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Monthly Update, March ‘23

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Darshan Solanki

Last month, news of the death by suicide of first-year undergraduate Darshan Solanki at IIT Bombay was met with widespread protest in academic campuses across the country. While IIT Bombay’s internal probe committee concluded that there was no evidence of caste-based discrimination, a suicide note was found by the Special Investigation Team constituted by the Maharashtra government, which points to caste-based discrimination.

Readers — especially those on college campuses — interested in the issue are encouraged to consult websites such as Caste on Campus, which extensively document violations of reservation norms at IITs, or the statement from the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) which emphasises the institutional nature of caste discrimination at the IITs.

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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.

Dear Administration, Start Learning, at least Now…

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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.