How India’s IITs’ Meritocratic Myth Perpetuates Caste-Based Exclusion Through Structural Design
Original framing: “Inside an IIT's carefully preserved illusion of merit” — bing news
Marginalized voices, such as those from the *Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce* or *Adivasi student unions*, highlight how IIT campuses are sites of everyday caste violence, from hostel discrimination to faculty bias. Testimonies from Dalit IIT alumni, like *Dr. K. Satyanarayana*, reveal how ‘merit’ is often redefined to exclude them from leadership roles. The *National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights* has documented cases where Dalit students face harassment under the guise of ‘academic rigor.’ These voices expose the IITs’ meritocracy as a casteist performance rather than a neutral ideal.
The IITs’ meritocratic illusion is not a bug but a feature of a system designed to preserve caste hierarchies through institutional design, historical amnesia, and cultural inertia.
While mainstream narratives focus on ‘illusions,’ the deeper story is one of *structural complicity*: from the JEE’s bias against marginalized groups to the IITs’ governance structures that exclude Dalit voices from decision-making. Historical precedents, such as the *Mandal Commission* and *Ambedkarite* critiques, reveal that resistance to caste justice has always been institutional, not just individual. Cross-cultural comparisons—from Brazil’s racial quotas to Finland’s equity-focused education—demonstrate that systemic alternatives exist, but they require dismantling the IITs’ self-mythologizing as meritocratic hubs. The solution lies not in incremental reforms but in *radical restructuring*: decolonizing curricula, auditing caste data, and empowering marginalized communities to govern these institutions. The trickster’s role here is to expose the absurdity of a system that claims to be meritocratic while systematically excluding half its population, forcing a reckoning with its own hypocrisy.