Weaponization of Caste and the Attack on IIT Meritocracy

A woke toolkit to destroy the credibility of IITs and target the Bhartiya tech workforce in the US

• The caste narrative is being mapped onto every issue relating to IITs.
•  The issue of student suicides at IITs is being politicized through the discursive lens of caste narrative.
•  Meritocracy in IITs is being attacked and labeled as a form of cultural capital deployed by the upper castes to control the system and conceal their caste privilege.
•  The caste narrative being perpetuated at IITs in India is an offshoot of social sciences and humanities theories being developed at elite Western universities like Harvard.
•  Theoretical frameworks like the Critical Race theory are being forcefully mapped onto the Caste system in India to insinuate that Caste is at the root of all kinds of discrimination and inequality.
•  The caste narrative targeting IITs aims to dismantle these institutions and destroy their credibility.
•  The ultimate target of this Western enterprise is the Bharatiya tech workforce in the US, who are increasingly being portrayed as casteist by anti-Hindu organizations.

What do Sundar Pichai (Google), Arvind Krishna (IBM), Nikesh Arora (Palo Alto), Vivek Sankaran (Albertsons), Jay Chaudhry (Zscaler), Narayana Murthy (Infosys), Bharat Desai (Syntel), Sachin and Binny Bansal (Flipkart), and Vinod Khosla (Sun Microsystems, and Khosla Ventures) have in common?

They are all alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology!

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have long been an enduring symbol of India’s soft power. When one comes across stories of IITians garnering accolades for their work in Western countries, one no longer sees these stories from a “brain-drain” perspective but views them from the vantage point of India’s increasing Varchasv (Sanskrit word for influence, soft power) in the global technological landscape.

[Caste narrative’s] aim is to destroy the credibility of Bharat’s top scientific and technological education institutions by engulfing them in a perpetual storm of woke politics.

However, these centers of scientific and technological innovation are now finding themselves entangled in a dangerous and divisive narrative that portrays them as bastions of caste privilege. This narrative argues that IITs are inherently casteist, perpetuating Hindu upper-caste dominance under the guise of Meritocracy.

At first blush, such allegations might seem laughable, but let’s make no mistake. This is serious stuff; its aim is to destroy the credibility of Bharat’s top scientific and technological education institutions by engulfing them in a perpetual storm of woke politics.

The woke politics targeting IITs works at multiple levels:

• Spreading misinformation about these institutions and destroying their global credibility by insinuating that their structure actively encourages caste discrimination.
• Targeting Meritocracy, the very basis of the success of IITs, by arguing that Meritocracy in the context of IITs is a sham, a form of cultural capital conveniently hiding upper-caste privilege.
• Targeting IIT graduates to prejudice international tech companies from hiring them.
• Indirectly attacking the Bharatiya tech ecosystem in the US by insinuating that upper-caste Hindus essentially discriminate against their lower-caste counterparts, regardless of which part of the world they are in.

Weaponization of Caste in IITs

 A prominent political leader from Bharat’s opposition party recently made a controversial statement questioning the concept of merit. He compared the SAT exam in the US to the IIT entrance exams in India, suggesting the outcomes of these exams are influenced by the class and caste privilege of those who create the exam papers. “This means that the one controlling the system also decides the merit. If you are a farmer’s son and I’m a bureaucrat’s son. If you prepare the exam, I’m bound to fail”, he reportedly said. Most importantly, he used this story as an analogy to suggest that if those preparing IIT question papers are upper castes and Dalits are failing, then it’s high time Dalits prepare the question papers. [1]

There is an increasing trend of mapping the caste narrative onto every issue that emanates from IITs

This simplistic yet inflammatory comment regarding the concept of merit in the context of SAT and IIT entrance exams is typical of the woke politics emanating from the US that is now attacking Indian STEM education. There is an increasing trend of mapping the caste narrative onto every issue that emanates from IITs.

