thorat report – Notes on the Academy

Click here to read issue #1 of Notes on the Academy, a magazine dedicated to a critical evaluation of academic institutions and culture. As we mention in our manifesto, academia is a diseased community. To diagnose this disease, we must both study its symptoms and analyse the sources of these symptoms.

To study the symptoms of the disease in any social community, we must listen to the stories of those most affected by it. So, we collect testimonials — anonymised accounts from people across the academy about their suffering. The present issue contains three testimonials. The first, “We Are No Longer Afraid,” is a document prepared by students at a prominent institute of higher education regarding the mishandling of the pandemic by their administration. The second and third, “The Subtle Problem of Exclusion” and “The Mine Field,” are the stories of individuals within academia.

To analyse the symptoms of the disease, it always helps to classify. Thus, we have chosen to include articles about casteism in our institutes. Since there is already a wealth of literature analysing this issue, our role here is merely to introduce you to this literature.

– The NotA Collective

^{Thorat, S., Shyamprasad, K. M., and Srivastava, R. K. (2007)}
^{Report of the committee to enquire into the allegation of differential treatment of SC/ST students in All India Institute of Medical Science}

A few weeks ago, a postgraduate medical student, Dr. Bhagwat Devangan, died by suicide at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Medical College in Jabalpur, allegedly due to ragging by his seniors. Bhagwat had on multiple occasions complained of maltreatment by his seniors as he belonged to a “lower caste community”.¹ This is, unfortunately, not an isolated incident. Just last year, we learned of the institutional murder of Dr. Payal Tadvi, a 26-year old Adivasi Muslim gynaecologist at B Y L Nair Hospital and student at TN Topiwala National Medical College in Mumbai. She too died by suicide after being subjected to casteist slurs and harassment (ragging) based on her caste.² In light of these incidents, we feel that it is pertinent to discuss a significant report that provides evidence of caste discrimination in higher educational institutions — The Thorat Committee Report.

Notes on the Academy

Tag: thorat report

Issue #1

The Spectre that Haunts Academia: Caste and the Thorat Report