Ranks of over 37% sc st students asked reveals survey in iit bombay

Ranks of over 37% sc st students asked reveals survey in iit bombay

“Even EWS (Economically Weaker Sections) people feel that they come here through genuine reservation as compared with us. EWS students openly tells our case is genuine unlike you,” a Dalit student of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) said in an Open House on caste discrimination held months before 18-year-old Darshan Solanki, another Dalit student, died by suicide inside the campus, a few months into his chemical engineering course.

Months before this Open House on caste-discrimination, the IIT-B’s SC/ST Students Cell had conducted a detailed survey of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe students in February 2022, in which 388 SC/ST students participated, out of whom, 77 described in detail the kinds of caste-based discrimination they faced while on campus.

The survey, results of which The Hindu has seen, showed that 37.1% of these students were asked their JEE/GATE/JAM/(U)CEED ranks within the institute by fellow students seeking to know their identity. In addition, 26% of the respondent students said that they had been asked their surname with the intention of knowing their caste.

A day after Mr. Solanki died, the Institute’s Director had said caste discrimination, “if at all it occurs, is an exception” and that ranks are not asked of students.

Implicit bias

While nearly 70% SC/ST students said that they believed asking for ranks/surnames could be a sign of casteism, a smaller survey conducted by Insight, the official institute publication, showed that not as many General Category students felt the same way.

For instance, 37% GC students said they believed asking for surnames is not casteist. The Insight survey, conducted in 2021, threw more light on how GC students perceived Dalit and Adivasi students. The survey showed that 26% of them preferred that their roommate was from the same category. Moreover, it showed that 42% GC students believed that holding anti-reservation sentiment was not casteist.

The results showed that 90% of the respondent GC students had witnessed someone using a caste slur, and over 15% had used it themselves. Further, over 80% of them said that they had witnessed people making, sharing, and laughing about jokes and memes on reservations, while 22.6% said they themselves had made and shared these jokes.

The SC/ST Students Cell survey pointed out that over 21.5% of students were afraid of facing backlash from students or faculty if they talked about caste-discrimination in the institute.

Responding to the survey, 29.4% students said that they were not comfortable discussing their caste identity on the campus and over 33% students said they would only discuss it with “a very close friend”, which in most cases happen to be people from the same social background as themselves.

The survey also pointed out that over 15% respondents said they had faced mental health issues because of the discrimination they faced due to their caste identity.

Forms of privilege

The Insight survey showed that GC students are not as guarded about their caste identity, revealing that 42% were comfortable talking about it in the open and 11% were comfortable talking about it in extended friend circles.

The Internal inquiry panel probing Mr. Solanki’s death, had recorded in its interim report, a testimony from one of his friends, who had pointed out that he was “sensitive about his caste identity”. In addition to this, Mr. Solanki’s sister had deposed before the panel, describing how he was laughed at for asking questions about computers.

However, in the interim report of March 2, the panel said there was “no specific evidence” of caste discrimination in the case.