Sundeep Pattem
From a social perspective, the IITs are tragic failures that beget more tragedies.
But you already know the IITs are the pinnacle of Indian aspirations, achievements, accolades, blah-di-blah, right? How about we celebrate by taking a closer look at the graduates, the faculty, and the institution?
The institutional charter, briefly. The IITs were conceived in 1946 to support the country’s industrial development and help meet the nation’s technological challenges. Parliament’s 1961 Act declares them institutions of national importance. It charges them with instruction and research, and with the advancement of learning and dissemination of knowledge. The same Act says every institute shall be open to persons of either sex and of whatever race, creed, caste or class, in admitting or appointing students and teachers alike. [1] Later laws reserve seats for SC, ST and OBC students, PhD seats included, and, since 2019, teaching posts at every rank.
Start with the product. As any IIT alum would confirm, a majority of IIT graduates wouldn’t be able to properly describe what ‘engineering’ is. Poorly educated and narrowly conditioned to chase status from a young age, most of them used to end up in finance or as middle management in US IT firms, but have lately diversified into mercenary ouroboros via IIT coaching and YouTube influencing. The institute’s own numbers: in IIT Bombay’s placement report for 2023–24, 29% of offers were in engineering and technology. The rest went to IT, consulting, finance, analytics and “other”. [2]
The defence is usually the famous founders. Let’s do the math. Seats went from about 2k a year in the 80s to about 20k now, so total grads ~400k. Unicorn founders ~117, high value startup founders maybe four thousand if you’re generous. So, 0.03% and 1%. [3, 4] Like unicorns, these founders are statistical anomalies. Sensible folks within the system will themselves readily acknowledge that their success is mostly despite it rather than because of it. And given the stated mission, funnelling billions in public subsidy into private equity accumulation for a minuscule minority is cause for shame rather than something to tom-tom about.
This is the deal then. Ruin your childhood to join an exclusive band of svayambhu achievers. Concoct jagatguru-brand gig economy “innovations” for exploiting cheap labor. Garland each other for contributions to the economic miracle of jobless growth and extractive digital feudalism. Parade your arrogant indifference or offer defensive apologies for the mockery of a social contract, dressed up in a lazy pragmatism argument about success.
By the way, who’s even there to teach them? Across all 23 IITs, 4,804 of 12,498 sanctioned teaching posts stood vacant in January 2026, or 38.4%. [5] It was 38.3% in December 2022. [6] In the nine IITs that disclosed the breakdown, about 60% of the empty posts were reserved ones. [5] Cryogenic sthiratva.
Sour grapes? I was there, eating them for four lost years. So chill. First week in the hostel, the rank was a common icebreaker question you asked people along with where they were from and in what department. Some hesitant answers made me stop asking. Only the rare, confident stud would openly declare he was SC, came through the preparatory course etc. The term in use was ‘schaddu’, and people would murmur in the early semesters, but soon some of them were ahead on GPA, and the murmurs lost voice. Years later, a friend who got a PhD mentioned feeling conflicted using reservations since their father was also a PhD and they went to good schools. Not long ago, an alum stated that even though they got in via reservation, everything after was earned by merit. I couldn’t make out if this was being defensive or proud. I don’t remember hearing of any campus suicides, and only learned about them from ‘The Death of Merit’ documentary. [7]
A decade after graduation and on another continent, the sourness still stung, in an interview by another pitiable alum. I was struggling for purpose and careening across career lanes. Unusual for an IIT grad, and he got suspicious… maybe I was a ‘category candidate’? So he asked for my rank, and then I asked for his, and then he said that’s not relevant, and then I agreed, and the interview went downhill. So, no chill.
