Tag: caste discrimination in universities

Collective Caste Hatred Stuns Bengal Academia, Support Pours in for JU Prof Maroona Murmu

The abuse that the Jadavpur University professor has faced exposes the deep-rooted culture of identity politics based on caste that exists in the upper class mindset.

Kolkata: Days after Jadavpur University associate professor Maroona Murmu was attacked on Facebook with casteist slurs, academics across disciplines have expressed their solidarity with her and unequivocally condemned the comments made by the student of a prominent city college. They also expressed deep shock at the racial hatred revealed by the support received by the student, mostly from the student community.

More than 80 faculty members of Presidency University on Monday put out a signed statement in support of Murmu, even as the incident sparked a heated debate on social media on the boons and banes of reservation and a deluge of casteist abuses targeted at the teacher.

“Given the historical exclusion of tribal communities from the mainstream Indian society, Dr Murmu’s impeccable academic success is a matter of pride for all of us. If an accomplished academician like her is targeted due to her identity, then we shudder to think of the depth of suffering of the bulk of Adivasi people who struggle to be part of our academic space,” the statement, signed by senior academics like professors Pradip Basu of political science, Shanta Dutta of English and Zakir Husain of economics, stated. The full statement can be read here.

Professor Maroona Murmu. Photo: Facebook

The attack on Murmu

As The Wire reported on Saturday, Maroona Murmu, who is known for her social activism, had written on her friend’s Facebook wall that students’ lives were being put to risk by holding examinations amidst the COVID-19 crisis. A final year undergraduate student from the Bengali department of Bethune College, who is not known to the professor, responded by using words like ‘incompetent’ and ‘worthless’ (‘jogyotaheen’, ‘opodartho’) to describe Murmu, and indirectly claiming she was taking undue advantage of her identity. Egged on by support pouring in for her and the online abuse of Murmu, the girl posted the following morning that she had only politely ‘reminded a santhal Murmu that she was an Adivasi’.

Murmu, whose family originally hails from Muransole village in the Jangal Mahal area of south Bengal, has been teaching history at Jadavpur University since 2005. She completed her undergraduate studies at the then Presidency College, Kolkata, and then went to Jawaharlal Nehru University for obtaining her MA, MPhil and PhD degrees. Her book, Words of Her Own: Women Authors in Nineteenth-Century Bengal has been published by the Oxford University Press. Her father, the late Gurucharan Murmu, was an IPS officer. He was the first person from the Santhal community to join the Union Civil Services in 1972 and went on to become an inspector general of police.

Also Read: Jadavpur University Professor Faces Casteist Abuse For Commenting on Exams During COVID

On Tuesday, Murmu told The Wire that it has been an agonising few days for her. “I am traumatised. This is no longer a debate, but a series of dreadful personal attacks using my pictures and details of personal life. I have been hounded by over 1,800 online trolls with nasty memes and comments making fun of me or the backward classes in general. I can’t let my mother suffer this, so I had to shift to a different accommodation. I want this to end.”

The girl in question has put out a 10-minute video message claiming she exercised her freedom of speech, and never attacked Murmu. She accused the head of the Bengali department of her college of spreading lies about her, and added that the HOD and Bethune College would be responsible for any ‘extreme steps’ she may take. She did not apologise and instead said Murmu should ‘not be embarrassed’ about her identity.

Jadavpur University. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Gourav Ghosh CC BY SA 3.0

Several groups express shock

Apart from the teachers of Presidency University, the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association, the All Bengal University Teachers’ Association, students of various departments of JU, the Bethune College Students’ Committee and the Adivasi Students’ Forum of TISS, Mumbai, have also issued statements condemning the attack on Murmu. Professor Sumita Mukhopadhyay, the head of Bengali department of Bethune College, reached out to Murmu and regretted the student’s comments. However, things came to such a passé that Mukhopadhyay had to take down her Facebook post in support of Murmu, after being constantly heckled online.

The entire episode reiterates one of the worst kept secrets of the Bengali society – that a deep-rooted culture of identity politics based on caste exists in the upper class mindset, and even if an Adivasi person manages to join the mainstream, s/he continues to live as the ‘other’. However progressive and liberal the urban Bengali bhadralok may appear on the surface, he still swears by surnames.

This attitude often spills out in public discourse in the form of debates on reservation. Successive governments have had their own ways to keep such debates alive to save their own backs on questions of joblessness and lack of social security. In this case also, most youngsters who have supported the student’s highly objectionable comments have brought in questions of ‘quota’ and ‘merit’, and valorised the student’s ‘fight’ against the quota system. The girl’s mother also backed her daughter’s stance.

Mahitosh Mandal of Presidency University, a well-known anti-caste activist, points out that the collective attack against Murmu shows an ignorance about the logic of reservation. “In a country where 85% of the population belongs to SC, ST, and OBC communities, their presence in the public sector is less than negligible. This is best demonstrated by their underrepresentation in academia. In a survey published in 2018, not a single OBC professor was found in the faculties of any of the Central universities. If we want a democratic academic space, we must include people from every community,” Mandal told The Wire.

Responding to the argument that reservation should be economic and not caste-based, he said, “In India, wealth and knowledge were mostly the monopolies of Brahmins and upper-caste people for thousands of years. Since the bulk of the poor belong to the ‘lower’ castes, even an economic reservation would end up being a caste-based reservation. It is a good thing that EWS has been created as a separate category rather than merging it with the scheduled castes and tribes.”

The corridor of the Presidency University’s main building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons/ Taritwan Pal CC0

‘Shocked angry and disappointed’

Eminent academic Supriya Chaudhuri told The Wire she was shocked, angry and disappointed at the attacks on Murmu. Describing her as a fine scholar and wonderful human being, Chaudhuri said, “The abuses posted by the student would not be significant in themselves and not worth responding to. What is very disturbing is the volume of online abuse provoked by any support for Murmu, faced, for example, by the head of the Bengali department at Bethune College, or by other friends and colleagues. The army of hate-filled trolls behind such campaigns indicates the extent of caste bias in our society. We have to stand with Murmu and others like her to fight against such hatred and prejudice.”

Also Read: In Bengal, Colourism Hides Behind the Veneer of Bhadralok Culture

Presidency University faculty members Rajat Roy and Priyanka Das, who took a leading role in framing the solidarity statement, agreed that it was not about one remark by one young girl. “First of all, the comment was made on social media, which plays a key role in forming public opinion. And then, the fact that the girl’s comment got endorsed by so many others and subsequently Murmu’s quality as a scholar and teacher became a subject of social media trial show the generic pattern of attacking successful persons from socially backward classes,” Das, who teaches English, said.

