Why Are IITs Always in the News for the Wrong Reasons?
Questioner: I’ll tell you a few headlines that I get to read now of IITs. The recent one that I read which was obnoxious in my opinion was, how people demanded that they should have separate eating places! Now, there is a vegetarian corner and some of the students went there and ate there, their non-veg food there. And that made international headlines. And I was reading the Hindu and I read that.
Some other headlines that I read was some student who committed suicide in IIT because of the caste slurs thrown at them. The IITs that I know of, growing up, it used to feature or it has featured or the alums of IITs are like you, have done wonders. And those were the people who were talked about; those were the inventions that were talked about and that’s exactly why IITs came into being. Now, this is what you’re hearing of IITs day in and day out; what does it make you feel?
Acharya Prashant: See, I have been in decent touch with the IITs, mostly IIT Delhi, over all these years. So, I know that the campuses are still doing far better than what we get to hear from the media. It’s just that the media has its own agenda. Obviously, they’ll pick up stuff that will make sensational headlines. So, there is a lot more, obviously, that’s happening in the IITs.
If we look, for example, at the Global standings, all the IITs have risen, and I suppose particularly IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay are continuously improving year by year. In one of the top rankings, which one, I won’t be able to recall, I suppose they have already entered the global top 50!
Questioner: FT [Financial Times] rankings.
Acharya Prashant: Probably, probably, I’ll have to check. So, and we were lagging badly in my times. So, there has been development, and these institutions, these great institutions, are actually only getting better each passing year. It’s not that there is deterioration or something. Obviously, there always are things that one could still improve on and there must be many, many areas to look into, consider and develop. And development is an unending road.
But I suppose the IITs are making the headlines for all the trivial reasons. And that’s not got that much to do with the institutions themselves as it has to do with the with the media. The media is just scavenging on the rotten stuff.
What the controversy that you’re talking of—been to IIT Bombay a few times, one of my batchmates is actually a professor right there, the protest that you’re referring to, that came from students belonging to the Ambedkar, Periyar, Phule study circle. And, if you look at the genesis of that body, it’s both interesting and appreciable. You know, if you want to get into the minds of the likes of Ambedkar or Phule, how can one find fault with that?
It’s just that the kids are quite young, and they equate vegetarianism with Brahmanism, right? Which is even factually a misplaced notion. Because if you look at the Brahmins of, of Bihar or Jharkhand or Odisha or Bengal or Assam, all the places in the East, that is, or even the Brahmins from the deep South—they very liberally consume flesh. So, it’s not as if, if you want to oppose Brahmanism, you must oppose vegetarianism as well. That’s what those kids have done.
It’s not that they have something terribly against vegetarian food. What they are opposing is the injustices of the past and their carry-over into the present; that’s what they are opposing. And I think that’s something very justifiable, and we must appreciate that. But where they are missing it, is in the equivalence that they are mistakenly and quite imaginatively establishing between Brahmanism and vegetarianism.
One has to be vegetarian, rather a vegan, not out of ideology but out of compassion. You see, if, if we are talking of, of standing for the, for the oppressed ones—that’s what Ambedkar did, that’s what Periyar did—If you are talking of standing for the oppressed ones, there is nobody more oppressed in the world today than these these little kids from the various species, no?
Ten lakh cows are slaughtered every day, a few million pigs, and then hundreds of millions of chicken, and countless million fish, eleven million ducks. They’re not just being harassed or dominated. They are being slaughtered! So, they are the most oppressed ones.
If you’re an Ambedkarite, you should be the first one to turn vegan, no? Because oppression should not see caste; oppression should not see gender; oppression should not see creed or color; oppression should also not see species, should also not see species.
You know, it is very bad when a human being is oppressed. Is it also not equally bad when a sheep, or a goat, or a chicken, or a fish, or a pig is slaughtered? So, I would rather, I would rather envision that people who have been through oppression and subjugation would have that extra bit of sensitivity towards every creature who is being subjected to injustice. And we are not talking of just slaughter here. Mind it, species are getting extinct at the rate of hundreds and thousands a day. So how can an Ambedkarite condone that? Right?
I’ve tremendous respect for for these three people and several others from several walks of life. Not only Indians but, but fighters from across the world who stood against injustice. In fact, justice is something so dear to my heart that, that I sometimes get a bit scared. I don’t want to be in a position where I see a blatant act of injustice happening right in front of my eyes. I’m not sure I’ll be able to, you know, control myself and moderate myself in that situation. So, I just don’t want to be in that situation where I see it happening. I’m afraid I’ll just run amok!
So, so justice is wonderful, justice is beautiful, justice is Truth. But why should that justice not be offered to all our little brothers and sisters of the various species on the globe? So, I would request members of that study circle to kindly reconsider their stand, and, and not posit false equivalence. In the name of opposing Brahmanism, how can we slaughter animals? There is no rhyme or reason to it!