Then the people who run the place. Do the IITs still hire blatantly sexist dogs as professors? It used to be de rigueur in several departments. A lot of the students were of a similar breed, excusable perhaps for their youthful ignorance and terrible cultural milieu. (Apologies to the canines for this unfortunate figure of human speech.) Anyone who was there will attest to this. Women who studied at IIT Bombay in the 1970s and 80s wrote in 2021 that they had heard many sexist comments from their teachers. [8] And they still do hire them: in 2025, IIT Roorkee dismissed one of its senior-most professors after a complaint from his own PhD student. [9] In late 2024 IIT Mandi compulsorily retired a professor, who has appealed, after its complaints committee upheld sexual harassment charges brought by two BTech students. A different professor was accused and removed soon after. Neither case went to the police. [10] Note that the compulsory retirement leaves the retirement benefits in place.
Ok, coming to caste, proper. Can we hide from it anywhere in this sanskari culture? In a 2022 survey by IIT Bombay’s SC/ST Students’ Cell, over 37% of the 388 Dalit and Adivasi students who replied had been asked their rank by classmates fishing for their caste, and 77 reported discrimination from faculty and fellow students. [11] 18-year-old Darshan Solanki died there in February 2023. 22-year-old Sahil Wakode died there in September 2026. Both were Dalit, and both families allege caste discrimination. In the first case, the institute’s committee ruled it out. In the second, the police have an abetment case open under the Atrocities Act and a professor is suspended. [12] They are two of many: at least 120 IIT students died by suicide or other unnatural causes in the past decade, up from 51 in the one before, by an alumnus’s count from RTI replies and press reports. By his estimate, SC and ST students died by suicide at about twice the general rate. [13] Do your graveyard shift and choose between being horrified by the deaths and body counting by caste category.
And these worthies cannot find “suitable candidates” for reserved faculty posts. The law has required it at every rank since 2019. Asked how to comply, a committee of IIT directors recommended in 2020 that the IITs be exempted altogether. Their case was one standard for everyone, and candidates not good enough. Quota at entry if you must, but not at professor; no university abroad that competes for faculty carries such a thing. Ok, directors, abroad means not India. But no university abroad has a law telling it to be open to every caste. The IITs do. The ministry instead ordered the faculty posts filled by September 2022. [14]
The record since, from RTI replies obtained by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) at IIT Bombay: of 412 full professors at IIT Bombay, none is ST, five are SC, and six are OBC; so 97% are general category. Among 363 associate and assistant professors, 29 are SC, eight ST and 35 OBC. [15] It is not for want of applicants: in 2023, 523 SC, 96 ST and 779 OBC candidates applied. Four were selected, all of them SC. [16, 17] So their own PhD pipeline has failed? Of the 25,007 PhD students the IITs admitted between 2015 and 2019, 9.1% were SC and 2.1% ST, against quotas of 15% and 7.5%. [18] At IIT Delhi in 2024, the faculty was 89.1% general category, 2.7% SC and 1.1% ST. [19]
Let’s swing by the apex gatekeepers. Is there caste data on the top administrative positions: directors, deans, HoDs? When you have a full professor pool that is 97% “general category” and “general” means “merit”, no need to ask about caste, only merit. Get it?
As Kuffir wrote back in 2012: “The general category is the seat of caste, not the reserved categories.” [20]
A parliamentary committee on SC/ST welfare, looking at central institutions in 2025, flagged the “suitable candidates not found” excuse. [21] Suitable for what? In the old IITs, dogs attended/slept in classes more regularly than the students. Of those who attended, maybe about 5% paid attention, 1% actually understood. These numbers sound ridiculous until you ask the IIT grads, or read IIT Bombay’s own surveys. In the institute’s 2017 stakeholder survey, 56% of the students who responded said there was no academic honesty among students, and faculty called copying and plagiarism rampant. [22] Earlier, the student magazine rated the place 5 out of 10 on academic integrity, with professors who know most of the class can’t answer a hard question, and courses diluted so the failures stay manageable. [23] The IITs brought in 75-85% attendance rules. But IIT Dhanbad scrapped its own in 2025 at its students’ request, because they were sitting in class only to mark attendance. [24]
All of the above has been written and spoken about. A lot. One can read Round Table India [25, 16] or watch the documentary online for free. [7] The meritorious can buy ‘The Caste of Merit’ book for Rs. 7,000. [26]
And the research? The charter asks for it, so look. In QS, where 45% of the score is two reputation surveys, the older IITs rank between 123 and 339 in the world. [27] In the Leiden ranking, which takes no submissions and counts only published papers, they rank between 874 and 1,309 of 1,594 on the share of their output among the world’s 10% most cited. [28] In Times Higher Education rankings, which weights research quality at 30%, they appear nowhere: seven of them stopped submitting in 2020, after placing between 401 and 800. [29] Leiden they cannot withdraw from. At home, in the ministry’s own NIRF ranking, built largely on data the institutes themselves submit, they are on top. [30]
So, the institution routinely fails its mission and charter, has crippling problems teaching and motivating those it admits, ranks in the world’s bottom half for research that matters, and has sustained, well-documented, and alleged discrimination against historically suppressed groups in both faculty and student bodies. But it svayam-ranks at the top at home, and remains prestigious.
