A recent report published by the NDTV, after interviewing Darshan’s family, indicates that Darshan had spoken with his family about the caste discrimination he had to face on the campus. Earlier, a senior student, with whom Darshan had been interacting, had also spoken about such discrimination with Darshan.
What’s most distressing in this whole episode, is the consistent attempts by the administration, including the Director, to outrightly deny that there is any caste discrimination on campus.
The students and organizations who are attempting to give a way for surfacing of a much needed discussion about discrimination on campus, are being accused of harming the “prestige” of this “premier” institute. This is nothing better than killing the messenger, who is trying show you the cracks lying under your own structure.
The systematic denial of even the right to express what they are going through, for the discriminated, by using various institutional mechanisms and tactics, in the name of the “prestige” of the institute, is the most cruel form of ignorance and exclusion. This systematic denial of the problem, by this institute and many others in the country, is what keeping these problems going.
It is not just apathy, but a monumental failure on the part of such administrations of higher education institutions, to have a clear understaning of their own functioning. It’s their “lack of competence” and “lack of merit”, to put it in their own language, to run institutes with such diverse populations. These administrations clearly have much to learn. But before that, they need to come out of their blissful ignorance and acknowledge the inadequacies in their knowledge system.
The structural issues faced by students have been pointed time and again to the administration by us repeatedly for the last several years. Even the surveys conducted by the SC/ST cell in IIT Bombay, and an open house on caste conducted last year detailed the kind of everyday discrimination that our students face on campus.
Despite all the data pointing to lack of institutional support for SC/ST students, the institute did not care to act on them to create any suitable support mechanisms. The unwillingness to appoint SC/ST counsellors even after our complaints shows the blatant disregards towards students. Discarding all these detailed testimonies and data which are available with the institute, the Director still kept reiterating, either blindly or deliberately, that “there is no discrimination” in the campus. We want the administration to stop hiding the the reports of the surveys, conducted by the SC ST Cell as well as others, and release them for public discussion as soon as possible.
We demand resignation of the Director of the institute in the light of these new facts and hope that the administration will start the much needed learning process, at least now.
APPSC IIT Bombay