Roy, an assistant professor of political science, felt the saddest part of the whole episode was that Murmu’s worth as an academic was being measured by her position in the caste-based, hierarchical social order. “Most of the persons abusing her don’t know her at all. Actually, in the bhodralok-dominated Bengali society, the caste question remains invisible as long as things follow the established pattern of caste politics. The likes of Murmu destabilise that pattern, and hence the outpouring of hatred. The views in support of the abusive student also reflect a right-wing mindset of dominating the lower castes,” he told The Wire.

Indradeep Bhattacharyya teaches literature and is a former journalist based in Kolkata.

Jadavpur University Professor Faces Casteist Abuse For Commenting on Exams During COVID

Maroona Murmu said she couldn’t understand what her identity had to do with expressing an opinion on a topic that is being debated across the country.

Kolkata: Professor Maroona Murmu would not have thought even in her wildest dreams that a comment she posted on a social media platform on the ongoing debate about holding examinations during the COVID-19 pandemic will open the gate for someone to attack her identity.

Professor Murmu is an associate professor in the history department of Jadavpur University and has been working there for the past 15 years.

On September 2, when most people in the country were debating the government’s decision to conduct exams across the country despite the COVID-19 emergency, she stumbled upon a Facebook post by her friend Neelkonto Naskar. Thereafter, she expressed her opinion on issue, saying students’ lives are being put at risk by the government’s decision.

A young woman replied to her comment saying, “Maroona Murmu, what surprised me was the fact that Jadavpur University has professors with such mentality. I am astonished. Let me brief you a bit on the difference between ‘quota’ and ‘unquota’ (non-quota). To know that life is more important than an academic year, one doesn’t require to be a professor. It’s not about lagging one year but about how some unqualified and incompetent people take undue advantage of the reservation system and their caste is now helping them be successful, while the deserving lag behind for ever. Our parents are stepping out, taking a risk every day to get us food, while some are sitting at home and getting paid for doing nothing.”

After a few hours, the young lady put up a post on her Facebook profile saying, “Today morning, just reminded one ‘Murmu’ a Santhal about her Adivasi lineage. That too in a polite manner. But some people like her, just made me realise that so-called professors are getting fat simply drawing paychecks.”

‘Appalled, but not shocked’

Professor Murmu was appalled but not shocked as she has been at the receiving end of casteist and racist slurs almost on a daily basis. “I don’t even know her; I had expressed my opinion on something that is being debated across the country. She did not comment anything on that matter but went on commenting on my identity and how reservation gets us [Adivasis] jobs and how we do not deserve those or have the ability to teach,” she told The Wire.

“Do I not have the right to express my opinion on any issue without someone ‘rebuking’ me for being an Adivasi?” Professor Murmu added.

Later, a friend of Murmu showed her that the young woman who attacked her is a graduate student studying Bengali in Bethune College, another heritage college of Kolkata.

The Bethune College students’ committee issued a statement condemning the incident and called the incident extremely shameful, saying it has brought the institution into disrepute. “The Bethune College students’ committee unequivocally condemns Ms Paromita Ghosh and resolves to stand by Dr. Maroona Murmu and the struggles of all the Dalits in our campus, state and the country,” the statement reads.

Though a large part of the student community has stood in solidarity with Murmu and condemned the casteist attack on her, she continues to face incessant trolling on social media. She says people are posting vile comments on various posts that she has published.

When Bethune College’s head of Bengali department condemning the student’s behaviour on Facebook, she became the target of trolls. She had to remove the post.

Professor Murmu told The Wire that for years now, she had been facing such discrimination from students, colleagues, friends and it’s growing by the day. Murmu says until a few years ago, she faced similar discrimination in Jadavpur University also. However, things have changed for the better now, she says.

“The university where I teach is well known as a nursery of protests and as a bastion of progressive politics. Yet, here too, at one point of time, I have seen several instances of everyday casteism. Derogatory phrases like ‘sonar chand’ or ‘sonar tukro’ were used as puns for members of Scheduled Castes or Scheduled Tribes. But things have changed now,” said Murmu.

Professor Maroona Murmu. Photo: Facebook

Bengal and casteism

While Bengal is often projected as the shining example of liberalism because it has never seen caste-based assertions or movements by backward communities, observers believe otherwise.

Professor Partha Chatterjee, a leading post-colonial historian and a keen observer and commentator of social developments, said that caste hegemony of the Brahmin/upper caste (often called as Bengali Bhadralok) is so complete in Bengal that it is invisible.

But recently, there has been a churn in Bengal’s politics. Societal fault lines are becoming prominent and the hegemony of the Bhadralok is being challenged.

In December 2019, five professors of Rabindra Bharati University in Kolkata resigned in protest against a delay in action against students who allegedly harassed an assistant professor of the geography department in the varsity and taunted her on the basis of her caste and skin colour.

“Caste discrimination is quite ingrained in Bengal; just like in any other states in India. But with the ruling dispensation (Central government) in power, people are very open about it,” said Murmu.

The Hindutva Project to ‘Purify’ Campuses Is Underway

The ‘asuras’ who organise beef festivals on various campuses and the much-maligned JNU ‘tukde-tukde’ gang celebrating Mahisasur Jayanti need to be taught a lesson, according to some.

Now that the Hindutva state is upon us in all but name, the powers that be are complacent and believe that they can put up their feet up and relax. After all, they have the required numbers in Parliament to enforce any legal measure in a ‘democratic’ manner.

However, much to their chagrin, scores of students descended onto the streets of the capital. JNU students hold Delhi to ransom – screamed a news bulletin. Another channel enquired of a JNU student as to why they were all activists to which the student responded that he only focused on his studies but now felt that unless he raised his voice, he would have to leave the campus as the fee hike would become unaffordable. The scorn and derision against the term ‘activist’ was clearly evident.

Ever since India embraced economic liberalisation, the process of rolling back measures for public welfare has been in full swing. The first to bear the brunt was education policy. As it is, state spending on education was meagre in comparison to defence and other services but the progression of privatisation accelerated the pace. In the process, only techno-managerial education was valued and both the humanities and social sciences were considered worthless and only the ‘undeserving’ students opt for such courses.

Gradually, the emergence of private universities queered the pitch for the marginalised Dalits, minorities and women to access such resources as they were priced beyond the reach of the common person. The only option for these sections was and remains publicly funded universities. For the caste-ridden Indian society, access to education was the only way to ensure upward social mobility and a chance to lead a meaningful life.