None of this is an accident. The IITs were founded on a promise to be open to whatever caste. Then they recruit broadly and promote narrowly. The reserved students also pass the entrance and get the certificate, and the category follows them around the campus anyway. Their PhD seats go unfilled. At hiring, the full professors decide who is “suitable”. The elite keep the intruders in check by other means, and the costs are limited to the lower rungs. At every step, the judging is in their own hands.
So there are two possibilities. Either no suitable candidates exist, in which case institutes that have admitted SC and ST students for about fifty years, and award the PhDs themselves, have produced none. [31] Or they exist and are turned away, and 1,398 applicants and four selections at IIT Bombay in one year suggest where to look. Either way the promise is broken.
The gatekeepers call the yardstick merit, but the yardstick moves. A reserved student clears the entrance exam and earns the same degree, and is still asked for their rank. They earn the PhD, and are still “not found suitable” to be faculty. To the svayam-meritorious, reservations feel like a crowbar in the gate, a claw dug into the soft flesh of privilege. The promise gets broken – it was never theirs to keep – and it costs them nothing. The ministry’s deadline passed in 2022, and the numbers have not moved. The IITs are judged by who gets in and by their handful of unicorns, never by their charter. That is the gate: cold in its results, banal in its daily working, and consequence-free.
What is the solution then? The antireservationists should be granted their wish and reservations abolished. The resulting bonfire will burn everything to the ground and maybe allow for a more equitable reconstruction of this miserable society dominated by ignorant merit-my-foot mongers and their knowing but pathologically power-addicted cousins. The wish for the bonfire is theirs, though, not mine.
Caste is a lucrative, subliminal corruption of the soul, beyond the reach of arguments, which are cheap to ignore. The cure is cost: capability, power, consequence, and relentlessness. The reservations, the graduates, the PhDs are proof of battles already won. So are the RTIs: most of the numbers above were pried out by students, APPSC at IIT Bombay above all, not handed over. The counter strategy of the savarna elites is to manage and mitigate the costs at lower levels. So, not first and then. Claim rights in situ and also build further where their gates aren’t allowed by design, in independent institutions.
Until the cost hurts, the suicides go on, the posts stay empty, the charter is in tatters. But hey, the prestige stays intact!
Who wins? Not the dead. Not the humiliated who stay. Not the IIT grad who got a rank and no purpose. Not the genuine teachers trapped inside. Not society.
Save your tears, stay blind and celebrate.
References
[1] Parliament of India. The Institutes of Technology Act, 1961. https://www.iitsystem.ac.in/sites/default/files/static/Administration/Act/85a42340c.pdf
[2] IIT Bombay Placement Office. Placement and Internship Report, Academic Year 2023–2024, Table 6, p. 9. https://campus.placements.iitb.ac.in/static/docs/placement_report_2023_24.pdf
[3] Team Inc42. “Now, Non-IIT, IIM Graduates At The Helm Of Indian Unicorns’ Growth Story.” Inc42, 8 April 2024. https://inc42.com/features/now-non-iit-iim-graduates-at-the-helm-of-indian-unicorns-growth-story
Inc42’s analysis of 278 Indian unicorn founders found 42% were from IITs, about 117 people. Against 400,000 IIT graduates, that is 0.03%. The 400,000 is my estimate from intake figures.
