Justice Without Boundaries: Why Compassion Cannot Stop at Species

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.