Aristotle measured the richness of human life by the freedom to engage in meaningful activity. He believed that the lack of liberty to act in self-chosen ways impoverished life. Similarly, Amartya Sen argued that being excluded from social relations limits our life opportunities, thus producing not only capability deprivation, but also diverse capability failures.

Also read: JNU’s Four Subversions: A Primer For the Anxious Right-Wing Citizen

One important aspect of such exclusion is that it seems to unite the perpetrators at the same time that it isolates the victims. While the “excluders” produce exclusion by collectively expropriating public spaces and refusing to share social opportunities, the excluded experience exclusion as individuals and personal failures – as the inability to participate freely and fully in the social life of the community. For many first-generation Dalit Bahujan students, university campuses thus present a window of opportunity to demolish the monocultures of the mind, as such spaces provide them with voice, agency and self-awareness to fight for justice.

The mutating figure of a student

For ages, the ‘ideal’ student was imagined as male, sober, obedient, sitting docilely at the guru’s feet. The contemporary model student is a high-tech guy lugging a laptop, (a few females have joined the fraternity) well dressed in modern attire, exemplifying a futuristic country. He inhabits the perfect universe akin to Bollywood’s version of an idyllic Indian family under the benevolent paterfamilias. There were people who questioned such skewed utopias, a few ‘jholawalas’ who were coerced into silence by a state keen on pursuing a neo-liberal development agenda.

However, a silent revolution was simmering underneath the calm of the surface. The first generation of the Dalit Bahujans who gatecrashed into the gurukuls, gradually, with the benefit of affirmative action, began to critically engage with the structures of oppression.

After the Mandal Commission was implemented, the profile of public educational institutions reflected the changing social dynamics. Classrooms echoed with more diversity and their engagements with pedagogical praxis have threatened savarna privileges. Campuses have become more restive and the state has to frequently resort to force to maintain the status quo.

Also read: Why the University and Its Questions Worry the State

The well-knit and smoothly functioning archetype of the ‘parivar’ has been rudely jolted. Rohith Vemula penning a note about his astronomical dreams and philosophising about equality, girl students in BHU protesting against arbitrary hostel rules, Delhi University girls demonstrating to literally break the pinjra or cage, JNU, TISS, FTII in ferment – all these are reflections of Kaliyuga. The ‘asuras’ who organise beef festivals on various campuses, the much-maligned JNU ‘tukde-tukde’ gang celebrating Mahisasur Jayanti – all need to be taught a lesson.

JNU students clash with police during a protest march towards Parliament in New Delhi, November 11, 2019. Photo: PTI/Ravi Choudhary

Purifying the campuses

In the Brahmanical ethos, space polluted by the mlecchas needs to be ceremoniously purified. This needs to be accomplished with minimum violence and with maximum effect. Any gesture of protest is viewed within the prism of nationalism which justifies brutal suppression. When student groups in HCU organised a protest against the verdict in Yakub Memon’s case, it was dubbed as anti-national and whatever happened to Rohith Vemula and his friends was well deserved.

Similarly, even though the investigation has not unearthed anything anti-national against Kanhaiya and Khalid, they have been eternally vilified in the court of public opinion. This strategy has polarised the general public and gradually persuaded them into acquiescing to the actions of the state. The crackdown on students by the police and paramilitary, the imposition of section 144    around JNU is acceptable and legitimate in the public eye.

The vice chancellor of Vishwabharti demanded paramilitary security for the university. Delhi Police treated the lawyers’ protest with kid gloves and turned the full face of its coercive power against students. The protests against the fee hike are seen as ludicrous and a pliant media portrays the students as freeloaders, who are wasting public funds for ‘anti-national’ activities. Such students do not wish to create a ‘world-class university’ and instead spend time in ‘activism’.

Ironically, an internal campus matter regarding fee hikes was ‘allowed’ to snowball into a controversy undermining ‘the nation’ and a rattled state shuts down metro stations in the name of security. It is ironic that the state and its minions in the administration of JNU are unaware of the social and economic profiles of the students.

The handpicked vice chancellors of JNU, HCU, FTII etc are willfully promoting the agenda of their political masters. The university is a microcosm of the larger society and measures like deprivation points have enabled students from poorer backgrounds regardless of caste, class and gender to access education in the nation’s capital and enrich the campus.

Watch | JNU Fee Hike Row: Why Shouldn’t Education Be Subsidised For All?

For many of us, it was the first brush with the ideologies of feminism, anti-caste radical politics, debates and the gradual acceptance of myriad voices. Such intermingling helped sensitise generations of students to wider questions of inequality, justice, discrimination which are now an anathema for the ruling elite.

The deprivation points were the first to go, then the slandering of students who are politically active and now the fee hike. All this to create a utopian meritocracy. Such measures will effectively finish off reservations.

The template is well laid out to gain legitimacy and widespread public acceptance. Sundry godmen join the debate. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar pointed out that government schools are breeding grounds for Naxals. Baba Ramdev in an interview with Republic TV condemned intellectual terrorism and singled out followers of Periyar and Ambedkar as working against the nation’s interests.

Such public discourses disseminated by the ‘godi media’ has succeeded in demonising students, ideologies and institutions. This fits well into the marketising of the New Education Policy with its promise of Skill India and Make in India. Gradually, the idea of social justice will disappear with the erosion of public universities.

Instead, institutions like Jio University which have attained the status of eminence despite only existing on paper will manufacture docile ‘deshbhakts’ who will uphold the agenda of cultural nationalism. None of this is a secret. That is why the Ambedkarite slogan of ‘educate, organise and agitate’ is resonating across campuses as students fight back.

N. Sukumar teaches Political Science in Delhi University. 

Ambedkar to Payal Tadvi: Codes of Discrimination Change But Dalits’ Nightmares Continue

Dalits who have been refused the right to education for centuries, have now gained it through the constitutional provision. But in the process they are subjected to constant harassment and humiliation.

“I felt that I was in a dungeon, and I longed for the company of some human being to talk to. But there was no one. In the absence of the company of human beings I sought the company of books, and read and read. Absorbed in reading, I forgot my lonely condition. But the chirping and flying about of the bats, which had made the hall their home, often distracted my mind and sent cold shivers through me — reminding me of what I was endeavouring to forget, that I was in a strange place under strange conditions.

