Opinion IIT-Delhi’s Durban moment: Why IITs must make space for caste and race scholarship

Caste does not exist in a vacuum

Caste remains one of the most enduring systems of inequality in the world, shaping access to education, employment, entrepreneurship, and dignity. The conference was organised under the banner “Celebrating 25 Years of Durban: Indian Contributions to Combatting Caste and Racism” and hosted by the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS).

IIT-Delhi itself regards knowledge of Humanities and Social Sciences as a “core value” of the institution. IITs are mandated to pursue teaching and research not only in science and technology, but also in the arts and humanities. Undermining this autonomy weakens the institution’s intellectual credibility.

Further, IITs do not operate in a social vacuum. They recruit students, hire faculty, collaborate with industry players, and shape India’s future workforce. These make social understanding necessary to develop better technology and products that serve everyone; otherwise, research has repeatedly shown that ignoring social aspects in technology and product development leads to discrimination on digital platforms. Ignoring caste in discussions within technology institutions impoverishes both scholarship and practice, making it a necessity rather than an ideological excess to examine caste within such spaces.

The Durban precedent

The backlash against this conference echoes a crucial historical moment — the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa. India actively resisted the recognition of caste discrimination within the global anti-racism framework, arguing that caste was a purely internal social matter.

The IIT conference explicitly revisited Durban not as a closed chapter but as a living legacy. As the conference concept note highlights, “Durban” operates as a “lieu de mémoire”, a site of memory that continues to shape struggles against caste and racism worldwide. The conference brought together participants from Durban 2001 with contemporary scholars and activists to assess what has changed, what has stalled, and what remains unfinished in global anti-caste advocacy and movement. Suppressing or delegitimising such reflection reproduces the same silencing that marked the Durban event, where caste was rendered unspeakable.

The current controversy also fits a broader pattern; it is well known among academics in India that research focused on caste faces serious scrutiny. The conference precisely foregrounded those intellectual traditions that have historically been marginalised, the literary and cultural interventions of Dalit, Adivasi, and indigenous writers, and the global legal and advocacy work emerging from communities facing discrimination. Moreover, in this case, the conference programme was publicly available, the organisers are established academics, and institutional permissions were obtained.

So, the issue is not procedural irregularity; it is the content of knowledge itself. The questioning of the legitimacy of such scholarship amounts to the policing of knowledge. That shift should alarm anyone committed to academic freedom, which is already eroding in Indian academic institutions, with India ranking 156 out of 179 countries assessed in the Academic Freedom Index.

This is not merely about one conference. It is about what kinds of knowledge are considered legitimate, who gets to produce it, which/whose histories are allowed in institutional spaces, which institutions are allowed to host uncomfortable conversations about inequality, and whether universities can sustain critical inquiry when it becomes socially and politically uncomfortable.

What we see today at IIT-Delhi is a smaller but structurally similar moment to Durban. Once again, caste became contentious not because it lacks scholarly grounding, but because its open discussion disrupts comfortable narratives about merit, modernity, and national progress.

Defending the right to think differently

The probe into the conference should be read as a test case for Indian higher education. At stake here is not agreement with every argument made at the conference. Academic freedom does not require consensus; it requires the freedom to question, challenge, and critique.

Universities are the few spaces where we can examine the deepest inequalities without fear, and such attempts should be encouraged. Suppressing such inquiry does not make caste disappear. It only ensures that caste inequality remains unexamined, unchallenged, and intact. If we want universities that serve democracy and help build the nation, we must defend spaces where caste, race, and structural injustices can be studied openly. Rather than surrendering to social media chatter, India’s premier institutions should take a stand and lead by example, demonstrating that intellectual courage and institutional excellence go hand in hand.

The writer teaches at the School of Management, University of Bath (UK)