Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) of the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB) accused the institute of violating reservation norms in PhD admissions on a repeat. In a tweet, the collective shared Right to Information (RTI) data and alleged, "...despite raising the issue of lack of representation of SC ST OBC in PhD admissions, there are still 5 departments in @iitbombay who have not admitted a single ST candidate in last 8 years."
Under the reservation guidelines, 7.5% of seats must be reserved for Scheduled Tribe (ST) candidates, 15% for Scheduled Caste (SC) candidates and 27% for Other Backward Class (OBC). "It is not just the PhD candidates; Post-Doctorate and faculty recruitments also do not follow the reservation norms. Further, the scenario is the same for IIMs (Indian Institute of Management)," reveals an APPSC member, adding," Almost all the IITs and IIMs operate this way."
No ST PhD candidate in the eight years
The RTI data reveals five departments in IITB have defied the reservation norms by not admitting a single ST candidate despite a sizable number of applications. Industrial Engineering and Operation Research, SJIM School of Management, Centre For Tech Alternatives for Rural Areas, and Centre of Studies in Resource Engineering and Education Technology are the departments that did not select a single ST candidate for their PhD programme. Other departments such as Environment Science Engineering, and Mathematics selected only one each in the past years. It might also be interesting to note there was a sizable number of applications from ST candidates. "Initially, the institute's excuse was that there aren't many ST applications, but RTIs reveal a different story," says an APPSC member.
The APPSC claims that interview processes in admission lead to arbitrary selections, which further enables the institute to disregard reservation norms. Additionally, the lack of representation among the faculty members responsible for these selections further adds to the issue.
The case with the IIMs
The data of nine IIMs obtained through the RTI filed by APPSC also revealed similar trends in PhD admissions. From 2018 to 2022, only 40 ST candidates were admitted when the norm is to admit 110. In total, 180 SC, ST and OBC category students were denied their seats in the past five years.
What is up with Post-Doctoral appointments?
According to the APPSC, no reservation is implemented for Post-Doctoral appointments. A statement released by their Instagram page reads, "Reservation is not being implemented in any of the postdoc appointments in @iitbombay Posts docs are demanded by IITs for faculty recruitment and this is a way to stop Dalit Bahujan Adivasis from gaining entry into these brahminical spaces." The data that was shared with EdexLive reveals that in the 931 Post-Doctorate Fellowships that were awarded by the institute in the past five years, no reservation norm was followed. APPSC informs, "No rule which exempts Post-Doc Fellowship from the reservation. Lack of Post-Doc is then used to deny Faculty posts for Bahujan candidates in IITs."
Lack of representation in faculties
This brings us to the issue of lack of representation amongst faculty members of IITB. “About 95% of the faculty members are from the higher caste. Their bias reflects in these admission and appointment processes. How do you expect a fair appointment if there is no diversity at all,” says a concerned APPSC member.
On April 12, 2021, APPSC submitted a petition to the National Commission of Schedule Castes, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, Parliamentary Standing Committee on Welfare of Scs/Stc, National Commission for Backward Classes, Committee on Welfare of Other Backward Classes, Secretary (HE), and the Ministry of Education for the immediate implementation of the reservation norms in faculty recruitment.
From 2007 to 2020, only one professor from SC/ST/OBC category was hired while 42 general category candidates were hired. For Assistant Professors recruitment, only nice were recruited from the reserved categories from the year 2009 to 2020 while 308 were hired from the general category.