Many a time I must have been angry. But I subdued my grief and my anger through the feeling that though it was a dungeon, it was a shelter, and that some shelter was better than no shelter. So heart-rending was my condition that when my sister’s son came from Bombay, bringing my remaining luggage which I had left behind, and when he saw my state, he began to cry so loudly that I had to send him back immediately. In this state I lived in the Parsi inn, impersonating a Parsi.”

– Dr B.R. Ambedkar

B.R. Ambedkar. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

B.R. Ambedkar. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The above is an excerpt took from the book Waiting for a Visa, an anthology of incidents that shaped Ambedkar’s life. Ambedkar was made to come back from London after his scholarship by the king of Baroda ended. Back in India in 1918, he was appointed as a probationer in the accountant general’s office by the king. After only 11 days, he was made to leave Baroda because he was constantly being humiliated by peons and other workers there. The floors of his office, which his colleagues believed had been rendered impure in the presence of an untouchable, were cleaned every day after he left.

The files he touched were not touched by others. The office assistants never listened to him. If work was humiliating, home was a nightmare. The above excerpt was written by Ambedkar recalling the terror he felt in a Parsi inn where he was staying in Baroda. Ambedkar posed as a Parsi as he knew he would not be given a place to stay in other hotels. Eventually, he was caught in his lie and was thrown out by goons. He was never treated as a man should be but “was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility”.

Also read: It’s Time to Defang ‘Meritocracy’, an Argument That Claims Lives

“The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind. As a glorious thing made up of star dust. In every field, in studies, in streets, in politics, and in dying and living.”

– Rohit Vemula

This is an excerpt from the searing suicide note written by Vemula before he hanged himself. Vemula, a PhD student at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide on January 16, 2016 after his fellowship amount of Rs 25,000 was suspended following a complaint filed against him by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, a student’s body affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Vemula was accused of indulging in“casteist and anti-national” activities.

Ambedkar’s humiliation and Vemula’s suicide are separated by almost a century, but it is baffling to see how these two were made to go through the same struggles. After 72 years of Independence, India is still enslaved by the age-old cynical system of caste.

Dalits continue to be humiliated, threatened, harassed, lynched and killed.

The constitution of India promises to provide justice, liberty of thought and expression, and equality of status and of opportunity to all its citizens.  

Artists pay tribute to Rohith Vemula. Credit: PTI

Ambedkar and Vemula are separated by centuries but went through the same struggles. File image of artists painting a poster calling for justice for Vemula at a protest following his death. Photo: PTI

The statistics offered by various institutions prove otherwise. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, crimes against Dalits have risen by 25% between 2006 to 2016. Almost 99% of cases are pending police investigation. The conviction rate has also reduced by 2%.

Police also often refuse to file complaints in a number of cases, a fact which shows that the system of justice is futile for some. The paramount example of this is the dilution of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, by the Supreme Court.

While the number of Dalit killings increases day by day, the Supreme Court has diluted the act on the logic that the number of false cases has increased. The judiciary which is touted to be the guardian of the Constitution has failed to keep up the promise of justice given by the Constitution itself. These statistics compel us to ask a deeply disturbing question: Does the state recognise Dalits as citizens of India or are they outcastes in the eyes of the state also?

Incidents of caste discrimination in educational institutions in rural areas have been common, but institutions which are thought of as leading intellectual breeding grounds have also seen a surge in caste-based discrimination on campus. The case of Rohit Vemula is just a tip of the iceberg. Vemula’s suicide was followed by Muthukrishnan who was a PhD student at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

IIT Madras, science science, liberal arts, humanities, IIT Madras, National Education Test, senior research fellowship, junior research fellowship, MHRD, University Grants Commission, Department of Science and Technology, ATREE, Hyderabad Central University, March for Science, PhD scholars, stipend hike, K VijayRaghavan,

When discrimination is institutionalised, it kills upliftment. File image of the JNU administrative building. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Muthukrishnan, from Tamil Nadu, was found dead in his hostel room. Before killing himself, the wrote on Facebook, “When equality is denied, everything is denied. There is no equality in MPhil/PhD admission, there is no equality in viva-voce, there is only denial of equality, denying professor Sukhadeo Thorat recommendation, denying students protest places in ad-block, denying the education of the marginals”.

Also read: The Culture of Professional Colleges Failed Dr Payal Tadvi – Just as It Did Me

He was refused equality, he was refused the constitutional promise.

Dalit students have long been subjected to harassment but in these two incidents, it was institutionalised — a fact gleaned by observing the institutions’ reactions in the aftermath. After Vemula’s suicide, instead of strengthening the protection of marginalised students, the police, court and government were keen to prove that he was not from a Dalit community.

Muthukrishnan had been clear that he was discriminated against in the viva voce. In the recent case of Payal Tadvi, who was harassed by her seniors and committed suicide, humiliation after humiliation followed. She was told that she is only good to clean toilets. But the Indian Medical Association only vaguely acknowledged caste discrimination in medical education. The appointed investigative panel also submitted that Tadvi was harassed and ragged but held that there was no evidence of caste-based harassment.

In a sudden turn of events, Tadvi’s suicide notes were recovered from her phone and those turned the case. By not acknowledging the role of caste in these crimes, the institutions have ended up indirectly authorising them. 

When discrimination is institutionalised, it kills upliftment. The new India has seen a new code of discrimination. Dalits who have been refused the right to education for centuries, have now gained it through the constitutional provision. But in the process they are subjected to constant harassment and humiliation.

They are whispered, told and beaten to the agreement that they don’t belong “here”. This new code of discrimination has been in development for more than a decade. In a number of reports by Makepeace Sitlhou, a former campaigner with Amnesty International India, on The Wire gives us haunting statics of this new code. She starts with a report produced by a committee set up in 2007 by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences to look into the issue of caste discrimination on campus by teachers. As many as 84% of the Dalits students who were covered in the survey said that they have been asked about their caste either directly or indirectly by teachers during evaluation.

Also read: The Burden of Caste Annihilation Must Not Lie on Dalits Alone

Another report highlights that only 155 universities out of the 800 have cooperated with the UGC act on protecting oppressed students by adding a Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes redressal portal in their college website and by establishing separate committees to look into the issue. In June 2015, IIT Roorkee dismissed 73 students based on poor performance. Almost three-quarters of the students who were dismissed were SCs and STs. The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, which investigated the issue, said that the institution lacked facilities to support students from diverse backgrounds; it lacked English classes, summer classes and other remedial programmes.

