Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), which have always been marketed as the pinnacle of excellence in the country, have been witnessing alarmingly frequent suicides of students, a significant proportion of them of students belonging to marginalised communities. Sahil Wakode, a second-year B. Tech student at IIT Bombay who belonged to a Scheduled Caste (SC), is the most recent such case.In response to the tragedy, the institute, as usual, immediately blamed the student – Wakode – by making an unverified claim of academic dishonesty to push a media narrative against him. His parents alleged that he faced caste-based harassment from faculty member Sooryanarayana Doolla and demanded his arrest.What followed was even more telling: IIT Bombay faculty marched in support of the accused professor. They did not wait for any investigation on these allegations to conclude. IIT Delhi and IIT Madras faculty members also issued statements of solidarity with the faculty member on whom the finger of blame was being pointed.Also read: IIT Madras Professor Who Resigned Over Casteism Writes to Education Min for Fair ProbeThis solidarity demands scrutiny. Why did faculty across multiple IITs mobilise so swiftly for a colleague accused of caste harassment and abetment to suicide, while remaining silent through the years of student suicides and caste discrimination?This sends a clear message that, no matter what, the people occupying power in these institutions will mobilise to protect their own brethren, even if they harass, discriminate or lead to the students.To understand why these elite educational campuses remain hostile to students from Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi (DBA) backgrounds, one must examine who actually occupies faculty positions in these campuses.The data and findings presented in this article are drawn from Right to Information (RTI) applications filed by this author with the IITs in September 2026.The RTIs sought the current category-wise composition and vacancies of faculty, the number of faculty applications received from 2025 onwards and the details of the functioning of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) students’ cells, including their mandate, funding, annual reports and the nature of complaints they received.Also read: RTI Responses Provide Clear Proof of IITs Flouting Reservation Policy in Faculty RecruitmentThe RTIs also asked for information on campus mental health facilities and counsellors, the composition and functioning of gender cells/Internal Complaints Committees under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 (PoSH Act) and the number of student suicides in the last five years.Out of 23 IITs, only 17 responded to the RTI requests, only 10 provided department-wise data and only 7 provided application data. The response to information on SC/ST cells was vague and incomplete.RTI data collected in October 2026 from 17 IITs reveals the category-wise composition of their faculty. More than 80% of IIT faculty members are Savarna, a direct and blatant violation of reservation norms. IIT Kharagpur leads the violation, with a 91% Savarna faculty.The department-level data shows an even starker picture. The vast majority of departments across these institutes do not have a single SC, ST or Other Backward castes (OBC) faculty member. Some campuses have only two or three ST faculty in the entire institution, with IIT Palakkad having none.Even the Humanities and Social Sciences departments of many IITs (Gandhinagar, Guwahati, Mandi, Dharwad, Hyderabad), which are supposed to teach social inequality and caste, have no representation by these social groups.For years, the IITs’ standard response to questions about representation has been the claim that they simply do not receive enough applications from reserved-category candidates. The RTI data demolishes this defence by showing that since 2025, more than half of all faculty applications have come from SC, ST and OBC candidates – in IIT Guwahati over 80%.Also read: Inside an IIT’s Carefully Preserved Illusion of MeritThe Humanities department of IIT Guwahati received 161 OBC and 100 SC applications, but still it did not hire a single one. Departments without a single reserved-category faculty member received large numbers of applications from qualified candidates in these categories. Yet these Savarna-dominated departments continue appointing Savarna candidates above their permitted numbers, effectively stealing the reserved seats.When we compute the sanctioned faculty strength by adding the current faculty numbers and reported vacancies, and apply reservation norms to it, the scale of the theft becomes visible: Overall, 928 Savarna faculty members occupy positions above what reservation norms permit, while 2,631 SC, ST and OBC posts remain vacant despite tens of thousands of applicants.An RTI filed by the author in 2022 had revealed that despite 11 IITs getting over fourteen thousand applications for faculty positions, most of them did not fill any of the vacant reserved seats. IIT Guwahati had declared 152 reserved vacancies and received 1,915 applications but did not appoint a single candidate. Four years later, the latest RTI data shows that nothing has changed.The non-functional SC/ST cellsDuring the Savarna mobilisation around the Sahil Wakode case, the faculty members who defended the professor whom the parents blamed for their son’s mistreatment and ultimately his death, argued that if there had been caste harassment, the young scholar could have approached the SC/ST Cell. But RTI data exposes the emptiness of this argument.Effective grievance redressal requires at least one SC/ST faculty member in every department to serve as a faculty coordinator. This is someone a student can approach without fear of