Caste and Merit: A Study on Higher Education Institutes in India

Abstract

This thesis undertakes an ethnographic research on the registers of discrimination in elite centres of learning where caste privileges witness a silent conversion of merit-based modern privileges. The thesis is an attempt to show how discrimination works and affects ourselves in these higher education institutions. As a part of this study, two surveys have been undertaken- one in IISER- Mohali and another in institutes including IISER Mohali, IISER Pune, IISER Bhopal, IIT Kanpur, etc., which has led to some concrete results. The dissertation also explores the social and psychological aspects of caste relations and discriminations embedded in those relations.