One example of this insidious trend is how incidents of student suicide are increasingly being linked to the caste system. For instance, a 2023 report by Outlook about the suicide of a 20-year-old B Tech student at IIT Delhi in July 2023 notes that the incident “has finally reopened conversations around caste-based discrimination in these premiere institutes.” [2]

Yet another article, published by The Wire in October 2023, talks about the recent suicides of two IIT Delhi students, saying that The Board for Student Publications (BSP), IIT Delhi’s official media body, initiated a campus-based survey on caste discrimination, which had to be later withdrawn as many students found it insensitive and irrelevant. [3]

The article goes on to talk about a survey conducted by the media body of IIT Delhi in 2020, claiming that the survey- based on 545 undergraduate student responses, showed two out of three students in the general category felt that students belonging to reserved categories got undue advantages in IIT Delhi. The write-up blithely declares that over 14 percent of the participants said they faced casteism at IITs without giving any concrete examples to support those claims. [4]

The article also refers to the February 2023 suicide of an 18-year-old IIT Bombay student, Darshan Solanki, and says, ‘In recent years, several cases of acute casteism and the deaths of students from the Bahujan communities due to institutional problems have come to the fore at different IITs. While the institution has refused to take responsibility, such surveys give a sense of the hostility and difficult environment that the students have to navigate through”, says the article. Regarding IIT-Bombay student Darshan Solanki’s death, the write-up alleges that the university committee to look into the cause of his death deliberately ruled out the caste issue and attributed his death to “poor scores.” [5]

A news website called Maktoob Media furthers the IIT caste narrative and quotes people selectively to consolidate its narrative of IITs being bastions of upper-caste privilege. “Delhi University Professor and author N. Sukumar emphasized the urgency of replacing the term ‘suicide’ with the term “institutional murder” when addressing student deaths in IITs,” it says. [6]

There are many instances of such media reports of cherry-picked cases, trying to link suicides at IITs to caste discrimination – often without evidence. By that logic, the death of every Hindu student on Western university campuses should be investigated as a case of Hinduphobia, and suicide committed by every non-white student studying in Western universities should be attributed to racial discrimination.

Unfortunately, student suicide is a significant issue in Indian society, driven primarily by the stress of intense competition and academic pressure. Victims of this epidemic come from all strata of society, not just from the so-called Dalit class. For instance, the city of Kota in the Indian state of Rajasthan, a leading coaching center for various professional entrance examinations, has been in the news for increasing suicide rates among aspirants preparing for various competitive examinations. [7] However, there is no evidence of Caste being the underlying cause. Indeed, student suicide is an increasing concern around the world. Why, then, are IITs being singled out, and the Caste of victims is being raked up?

An article in The News Minute goes on to suggest that “IITs should end outdated academic assessment to stop loss of Dalit lives” while suggesting several contributing factors to the suicide phenomenon – Academic Pressure, Social Isolation and Discrimination, Lack of mental health support, and financial struggles. It calls for “institutional reforms” at IITs, asking them to eliminate the “discriminatory and outdated policy of academic assessment.” The article insinuates that IITs deliberately fail the last 10-15 percent of students in the class. The IITs, suggests the article, should allow everyone admitted to the institution to earn the degree, if not in four years, then in six years, and so on. [8]

However, Instead of engaging in a constructive dialogue on addressing the lower academic performance of reserved-category students, the media prefers to emphasize caste discrimination, pushing for the lowering of IITs’ academic standards.

The article goes on to attack the hiring mechanisms of IITs, accusing these institutions of bypassing the constitutional provisions of SC/STs/OBCS reservations in their hiring process, noting that 95 percent of their faculty are from the savarna (upper-caste Hindus) categories. [9]

The ground reality is that the IITs follow a rigorous reservation policy where the reserved categories of students get several benefits, such as lower cutoff academic scores, lower application fees, and lower course/admission fees. In fact, the lower cutoff requirements for the entrance examinations are one reason many reserved-category students struggle academically. However, Instead of engaging in a constructive dialogue on addressing the lower academic performance of reserved-category students, the media prefers to emphasize caste discrimination, pushing for the lowering of IITs’ academic standards.

The Vegetarianism Debate

Vegetarianism is being increasingly framed through the lens of Caste. While the woke lobby is an ardent promoter of veganism, it sees vegetarianism as a form of caste privilege asserted by upper-caste Hindus, alienating those belonging to the so-called “lower castes” who, according to the woke propagandists, are essentially non-vegetarian.

Nothing could be farther from the truth. Anyone familiar with Indian society would know that there are many Muslims who are vegetarians and many Brahmins who eat non-vegetarian food. When Muslims specify Halal requirements, it’s not seen as promoting casteism or elitism. But strangely, Hindu vegetarians are being increasingly portrayed as practicing caste discrimination.

When Muslims specify Halal requirements, it’s not seen as promoting casteism or elitism. But strangely, Hindu vegetarians are being increasingly portrayed as practicing caste discrimination.

