Alumni of the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) and academics have started a signature campaign protesting the alleged demotion of a faculty member at IIM Bangalore.

The action stems from faculty member Deepak Malghan’s posts on X addressing the lack of social diversity and incidents of caste-based harassment at the institution.

“We, the undersigned, condemn the long-running vindictive harassment and persecution of Dr Deepak Malghan by IIMB. Most recently, in a politically motivated move, IIMB ‘demoted’ Dr Malghan. While Karnataka High Court has ordered a stay on this outrageous and unprecedented action, we call upon IIM Bangalore to immediately withdraw all sanctions against Dr Deepak Malghan,” said the statement of the alumni
and academics.

“We strongly condemn the misuse of IIMB service rules to stifle academic freedom on campus. It is a great shame that a premier institute like IIMB is violating an internationally accepted set of rights to academic freedom,” it added.

Malghan, a scholar in public policy and affiliated researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, was demoted from associate professor to assistant professor in March 2024.

He is a vocal advocate of social diversity and inclusion, having co-authored a paper in 2018 which highlighted the acute social diversity deficit at IIMs. He has also actively used X to raise awareness on these issues.

Malghan has been facing multiple inquiries instituted by the B-school in the last three years over his posts on X. In 2022, an inquiry was set up against him based on complaints regarding two posts on social diversity. The disciplinary committee sent the complaints to an inquiry panel, which did not find any violation. Yet, the disciplinary committee ignored its inquiry panel and found Malghan guilty of the violation of service rules. The institute decided to withhold his promotion for one year but the decision has been challenged in Karnataka High Court.

Just before the completion of one year of withholding the promotion, in 2023 the institute set up another inquiry against Malghan based on the complaint by a board member regarding a post in which Malghan reproduced the response of IIMB to an RTI query on complaints about caste discrimination at the institute.

IIM director Rishikesha T. Krishnan referred several other posts of Malghan to the panel. The committee said academic freedom was not absolute and found Malghan guilty of violating service rules.