Women members of Dalit Community carry a portrait of BR Ambedkar as they block the traffic during a protest in Ahmedabad on Wednesday against the assault on dalit members by cow protectors in Rajkot district, Gujarat. Credit: PTI

Dalits have regarded the Constitution crafted by Ambedkar as a sacred key to emancipation. File image of Dalit women carrying a portrait of B.R. Ambedkar at a protest in Ahmedabad against the assault on Dalits by cow vigilantes in Rajkot district of Gujarat. Photo: PTI

In all these years, Dalits have held the Constitution as “their” political document and have seen it as the path to emancipation. But every act of arrogance or cruelty and the state’s indifference towards it breaks this constitutional promise to Dalits.

It is time that we critically analyse the Constitution. Suraj Yengde in his book Caste Matters, discusses the constitutional limitations in the process of Dalit emancipation. He says, “Owing to the limited control of this institution, the Constitution has become synonymous to a grievance cell offering no immediate solutions”.

Dalits have to create a rhetoric which transcends linguistic, economic and intellectual barriers. The linguistic limitations of the Constitution are apparent and most Dalits do not even realise that they have a written set of rights to be claimed. This elitism of the Constitution makes it an ambiguous representation of Dalit rights. The recent conclusion of elections gives a clear representation of how Dalits have very little knowledge about their rights and therefore seem to have voted for a party whose very agenda strikes at the core of Dalit issues. 

Caste has always evolved to suit the change of times. It has taken on a new form now and the fight against it should also evolve. It is time that we bring forward a new theory of Dalitism which encompasses all Dalits and provides them with a common forum to fight for their rights. Until then, we must “educate, organise and agitate.”

E. Edhaya Chandran is pursuing post-graduate studies in political science at Madras Christian College.

Govt Shows Clear Signs of Getting Serious About Ethical Violations in Academia

The National Policy of Academic Ethics, now in the public domain, aims to address problems such as plagiarism, data manipulation and harassment.

In recent years, much has been reported and written about a variety of ethical violations in Indian academia. In matters of research and publications, a series of stories in the Indian Express exposed the flourishing India-based predatory publishing industry. Academics based at Indian colleges, universities and research centres are major contributors to fake journals. Plagiarism and falsified research has also received substantial attention. Reports and analyses of sexual harassment and caste discrimination have also surfaced.

There are now signs that the Indian government wants to address some of these problems.

Also Read: Investigation Confirms IIT Dhanbad Faculty’s Scientific Misconduct

In mid-2018, the University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented new regulations to curb and punish plagiarism. The UGC has also been trying hard to prepare a credible master list of legitimate journals. Last November, it acknowledged that while legitimate journals in the sciences, engineering, technology, agriculture and biomedical sciences were adequately covered in SCOPUS and Web of Science (WeB) databases, this was not the case with journals in the social sciences, humanities, arts, culture and Indian knowledge systems. For that reason, the commission established the Consortium for Academic and Research Ethics (CARE) to identify and list legitimate and good quality journals. The ‘UGC-CARE Reference List of Quality Journals’ has now been made available.

Outside the UGC building. Credit: PTI

In mid-2018, the University Grants Commission (UGC) implemented new regulations to curb and punish plagiarism. Photo: PTI

The National Policy of Academic Ethics

Initiatives to curb ethical violations have been taken by other government bodies as well. Around the same time that CARE released its list of quality journals, another document was brought to my attention.

The office of the principal scientific adviser to the Government of India has released the draft National policy on ‘Academic Ethics’. The document “lays down the foundational principles for upholding integrity and ethical practices in an academic environment” and “streamlines the course of action to ensure delivery of justice in case of malpractices.” It will be in the public domain for some time to receive feedback before a final policy document can be approved.

The National Policy of Academic Ethics (NPAE) is only six pages long, but quite broad in its scope. It acknowledges earlier guidelines on ethical scientific conduct laid down by the Indian Academy of Sciences and the Department of Biotechnology and makes it clear that it is concerned with ensuring ethical practices in all academic institutions in the country.

This is not the occasion to discuss all the key observations and recommendations made in the three parts of the NPAE: Introduction; Policy of Ethical Conduct; and Regulatory Norms, but some merit greater attention than others.

The NPAE devotes substantial space to ‘Purity of data’ (pp. 1-2). This is extremely important because there are an increasing number of reports on data manipulation by Indian scientists. In earlier decades, data manipulation was less likely to be detected but in the coming years, with the growing popularity of websites such as Pubpeer, it is likely that that there will be more exposes of data manipulation. NPAE calls out data fraud of such kind to be a “serious offense” that harms the “image of the entire community and country” and recommends “stringent punishment” for deliberate falsification of data. Of course, fabrication and falsification of data is not uncommon in other countries. There has been a massive increase in the number of retracted papers in recent years (also see here). The larger problem in India is the casual attitude to such wrongdoings by academics.

Data fraud is also not limited to scientists. Social scientists too engage in such practices though arguably, the potential damage caused by fraudulent research in the sciences is usually significantly higher than in the social sciences.

Predatory journals and plagiarism

The NPAE also devotes substantial space to publishing in predatory journals and to plagiarism (pp. 2-3). Regarding predatory journals, it is careful to make a distinction with “legitimate open-access journals which may also charge a publication fee.” The distinction is important because there are instances when publications in legitimate journals which charge a publishing fee are discredited on that basis because all predatory journals charge a similar processing fee. The NPAE also calls upon relevant authorities to “take serious note whenever a candidate for any position or award has publications in proven predatory journals.”

Also Read: We May Soon Find Out How Good Our PhDs Are

On plagiarism, the document clearly states that any kind of plagiarism including self-plagiarism is unethical and unacceptable. At the same time, it recognises that “the extent of it [plagiarism] can be variable and sometimes it can also be unintentional.” The document states that text-matching software only alerts us that plagiarism may have taken place but that must be “verified by a qualified human being familiar with the area.” In a later section on handling policy violations, the NPAE also recommends corrective and punitive action (p. 5).

The NPAE recommendations on plagiarism are not different from the more detailed UGC Regulations, 2018 on the subject. However, taken together, it is heartening to know that more than one government institution is both recognising the problem and seeking to address it.

These predatory journals, and those who publish in them, tend to be from Asia and Africa. Credit: alexwatkins/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Regarding predatory journals, the NPAE is careful to make a distinction with “legitimate open-access journals which may also charge a publication fee.” Credit: alexwatkins/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

Harassment and discrimination

Other than its coverage of research and publications, the NPAE addresses issues such as safety and environment, public interaction and outreach and the role of whistleblowers. However, the last theme that merits mention here is regarding bias and discrimination in academia, including sexual harassment.

