is deep anti-reservation thought on campus. Teachers and students label reservations as anti-merit. Such an atmosphere and mindset on campus makes life difficult for SC/ST communities,” the OBC student said. The student also said that casteism was manifesting itself on campus not just via professors, but several students also indulged in the same. “One upper caste student had an SC roommate; they strictly asked the SC roommate to not touch and ‘pollute’ their belongings. The SC roommate had to take a semester off to deal with this kind of casteist bullying,” they said.
In the response to an RTI application filed by the APPSC of IIT Bombay on July 29, it was revealed that in IIT Delhi, 14 departments had no faculty members belonging SC or ST communities, 24 departments lacked SC faculty, 15 departments lacked ST faculty and nine departments had no faculty from OBC groups. IIT Delhi has a total of 27 departments.