Dalit Academic Experiences: Stigma, Caste Reproduction and Systemic Exclusion in Indian Higher Education

• In Event: Engaging subaltern voices

Proposal

Over the last decade, public universities in India have a significantly higher proportion of under-represented caste groups. The presence of a significant and growing number of Dalit (excluded caste) students on college campuses has changed the student demographic, and also shaken the historical hegemony of the higher castes. This phenomenon creates new social tensions and conflicts with higher castes who have been a dominant force among faculty, staff and students in the universities. Studies have shown that subtle, explicit and complex caste-based discrimination drives Dalit students to academic failure, lower degree achievement rate, and even suicide due to extremely hostile academic and social environment (Pal & Arjun, 2013).
Since the last decade, the number of suicides by Dalit students in different elite institutions of the country that have come to light in the last decade, it signals much deeper ongoing issues of discrimination, alienation, and exclusion that belies the assumption that access equals inclusion or greater equity. There is very little research about the changed demographic in higher education and its implications and impact for Dalit students, the ways in which faculty are responding to the new demographic in their classrooms, and to what extent university policies are attentive to these changes. Therefore, examining positive and negative experiences of the Dalit students and their resilience approach offers a unique opportunity to explore new theoretical frameworks to gain deeper understanding about their institutional life in Indian higher education.
The current scholarship promotes a superficial explanation of the dynamics of caste and reiterate the pervasiveness of caste-based discrimination in higher education (Ovichegan, 2015). In this study, I argue that it is vitally important to focus on academic journeys and experiences of Dalit students in Indian academia. The study explores Critical Race Theory (Delgado, 1995a) Social Reproduction Theory (Bourdieu, 1986) and Diversity research (Hurtado et al., 2012), to develop a theoretical framework and policy to help conceptualize what an inclusive university space would look like in Indian context. There has been hardly any effort to document the struggles, life histories, aspirations and perspectives of Dalit students that would give us an understanding of how caste politics, right-wing ideology, and casteism persist in the minutiae of university spaces.
Discrimination or bias against Dalit students is an under-researched topic and deserves wider study to illuminate life of Dalit students on university campuses. Previous studies of Dalit students do not provide a deeper understanding on a range of topics regarding the role of caste and institutional life of Dalit students in higher education. This research is intended to study beyond caste-based discrimination, specifically, to examining educational journeys of Dalit students and analyzing power dynamics, accommodation, resilience, and resistance of their academic journey. Similarly, institutional culture, practices, and contexts that contribute to a negative or exclusionary environment for Dalit students. Further, the study will discuss effective institutional initiatives, awareness programs and policies from the U.S. higher education system that would inspire development of policies and programs to create socially just campus climate in Indian higher education.
This study is designed to examine the lived experiences of Dalit students, which profoundly relies on their personal narratives/stories of Dalit students. Therefore, the research explores use the narrative research method to comprehend and encompasses various aspects of Dalit students. The core aspect of narrative research is analyzing experiences and stories of participants that complement the crucial features of the critical race theory framework of the research. I have completed the field work and conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews (thirty-six) and participant observations to understand graduate Dalit students’ experiences, perspectives and natural settings in a public university in Gujarat (India).
The research is intended to illuminate the experiences of Dalit students in higher education that will contribute to public discussion and institutional and policy initiatives. Further, what type of institutional support Dalit students anticipate to create more inclusive campuses. In my conclusion, I argue that testimonies and academic journeys of Dalit students’ needs to be developed and study as an important area of research without which the struggle to free the university of casteism can never be realized.

Author

• Bharat Rathod, University of Massachusetts