Engineering Exclusion: IITs as a System of Caste

"Caste should be viewed as a system, rather than merely a behavioural phenomenon"
— Dr. Rahul Sonpimple

Babasaheb Dr. Ambedkar has argued that to dismantle oppression, we must understand the origins of its machinery by studying the oppressor. He also described caste as a 'state of mind', or a deeply ingrained mental conditioning to the social order.

Using an Ambedkarite lens, and reflecting on my location as a savarna and my experiences as an IIT graduate from IIT Kharagpur (batch '11-'16), I will simultaneously examine IITs as a system of caste, and reflect on the 'state of mind' that upholds it. With this dual approach I will examine how individuals within the system become both stakeholders and perpetrators of the system.

Merit and Worthiness

From an early age, those from savarna culture are surrounded by privilege. The essential labour performed by subservient domestic workers, janitors, construction workers, drivers, and 'others' is often invisibilized. Colourism and sexism are deeply normalized. Cultural markers reinforce distinctions - whether in modes of speech, mannerisms, or the kind of media we consume - that signify belonging to a dominant caste culture. Spatial location is cast into physicality by the social structure of caste, determining where one lives, whom one interacts with, and where one belongs. Exclusion is normalized as an unquestioned and natural order.

Savarna culture insidiously conditions us from an early age to see ourselves as inherently deserving. We attend better schools, and accumulate cultural capital. To enter the IITs, coaching is required, and it is expensive. At the minimum, coaching can cost the same as India's median household income.

The underlying premise of scarcity is that one must be 'worthy' of higher education. The requirement of worthiness - or merit - is met through coaching. The selection rate for IIT is over 1:100. We buy into the notion of worthiness without question, and start hustling to acquire it in our early teens.

This system of scarcity may be broken for many, but we believe it could work in our favour. Through our access to resources, and social and cultural capital, upper caste communities often have confidence in navigating systems of scarcity. We have access to generational knowledge, networks of mentorship, privileged insights, and 'awareness'.

Around age 18, when we pass the 'entrance exam', we learn about reservation. Having no education on caste, there is a sense of a resigned acceptance. We see reservation not as affirmative action in the world's widest social order, but 'an unfortunate bargain we inherit for being born in a 'backward' nation'. We feel we deserve better. We protest against affirmative action before inquiring why it is needed, as scarcity-mongering kills critical thinking.

At my IIT, the sex ratio was 1:10. This male domination of brahmanical patriarchy, that intersects closely with the systems of caste, is not challenged under the framework of merit and worthiness.

If you question this model of scarcity in IIT, an IITian's reaction would be: "Wouldn't there be mediocrity if we took everybody in?"

The Caste of Knowledge

In a society adjusted to caste, and where for a few millennia, the majority of communities were subjugated through a systemic deprivation of education - or the capacity to 'know' better, do we draw the ethical position of scarcity from the constitution or from the mental conditioning of caste?

We've normalised selection rates like 1% for JEE, 1% for UPSC, 5% for NEET, 5% for NET, 5% for CLAT, 2% for GATE. We had only six IIT's in the first six decades of 'India' - in a country of 1.4 Billion people. AIIMS Delhi accepted a measly 50 students out of 90,000 that applied in 2022, and we only had One AIIMS for 50 years. The design is to keep the masses (bahujan) from entering our spaces, and becoming stakeholders of the state/ formal economy.

In post-independence India, the entrance exam model of higher education transforms the material reality of caste, and the mental conditioning of caste prejudice into notions of 'deserving' and 'undeserving', and hence, scarcity works well as an arm of caste, upheld by the notion of worthiness.

From 2015-2019, data from the MHRD shows that India's 'elite institutions - IITs, NITs, IIMs and IIITs - served only approximately 3% of the students. Despite this, they got 50% of the higher education budget. So half for 3%, and half for 97%. While IITs only served approximately 1% of the total students, they got 27% of the budget.

Our constitution guarantees "Education for all." While the law exists in the book, Kancha Ilaiah Shepherd argues that the caste apartheid state operates on scarcity in enforcement.

