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March 2023

Monthly Update, February ’23

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Suicides

This month witnessed a spate of suicides at institutions of higher learning: IIT Madras, IIT Bombay, NIT Kozhikode, and IIIT Idupulapaya, in addition to another attempted suicide at IIT Madras. This is part of a worsening trend: between 2014–2021, more than 120 suicides have taken place at the IITs, IIMs, and Central Universities, and more than half of these were committed by students belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. In response to the suicide of Darshan Solanki, a first-year undergraduate at IIT Bombay, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) has released a statement emphasising the institutionalised nature of caste discrimination at the IITs. The suicide of Stephen Sunny, a postgraduate student at IIT Madras sparked protests that underscored the discrimination that scholars from disadvantaged communities face.

Declining Academic Freedom

A new report by the V-Dem Institute finds that India has less academic freedom today than it did ten years ago, echoing findings by Nandini Sundar and Gowhar Fazili a few years ago. We quote from their report:

Read More »Monthly Update, February ’23

Some thoughts on the ongoing debate around the tragic demise of Darshan Solanki

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Amit Singh, Research and teaching worker, IIT Bombay

The recent death of the first year dalit undergraduate student, Darshan Solanki, has once again raised the question of the caste discrimination and related biases on the IITB campus. The institutions and support system that the Institute has built over the years in order to deal with the mental stress and the caste related discrimination have rightly come under the scanner. The Student Wellness Centre (SWC), whose mandate is to provide counselling to the students who are facing or having “academic concerns, social (family and peer) pressure etc, leading to feelings of loneliness, low confidence, anxiety, stress, anger and sadness, to name a few,” has not been able to achieve much of its goals. The center does not have wide reach among the student community. And when last year the concerned students pointed out anti-reservation views expressed in a social media post by the In-charge of the SWC and demanded her removal, the Institute did not listen to the demand, except privately reprimanding her following which she deleted her post. The demand to increase dalit-adivasi-bahujan psychologists and counsellors in the SWC was also not given any importance. Similarly, the SC/ST Students Cell which aims to address “academic and non-academic issues and complaints received from the students belonging to the SC and ST communities” has been found to be lacking in its mandate.

Read More »Some thoughts on the ongoing debate around the tragic demise of Darshan Solanki

On Recent Events at IIT Bombay

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We mourn yet another student suicide on this campus. Darshan Solanki, an 18 year old Dalit student jumped off from his hostel building on Sunday, February 12. A life of dreams and ambitions came to an abrupt end.

The family and community of the young man would forever wonder what went wrong with their bright child and a premier institute. There will be explanations of how he could not survive the competition, that the academic pressure is ruthless, and the IIT-dream is only for the strong-willed. We do not know what pushed him to this end: caste discrimination or unendurable stress. What we know for sure is this is an institutional issue. Let us stop looking at student suicides across campuses as isolated incidents.

So begins the statement by Ambedkar-Periyar-Phule Study Circle (APPSC) IIT Bombay on the intstituional murder of a young student.