In the section on ‘Bias and discrimination’ (p. 3), the document acknowledges that academic communities are enriched by diversity including gender and ethnicity and further that: “There must be no direct or indirect bias or discrimination against any individual based on the above categories.”  The NPAE especially calls for “full and equal participation of women in all academic activities” and for everyone “to support a gender-neutral and supportive environment to achieve this goal.” Finally, it states clearly that:

Sexual misconduct and/or gender-based harassment in the workplace are totally unacceptable. Legal structures and rules regarding how to deal with sexual misconduct must be rigorously followed. There also exist many forms of behaviour which may not amount to harassment in the legal sense but constitute gender-based discrimination. Institutions should strive to ensure that their members do not engage in such actions and should pro-actively sensitize their community on these issues.

While different versions of such recommendations as those made by NPAE already exist at India’s academic institutions, what the document does is refine and extend those recommendations. It also serves another reminder that perhaps the government is – despite what pessimists may believe – committed to bringing about improvements in the academic culture at India’s colleges, universities and research centres. For that to happen however, policy recommendations or even clearly laid out rules and regulations will not be enough. Much will depend on the kind of university leadership that the government permits and their autonomy or insulation from politics.

Pushkar is director, The International Centre Goa. He tweets at @PushHigherEd. The views expressed here are personal.

It’s Time to Defang ‘Meritocracy’, an Argument That Claims Lives

The narrow understanding of ‘merit’ needs to be deconstructed, along with the implication that students who benefit from reservation are ‘undeserving’.

Irony always has a hearty laugh, when supposedly well-intentioned thoughts from well-meaning individuals seek to snuff out resistance far more effectively than an authoritarian with an iron fist.

The Aam Aadmi Party government in Delhi, which received much media praise for its work on school education, is now facing the music from those that believe in social justice. AAP’s social welfare minister, Rajendra Pal Gautam, participated in a public gathering at Delhi University’s (DU) North Campus Arts faculty demanding justice for Dr. Payal Tadvi, a Mumbai resident doctor who committed suicide after she was allegedly subjected to caste discrimination and harassment. Here, he issued a statement which reflects the intentional miscommunication that privileged elites, and subalterns seeking to the speak the language of elites, of what reservation as a policy intervention means.

He said issues such as the death of Payal Tadvi’s death “divert” society from its attention on “development”. His full statement was:

“This is a matter of great sadness that every two-three months there is one or the other issue and we stand up for it, to fight, to protest and agitate. Whereas our entire community’s attention should be on development (vikas), these issues divert us from this goal, so that we forget about development and are forced to fight for justice… Whether it is the Rohith Vemula suicide, or Dr. Payal Tadvi’s suicide. We need to understand what the conspiracy behind this is.”

He added, “I feel the time has come for us to say something. We also now need to say that we don’t want reservation. They comment on us, question our ability and merit, when it comes to reservations. Now we need to say that we need in every sphere hissedari and bhagidari (share and participation), whether it is farm lands or our other natural resources”.

The onus of understanding reservation

This makes one wonder, upon whose onus does the need for understanding constitutionally mandated affirmative action to ensure equity and equality for the historically oppressed majority in the Indian union lie? Is the onus upon the historically privileged minority who traditionally have access to education, network and patronage due to their exalted position in the Varna system? Or is it upon the socially oppressed to gather support from the privileged every single time they are denigrated for the use of a constitutional provision? At its hear, this provision ensures stability of the Indian union in the face of internal turmoil from those denied of opportunities for centuries.

Also Read: Payal Tadvi’s Case Follows Predictable Pattern of Victim Blaming

It is to be noted that the dominance of Brahmins and Baniyas in the medical profession is not a recent phenomenon. It is a reproduction of a long standing pattern, wherein kinship and caste provided a social framework for them to access opportunities which emerged during colonialism. This allowed them to dominate not just the medical profession, but also various white collar professions and the bureaucracy. For example, out of 244 students at the Dacca Medical College in 1875-76, only six were low caste men. There were 70 Brahmins, 128 Kayasthas and 36 Baidyas. In the Madras Presidency, for almost 30 years starting from the 1890s, more than 65% of the students were Brahmins.

It is these stark circumstances which led to institutionalising reservation policies in the Mysore state, Madras Presidency, Kolhapur state and later in Independent india, in order to address this problem of skewed representation.

The long-standing anti-reservation rhetoric of the privileged has been weaponized, through the use of media channels. It reached a tipping point with the implementation of the Mandal Commission’s recommendations in the 1990s to ensure adequate representation of Other Backward Castes.

While reservation ensured opportunities would be available for the socially oppressed, the existence of an environment to make adequate use of the opportunities remains muddled. This is primarily due to concerted efforts by the privileged within institutions – partly driven by caste consciousness and partly by an effort to conserve their dominance within the institutions – to disrupt the seamless use of the opportunities through instituting barriers of multifarious nature. Among those barriers is the perpetuation of normalised exclusionary behaviour – nuanced and blatant – driven by caste.

A protest against the death of Payal Tadvi. Credit: PTI

Exclusion is well documented

Here is an account by a relative outsider to Nepal, which reveals the dark underbelly of how caste operates and the influence that caste has in societies which had internalised caste-based societal transactions. While Ayurvedic medicine thrives in Nepal, there are few Dalit professionals practicing it because of educational exclusion in the past, especially from Sanskrit-based subjects like Ayurveda.

The life of Kabiraj Prasad Rasali documented in this paper, an Ayurvedic practitioner from Nepal, reveals how he had to hide his Dalit identity and adopt a Brahmin identity to learn Ayurveda in India. The circumstances in Nepal prevented him from mastering Ayurveda by virtue of his Dalit identity, while the circumstances in India forced him to adopt a Brahmin identity. Moreover, it also reveals the structural problems driven by caste, which enables a violent consequence for Dalit medical practitioners over upper caste medical practitioners, in face of mistakes committed during treatment.

Similar patterns repeat in the online domain, particularly a Facebook group, “NEET PG & DNB 2020. Counselling Aid & Update”, which stands out thanks to its 126,000 members, all of whom are doctors. As discussed earlier, the structural problems of Indian society manifest in group conversations, wherein the vocal voices within the group are decidedly anti-reservation. When an MBBS doctor, who comes under reserved category (OBC, SC, ST), registers a doubt regarding the procedures associated with reservation quotas, one is always met with explicit casteist slanders, to the point of equating them to parasites, beggars, leeches and moochers.

