https://thewire.in/rights/iit-delhi-survey-glimpse-hostility-caste-discrimination
In the past months, two students – Anil Kumar and Ayush Ashna – of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi died by suicide. Both students, barely 20 years old, belonged to the Dalit community. Following these two deaths in the institution, the Board for Student Publications (BSP), the institute’s official media body, initiated a campus-based survey on caste discrimination. It had to be withdrawn within a week as many students found it “insensitive” and “irrelevant”.
For many Bahujan students, the road to IITs was the first space where they encountered casteism. Over 23% of students, the survey said, faced casteism while preparing for JEE, the entrance exam for IITs. Over 14% of the participants shared that they encountered casteism after coming to IIT.
In recent years, several cases of acute casteism and the deaths of students from the Bahujan communities due to institutional problems have come to the fore at different IITs. While the institution has refused to take responsibility, such surveys give a sense of the hostility and difficult environment that students have to navigate through.
by Sukanya Shantha
07/10/2023