IIT-Delhi campus suicides: After report flags toxic culture, here’s what varsity plans to do

There were five student suicides in IIT-Delhi in 2023 and 2024, with the most recent in October 2024 — a month after the panel was learnt to have submitted its recommendations.

The 12-member committee, led by Santosh Kumar Chaturvedi, former Dean of Behavioural Sciences and senior professor of psychiatry at NIMHANS, was set up in March last year following demands by students of the institute.

Its report flagged high academic pressure, a grading system that reinforces “toxic competitiveness”, and caste and gender discrimination as some of the many key triggers on campus. It was also learnt that the report was submitted by the committee in August last year but there was no response after that.

Meanwhile, the institute Sunday said, “The report will be tabled before the Institute’s Board of Governors, along with the measures to implement its recommendations.”

“Most of the factors pointed out by the committee… had already been identified by the Institute,” its statement read, adding that these had been discussed in “faculty meetings, deans’ committee meetings and the Board of Students.”

“Based on the report as well as a students’ audit of the current counselling structures available on campus, the institute is developing a comprehensive action plan to further enhance and strengthen its student support structures and ecosystem,” the statement said.

The institute also recognised that “unfortunately, none of the issues pointed out by the committee are specific to IIT-Delhi. Factors such as the competitive nature of the entrance exam and the environment and social biases and prejudices are system issues”.

It, however, assured that it is “committed to addressing these issues as much as possible within the campus” adding that it is also “committed to working with other stakeholders, such as other IITs, to engage with these issues at a larger level” such as JEE and other entrance exams.

The committee’s report flagged seven categories for scrutiny: academic environment; discrimination and exclusion; relational climate; mental health issues; counselling and support services; faculty support; infrastructure and administrative challenges, The Indian Express learnt.

Some of its recommendations included: a clear anti-discrimination policy; rethinking CGPA (or Cumulative Grade Point Average) as the sole success metric; choosing more empathetic campus leaders; strengthening faculty-student ties; mandatory civic learning to reduce bias; and greater administrative responsiveness to student concerns.