From: chitoor@thorin.cis.udel.edu (Srikrishnan R. Chitoor)
Subject: Casteism in IIT ? Baseless.. (was Re: Solution to Ayodhya ....)
Followup-To: soc.culture.tamil
Keywords: Casteism, IIT.
Organization: University of Delaware, Newark
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 19:38:37 GMT

In article <1992Dec12.000800.10404@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu> ssankara@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Sornam Sankara) writes:
>     A few times, I have seen people in this net while condemning the 
>caste-based reservations talked about the ethics and fall of merit.
>Then I came up with the fact that even in places where there are no  caste 
>based reservations caste plays a dominant role in appoinments and also large 
>violation of ethics and standards.  I quoted many examples about the practices 
>followed in IIT, universities like MK University, Anna University where the 

Please support (atleast the IIT case) with atleast one concrete example.
I expect you to have no difficulty with this since you have said
that you had quoted many examples.
I do know that majority of the faculty in IIT-M can be
clubbed into few specific castes, but this in no way undermines
their qualifications. There are well established procedure  for
appointing faculty in IIT and if an individual does not get a 
position in IIT, one can be fairly sure that the person selected
for the position has better credentials. 
   We just have to accept the fact that in the 60's (when most
of the faculty were appointed), it is the people from these 
castes who were qualified enough to get a position at IIT-M.
I expect more diversity (in terms of anything-religion,sex,caste) in 
the forthcoming years as lot of these faculty will be retiring
and fresh faces will be appointed.

>dominant (already established communities) caste people do not follow merit but
>they want to bring their own caste men to fill the positions and also they 
>denied the qualified people from other communities.  Even in normal academic 
>life they discriminate other communities and most of them do not mainatain any 
>ethics in teaching, research, spending the projects etc.
>
>     I did not blame only Brahmins in IIT.  I also blamed very harsely other 
>communities including the community I am supposed to belong.   But you have 
>isolated only Brahmins and ask me to give the evidence and it looks like you 
>either accept that communities other than Brahmin do such casteist practices or
>you do not bother even if I am just accusing other communities also.  That 
>shows your caste biased mentality.  Nothing else will prove my accusation !!
                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This is at best a lame excuse. I do not understand how the caste
biased mentality of an individual (Btw, I am not accusing him
of being so, I just took it from your argument) proves the accusations
you make (that there are caste-based bias in institutions like IIT etc.)

>     Though I know about other departments of IITM through my friends in other 
>depts, I am myself not eligible to talk about thier capabiliites.  But I can 
>tell you about the chemistry department.   Atleast 90 % of the  faculty
>members hired in the last 10-15 years were not based on merit and they do not
>have any academic, teaching, research or atleast administrative capabilities.
>This can be accepted by any grad student or Masters student or some times 
>B.Tech student (if they had interacted) who came out of IITM Chem dept.  You

The faculty in IIT-M may not be upto the student's expectations
(considering the fact that only the best among the appearing students
are selected to be in IIT-M), but this does not mean that the faculty
were not chosen on merit. This *can* (unless you PROVE otherwise) mean
that they were the best IIT-M could get at that time. 
     As a guy from IIT-M, I can tell you that the faculty
in IIT were not upto my expectations (in terms of research, teaching
etc.), but that does not mean that they were not chosen on merit.

>can ask them if you meet.  At the same times whenever there was an interview 
>and genuinely meritoroius candidates from other candidates have been rejected
>if they do not belong to Brahmin community.  
                          
As I have always stressed, please support your accusations with facts.
There are a lot of people reading the net and *IF* your accusations are
false, it will just create unnecessary mental agony to them (I for one,
will be hurt if you can prove that IIT's rejected someone just
because they were not brahmins).

>     Now you can verify and accuse me  as anti-brahmin if you want.  I
>am anti-caste and I will talk about all the castes though I am also going back
>to India for a job and will be facing these people in all universities or
>institutes.  Basically everyone of us is responsible for these caste practices 

I am sure that you will get a position in these institutes if you
are the best candidate they get. People may
confuse being rejected for lack of good credentials as being 
rejected based on caste, so unless you have concrete proof
that there was no one better than the rejected guy, your argument
is based on your own bias.

>and we are so affected if someone points at our community alone.  Our parents 
>did it yesterday and passed it to us.  We do it today and pass it to our 
>children and they do it tomorrow.  This continues for generations !!!
>
>S. Sankarapandi
>

The following is not with reference to the accusation you made
against casteism in IIT, but in general about a solution to the problem.
I firmly believe that the best solution is for the government
to ignore castes and bring in new laws that will convict an individual
if (s)he has been found to have made professional decisions based
on caste. Ofcourse, in the short run, this will be advantageous to
the persons who are well-established, but on the long run, equality
will reign. To maintain a balance in the short run too, the government
can give help (not reservation, but say free education if they pass
the qualifying exams, free basic education etc.) to the economically
weak. I don't think we are really bothered about the well-off.
     Giving recognition to castes (by reservations or whatever) just
helps to maintain the vicious circle of oppression. If special
status were allotted to a few castes, some 100 years later, the castes
which were not given the special status, might find itself out of
government jobs and will start fighting for reservations. 
     This solution also has the advantage that the government is not
infringing upon the rights of an individual (Someone can still wear
`poonool' and not be casteist).

-Krishna.
Opinions are mine.