When caste becomes 'normal': Reading the IIT Mandi poster beyond intent

By Dirgha Datar 

An Indian Institute of Technology is commonly imagined as a symbol of modernity, merit and knowledge. Yet a recent controversy at IIT Mandi has brought an older question into this supposedly modern space: who gets to decide what is considered normal, legitimate and respectable knowledge about caste?

On September 4, during Janmashtami celebrations at IIT Mandi, a poster titled "Bhagavad Gita – The Timeless Wisdom: Karma" was displayed outside the institute's auditorium, citing verses from Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of the Gita. The poster described the four varnas and assigned each a social role. While Brahmanas were associated with spreading God's message, Kshatriyas with protecting society, and Vaishyas with sustaining the economy, Shudras were described as existing to "serve higher classes." This wording triggered criticism over its reproduction of caste hierarchy.

The institute subsequently ordered an inquiry and distanced itself from the poster. The committee's findings, reported on September 13, are significant: it found no evidence of an intention to target or insult any individual or community, concluded that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, did not apply, and recommended counselling and sensitisation of the students involved rather than disciplinary action. It also found that the Janmashtami programme was not officially organised or approved by any recognised institute body, that no institutional funds were used, and that the poster reflected an individual student's interpretation rather than the institution's position. 

These findings raise a question that goes beyond individual intention: does the absence of an intent to discriminate mean a representation cannot still reproduce a discriminatory hierarchy?

Caste does not survive only through explicit acts of violence or openly expressed hatred. It also survives through what is allowed to become normal. In a caste society, dominant groups have historically held considerable power to determine which social arrangements are treated as natural, traditional or legitimate. Once a hierarchy is repeatedly represented as the proper order of society, it can begin to appear less like a historical structure and more like common sense.

This is why the wording of the IIT Mandi poster matters. Describing one group as "higher" and another as existing to serve it does more than assign different occupations — it places those occupations within a hierarchy of social worth. The issue, then, is not simply that different groups were given different roles; it is that these roles were presented within an unequal structure in which one group is positioned above another.

The controversy also draws attention to the relationship between caste and knowledge. Historically, access to religious and intellectual knowledge within the caste order was deeply structured by hierarchy — who could learn, interpret and transmit sacred knowledge was itself a question of social power. When a caste hierarchy is presented through the language of "timeless wisdom," it becomes necessary to ask: whose interpretation of tradition is being presented as universal, and whose experience of that hierarchy is left absent?

None of this requires rejecting religious texts or treating every reference to varna as automatically casteist. Rather, it requires examining how such texts are interpreted and represented in particular social contexts. An educational institution should be a space where inherited ideas can be questioned, contextualised and debated — not simply presented as unquestionable social norms.

This is also where the idea of the subaltern becomes relevant. A hierarchical system does not merely divide people; it determines whose position is treated as authoritative and whose position is defined only in relation to those above them. When a community is repeatedly described through its service to "higher" groups, hierarchy becomes embedded in the very language used to describe social roles. The person placed at the bottom is not merely given a different occupation; they are positioned within a structure of superiority and inferiority.

The institute's inquiry is therefore significant, but a legal finding should not end the cultural conversation. The SC/ST Act carries specific legal requirements, and the committee's conclusion that its provisions did not apply must be distinguished from the broader question of how caste hierarchy is represented. A finding about intent and legal applicability is not necessarily a complete answer to the social meaning of a representation.

Caste-based humiliation can also operate subtly. It does not always take the form of physical violence or an explicit insult directed at a particular individual. Being reminded that one's community occupies a supposedly lower position can carry psychological and social weight, particularly when that hierarchy has historically been associated with exclusion and untouchability. Such humiliation can operate through representation, language and social norms as much as through direct action.

The IIT Mandi controversy deserves attention — not because it proves the institute itself endorses caste discrimination, which the inquiry found it does not — but because it shows how easily inherited hierarchies can enter spaces imagined as modern and meritocratic. The question is not only whether a student intended to hurt someone. It is also whether a modern educational institution can recognise when an old hierarchy is being reproduced as "normal."

If education is genuinely about knowledge, inherited hierarchies must be open to examination rather than protected by the authority of tradition. The challenge before institutions like IIT Mandi is therefore not simply to prevent deliberate discrimination, but to cultivate spaces where the meanings and consequences of caste can themselves be questioned.

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Originally from Madhya Pradesh, Dirgha Datar is an MA English student at Christ (Deemed to be University), Yeshwanthpur Campus, Bengaluru