Jotiba Phule criticized the British government for the higher education model of colonial India. The British rule, in wanting to create a 'middle class' of public servants, "expended profusely a large portion of revenue (raised from the peasant's labour) on the education of the higher classes". "It over-educates the few, leaving the mass of the people as ignorant as ever, and still more at the mercy of the few learned." (Gulamgiri, 1991)

The IIT project was Pandit Nehru's whimsical dream of building these few little 'islands' of excellence. It continues the inequitable colonial model of higher education. As Gail Omvedt argues, while Nehru liked to brand himself as 'scientific' and 'secular', by refusing to confront the caste question, he continued to operate in a brahmanical framework and mindset.

This system hurts all, as even upper castes spend lakhs and our formative years to prove merit. Coaching becomes a barrier to entry, but given our privileges, we continue to hold confidence in our systems of scarcity. The government can get away with underspending, only as we believe not everybody is worthy of an education!

Pedagogy of Exclusion

As we walk into IIT Kharagpur—an imposing campus designed by Swiss architects in 1951 (a time of widespread impoverishment)—we are initially awed by its grandeur. We soon learn that the promised 'excellence' is rooted not in pedagogy, but in exclusion.

We unanimously agree that the pedagogy is rather mediocre across the board. Despite the resources and funding, IITs fail to provide quality education and leave us unprepared for the industry, as highlighted by the Anil Kakodkar Committee report (2011).

Most IIT faculty are graduates of the system, and they pass down a pedagogy based on rote memorization of outdated coursework as highlighted by NCEE report (2005). Brahmin-savarnas were traditionally experts in rote memorization of vedas, and this is what teaching has meant in the sub-continent. To cope with this system, our collective consciousness convinces itself that it is the analytical rigor (honed in JEE) that matters. We remain untrained in ethical reasoning, critical reasoning, and empathetic/ emotional reasoning.

Reports from AICTE suggest that IITs fail to engage in meaningful knowledge creation for the learner or the society. As the Yashpal committee report (2009) points out, "IITs have also kept themselves aloof from the local knowledge base of the worker, the artisan, and the peasant."

As per RTI data, in IIT Kharagpur in 2023, 43 departments had no ST faculty, 32 had no SC faculty. No female bahujan faculty was hired in 2023, and no ST faculty was present across the board. Our knowledge systems exist in isolation from bahujan knowledge. They neither learn from them, nor contribute to them; rather, often work to marginalize or displace them.

Fear and Punishment: The IIT Experience

Fear of exclusion and punishment drive the IIT experience. The hard-earned access to IIT is highly prized, but remains precarious. Pedagogy often centers on failing and exclusion. Like Prof. Ravikant Kisana highlights - brahmanical pedagogy is a continuous 'Agnipariksha'.

In classrooms, the faculty is notorious for selective mentorship, favouritism, and exclusion. The caste category of students are included on the roll call lists. Caste Hindus usually get preferential treatment. The professors are alleged too often of not reading manuscripts, or doing due diligence in grading practices. Feedback channels are absent. With their comfortable 'government jobs' and little accountability, there is little incentive for reform.

While some manage to navigate the pedagogy of stress and fear, others have their academic journey badly damaged by professors who can impose bad grades, or fail students repeatedly. Courses and exams are designed with the intent of failing some. If you fail a course, you fall behind by a semester or a year. Some fall behind by several years, as their peers and friends move on. Those who make it through embrace survivorship bias without a question.

Government data reveals that at least 20% of students - mostly those who availed affirmative action - end up dropping out. In the last 19 years, 26 suicides have happened in IIT Madras alone. While affirmative action is mandated through reservation, the pedagogy is designed to undo it.

With many professors, the professor-student relationship mirrors the 'contempt-impunity' dynamic found in brahmanical violence. Traditionally, Brahmins were experts also in cursing, punishing, and banishing. This dynamic persists in education today. System grants professors power that verges on impunity.

Community and Conformity

Community is considered the primary IIT takeaway. The 'IIT culture' gives this privileged pool an exclusive environment to network and build connections. From ragging - where we start by memorising the names, and bios of ~100-150 hostel-mates in the first year, to competitive extracurriculars with hostel rivalry drama, to joining clubs to pursue hobbies, it is all a grand community-building exercise.

Community-building here often has caste connotations, where social and cultural capital become a prerequisite. Selections for these groups and networks typically happen within the first few weeks of the first year, effectively sidelining students from rural backgrounds, or Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) groups. Caste-based segregation is a common reality in hostels. Many of us adapt quickly to the Western ethos of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) once we move abroad. But in the climate of scarcity-mongering, we protest against DEI and reservations in India.

