New Delhi: The top Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) lack caste diversity in their PhD programmes, despite receiving a good number of applications from students from the reserved categories, an analysis of application and enrolment data at the premier institutes has revealed.
Of the 20 IIMs in India, only 15 extend reservation for candidates from the Scheduled Castes (SC), Scheduled Tribes (ST) and Other Backward Castes (OBC) in PhD programmes. IIM-Ahmedabad is among the institutes that do not give caste-based reservation and a petition in this regard, filed by the Global IIM Alumni Network, is pending in the Gujarat High court.
Analysis of data shared by the Ministry of Education in the Rajya Sabha on Wednesday showed that while the overall picture at the IIMs in this regard is not so bad, the older IIMs, including the ones in Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kozhikode, do not have good representation of candidates from the SC, ST and OBC categories.
The data shows that there is no dearth of applications from students from these categories, but the number admitted is quite low.
At IIM Ahmedabad, 859 applications were received from candidates belonging to the SC, ST and OBC categories in the past four years (from 2018-19 to 2021-22) while the number of candidates admitted from these applications was just 15 — making up 16.6 per cent of the total of 90 PhD candidates admitted at the institute during this period.
In 2019-20, no candidates were admitted from the SC and ST category and only four made it from the OBC category. In the same year, the number of SC, ST and OBC applicants was 70, 17 and 122, respectively. In 2020-21, no ST candidates were admitted while in 2021-22, no SC candidates were taken.
At IIM Bangalore, 594 applications from the SC, ST and OBC categories were received from 2018-19 to 2021-22 and the number of candidates admitted from these was just 15. There have been no ST candidates in the institution for the past four years. The number of applications in the category have also consistently reduced from 16 in 2018-19 to 11 in 2021-22. A total of 95 PhD candidates were admitted at the institute in the past four years, of which 15.7 per cent, or 15 candidates, were from the reserved categories.
At IIM Kozhikode, 987 applications from SC, ST and OBC candidates were received in the past four years, and out of a total 90 admitted in PhD programmes, 16 candidates were from the reserved categories — making up 17.7 per cent of the PhD admissions.
There were no SC and ST candidates at the institute in 2019-20, no SC candidate in 2020-21 and no ST candidate in 2021-22.
ThePrint reached the media cells of IIM Ahmedabad, Bangalore and Kozhikode via email with queries on the lack of caste diversity, but is yet to receive a reply. This report will be updated once a response is received.
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Older vs newer IIMs
The reserved category picture is not bad when compared with the selection percentage of general category applications.
According to the data, 17,995 PhD applications were received at all of the 20 IIMs in the past four years. Of these, 5,148 applications were from the reserved category and 12,847 from the general category.
Comparing the selection rate in the two categories, it emerges that there is not much difference. Of the 5,148 SC, ST and OBC applicants, 225 were selected, which makes it 4.37 per cent of the applications. Of the 12,847 general category applications, 524, or 4.07 per cent, were selected.
The disparity arises when comparing the admissions from the reserved categories at the top IIMs with the huge number of applications they get from these categories.
Agreeing that the lack of caste diversity is a problem at the IIMs, Anil Wagde, an IIM Calcutta alumnus and member of the IIM Global Alumni Network, told ThePrint that the overall picture of caste diversity evens out because the newer IIMs do not receive as many applications for the PhD programme as their older counterparts, and thus end up admitting candidates from the reserved categories.
“The older IIMs are the ones that are elite and choose to ignore giving importance to diversity on the campus. The newer IIMs are yet to become elite like them,” he said.
At IIM Kashipur, for instance, which was set up in 2011, up to 209 applications from SC, ST and OBC candidates were received in the past four years, of which 10 got admission. The total number of candidates admitted at the institute was 45, making the proportion of those from reserved categories who got admission 22 per cent.
“Even the institutes that provide the constitutionally-mandated reservation do not make a conscious effort to advertise it in a proper manner. There is a clear lack of intent on the part of the institutions to ensure caste diversity,” said Wagde.
Caste diversity in faculty
Siddharth Joshi, who earned a PhD at IIM Bangalore and is now an independent researcher, agrees with Wagde. Joshi, who has been working towards ensuring caste diversity at the institute along with professor Deepak Malghan, has maintained a database of caste diversity in the faculty pool.
“The PhD programmes at IIMs act as feeders for the faculty. Most faculty members at the IIMs are from either the same institute or some other IIM and the lack of diversity at the PhD level translates at the faculty level,” said Joshi.
Faculty data compiled by him revealed that IIM Bangalore has 94 per cent faculty members from the general category, while IIM Calcutta has 97 per cent. The remaining meagre proportion is from the reserved categories.
A former director of IIM Ahmedabad, who did not wish to be named, told ThePrint that there is a lot of pushback from within the faculty against caste diversity at the institute. “They think of the IIMs as a corporate set-up and hence do not want to focus on issues like increasing caste diversity,” said the professor.
(Edited by Nida Fatima Siddiqui)
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