Opinion Atul goes to IIT
It took the Supreme Court to ensure that a student from a marginalised community, who had cleared the entrance test, was admitted
While instructing IIT-Dhanbad to provide Atul a seat, the Chief Justice of India said, “... as judges of the SC, we should ensure that no child loses admission because they don’t have Rs 17,500.” 
For equality of opportunity to be meaningful, a person from a marginalised caste and a poor family must be able to move beyond his or her circumstances, and rise. Atul Kumar did just that, in no small part due to the arduous sacrifices of his family. The Dalit aspirant cleared the entrance exam for IIT-Dhanbad. But it took the Supreme Court of India’s intervention to ensure he could get a seat in the prestigious college. His father, a daily wage labourer from Titora village in western Uttar Pradesh, who had studied till class 9, had to move the apex court after Atul was denied admission because he was a few minutes late in depositing the Rs 17,500 fee on the university’s online portal.
While instructing IIT-Dhanbad to provide Atul a seat, the Chief Justice of India said, “… as judges of the SC, we should ensure that no child loses admission because they don’t have Rs 17,500.” The bench is right, of course. But the Court’s comment raises a more fundamental question about the hurdles of bureaucracy in an unequal society. Rules and regulations are essential in an education system where demand far outstrips supply. However, they inevitably become, for many, another hurdle in a system that is already difficult to navigate. There are many like Atul, who overcome huge odds to make it to India’s premier educational institutions. And to be fair, many universities, including the IITs, have put in place systems to assist them in their time at the university. Atul Kumar’s case highlights the need to make compassion a part not just of the teaching process and campus life — it must begin at the beginning, with the admissions system.
Were it not for the intervention by the Court, Atul Kumar’s story could have been a tragedy. A superficial and simplistic idea of “merit” permeates many spaces. Atul’s father told this newspaper how he sold property, how he stretches Rs 11,000/month to make sure his children have the best education. To start so far behind many others and make it as far as Atul has, shows a depth of “merit” that must be encouraged and nurtured. There are many Atuls in this country. It is for governments — from the states to the Centre — to ensure that India does not become a country of high inequality and low mobility, where aspiration is, more often than not, a statistical fairytale.
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