In addition, the conversation that dominates this group is passive aggressive, with the sole motive to brand beneficiaries of reservation as lazy, undeserving, as someone who has stolen the opportunity from a general category student. Importantly, these students are also labelled as someone who would be shunned by patients just by looking at their surnames (which reflects their caste).

The group’s administrators also reflect the deep seated bias. Any post which reveals the merits of reservation system is met with erasure, while standing firmly behind individuals who engineered the Twitter campaign, #DeathOfMerit and #DeservingDoctors. The constant effort to induce guilt among candidates who are beneficiaries of the reservation system, via a constant barrage of psychological attacks, results in reduced self-image, a pattern which is reminiscent of tactics adopted by professors and students in medical colleges and coaching institutions.

Vicious environment

While such is the reality in virtual space, the truth that is played out in reality, is far more vicious and suffocating in medical colleges. Dr Raji, who has completed her MBBS from a medical college in Tamil Nadu, faced one of the worst trauma that could be encountered on the first day of college, as an 18-year-old. During hostel allocation, she was allocated a room with three other girls, and a parent of one of them took offence that his daughter is made to share a room with a Scheduled Caste girl and spouted casteist slurs. While this is the mentality of the parents, in some places, the room allocation itself is on the basis of caste, wherein the institution has a clear role. The horror story doesn’t end here, as it trickles down to the class, where professors make pointed comments based on the caste identity of a student, especially when one belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. In addition, students from SC and ST category also get labelled as “Naxals”, if one is assertive.

The exclusionary practices in medical colleges take various forms, but the primary forms are caste affinity driven favouritism. This leads to exclusion of others and targeted actions based on caste, even failed students in internal examinations. On the clinical side, the exclusionary practice is to deny students hands-on training during surgeries and specific examination techniques in case of medical diagnosis training.

Also Read: The Culture of Professional Colleges Failed Dr Payal Tadvi – Just as It Did Me

Dr Janakiraman from Chennai recalls his experience, when the segregation od students was made on the basis of caste, and the SC/ST students were instructed to take all the weekend duties, allowing the others to do weekday duties. He underlines the fact that, such discrimination is more pronounced in post-graduate studies, as the batch size is relatively much smaller, enabling the professors to easily figure a student’s caste out.

While students from SC/ST communities face discriminatory practices in their colleges, women students from these communities face the double trauma of dealing with their caste and gender position. Their inverted power relation with men, especially those from higher castes, who consider SC/ST women a soft target to harass, given their lack of agency, thanks to their caste and gender.

While it is mandated for every medical college to have an SC/ST grievance committee, either the colleges lack one, or even if present, are generally not informed about to the students. Even if informed, either the mentors in the grievance committee are themselves victims of exclusionary practices or ascribe to misplaced emphasis on ‘developing grit’. In select cases when the SC/ST grievance committee is assertive and takes the matter to the administration, it is usually hushed in favour of “safeguarding” the “name of the college”.

In addition to facing caste discrimination from professors and fellow students, the students from SC/ST communities also face a deep seated caste-based perversion from employees in college administration like clerks, accountants and administrative officers. The slurs which scheduled caste students face while collecting their government mandated scholarships and hall-tickets are still a reality.

Here, I would like to add that, the situation in engineering colleges is no better. Gokulnath, an engineer from Chennai, was verbally abused by an administrative officer, who commented that, if SCs are going to climb the ladder using reservation and scholarship provided for first generation graduates, then who are going to “haul our faeces from sewers”.

An anti reservation protest. Credit: PTI file photo

Cultivating empathy

Empathy is a hallmark that doctors must cultivate towards fellow humans, whom they treat and work with. Schools and colleges should engineer an environment where empathy is actively cultivated, with professors being the benchmark for students to aspire for. The reality of caste-based exclusionary framework results in a majority of professors who actively stereotype, stigmatise and hold prejudice against their own colleagues and students based on their caste. This leads to a leading coaching faculty for pathology to openly equate reservation to shortcuts employed by “undeserving students”. He also went on to say that students who benefit from reservation system should stop justifying it with discrimination their ancestors faced. He added, reserved candidates should internalise the “injustice” they mete out to their general category colleagues.

The harshness of the reality, which Payal Tadvi in Mumbai, Mariraj in Ahmedabad, Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad and countless others face from their immediate environment, filled with characters of the aforementioned sort, makes one wonder, is the reality diferent for any reserved category students? Do they have an impartial agency that can help overcome these odds manufactured by caste-based exclusionary thought framework?

At the University of Hyderabad on Wednesday. Credit: Justice for Rohith Vemula campaign

At the University of Hyderabad on Wednesday, Rohith Vemula’s death anniversary. Credit: Justice for Rohith Vemula campaign

It is here, one is reminded that the government needs to sensitise the populace about inequality in the society, which is why the reservation system is in place. While the government takes pride in introducing chapters related to the victories of erstwhile kings and artistic achievements of our master craftsmen, it is also important to heed to the long-standing demand from Tamil Nadu to include the rationale for the existence and sustenance of reservation system in the syllabus. In addition, the medical community needs to come together and establish dignity of labour among its practitioners. It also needs to adopt a scientific understanding of why ensuring diversity among medical practitioners, in terms of gender and caste, is important for delivery of healthcare in India.

Also Read: Explainer: Significance of the Supreme Court’s Nod to Reservation in Promotions

One is reminded of the statement by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud in a landmark judgment delivered with Justice U.U. Lalit, wherein they summarily debunked the narrow understanding of “merit” which has contaminated public debate for long. While upholding the constitutional validity of a law passed by the Karnataka state legislature, which protects the consequential seniority of persons belonging to the SC/STs promoted under the state’s reservation policy, Justice Chandrachud addressed the question around the phrase “efficiency of administration”. He said:

“If this benchmark of efficiency is grounded in exclusion, it will produce a pattern of governance which is skewed against the marginalized. If this benchmark of efficiency is grounded in equal access our outcomes will reflect the commitment of the constitution to produce a just social order.”

He also added, “A meritorious candidate is not merely one is who is “talented” or “successful” but also one whose appointment fulfils the constitutional goal of uplifting the members of SCs and STs and ensuring a diverse and representative administration.”

Such judgments, and the outcomes of social justice movements across India, need to find space in textbooks which seeks to educate ‘New India’.

Dr P.M. Yazhini is a registered medical practitioner from Government Theni Medical College and is currently based in Chennai.

