IIT Bombay gets mindful of caste discrimination, issues guidelines
Karam Prakash
New Delhi, July 30
After the uproar in the suicide case of a B.Tech student, who belonged to a reserved category, in February this year, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, on Saturday, had to issue anti-discriminatory guidelines.
Dos and Don’ts of the guidelines deter the students to ask anything that may reveal the caste.
“IT Bombay considers it inappropriate to ask a fellow student what birth/admission category they belong to: asking this could lead to conscious or subconscious bias. It is equally inappropriate for students to ask other students about their JEE (Advanced) ranks or GATE scores, or any other information that may reveal the caste or other related aspects,” reads the guidelines.
The IIT Bombay officials have also asked students not to forward or exchange any messages, including jokes that are abusive, hateful, casteist, sexist, and exhibit bigotry.“It can be construed as harassment or bullying,” reads the anti-discriminatory guidelines.
It is pertinent to mention that the family of the deceased, Darshan Solanki of Gujarat, who committed suicide by jumping off the hostel building, had alleged that behaviour of his classmates changed after they came to know that he belonged to the SC category.
In fact, it is IITs that have reported the highest number of suicides among India’s top educational institutes since 2018.
