In April 2021, an incident of a teacher hurling casteist abuses at students during an online class at IIT Kharagpur went viral on social media. She had only verbalised the sentiments that SC/ST/OBC and other marginalised students often encounter in the temples of modern India.

The subtext of her outburst reveals the narrow perception of merit. It is essential to make sense of caste and its everyday journeys in academia. Why is it that Dalits seldom encounter a level playing field in educational institutions while their social superiors are deemed to be endowed with “merit” as a “naturalised birthright”. The American psychologist-academic J. Sidanius argued in his book Social Dominance: An Intergroup Theory of Social Hierarchy and Oppression that one needs to explore the manner in which psychological, socio-structural, ideological and institutional forces jointly contribute to the production and reproduction of social oppression.

By virtue of reservations, Dalits and other marginal groups access higher education, but the modes of behaviour in these places reflect a cultural universe that is anachronisticto a secular, egalitarian institution. Certain imperceptible practices of this habitus are akin to brahmanical agraharas, which embody a bionetwork of dominance and servility. Their representational claims are mocked at because the elite assumes they are yet to make a substantial claim over these spaces because of the lack of cultural embeddedness.

For Dalits, centres of higher learning hold an aspirational value. A university degree can also ensure upward economic and social mobility. Campaigns by student organisations and gender activists of all hues testify to the different shades of “freedom” articulated on our campuses. It is a utopian space possessed of the promise that liberation is just around the corner. This is true for many first-generation students, especially women, tribals, minorities and Dalits — the notion that the coercive caste and family apparatus has been left behind to explore new life-worlds.

Affirmative action of the past few decades has ensured student compositional diversity on our campuses. However, the same is not reflected among the faculty groups. Therefore, there is a considerable power imbalance between Dalit students and higher caste faculty on campuses. Similarly, student compositional diversity without institutional commitments and measures to nurture diversity has created social tensions between identity and ideology-based student groups across campuses. For first-generation Dalit learners, getting acclimatised to the campus lingo takes time. Many of them are not conversant with the discourse on sexuality, gendered relationships, and the jocular “language” resorted to by the privileged students and the faculty.

Unfortunately, institutions of higher learning mirror stereotypical social and political bigotries and stifle any expression of intellectual creativity. For many such students, the easiest mode of survival is to keep your head down, maintain silence, collect your degree and attempt to lead a “normal” life. Many others, unable to cope with the oppressive system, either drop out or kill themselves as a silent protest. As per the data shared by Union minister of state for education Subhas Sarkar in Rajya Sabha, dropouts from the OBCs, SCs, STs in all central universities, IITs and IIMs during the period 2018-2023 has crossed 19,000.

Similarly, Dharmendra Pradhan, the Union education minister told Parliament that 122 students have died by suicide in IITs, NITs, central universities and IISERs between 2014 and 2021. All these students belonged to the SC, ST and OBC communities.

Very often the methods of discrimination are subtle and sophisticated — disguised in ornamental or metaphorical language used, in bodily gestures and in the garb of implementing objective institutional rules. Every academic space — classrooms, laboratories, hostels, mess halls — are sites of contest wherein the language skills, dressing patterns, culinary habits and cultural etiquette of students from marginalised sections are all dissected and objectified. Terms like “quota’s children”, “category waalas”, “behenjis”, “sarkari damad”, “preppies” in IITs for students who secure admission through reservations, puns on “Kota” and “quota” and such verbal jibes are commonplace.

Whenever there is any discussion on distributive justice and reservations, the question of merit invariably crops up. However, a studied silence is maintained on the corresponding issue of social privilege. A series of RTIs has revealed how subtle forms of casteplaining occur during viva-voce interactions in Hyderabad Central University as a result of which marginalised students end up scoring fewer marks. To prevent such incidents and ensure fair play, viva/interview proceedings should be recorded. From the time of filling the application forms till the final convocation, Dalit students are made to brazen out their “Dalitness”.

At the global level, caste as a form of social architecture is being critiqued and legally challenged. However, in India, any discourse on caste is akin to burying your head in the sand. This is evident if one goes by the suggestions of the ministry of education panel, which also comprised eight IIT directors, that there should not be any reservations in faculty recruitment in IITs, which are funded by the taxpayer. Sadly, such prejudiced opinions prevail despite the rising number of dropouts and student suicides in the “premier” institutions. Numerous commissions of enquiry have flagged the toxic academic environment which isolates the “quota children” without any economic, emotional and psychological support. As Rohith Vemula’s mother poignantly said, “I used to proudly tell everyone in my village that my son was doing PhD at Hyderabad University. Today, I have come to collect his dead body”.

It is imperative that all academic stakeholders recognise the severity of the problem. It should be made mandatory for institutions to introduce programmes on caste sensitisation especially for the students, faculty and administration. A social audit of all IITs, IISc, IIITs, IIMs and universities on implementation of reservations in admissions and recruitments, dropouts and suicides is essential to grapple with the severity of the problem. In all the cases of student suicides, from Balmukund Meena to Darshan Solanki, no one is held legally accountable. The state should bring a law similar to the anti- ragging act, to prevent caste-based discrimination. The UGC 2023 guidelines on student grievances hascollapsed all grievances into one basket without taking cognisance of the fact that caste-based discrimination takes multiple forms and contexts. Secondly, only one member out of six on the committee will be from the SC/ST/OBC community; this reflects an adverse balance of power.

It is essential that educational institutions recognise the individual subjectivities of students which are rooted in specific socio-cultural mores. The social cosmology of merit needs to be radically re-structured and academic arenas transformed into a more empathetic space to nurture egalitarian values and ensure social justice.

Ambedkar had said, “The problem of the lower order is to remove from them that inferiority complex which has stunted their growth and made them slaves to others, to create in them the consciousness of the significance of their lives for themselves and for the country, of which they have been cruelly robbed by the existing social order. Nothing can achieve this purpose except the spread of higher education. This is in my opinion the panacea of our social troubles.”

The writer teaches political science at Delhi University. His latest book is Caste Discrimination and Exclusion in Indian Universities: A Critical Reflection