reprisal; someone whom the student feels would understand his lived experience. When a department has no SC or ST faculty at all, who exactly is a student supposed go to for redressal?The data on how these cells actually function paints an even grimmer picture. Of the 17 IITs, only IIT Roorkee and IIT Bhilai reported receiving complaints of caste discrimination, conducting events and outreach activities and allocating funds for the cell. Six IITs did not even have an SC/ST cell, others reported no complaints, and no activities or events.These cells are supposed to be more than grievance mechanisms; they must conduct outreach activities so students know that support exists and can trust that their complaints will be heard and justice delivered. But the SC/ST cells at these institutes exist as an email address on a website, functionally non-existent and structurally incapable of the work they claim to do.Also read: Over 13,600 Students From Marginalised Communities Dropped Out of Premier Institutions in Five Years: ReportFurther, a grievance mechanism that never receives complaints is not evidence of the absence of discrimination – it is evidence that students do not have faith that they can get justice from it. In many cases, even if a student complains, the cells exist to coerce the student into withdrawing it.Despite multiple surveys by the SC/ST cell at IIT Bombay showing rampant caste discrimination on the campus, the institute still claims that it has not received any complaints. This is despite the death by suicide of Aniket Ambhore, Darshan Solanki and Sahil Wakode.The poor state of the SC/ST cells becomes even more revealing when compared with the ICCs mandated under the PoSH Act. Because the PoSH Act establishes statutory guidelines and consequences, nearly all IITs maintain a functioning ICC. IIT Hyderabad reported 69 complaints in the last 5 years, with 166 complaints across 8 institutes that provided data under the RTI Act.Even here, representation gaps persist, IIT Kharagpur acknowledged that its ICC has no SC/ST/OBC members, and only IIT Palakkad reported having one SC and one OBC member. Hence, where laws, guidelines and scrutiny exist, institutions comply, however imperfectly. Where no such framework binds them, as with SC/ST cells, they lapse into inaction.This is the strongest argument for statutory backing, whether through steps like the Rohith Act, long demanded by student movements, or through enforceable UGC regulations, that would subject SC/ST cells to the same standards of scrutiny as ICCs.Inadequate mental health supportThe UGC guidelines on Uniform Mental Health Policy for Higher Educational Institutions says: Currently, a ratio of 1 mental health professional/ psychologist per 500 students at the higher education institutes may be considered (page 18). Only 3 of the 17 IITs meet this standard. Several large campuses operate at ratios of 1:1000 or worse with IIT–BHU reporting only one professional for every 4,750 students.Notably, the IITs with the highest counts of deaths by suicide are precisely those with poor counsellor-to-student ratios.From the data, 11 suicides out of 21 were of SC, ST or OBC students. However, most IITs have no SC, ST or OBC counsellors, and available counsellors are untrained and insensitive to caste dynamics. A student facing casteist humiliation is unlikely to find help from a counsellor who treats caste as a personal issue rather than a structural reality.Under these conditions, counselling centres risk becoming instruments of institutional whitewashing, where discrimination and death caused by structural discrimination as individual mental health failures, thereby evading institutional responsibility.The following table is based on RTI responses received by this author:Violation of constitutional provisionsThe interim report published on November 2025 by the Supreme Court-appointed National Task Force to Address Mental Health Concerns of Students and Prevent Suicides in Higher Educational Institutions had recommended that all vacant faculty positions must be filled within three months with priority given to posts reserved for candidates from marginalised and underrepresented communities.Also read: Stayed Earlier, UGC Equity Regulations 2026 are Now Under ‘Reconsideration’It said that special recruitment drives may be held for faculty recruitment under various forms of reservations as per Union and state government rules (page 143). Even a year after these recommendations, which are meant to prevent the occurence of suicide in higher educational institutions, the administrations of these institution disregard them with ease. They do not care how many lives are lost as long as their caste hegemony is maintained.IITs are legally mandated to implement reservations for all faculty positions and PhD admissions under the constitution, and they have been directed to implement reservation by the Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Teachers’ Cadre) Act, 2019 as well. The government had also ordered IITs to conduct “mission mode” recruitment since 2022 to fill vacant reserved seats.Yet, despite getting thousands of applications, IITs continue to flout the rules. These seats are instead filled by Savarna candidates appointed beyond their permitted share.To dismantle Savarna hegemony in IITs, reserved posts should be filled and departments violating norms should be penalised. SC/ST cells should be given statutory backing with funding and counselling services should have diverse, trained and sensitised counsellors. We are paying for each day of delay in holding these institutions accountable with the lives of students.Dr. Pranav Jeevan P holds a PhD in Artificial Intelligence from IIT Bombay. He has earlier studied quantum computing in IIT Madras and Robotics at IIT Kanpur.