Trigger Warning: Please be advised this is a story about sexual violence

Researched by: Sara Varghese & Prafula Grace Busi 

What happened in IIT-Madras?

The case: A Dalit PhD scholar alleges she has been repeatedly harassed—and finally assaulted—ever since she enrolled in 2016. The primary accused is fellow student Kingshuk Debsharma who allegedly raped her—and continued to terrorise her with the assistance of at least two other PhD scholars and a postdoctoral fellow:

“The interim report by the IC on October 8, 2020, said that Kingshuk had beaten the survivor, verbally abused her and physically abused her twice… These three men were also found guilty of helping Kingshuk on various occasions. This included locking her in a room with him and restricting her from accessing the lab.”

Her allegations also name a professor who made “vulgar” remarks about her.

The IC complaint: In 2020, she finally filed a complaint with the the Internal Committee (IC) or Complaint Committee Against Sexual Harassment (CCASH) of IIT-Madras. The committee’s interim report barred three of the students from campus—but to no effect. The harassment continued, and she still struggled to get access to labs and equipment. Despite finding serious sexual misconduct, the IC neither recommended a police complaint—nor did it issue a final report.

The police complaint: As her assailants continued to remain on campus—without consequences—the survivor finally filed a police report on March 29, 2021. But the police refused to include the rape allegation in the FIR—and despite her identity as a Dalit, none of the sections under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Act were invoked. The charges listed were relatively mild: assault of criminal force with intent to outrage her modesty, assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe, voyeurism and criminal intimidation. The police claimed they didn’t know she was Dalit—and had been “legally advised” not to press rape charges. 

Quote to note: According to a women’s rights group (AIDWA) supporting the survivor:

“It took three months to file an FIR and according to her the police gave her no hope that the case would be taken seriously. The survivor told us that the investigating officer would not respond to her calls or messages. The behaviour of the police is clear, they wanted the survivor to tire out. The survivor also says that this officer believed the man’s version and eventually they all got bail. The police were hand in glove to make sure she leaves the campus without creating any more trouble.” 

Point to note: IIT-Madras later issued a statement claiming it had “followed all processes” and “extended all support to her during the external investigation.”

The arrest: Debsharma was finally arrested by a special Chennai police team on Sunday. The likely reason for this sudden spurt of action: a new complaint filed under the SC/ST Act.

IIT-M’s wilful indifference: This isn’t the first time that IIT-M has failed to act on sexual harassment charges—or the recommendations of its own internal committee. In late 2020, the committee found associate professor Mathava Kumar guilty of persistently bullying a research scholar under his supervision—trying to force her into a sexual relationship. 

Therefore, the committee recommended he be demoted to the rank of assistant professor—and barred from supervising any PhD students for two years and female students for five years. All of this was signed off by the administration. Three months later, the professor had not been demoted—and was supervising nine PhD students, including women. He remains listed as associate professor to this day on the IIT-M website—and the seven students under his supervision include three women.

So is it just IIT-Madras then?

No, and it is not just women, either. 

No safe place for men: Back in 2018, a final year engineering student at IIT-Bombay—appointed as a mentor by the dean—was accused of sexually harassing 15 male students over a period of 6-7 months. One of the students sent a detailed letter (read it here) to the dean—revealing a pattern of systemic sexual harassment, which he had hidden out of shame. The dean simply revoked the accused's mentor status—which was of little consequence. The allegations were eventually shared anonymously on an ‘IIT-B confession page’ on Facebook. The dean’s reaction: He called the admin of the page and tried to shut it down. When questioned by the media, he said: 

“IIT-Bombay has a zero-tolerance policy as far as matters of harassment are concerned. However, this is the first time a ‘boy-to-boy’ thing has been raised. Otherwise, there is an entire committee to handle such cases… Based on evidence we had in March, no academic punishments could have been given.”

However, he promised to “conduct a proper inquiry into the matter and that accused student will be punished, if found responsible.”

But, but, but: When fresh allegations of sexual misconduct reared their head a year later, this what the same dean had to say: 

“This student has completed his graduation from IIT-B and is currently not studying in the institute. We initiated an investigation and took action in March. Now, we have again received complaints but we cannot take any action based on anonymous complaints.”

Irony alert: In 2021, IIT-B made it compulsory for all students to take a gender awareness course.