The Culture of Professional Colleges Failed Dr Payal Tadvi – Just as It Did Me

Bright, well-meaning students convinced me that I didn’t deserve to be in my university. I so deeply internalised their narrative that I couldn’t fight it within my own self, let alone with them.

The conversations around Dr Payal Tadvi’s suicide, on May 22, 2019, have been quite unsettling. That some have attributed it to work pressure or “cowardliness”, shows a lack of understanding about how caste works or how deeply pervasive it is. I can imagine what could have driven her to end her life – I experienced unapologetic casteism at university too.

I attended one of India’s elite law schools. In these spaces – unlike in medical and engineering colleges – casteism was subtle and intellectualised (perhaps because aspiring lawyers knew how to avoid a penalty under the Prevention of Atrocities Act). I could never really tell what made me feel different, lonely and marginalised.

I sensed that I didn’t think like them, share their fascination with the same cultural icons and activities, and did not behave in a manner deemed appropriate by them. All of which, I later understood through my readings, was shaped by one’s caste background.

In my first year, a faculty member proclaimed that she was Brahmin, and went on to ask other Brahmin students to raise their hands. The same lecturer asked us to make a project on our ancestors. I wasn’t comfortable sharing my ancestry, but I had to – it was to be marked for 20 marks.

The upper caste students didn’t see it as a big deal. For many of them, it was an opportunity to boast of the achievements of their forefathers and their rich ancestries, all somehow related to their social location. Some of us, who had no such histories to tell, felt ashamed when it was our turn.

The casteism of my peers was mostly implicit. Explicit references to caste were mostly stereotypical and prejudiced. Tambrams and Kayasths were the most intelligent, apparently, Rajputs valiant and emotional; Banias shrewd and money-minded, and so on. In groups dominated by savarnas, such remarks were often made, for each other in jest. It made me wonder how they’d refer to me if they knew who I was: a former untouchable.

Also read: Even After Payal Tadvi’s Death, Doctors’ Body Unconvinced of Caste Discrimination

When I tried to point out that such statements were inherently casteist, they defended themselves, saying they had a right to feel proud of their caste and that I should be proud of mine. Be proud of the fact that people from my caste were routinely humiliated, pushed into bonded labour, and beaten up when they tried to go to school? Okay.

A savarna friend once told me that I was uncultured because I was not trained in any classical dance or music. Another told me she would never forgive people who availed of SC/ST quotas because, if it weren’t for us, she would be in a better law school. Her tone made me feel like I had committed a heinous crime.

Some even rationalised the caste system as a result of genetic differences among the varnas, with Dalits and Adivasis as the most inferior. One boy used this as the reason he was in love with a certain Kshatriya girl, because she was apparently honourable and would give birth to strong children.

One boy didn’t hesitate to let the elevator shut on a boy from the Meena community, saying ”ye Meena log ke saath aise hi hona chahiye’‘. It was that normalised. If you called them out on it, they would brilliantly justify themselves, leaving us feeling like we were just over-reacting.

Classroom discussions on the jurisprudence of reservations were one-sided, usually concluding that reservations must wither away or be provided on economic grounds. The discussions were dominated by UC students; our voices silenced by their loud, assertive ones, confident in their ignorance of the larger social context.

These were all bright, well-meaning, caste-blind students who were extremely thick to the social realities outside of life as they knew it. My confidence and self-esteem were beaten to a pulp by everyday microaggressions. Eventually, it got to me and I succumbed into believing that I deserved to feel that way.

After all, my existence in that university was an anomaly, and I had taken up their space. The assault to my dignity was the price I had to pay for the privilege of studying at such an eminent institution.

Also read: A Young Doctor’s Appeal: Let’s Understand Privilege Before We Talk Merit

Those experiences, coupled with rampant sexism, took a toll on my mental health. I tried to talk to the few people I thought I could, including my parents. But they couldn’t understand what I was going through. I’m a first-generation college graduate, and my world is very different from theirs.

My savarna seniors told me that I was victimising myself, and that law schools are extremely competitive spaces; I had to toughen up or be left behind. I didn’t know how to explain this to my doctor either. She told me I had “low self-esteem and an inferiority complex and that I should only think positively.”

I couldn’t, so I became a recluse. I took up less space, participated less and confined myself mostly to my room, escaping into books and art. I managed to get through five miserable years. I have had enough time since then to process and understand that ordeal.

When I look back now, what bothered me most was my inability to respond in a way that made me feel empowered. Instead, I protested weakly, with the savarnas beating me with their eloquence. I was already gaslighted into believing I was a waste of space in a meritorious institution. I had so deeply internalised their narrative that I couldn’t fight the it within my own self, let alone them.

B.R Ambedkar. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

B.R Ambedkar. Credit: Wikimedia Commons

It wasn’t until I read Ambedkar (conveniently excluded from the law school’s curriculum), Yashica Dutt’s Coming out as Dalit or Christina Thomas Dhanraj’s writings that I could develop the intellectual ammunition to fight the narrative – first with myself and then others.

My colleagues from the Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities went through similar experiences. When we enter these privileged spaces, we are very vulnerable and develop various coping mechanisms. Some internalise the dominant campus culture, hiding our identities and trying to emulate them. Some become depressed, even self-destructive.

At my university, we refrained from forming a homogenous group, because some of them were not comfortable with being ‘that quota group’, as one friend put it. Many of us wanted to learn from our savarna peers, even if it meant putting up with their micro-aggressions and gritting our teeth through their thoughtless remarks.

Also read: India’s Universities Are Falling Terribly Short on Addressing Caste Discrimination

Expecting savarnas to magically unlearn their casteism and make these spaces inclusive would be foolish. It is so central to their lives that they may genuinely not see it, the way fish may be unaware of water. Those of us who were never a part of it, can’t help but see it – we are reminded of it with every interaction.

That’s where our institutions have failed us. Professional institutions – medical, engineering or law – do not encourage any form of student politics. Their students have no safe spaces in which to confidently come to terms with their identities, and assert the same when someone threatens their dignity.

Greater student representation from these communities would also help make these spaces more inclusive. Another institutional-level solution would be to establish mandatory workshops on casteism and sexism every year, so that these spaces don’t churn out even more insensitive professionals, like the ones who killed Dr Payal Tadvi, Rohit Vehmula, Bal Mukund Bharati and others.

The author is a young lawyer, who is deeply interested in learning how to build socially just and diverse institutions and contributing her bit for the same. You can follow her on her Twitter handle @lawandemotions.