"Inaction is complicity": IIT Madras student & Governor's Prize winner speaks on "mass genocide" in Palestine at convocation

At the 61st Convocation of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras held today, Friday, July 19, as many as 2,636 students, including 444 schoalrs, were awarded degrees.

Dhananjay Balakrishnan, who received Governor’s Prize spoke out against the mass genocide in Palestine in his speech.

Here's the full transcript of his speech:

"There is a mass genocide going on in Palestine, people are dying in mass numbers and there is no end in sight. Why should we be bothered, you ask? Because Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) as a field in itself has been historically been used to advance the ulterior motives of the imperial powers such as Israel.

As engineering students, we work hard to get top-level jobs at tech giants which offer very lucrative pay and great benefits. However, these tech giants control various aspects of our lives today as you know better than anyone. Many of these prestigious companies are directly or indirectly implicated in the war against Palestine by providing the state of Israel technology, technology that's used to kill.

There are no easy solutions and I don't have all the answers but I do know this, as engineers graduating into the real world, it is our job to be aware of the consequences of the work we do. And also to interrogate our own position in these complex systems of power imbalance. I hope we can incorporate this awareness more into our daily lives, attempting to understand what we can do to liberate the oppressed on lines of caste, class, creed and gender. I believe that is the first step to curb the never-ending cycle of suffering.

Issac Newton says that he stood on the shoulders of giants to take him where he wanted to go. I want to say this, that we are here, rather I am here, by standing on the magnanimous Indian Populus and we owe it to them to lift every single person out of their misery.

Inaction is complicity and I hope that you and I and all of us can take action to make the right decisions however hard they might be."

Dhananjay won the prize for best all-around proficiency in curricular and extra curricular activities in dual degree in Mechanical Engineering.