[4] IIT Delhi. Alumni Impact Report, 2026. https://alumni.iitd.ac.in/public/frontend/impact-report/Alumni-Impact-Report-2026.pdf
For the tiers other than unicorns, IIT Delhi’s 2026 Alumni Impact Report counts 80 soonicorns, 213 minicorns and 2 decacorns among 65,000+ alumni: 295 companies. At two founders per company, that is 590 people, or 0.9% of its alumni. Round that up to 1%. Applied to every IIT graduate, it gives about 4,000 founders. Two per company is my assumption. IIT Delhi is the largest source of unicorn founders by Inc42’s count, so this is a ceiling.
[5] Sanjay Maurya. “Over 38% teaching spots vacant across all 23 IITs.” Hindustan Times, 29 June 2026. https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/over-38-teaching-spots-vacant-across-all-23-iits-101782698025198.html
[6] Ministry of Education. Reply in the Lok Sabha, December 2022, on vacant teaching posts in the IITs. https://sansad.in/getFile/loksabhaquestions/annex/1710/AS78.pdf?source=pqals
[7] Insight Foundation. The Death of Merit – Manish Kumar (IIT Roorkee) Part – II. 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdlPvMNzeL8
[8] The Wire Staff. “25 Alumni of IIT Bombay Write to IIT Kharagpur Director Over Seema Singh’s Remarks.” The Wire Science, 29 April 2021. https://science.thewire.in/education/25-alumni-of-iit-bombay-write-to-iit-kharagpur-director-over-seema-singhs-remarks/
[9] Narendra Sethi. “IIT Roorkee sacks 60-year-old senior professor after sexual harassment probe.” The New Indian Express, 8 May 2025. https://www.newindianexpress.com/india/2025/May/08/iit-roorkee-sacks-60-year-old-senior-professor-after-sexual-harassment-probe
[10] Correspondents. “Another sexual harassment case emerges at IIT-Mandi.” The Tribune, 14 December 2024. https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/himachal/another-sexual-harassment-case-emerges-at-iit-mandi/
[11] SC/ST Students’ Cell, IIT Bombay. 2022 survey report. Scribd. https://www.scribd.com/document/631346921/SC-ST-Students-Cell-Survey-Report
[12] India Today Education Desk. “Darshan Solanki, Sahil Wakode: Two IIT-Bombay suicides amid caste allegations.” India Today, 21 September 2026. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/iit-bombay-student-suicides-darshan-solanki-sahil-wakode-cases-amid-caste-allegations-2999270-2026-09-21
Amey Tirodkar. “IIT Bombay suicide and the caste factor.” Frontline, 14 October 2026. https://frontline.thehindu.com/social-issues/social-justice/sahil-wakode-death-caste-discrimination-iit-bombay/article71549982.ece
[13] Roshni Chakrabarti. “Inside the IIT student suicide data: Patterns hidden behind 171 deaths in 20 years.” India Today, 10 October 2026. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/iit-student-suicides-data-flags-campus-patterns-exam-pressure-and-scst-disparity-3013694-2026-10-10
[14] Basant Kumar Mohanty. “Centre rejects IITs’ request for exemption from implementing reservations in senior faculty posts.” The Telegraph, 13 September 2021. https://www.telegraphindia.com/india/centre-rejects-iits-request-for-exemption-from-implementing-reservations-in-senior-faculty-posts/cid/1830460
[15] India Today Education Desk. “IIT Bombay faculty representation: no ST professors, low SC and OBC numbers.” India Today, 29 September 2026. https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/news/story/iit-bombay-faculty-representation-no-st-professors-low-sc-and-obc-numbers-3005236-2026-09-29
[16] Pranav Jeevan P. “Indian Institutes of Savarnas: Reservation Norms Violated during PhD Admission and Faculty Recruitment in IIT/IIMs.” Round Table India, 4 December 2022. https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/indian-institutes-of-savarnas-reservation-norms-violated-during-phd-admission-and-faculty-recruitment-in-iit-iims/
