As Indian Institutes of Technology across the country start campus placements, a complaint has been filed with the Education Ministry, Social Justice Ministry and the National Commissions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes, alleging that the Placements Office at IIT-Kanpur was allowing recruiting companies to discriminate against prospective candidates based on their caste or socio-economic category.
The incident highlighted in the complaint related to application forms circulated by a company called Merilytics on the campus’ placements portal. In the forms, seen by The Hindu, the company required applicants to mandatorily fill in the “General” ranks secured in both the JEE-Mains and JEE-Advanced stages, which prompted students from reserved categories to flag the issue.
Dheeraj Singh, an IIT Kanpur alumnus, said he filed the complaint with the IIT -Kanpur Director, concerned Ministries and the National Commission for SCs on Tuesday after the incident was brought to his notice by a student who is part of a mentorship programme he and other alumni are currently running.
Mr. Singh, who as part of the Global IIT SC/ST Alumni Support Group, has been mentoring hundreds of SC/ST students for the last couple of months, told The Hindu, “This complaint has been filed with regards to Merilytics and IIT Kanpur. But through our mentoring programme, we have found that students from other IITs have also flagged this problem, also accusing companies like Jaguar Land-Rover and Navi of filtering candidates based on their entrance test ranks while recruiting from IITs.”
He explained that many reserved category students are afraid of even applying after seeing this field — for fear that they might have to disclose the fact that they do not have a “General” rank.
In the complaint against IIT Kanpur’s Placements Office, Mr. Singh said, “The company has made it mandatory for students to fill their general rank twice in JEE Mains and JEE advanced which is a blatant attempt to discriminate against SC/ST/OBC students by this Company, other companies and IIT Kanpur officials who are facilitating this practice.”
Mr. Singh also noted that students from at least two other IITs have accused Merilytics of similar recruitment practices.
Mr. Singh and his Global IIT SC/ST Alumni Support Group, started their mentorship programme to help SC/ST students at the premier institutes score jobs either through campus placements or from outside — especially given the caste-based discrimination they face during their time on campus.
At the time the initiative was started, the alumni group had underlined the importance of such mentorship given the lack of anything similar that the institutes were doing for SC/ST students. The group had also highlighted how students from marginalised backgrounds are often pushed to take their own lives by both explicit and implicit instances of discrimination and exclusion.
After the death by suicide of a Dalit student, Darshan Solanki, in IIT Bombay early this year, SC/ST/OBC students from across IITs had come forward with their experiences - highlighting widespread caste-based discrimination they face.
Almost a dozen students of IITs across the country have died by suicide this year so far, most of them from marginalised backgrounds.