In July 2023, IIT Bombay became the center of a controversy following media reports that the institution had come up with segregated eating spaces for vegetarians, and non-vegetarians were not allowed to eat in the area where vegetarians dined. The Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPC), a students’ collective on the IIT campus, reportedly raised the issue on social media, alleging that even though the institution didn’t have any policy as such, some individuals were designating certain areas in the mess as “vegetarian only, on their own accord, and thus non-vegetarian students felt humiliated and discriminated against. [10]

This became a huge controversy where many media reports pronounced IIT Bombay as casteist based on the supposed designation of separate dining spaces for vegetarians in the mess. However, in September 2023, IIT-Bombay officially designated six tables for vegetarians in its hostel canteen.[11] The controversy continued as a group of students reportedly ate meat at the “veg only” tables to register their protest. [12]

A similar controversy erupted in IIT Hyderabad in October 2023 when the institution reportedly set up a separate section for vegetarians in one of its canteens based on a survey asking students if they would like a ‘vegetarian only” space. This decision of IIT Hyderabad too was blown out of proportion by media reports, many of which claimed it was “caste pride disguised as exclusive dining.” [13]

Thus, we can see how a simple issue that in the context of other communities would be seen as “respecting their cultural sensitivities” has become a highly controversial issue in the case of Hindus, and the caste narrative is being mapped onto it to defame the IITs.

Theoretical Framework for the Caste Narrative

In their seminal book ‘Snakes in the Ganga,’ Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan talk about the deliberate mapping of the Critical Race Theory originating from Harvard University to the concept of Caste in the Indian context. The book describes how critical race theory is being applied to the Caste category to target Indian Americans, especially those working in the tech sector. Indian Americans in the US are being equated with white racists, and measures are being introduced at every level to monitor them and subject them to caste profiling in the name of preventing caste discrimination. [14]

[…] ironically enough, Hindus who have been victims of colonization for long are being portrayed as perpetrators through a bizarre twist of logic that sees “upper caste” Hindus as responsible for all global inequality and discrimination, including racism!

Critical Race Theory, an offshoot of the American social sciences and humanities academia, is being widely used by people like Suraj Yengde (Senior Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School and research associate with Harvard’s Department of African American Studies), the poster child of Dalit academic activism, to argue that it is not race but Caste that it at the root of all kinds of discrimination and inequality. Thus, ironically enough, Hindus who have been victims of colonization for long are being portrayed as perpetrators through a bizarre twist of logic that sees “upper caste” Hindus as responsible for all global inequality and discrimination, including racism!

American journalist and author Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” equates slavery in the United States with the caste system in Bharat. She tries to equate African Americans with the Scheduled Castes in India. A full discussion of the book and the adaptation of Critical Race Theory to the caste system is beyond the scope of this article. However, our main point is that the recent focus on Caste issues in IITs originates from the way US social sciences and humanities academia has weaponized the concept of Caste.

Case Study: Ajantha Subramanian’s Attack on India’s Engineering Education

 Ajantha Subramanian, a Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University, wrote The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India. The book proposes that IITs are bastions of caste privilege and that Meritocracy at IITs is a form of cultural capital deployed to conceal the caste privilege of upper-caste Hindus, who form the majority at IITs.

The main target of [Ajantha Subramanian’s] thesis is the Meritocracy at IITs, which she argues is not objective and disinterested but rather a form of hegemony exerted by the upper-caste elite

Subramanian applies critical race theory in the context of IITs to develop her core argument that Hindu upper castes are the cultural capitalists and institutes like IITs their modus operandi for the consolidation of their cultural capital through the process of production of more upper-caste engineers. The main target of her thesis is the Meritocracy at IITs, which she argues is not objective and disinterested but rather a form of hegemony exerted by the upper-caste elite, which has to been seen in the historical backdrop of the establishment of IITs post-independence and the separation between white-collar engineering education (that became the bastion of upper-castes ) and hands-on industrial work (to which the “lower-classes” were limited).

A chapter of her book is exclusively focused on the historical backdrop. She talks about how the British separated the artisans and engineers in India by propagating colonial practices that created binaries between manual labor and conceptual labor and led to the hegemony of Brahmins in the engineering profession.

Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan have written a book countering Ajantha Subramanian’s thesis regarding IITs with academic arguments and evidence. In ‘The Battle for IITs: A Defense of Meritocracy,’ the authors argue that Subramanian’s thesis seems politically motivated as she dismisses the concept of merit altogether and falsely attributes the idea of modern Meritocracy to the Indian caste system. The book also exposes how Subramanian makes sweeping generalizations based on subjective opinions of random people she quotes without backing up these opinions with empirical facts or evidence:

Subramanian advocates dismantling the IIT institutional structure, thereby liberating the underclass exploited by this oppression. Her broader activism is to bring about social engineering, which feeds into political vote banks, legislation, and corporate policies for diversity. Her attitude is patronizing towards the lower castes, implying that they lack merit and that the Meritocracy of any kind is a conspiracy against them. What she is insinuating is that lower castes cannot compete on merit even when provided equal opportunities. She ignores that the technology-heavy makeup of Indian immigrants in the US is not caused by caste privilege but a result of US immigration policy that prefers those who can contribute to its society. To be consistent, Subramanian would also have to target other kinds of elitist hierarchies, such as Indian Muslims’ social organizations, the socialist structures of Jawaharlal Nehru (independent India’s first prime minister), the alumni networks of Harvard’s Business- Medical- and Kennedy School.  [15]

Subramanian’s extreme and irrational thesis portrays everything related to IITs as a caste conspiracy – from the entrance exams and the examination system to the subject of IIT alumni occupying important positions in Silicon Valley! She devotes an entire chapter to exploring the “institutional kinship amongst IITians.” Things like IIT alumni forming entrepreneurship cohorts and networking amongst themselves are portrayed as a kind of caste conspiracy, arguing that the institutional kinship amongst IITians is just another form of cultural capital.

In their incisive counter to Subramanian’s thesis, Malhotra and Viswanathan point out how she sees merit in IITs as a form of cultural capital concealing caste privilege but does not apply the same theoretical lens to evaluating elite Western universities like Harvard, which, if we go by Subramanian’s logic, should also be classified as elite bastions of caste privilege. The authors of ‘The Battle for IITs’ effectively expose her hypocrisy and political agenda by arguing that “the construction of ‘critical theories and social science theories, in general, is itself an institutionalized system of privileges with hidden structures.” They put forward the thesis that scholars like Subramanian can be viewed as cultural capitalists within the sphere of liberal arts because they claim special privileges based on their institutional status, which they use to silence any informed criticism of their scholarship. [16]

The Ultimate Goal: Destruction of The Indian American Tech Workforce

In February 2023, Seattle became the first city in the US to pass a law exclusively banning caste discrimination. [17] A similar Anti-Caste Discrimination Bill was passed by the California State Assembly the same year. Governor Newsom of California eventually vetoed it, noting that it was unnecessary since “California already prohibits discrimination based on race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, gender identity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics, and state law specifies that these civil rights protections shall be liberally construed.” [18]

The US politics, over the past couple of years, has witnessed the rise of a hyper-aggressive anti-Hindu lobby spearheaded by the likes of organizations like Equality Labs, which call for the systematic eradication of Hindu Dharma in the name of combating caste discrimination.

The US politics, over the past couple of years, has witnessed the rise of a hyper-aggressive anti-Hindu lobby spearheaded by the likes of organizations like Equality Labs, which call for the systematic eradication of Hindu Dharma in the name of combating caste discrimination. The ultimate target of this lobby is the Bhartiya tech workers in the US, who are being increasingly targeted through DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) mechanisms and caste-sensitization workshops. Thus, Hindus are being vehemently stereotyped and portrayed as oppressors when no concrete evidence of caste discrimination in American society exists whatsoever.

The anti-Hindu lobby in the US is continuously pushing for legislative measures singling out Hindus in the name of banning caste discrimination, even though the US Constitution already has ample provisions to address all kinds of discrimination, including discrimination based on ancestry. The sole basis of the allegations of caste discrimination against “upper caste” Hindu Americans in a 2018 report by Equality Labs titled Caste in the United States. The report, which claims to cover the responses of Dalits in the United States, has been criticized for its built-in prejudices and methodological sloppiness.

‘Snakes in the Ganga’ has raised several red flags about the EL report:

• The US census doesn’t identify Dalits as a category, so it is impossible to estimate the number of Dalits in the US.
• The Equality Labs survey makes no distinction between respondents subjected to racism from non-Indians and specific caste-based discrimination.
• The respondents’ selection procedure was not scientific and transparent. Equality Labs sent the survey to activists they selected who were not representative of the broader American Indian population.
• Equality Labs eliminated twenty percent of survey responses as “illogical “or “extreme,” deploying its own subjective criteria.
• The survey did not adopt a scientifically valid statistical sampling and no external verification of reported caste affiliation.

We can’t go into detail about Equality Labs and its caste survey report here, but we want to show how the activist-academic ecosystem in the US uses ideas like Critical Race Theory to link race with Caste in India. This sets the stage for targeting Bharatiya American tech workers with new laws and social monitoring. Similarly, this activist-academic influence in the US encourages academic activism in India to target engineering schools like IITs.

