Iniyavan M & Lalitha M “Those responsible for implementing the policy of Reservation must undoubtedly understand that “Reservation is neither a policy matter, a political gimmick nor a matter of Charity. It is a Constitutional Obligation” – Dr B. R Ambedkar In the line of policies aimed at systematic and sustained remoulding of the reservation policy …
Epistemic Injustice: Does Knowledge have Caste?
Pranav Jeevan P Manusmriti ordains production and transmission of knowledge as the prerogative of savarnas or brahmins. This has created a structural gatekeeping of educational spaces from Dalit Bahujan Adivasis (DBA) for millennia. It had also imposed severe restriction on them to access information. The status of education and information distribution is no different even …
Indian Institutes of Savarnas: Reservation Norms Violated during PhD admission and Faculty Recruitment in IIT/IIMs
Pranav Jeevan P India’s premier higher educational institutions for Engineering and Management, IITs and IIMs, have been violating the constitutionally mandated reservation norms for years. The violations are visible mostly in the PhD admissions and faculty recruitment where there is no centralized exam like JEE, GATE or CAT. The RTIs filed by Ambedkar Periyar Phule …
Why is there no political will to end manual scavenging?
Dr. Bhushan Amol Darkase India is a place of perverse social contradictions. A few days ago, news flashed that in the QS World University rankings, apart from IISc, eight IITs (Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Kanpur, Kharagpur, Roorkee, Guwahati, Indore) are ranked among the top 500 globally. [1] IIT Kharagpur has an associate professor who makes casteist …
Lack of Mental Health Support for Bahujan Students in IITs
Pranav Jeevan P According to the ministry of education data, from 2014-2021, the IITs recorded 34 deaths by suicides of which 18 were from SC and OBC communities[1]. Dalit rights activist Anoop Kumar, in the 2011 documentary Death of Merit, said that a major section of those who committed suicides in the IITs between 2007 …
Karukku and Patricia Williams in a Private University: A Futile Exercise in a Savarna Space
Bhartrhari Srinivasan The idea of reading Karakku was inspired by anger and, to a large extent, a feeling of suffocation in a system that erased caste and appropriated it depending on what was convenient. However, I soon realised that there does not exist as of yet, or at least I am not aware of, a …
IITs’ Conception of Diversity Ignores Caste
Pranav Jeevan P IITs have a severe underrepresentation of women. The Brahminical mindset that women are somehow lower and are incapable of doing mathematics and engineering compared to men is being used as a reason to explain this low representation. Recently, a new scheme was implemented to increase the number of women in IITs by …
India and its contradictions
Raju Chalwadi This August 15th marked the completion of 70 years of Independence. The preamble of the constitution way back in 1950 defined India as a place where Justice, Liberty, Equality and Fraternity will prevail and more specifically a place where oppressed sections will live a life with dignity. But, looking at the current …
The Story of Caste and Indian Campuses – II
Anoop Kumar Continued from here. His speech at the talk organised by the Ambedkarite Students’ Association at Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, held on 22nd December, 2014. The speech has been transcribed by Valliammal Karunakaran. Now I would like to take you back to my engineering college days. I did my 10+2 …