Point to note: Unlike the IIT-B case, most sexual assaults on male students is carried out in the guise of “ragging.” In 2017, IIT-Kanpur suspended 22 students for an hours-long incident where second year students forced first year students “to remove all their clothes and press each others’ genitals.”

What caught our attention: We found that media coverage of violence involving male survivors is consistently coy about what happened. Even complaints filed by the survivors resort to euphemisms like “formidable tasks” to refer to assault. This IIT-Kanpur professor’s piece calling out sexual violence also brushes past the details: “There are other things that have happened. But let me not waste time describing all the gory details.” And even students are willing to defend such incidents because it’s just “ragging.” 

Not just a ‘bad apple’: Every time something happens on an elite campus, it is often brushed aside as a stray incident—or blamed on one person. But a 2018 IIT-Roorkee case involved not one but five professors—who were accused of harassing two students and a foreign scholar. And yet the university took no action. Two of the professors were finally booked by the police—perhaps because the first student to complain was Dalit and invoked the SC/ST Act.

So this is particularly bad at engineering colleges?

We have no doubt that campuses across India—even the world—have serious issues of sexual violence. But there are certain reasons why prestigious STEM-focused institutions fail so abysmally at protecting their own.

One: The students have spent years sacrificing their lives to just gain admission to these colleges—as have their parents. Failure is not an option. So they are far more vulnerable to being blackmailed into silence, as one physics student at IISc Bangalore explains:

“I’m applying for jobs and really hoping they don’t know what happened at my institution. If I’m known as a ‘troublemaker’ they won’t want me. In a lab group, there’s a very hierarchical system and they can prevent you from doing your own work. They can be very buddy-buddy—it’s not like a big office, where a manager may have more of an unbiased stance.”

Point to note: While rigid hierarchies are common to all academic institutions, it is worse in STEM fields: 

“In the laboratory, however, the power balance between juniors and their guides, principal investigators and senior faculty is multifold… A senior’s signature is required at every step in research, including getting access to lab equipment and sending out publications to journals. Needless to say, this power is often abused.”

Two: The more hallowed the institution, the more it is invested in protecting its reputation. Survivors are often encouraged not to file a complaint, as one researcher points out:

“Informal complaints are encouraged by many institutions, such as this one so that the issue doesn’t blow up, but they don’t have adequate capacity to deal with it internally. It becomes a way of brushing things under the carpet.”

As a result, in multiple cases, either nothing happens:

“I was harassed by a professor. I approached the authorities, the department head. All that he did was called the accused for an enquiry and was just let go with a warning. Nothing happened after that. However, I had no option but to continue working under the same mentor or I had to quit my degree. I chose to continue. Now, all that I do is I don’t go to the lab when he is there. I work from my room.”

And it is often the survivors who pay the price:

“You [may] have privileged access to facilities or equipment or a particular dataset, and that access comes through that supervisor [who is harassing you]. I’ve heard of cases where students have put complaints in and then been told they need to change projects. It’s the student that takes the hit for speaking up.”

Point to note: It’s not just universities who are obsessed with “prestige.” In a shocking case—where a woman was allegedly force-fed alcohol and raped—the High Court granted bail to the accused because “both the informant/victim girl and the accused are the state’s future assets, being talented students pursuing technical courses at the IIT, Guwahati.”

Data point to note: None of this is unique to India. US research on women in STEM fields found that “somewhere in the range of 40 to 70% of women had experienced sexual harassment during their careers or as students. This range of prevalence was strikingly consistent across different studies.”

Add that to this amazing number: According to a 2020 UN report, 43% of all graduates in STEM fields in India are women—the highest in the world.

The bottomline: Our IITs can churn out unicorn founders, global tech company CEOs and famous scientists. But they can’t seem to do one simple thing: provide a safe space to their own students. 

Reading list

EdexLive has a good reported piece on the toxic environment at IISc Bangalore. The Wire looks at why sexual harassment and violence is prevalent in scientific settings. The Quint’s report on the harassment of male students in IIT-Bombay is worth reading—especially since it contains screenshots of the survivors’ complaints. The way they look at gender and sexual violence is revealing. The Life of Science sums up a panel discussion on the same subject. Scientific American looks at the #MeToo movement in STEM fields in the US—but many of its observations apply to India as well. The Bastion offers a deep dive into the reasons why there are such few female students in IITs.