India’s higher education campuses are increasingly becoming repulsive sites for students hailing from marginalised communities. Reservation for them in higher education, as provided in our Constitution, seems to be just in letter but not in spirit.
SC, ST and OBC students are receiving unfair treatment in campuses of centrally funded institutions like IIT, IIM and central universities. Caste-based oral abuse and expressed unwillingness of a section of higher caste students not to accept them as their mates in the campus are driving them away from these premier campuses.
The dropout rate among these marginalized categories of students have increased in recent times. The Central government is aware of this situation, of this toxicity permeated in the air of the campuses.
The Union Minister of Education stated recently in the upper house that 19,000 students of marginalised categories have dropped out during a short period from 2018 to the early part of 2023.
Withdrawal from studies midway by promising students belonging to these marginalised categories needs serious introspection.
This trend is not only a shame for our nation but also a great national loss by way of missing out the contribution of many brilliant young minds who could have contributed to progress in science and technology. So, something is obviously wrong in the system. This is an attack on our constitutional values and principles of social justice.
Students from the marginalised communities are mostly first generation learners. Thousands of years of social repression by the upper castes pushed them to the brink of mere survival like animals.
Lower caste and outcaste Indians were treated in society as sub-human species for a long period in history.
Independent Indias Constitution acknowledges this historical deprivation and social discrimination that kept them in the dark hell of ignorance and poverty for centuries.
Dalits were not allowed to step into the portals of education. They were not allowed to enter the precincts of Hindu temples. The makers of modern India laid out a blueprint to stop, once and for all, this social discrimination and neglect of our fellow citizens in free India.
Reservation was mooted for giving them back the social justice that was denied to them during long years of preindependent India.
Reservation in the Constitution is provisioned for positive discrimination, as a means to achieve equality. They will be given the opportunity to grow and to flourish in life. Dr. B R Ambedkar got little opportunity and he himself proved that little opportunity made him one of the leading stars in the galaxy of architects of modern India.
He gave us our Constitution and was the visionary pathfinder for independent Indias journey to modernity. There are laws to prevent atrocities on SC/ST. But the law has failed to stop oral atrocity on them on education campuses.
Discontinuation is specific to a particular community. Why did they drop out in such a large number? The reasons could have been found if authority was really concerned about the exodus. An independent research team could read the minds of the leavers to understand the push factors. But this attempt is not in sight as of now.
These students are not leaving general degree colleges. They are leaving such premier institutions where admission is the dream of the youth of India. Completion of courses could land them in high-paying jobs with fat salaries and fabulous perks. In todays world what could be the cherished dream of youths other than getting admission to IITs and IIMs. But they give up that path in the middle of the course, a path that could lead them to a life of material comforts, security and prestige. Is there any other reason for these massive drop outs? Is the cost too high? It does not seem so because stipends, fee waiver, subsidized education loans along with many other forms of financial assistance come their way.
They left because the campus ambience turned their life miserable. The thought of rosy prospects cannot heal the wounds of disrespect, indignity and unfair treatment on campuses. Oral humiliation is no less lethal than physical harm.
On campus, their ears capture ridiculing remarks and caustic comments passed by upper caste students. They have to hear that they landed on the campus because of their low caste status, and not by merit.
To them, a life of dignity and self-respect at the present moment is better than bearing with indignity in the hope of lucrative jobs on completion. The caste abuse on campus has been borne out by facts. A research study undertaken in 2007 by the Centre under the UPA regime revealed the realities of caste-based maltreatment in AIIMS at New Delhi.
The study noted that twothirds of SC, ST and OBC students said they had received unfair treatment from upper caste teachers.
Many teachers in AIIMS were of the unshakable belief that lower caste students are intellectually inferior. Prejudiced minds of teachers and unfair treatment targeting their caste status drove many budding doctors out of the AIIMS campus.
Another study, at IIT Bombay, conducted in 2022, recorded the tagging of SC/ ST students. They are tagged as reservation students from day one in the campus.
Reservation for marginalised students does not end with admission only. In that case the underlying spirit of reservation as provided in our Constitution would be undermined and halfhearted.
This is similar to a case where a father put his minor boy inside a waiting bus at the bus stop. He told the young lad to get off at a particular bus stop to reach his destination. Father bid goodbye and left. The boy was almost squeezed and felt suffocated in the crowded bus. Things were so uncomfortable that the boy decided to get off midway. Unbearable ambience in the bus stopped him from reaching his final destination.
Reservation, like this story, is not meant to get someone admitted to an educational institution and end there. Reservation means that these students finally reach their destination of completing the course successfully.
Barriers to that completion must be removed by the state immediately. This is for the sake of our democracy, for humanity and for the sake of our nations prosperity.