Amid ongoing student protests seeking the suspension of Professor Suryanarayana Doolla following the death by suicide of 20-year-old student Sahil Wakode, several faculty members from IITs have publicly expressed support for the professor and rejected allegations of caste-based discrimination at IITs, including IIT Bombay.
Mumbai Police registered an FIR against the professor based on a complaint filed by Wakode's parents, who alleged that their son was subjected to caste-based discrimination by him. On Monday, IIT Bombay temporarily suspended Professor Doolla from his position as Dean of Administrative Affairs with immediate effect.
Professor Pravesh Biyani, an IIT Bombay alumnus, wrote on X that he had been a professor for 14 years and, in his 22 years of closely observing the IIT and IIIT system, had never witnessed a teacher discriminate against a student based on caste.
"I did my BTech at IIT Bombay and my PhD at IIT Delhi. I've been a professor for 14 years now. In 22 years of watching the IIT/IIIT system closely, I have never once witnessed a teacher discriminate against a student on the basis of caste," Professor Biyani wrote.
Recalling his time as a BTech student, Biyani said most students were unaware of the caste of their batchmates and that many of his close friends were from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities.
"During my BTech, most of us had no idea what caste our batchmates belonged to. Many of my close friends were SC/ST. We never discussed it. It never entered any conversation or decision. Not once," he wrote.
Biyani said his exposure to the humanities department was limited during his time as a student and added that the term "Brahmanical patriarchy" was not part of the discourse then.
"As a teacher, I don't ask a student's name before solving their doubt. Often, I don't know their name at all - some of my classes have over 300 students. We treat them all the same. So does every colleague I know. So did every professor who taught me," he said.
He also criticised what he described as social media's role in shaping perceptions of caste discrimination among students.
"Social media has now filled vulnerable students' heads with a lot of manufactured grievance about caste discrimination that, in my experience, doesn't exist," he wrote.