Bengaluru- IIM Bangalore Professor Gopal Das, who levelled allegations of caste-based discrimination against the IIM authorities, got relief from the Karnataka High Court after it stayed an internal probe of financial impropriety against him.
Notably, the IIM Bangalore authorities initiated the probe after Gopal Das, a professor of Marketing at the prestigious institute, complained to President Draupadi Murmu, who visited the campus in January 2024, about the alleged harassment he was receiving at the institute.
This was followed by a letter to the President in which he alleged that he was denied opportunities in institutional activities, made to withdraw elective courses and PhD programs, and prevented from accessing the institute’s resources. However, the most affronting treatment he received was being referred to as a member of the “lower caste.”
Following a communication from the office of the President, the Chief Secretary ordered Karnataka’s Civil Rights Enforcement Directorate to probe the matter. The Civil Rights Enforcement Directorate, which is looking into the case, has reportedly issued summons to authorities from the institute.
The stay order was passed after Y H Vijaykumar, the counsel for Das, submitted in court that the alleged impropriety is merely a countermeasure to gain a bargaining position regarding the outcome of the investigation by the Civil Rights Enforcement Directorate.
“In consideration of these submissions and to ensure that there is no precipitation, the operation of the impugned Communication dated 24.06.2024 [Annexure-D] of the second respondent, and consequently further proceedings by the Committee constituted as indicated therein, are stayed until the next date of hearing,” said Justice B M Shyam Prasad in the court order.
Interestingly, the matter under scrutiny by the IIMB authorities is a 1.5-year-old case in which Das is said to have produced a fake travel bill. However, sources said that the case is a typical example of browbeating aimed at pressurizing the professor to withdraw his complaint.
The Mooknayak tried to reach Gopal Das for comments but could not contact him.
The inquiry into the allegation of Das was put in motion in March, but it has only contributed to increased harassment of Das. On May 15, the IIM professor wrote to P Mannivannan, Principal Secretary in the state social welfare department, asserting that he is facing harassment after the inquiry started into his complaint.
On June 6, the assistant professor was served a show cause notice by the IIM Bangalore authorities on the grounds that he had provided information to the media in an unauthorized manner.
However, the High Court order putting a stay on the internal probe, which was seen as a vendetta, has brought relief to Das, who has received several awards in the field of marketing.
The revered institution, which has many eminent personalities on its board, has another ugly side to it—widespread Brahminical cliques. The institute has reportedly been practicing a kind of clique where the Brahmin members share a distinct affinity with each other and exclude non-Brahmins from their affairs. “I received a mail from a staff member inviting people to a ‘Janeu Ceremony’ (a ritual in which a person is consecrated with a sacred thread) that was restricted to Brahmins only,” said a source on the condition of anonymity.
The aforementioned incident lays bare the “thread” of caste that binds the faculty members and also accentuates the vulnerabilities that members from marginalized communities, viz. SC/ST/OBC, might be exposed to.
The widespread discrimination practiced in the recruitment of faculties is reflected in the composition of the faculties across the IIMs. According to a reply given by the then Minister of Human Resources Development (MHRD) Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ in Rajya Sabha on November 21, 2019, out of the total 1,148 sanctioned faculty strength in 20 IIMs, only 11 teachers are currently employed from SC and ST categories, i.e., 0.96% or less than 1% of the total strength against the reservation of 22.5% for these categories.
A more dismal aspect of these figures lies in the fact that the most prestigious institutes like IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta don’t have any faculty from the SC/ST category, and only the Bengaluru campus had one, who is none other than Gopal Das. Das has been teaching at the campus since 2018 and has levelled allegations of caste-based discrimination and harassment.
Incidentally, Dipak Malghan, an associate professor of public policy at IIM Bangalore, published a paper on social inclusion in elite management institutions in 2017. He, along with co-author Sidhartha Joshi, averred in the paper that the diversity deficit at IIM is a ‘wicked problem.’
The lack of diversity and violation of quota rules is not confined to IIMs alone; this phenomenon extends to IITs as well. A reply to an RTI application revealed that IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, and IIT Bombay had not adhered to the reservation policy in the appointment of teachers. The following figures point to the dismal scenario of recruitment at IITs:
In 2023, IIT Kanpur recruited 9 faculty members from the SC/ST/OBC community, including 2 from SC/ST, against about 39 from the General Category.
At IIT Bombay, only 44 out of 708 faculty members were from the SC/ST/OBC category, i.e., only 6%. The break-up of SC/ST/OBC in the campus was 23, 5, and 16 respectively.
IIT Kharagpur has 59 members of the reserved category out of the total 742 faculty members, making up about 7% of the total faculty members against a reservation of 50%. The institute recruited 2 and 5 candidates from the SC and OBC categories against 89 from the General Category. The oldest IIT did not select even a single candidate from the ST category.
This is despite the fact that the government initiated Mission Mode Recruitment with the aim to fill the vacant faculty positions at IITs.
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