IIT Bombay Professor Denies Caste Bias as Student Protest Continues
An IIT Bombay alumnus and professor says he has never seen caste bias at the IITs, amid protests over a student's death and an FIR against a faculty member.
A faculty member at IIT Bombay has publicly rejected the suggestion that caste-based discrimination is prevalent across the IIT system, weighing in as student protests continue over the death by suicide of 20-year-old Sahil Wakode.
Mumbai Police registered an FIR against Professor Suryanarayana Doolla after Wakode's parents filed a complaint alleging that their son had been subjected to caste-based discrimination by him. On Monday, the institute suspended Doolla from his role as Dean of Administrative Affairs with immediate effect.
Students have been demanding his suspension from teaching duties as well, and several faculty members from various IITs have come out in his support, denying that caste discrimination is a feature of life on the campuses.
Professor Pravesh Biyani, who studied at IIT Bombay and later earned a doctorate at IIT Delhi, said his own experience across more than two decades in the IIT and IIIT ecosystem had never included a teacher treating a student differently because of caste.
Writing on X, Biyani said he had spent 14 years as a professor and that during his undergraduate years most students did not know the caste backgrounds of their classmates. He added that many of his close friends belonged to the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities, and that the subject never came up in conversation or in any decision.
He contrasted that with what he described as the influence of social media, which he said had planted manufactured grievances about caste discrimination in the minds of vulnerable students — grievances that, in his experience, do not exist.
Biyani also said his contact with the humanities department as a student was limited, and that the phrase "Brahmanical patriarchy" was not part of the vocabulary at the time.
Describing his approach in the classroom, he said he does not ask students their names before clearing their doubts, and often does not know their names at all, since some of his classes have more than 300 students. He said all students are treated alike, and that the same was true of every colleague he knows and every professor who taught him.