What’s the Problem with the Rise in Social Sciences and Humanities Studies at IITs

 Humanities and Social sciences (HSS) subjects have been taught at IIT since its inception. However, the influence of social sciences at these institutions has traditionally been rather limited since IITs are mainly associated with STEM education.

However, with multidisciplinary education gaining ground, liberal arts are becoming popular at IITs. With the advent of major and minor courses a couple of years back, there is an increasing demand for a bachelor’s degree in engineering and a minor in the Humanities and Social Sciences stream. Even at the master’s degree level, there is an increasing trend of interaction with faculties from the departments. The central government’s recent decision to introduce centers on the Indian Knowledge system has given further impetus to HSS education in IITs, leading to the rise in the number of inter-departmental programs at IITs [19]

[…] the caste narrative making inroads into IITs is an offshoot of the Western humanities and social sciences ecosystem. Expanding HSS departments at IITs without developing an indigenous framework will only propagate the West’s toxic agenda in Bharat.

While there is nothing wrong with teaching humanities and social sciences at IITs, our concern is with the increasing use of social sciences and liberal arts to propagate anti-Hindu and anti-Bharat narratives. These narratives, created and controlled by the elite academic ecosystem of Western universities like Harvard, percolate down to the HSS departments of Bharatiya universities. Unfortunately, most elite universities in Bharat are uncritically adopting the West’s social sciences and humanities framework.

As this piece argues, the caste narrative making inroads into IITs is an offshoot of the Western humanities and social sciences ecosystem. Expanding HSS departments at IITs without developing an indigenous framework will only propagate the West’s toxic agenda in Bharat.

Concluding Remarks

It would be perhaps apt to end with a few thoughts taken from ‘The Battle for IITs’:

• Invest heavily in Vedic social sciences, not based on Chauvinism or taking pride in the ancient past. The focus should be on addressing present issues using Vedic frameworks.
• Strengthen the quality of IITs and other educational institutions focusing on excellence, not identity politics.
• Review research in existing social sciences departments in India, such as the Delhi School of Economics, and cut funding when this research is contrary to the national interest.
• Purvapaksha on Wokeism should be done so scholars, policymakers, bureaucrats, and other stakeholders understand Woke history, principles, terminology, and toolkits. [20]

Citations

[1] https://www.news18.com/politics/whites-failed-sat-exam-in-us-when-blacks-started-preparing-it-says-rahul-gandhi-in-viral-video-8879884.html

[2] https://www.outlookindia.com/national/how-caste-discrimination-plagues-iits-news-311553

[3] https://thewire.in/rights/iit-delhi-survey-glimpse-hostility-caste-discrimination

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] https://maktoobmedia.com/india/another-iit-delhi-student-dies-by-suicide-casteism-inequality-institutional-harassment-continues-to-claim-lives/#google_vignette

[7] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/teen-student-hangs-self-kota-rajasthan-neet-preparation-suicide-police-2520172-2024-03-28

[8] https://www.thenewsminute.com/news/iits-should-end-outdated-academic-assessment-to-stop-loss-of-dalit-lives

[9] Ibid.

[10] https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/vegetarians-in-iit-bombay-blocking-space-in-mess-for-themselves/articleshow/102258907.cms

[11] https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/months-after-row-iit-b-designates-six-tables-for-vegetarians-in-its-hostel-canteen-8959244/

[12] https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/day-after-mess-segregated-iit-b-students-eat-meat-at-veg-only-table-as-sign-of-protest/article67362531.ece

[13] https://www.thenewsminute.com/telangana/after-bombay-pure-veg-section-and-mess-in-iit-hyderabad

[14]  Snakes in the Ganga: Breaking India 2.0 by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan

[15]  The Battle for IITs: A Defense of Meritocracy by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan, Chapter 3. Attacking Meritocracy At the Indian Institutes of Technology p. 42.

[16] Ibid. p. 49

[17] https://www.npr.org/2023/02/22/1158687243/seattle-becomes-the-first-u-s-city-to-ban-caste-discrimination

[18] https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/09/us/california-caste-discrimination-bill-veto/index.html

[19] https://www.educationtimes.com/article/campus-beat-college-life/99733530/rise-of-humanities-and-social-sciences-in-the-iits

[20] The Battle for IITs: A Defense of Meritocracy by Rajiv Malhotra and Vijaya Viswanathan, Ch 7. Battle for Higher Education: Social Sciences Versus Hard Sciences, p. 121.