When I was a student at IIT Kanpur in the 1980s, I remember our heated debates revolved around campus food and ragging. We argued endlessly in hostel corridors, and yes, we discussed politics too. But
through it all, our focus on technical excellence remained undiluted. This clarity of purpose made IITs into centres of excellence and gave them a global brand respected from Silicon Valley to Singapore.
Today, that clarity is under assault. The expansion of IITs into the humanities has done nothing to add to their brand but instead leeches off their reputation to create centres of political agitation, not learning. Today, the situation has deteriorated to the point where even IIT Bombay has put its name as co-sponsor to a September 2025 conference at UC Berkeley that brands Indian industry and entrepreneurship as instruments of exploitation.
IITs were never meant to be “general universities”. They were envisioned as highly selective institutes of technology—modelled after MIT, Caltech, and ETH Zurich—with the singular mission of producing scientists, engineers, and technocrats to build India’s modern economy. The lab-centric culture, research rigour, and global alumni brand set IITs apart.
This focus began to blur under the UPA government. In 2008-09, the Yash Pal Committee on higher education recommended that IITs and IIMs be encouraged to transform into “full-fledged multidisciplinary universities”. HRD Minister Kapil Sibal endorsed the idea, urging IITs to launch schools of medicine, law, and social sciences. He spoke openly about pushing them towards multidisciplinary “world-class” universities. On paper, this sounded visionary. In reality, it was a recipe for mission creep.
Humanities cross-disciplinary exposure for engineering students is valuable—but IITs now offer full-fledged degrees. IIT Madras began a five-year integrated MA in 2006 and later spun off two-year MAs in economics, English, and development studies. IIT Gandhinagar introduced an MA in Society & Culture in 2014–15. IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi now run PhD programmes in humanities disciplines like economics, sociology, literature, and psychology. These programmes extend beyond rounding off engineers—they replicate conventional humanities divisions, with zero alignment to the core technology mission.
Where humanities flourish, politics follows—with disruptive consequences. At IIT Madras, the Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle (APSC) became a recurring lightning rod for campus controversy, starting with its derecognition in 2015. At IIT Bombay, large-scale protests erupted during the Citizenship Amendment Act debates in 2019-20. In 2023, a guest lecture on Palestine triggered demonstrations, counter-protests, and even demands for faculty arrests—leading the administration to issue guidelines banning political lectures without prior approval. At IIT Kanpur, students marched in solidarity with Jamia-AMU during the CAA protests, reciting Faiz’s poem Hum Dekhenge, which prompted internal committees to investigate “communal content”. Later, IITK students and faculty expressed solidarity with the JNU protests. Such scenes were once unimaginable on IIT campuses.
The faculty recruited to these humanities departments certainly do not foster the IIT brand of excellence, instead turning it into political theatre with Marxist attacks on Hinduism. An associate professor of the Humanities & Social Sciences department at IIT Delhi—Divya Dwivedi—sparked controversy in 2023 by stating that “the India of the future would be without caste oppression, and without Hinduism”, during a France 24 interview. She described Hinduism as part of an oppressive caste order and a “hoax representation”. Such professors use the IIT brand to lend credibility to their inane remarks, a credibility that they have done nothing to build. From centres of excellence, IITs have been turned into ideological war fronts.
A clear example of this drift is the upcoming September 2025 workshop South Asian Capitalism(s), hosted by UC Berkeley’s Institute for South Asia Studies and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, with IIT Bombay as a co-sponsor. The event frames Indian industry and entrepreneurship as systems of exploitation and views them through a Marxist lens, echoing the ideological frameworks long dominant in US South Asian studies. By attaching its name, IIT Bombay confers legitimacy on narratives that recast India’s economic rise not as innovation and enterprise, but as oppression.
Compare this with China: Tsinghua, Peking, and other technical institutions focus relentlessly on STEM excellence. Meanwhile, Beijing exports ideological influence abroad (e.g., Confucius Institutes) while insulating its own campuses from politicisation. Many Western universities, by contrast, have become arenas for identity politics—undermining scholarly pursuits. India cannot replicate that model. Its premier technical institutions must avoid politicised drift if it hopes to close the technological gap with China.
Why does this “general university-isation” dilute IITs? First, mission creep: humanities expansion often comes at the expense of STEM disciplines that are resource-intensive. Second, brand confusion: the IIT name, synonymous with technology, is diluted by civics and humanities programmes lacking synergy. Third, resource misallocation: India already has plenty of humanities institutions; what’s in short supply are technically trained elites and innovation infrastructure.
Proponents argue that interdisciplinarity is essential. True—but exposure can and should be via targeted UG electives and co-taught ethics or policy modules—not entire graduate programmes big enough to tilt priorities. Others argue that “top universities are multidisciplinary”. Some are, but there are also elite specialised schools like Caltech, ETH Zurich, Technion, and KAIST. India can and should afford the luxury of both specialised and comprehensive models.
It’s time to take back the IITs. Policymakers must amend the Institutes of Technology Act to reaffirm IITs as technical rather than general universities. Humanities should be limited to a small percentage of UG electives—ethics, communication, technology, and society—not full-fledged MAs and PhDs. Graduate humanities programmes should be shifted to general universities or run through joint-degree arrangements. Political expression should be contained—classrooms and labs must remain focused on innovation. Alumni must tie donations and mentoring to strengthening technical capabilities, labs, research centres, and scholarships.
We didn’t join IITs for ideological pageantry; we joined to engineer India’s progress. At a time when China is racing ahead in AI, chip design, and quantum computing, India cannot afford to turn its premier technical institutions into theatres of agitation. The IITs must remain what they were meant to be: crucibles of technical brilliance. It is time for alumni, policymakers, and the public to say clearly—take back the IITs.
The author is a commentator on Indian policy and society. He can be followed on X @sankrant. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views