Conformity to the status-quo mindset of merit, hype and scarcity becomes imperative to leverage the community. An unwavering belief in the IIT project, and in our merit and excellence, is central to this sense of belonging. As noted in the Yashpal committee report (2009), our institutes fail to provide spaces for critical dialogue. Challenging this established ethos risks alienation and losing this hard-earned community. The system becomes intertwined with our identity, self-worth, and sense of belonging.

The WhatsApp group of my 2016 cohort with 900 people now throbs like a caste community, where people find hiring referrals for siblings and cousins, or second degree connections from people they barely know. It is clear that we participated not in a system of education, but a system of stratification. We are not passive participants, but active stakeholders, and we'd rather not admit that.

Giving Back

While our academic pedagogy falls short, we use the IIT alumni networks to access roles in fields we weren't trained for. We fail to bring core knowledge, or any societal understanding or civic vision. Our so-called meritorious capitalistic rigour gives up on the bahujan country.

A banner on the main building at IIT Kharagpur says, 'Dedicated to the service of the nation.' But most of us either work as software developers for western corporations, or run the startup business economy. The disconnect between education and the core job market underscores the failure of our knowledge systems. Being a scarce and organized educated cohort, who else gets the jobs?

We owe our high incomes to key reforms like liberalization, IT infrastructure/ SEZ development, SEZs, bank privatization, BPO incentives, and initiatives like Digital India - apart from a subsidized education. These reforms are implemented time and again in our favor, also exacerbating inequalities. Yet, we uncritically attribute our upward mobility solely to our merit, and can't stand having to pay taxes.

We criticize the babu sarkari system as mediocre, but are blind to see our tech startups - Oyo, Ola, Zomato - as overvalued bubbles of hype. We take bahujan labour exploitation as a given. We continue to hype each other up in the 'small world' of our LinkedIn networks, even as most unicorn startups struggle to break even. In the process, we have made riches for ourselves, and built luxury gated communities, yet we have failed to create any real value for the society. The promise of trickle-down remains unfulfilled.

The social apartheid of 'worthiness'

India's tier-1 higher education (IIT/ IIM/ NIT) was modelled after the colonial education model designed to create a 'middle class' between the British and the rest of the population. The limited size of the formal economy continues to correlate with the systemic exclusion of the bahujan majority, who constitute almost 90% of the population. The education model has failed to create useful knowledge systems, and has instead perpetuated the caste social order, and a bubble economy for the elite.

The façade of worthiness has weakened since the neo-liberalization and privatization of education, which followed the implementation of the Mandal Commission's recommendations and OBC reservation. The enactment of OBC reservation met fierce resistance from upper-caste groups, and in the aftermath, the upper-caste state defunded public education. Today, 'good' education is increasingly only accessible to those who can afford it - in a country where wealth disparity is rooted in caste hierarchies.

IITs, as brahmanical strongholds of government funding, continue to resist meaningful reform. Amidst challenges like defunding, privatization of education, the rise of Hindutva ideologies, and the advent of technologies like AI, it remains uncertain how IITs will maintain their status as tier-1 public institutions while preserving their exclusionary and outdated pedagogy.

When asked where our problems originate, a typical caste-conditioned contemptuous response would be - 'population' - all while upholding our systems of scarcity that deem the bahujan as unworthy of an education, and don't question these systemic issues. Caste affects us all, however, those of us with privileges and agency are blinded by it.

India's spending on education as a percentage of its GDP ranks around 150th globally. The government can justify scarcity and underspending, only as we believe in notions of 'worthiness'.

As Gramsci argues, cultural hegemony involves the normalization of the dominant group's worldview. We must reject notions of 'worthiness', and demand a radical transformation in pedagogical methods.

As stakeholders of the system (IITians, corporate workers, and any savarna who has claimed merit), we need honesty, empathy, and a critical sense of our positionality. We need to confront the caste question as our social, political and economic reality. Instead of protesting affirmative action, we need to demand capacity-building in education. We need active encouragement of diversity.

"Quality education means nothing to me. Give me equal education"
— Kuffir Yeldamostava