Opinion PhD is not enough to enter academia. How letters of recommendation become a barrier for marginalised students

Are these so-called premier Institutes of Excellence ignorant or disingenuous to the social and cultural capital undergirded by the caste that mediates, blocks, facilitates and preserves access and privileges in academia? The letter of recommendation echoes the time when chances at jobs used to depend on a letter written by a caste peer or patron. Dalits and Adivasis rarely had anyone to write such letters for them and were consequently excluded from well-paid jobs. What was once caste patronage is now repurposed in recruitment procedures in universities. And the outcomes are the same: The doors remain shut for those without the social capital.

What is the need and purpose of such a high number of recommendation letters? Do institutes really pay heed and peruse them? Recently, we received a phone call from the staff of an IIT and were asked to secure the recommendation letter at the eleventh hour. It did not have to be long or structured; even a short paragraph in the email content from the referee would do, we were told. An earnest referee invests their time and thoughts in writing the letter in good faith, endorsing the applicant’s aptness for the job. Such frivolous treatment of the letter compels one to wonder the raison d’être of it beyond a listless formality in the recruitment process.

Academic scores and percentages determine access to employment opportunities in universities. In the job portals of many National Institute of Technology (NIT), one needs to select the “class” from the drop-down menu and anything other than “first” stops the application process from proceeding further. It will not be a stretch to draw an analogy with the caste system, where one is born into a caste and dies in it. Like the graded immutability of caste, the randomness of numerical scores determines (in)eligibility for academic opportunities. There is no scope of entry, change or growth for the “second” or “third” class in such publicly funded yet gated academic institutes, while the variegated matrix of sociocultural, economic and spatial factors that determine performance in examinations is given a silent burial in the name of narrowly defined merit and excellence.

This is why “special drives” and “inclusive hiring” ring hollow. Letter of recommendation has not so much to do with assessing an applicant’s qualifications as maintaining the Brahminical hold on the universities. We write this from our experiences. Despite earning a PhD in the UK with access to global academic networks, we struggle to fill the long list of referees. It is not difficult to imagine the ordeal of a first-generation Dalit and Adivasi academic in securing an endorsement letter for a job.

University job notifications benevolently declare that “candidates from marginalised communities are strongly encouraged to apply”. If the university system believes it in letter and spirit, then the long list of recommendation letters and the arbitrary academic scores in examinations must be discarded. Hiring should focus on research, publication, and the willingness to meaningfully and engage with students from diverse backgrounds in an enriching manner — not on whether a candidate can convince six Associate professors to vouch for them. Otherwise, the so-called “special recruitment drive” will remain nothing more than performative virtue signalling at best and academic window dressing at worst, while the so-called premier institutions will continue to function as the Brahminical forums reproducing itself.

Naik did his PhD from Nottingham Trent University, UK. He works on Dalit literature, caste, cinema and food. Bunkar is a UK-based researcher specialising in caste and cinema