[17] Niraj Pandit. “IITs fail to recruit mandated SC, ST, OBC faculty, RTI data reveals.” Hindustan Times, 23 September 2024. https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/mumbai-news/iits-fail-to-recruit-mandated-sc-st-obc-faculty-rti-data-reveals-101727032296807.html
[18] The Wire Staff. “SC, ST Doctoral Enrolments at IITs Fall Far Short of Reserved Seats.” The Wire Science, 9 March 2020. https://science.thewire.in/education/sc-st-iits-phd-enrolment/
[19] Edinbox Team. “IIT Delhi Faculty Data Reveals Sharp Underrepresentation Of Marginalized Groups.” EdInbox, 13 September 2024. https://edinbox.com/news/2455-iit-delhi-faculty-data-reveals-sharp-underrepresentation-of-marginalized-groups/
[20] Kuffir Nalgundwar. “Let’s skim the upper caste creamy layer.” Round Table India, 14 September 2012. https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/lets-skim-the-upper-caste-creamy-layer/
[21] ET Online. “Parliamentary panel condemns ‘not found suitable’ tag blocking SC/ST teacher recruitment.” The Economic Times, 18 August 2025. https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india/parliamentary-panel-condemns-not-found-suitable-tag-blocking-sc/st-teacher-recruitment/articleshow/123360686.cms
[22] IIT Bombay. A Report on Stakeholders’ Feedback on Draft Strategy Document, IIT Bombay Strategic Plan 2017–2022, 15 June 2017. Section 1.9, Figure 1.9; section 2.9. https://www.iitb.ac.in/sites/default/files/2025-08/Stakeholders%20Feedback%20Report.pdf
[23] Insight Editorial Team. “What’s Wrong with Us?” Insight, IIT Bombay student magazine, Volume 10, Issue 3. c. 2008. https://insightiitb.org/volume-10-3-whats-wrong-with-us/
[24] Sanjay Maurya. “IIT (ISM) Dhanbad ends 75% mandatory attendance rule from 2025–26 academic year.” Hindustan Times, 9 September 2025. https://www.hindustantimes.com/education/admissions/iit-ism-dhanbad-ends-75-mandatory-attendance-rule-from-2025-26-academic-year-101757429887725.html
[25] Pranav Jeevan P. “Lack of Mental Health Support for Bahujan Students in IITs.” Round Table India, 28 June 2022. https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/lack-of-mental-health-support-for-bahujan-students-in-iits/
[26] Ajantha Subramanian. The Caste of Merit: Engineering Education in India. Harvard University Press, 2019. Listed Indian price from Amazon (archived). https://web.archive.org/web/20261012154009/https://www.amazon.in/Caste-Merit-Engineering-Education-India/dp/0674987888
[27] QS Quacquarelli Symonds. QS World University Rankings. 2026. https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings?countries=in
[28] CWTS, Leiden University. CWTS Leiden Ranking, Traditional Edition 2025. https://traditional.leidenranking.com/ranking/2025/list
The indicator used is PP(top 10%), the window is 2020-2023.
[29] Manash Pratim Gohain. “IISc among top 300 varsities on THE list; IITs continue to boycott rankings.” The Times of India, 12 October 2022. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/education/news/iisc-among-top-300-varsities-on-the-list-iits-continue-to-boycott-rankings/articleshow/94798751.cms
[30] Ministry of Education. NIRF India Rankings 2025, Engineering. https://www.nirfindia.org/Rankings/2025/EngineeringRanking.html
[31] Kuffir Nalgundwar. “The compulsive need to oppose reservations.” Round Table India, 8 September 2012. https://www.roundtableindia.co.in/the-compulsive-need-to-oppose-reservations/
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Sundeep Pattem works on building autonomous Bahujan spaces: Sanghamitra Business Incubator, Shared Mirror Publishing and Round Table India. He was previously Chief Data Scientist for the California Department of Justice. He is an IIT Bombay graduate with a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California
