ELECTIONS

If you are writing about this campus and not mention about elections, the story cannot be over. Obviously I will write about the lows and lows of elections. But to start with is to have a common ground about our philosophy of elections. I believe student elections reflect the greatness of an institute – not just because of the leadership opportunity it provides to students, but also because it reflects our say in decision making in key matters of this institute. The institute provided an equal weightage to us students by this mechanism in this community. 

But obviously we have started destroying this philosophy by our actions. And we are not aware of its future outcomes – how our arms will be twisted. And this is not going to stop anytime soon. And that is for obvious reasons – people are ready to do anything to win elections. We see the worst forms of anti campaigning – and the crazy part, it is not based on credentials of people – but on racism, all kinds of shaming, etc. Most heartbreaking is how elections turn sexist and girls are being demeaned for no reasons. Educated IITians ! 

Adding to that is ineffective, biassed conduct of the election commission. It feels like they support such kinds of actions more. Even in clear cases they refuse to take bold steps. I usually find no difference between EC of our country and campus – spineless. And how the incumbents from the past 2 years are exploiting that is not explainable. In all this no one cares for the council or the purpose. And GE ’26 is the verdict of that. One can predict the future of councils then.

I have a belief that Hall Politics and Collusion is inevitable in elections and do not have serious issues with it – it’s a reflection of our national democracy. The only concerns regarding this are – some HECs are really inconsiderate about the candidate they project.

Moreover they, along with incumbents, using EC and other means, try to pull down other candidates for false allegations. And this then creates space for Admin to come in, curb our power and elections, and get weaker executives in place. 

Hard times will come in due to this – and we are surely not ready for this. Precedence should help in improvement. On top of all this, I wish more girls would come ahead in elections for their better representations as well as improving campus as a society. 

Just to mention – I lost senator elections in GE’25 – the only election ever contested. 

MENTAL HEALTH 

A very heated issues always across campus, primary due to suicides that has happened over past 2 to 2.5 years. And yes I strongly believe that it’s a serious issue, as opposed to my POV a few years back. This last semester is taking a toll on my mental health too. I will take a step forward to say that it is a more pressing issue in the PG community. I have been trying to figure out issues that have pushed our campus to such a situation. Will mention a few:

For UG Community – Loneliness, Academic and Grading System, Inferiority Complex or to say FOMO in general, Intern and Placements. 

For PG Community – Professor Power Dynamics, Economic Problems, Career Problems, Loneliness, Unable to cope with academic rigor.

This is obviously a very small list of causes of such a big issue. But these have been the few I learnt in more detail in institute context hence mentioned. 

Why is it not solved ? A lot of people have different opinions on this. Some blame it on inefficiency of CMHW or ICS and trust deficiency in it – to which I too agree somewhat. Data leakage from the end of the body is a very obvious example to that. On top of it, no action is taken for such data leakage. 

Others blame it on power dynamics between students and professors, and how some professors misuse their power. Inherently everyone does believe in it but we are so handicapped to say or prove the same. We have to live in fear and not complain, as we do not have resolution against that power. Maybe some day we will just get to know the sad realities of the Ombuds Group or ICC. 

But apart from these 2 opinions, I have other serious reasons as to why this is not being solved. Firstly we should understand, in any working structure, whether democratic or undemocratic, it will have inefficiency, and more importantly inherent power structure and power dynamics in favour of few on top. So we really cannot get rid of it. But what is more important is how to make the structure work better. This happens when we demand accountability ! 

After every suicide, we all have a certain rage and we show that by sharing instagram stories or participating in candle marches. And that’s the end of the rage for more than 90 % of the campus community. If I take example of protests of Jan 2024, how many do know what were the demands, why we all were protesting. And after the protest, who all intended to have follow ups on demand. And on top of that we have such great Gymkhana Executives and other student representatives, who have been so opaque always that they do not share updates on demands. They have shaked hands with Admin to become unaccountable and let status quo prevail. 

A bold statement to take, after the suicide in January this year, people from Admin, CMHW, Gymkhana should have been resigned from their positions on moral grounds at least. Any structure who has humans with humility, and working for the welfare of students, would have done that. But we just have an open senate meeting where people do not turn up, only few are concerned, and that too have to get silent in open houses of admin because of power dynamics and we all know the student representatives won’t come to save. The system of checks and balances have been screwed – no one wishes to come forward and speak. I would say again – we as a community have become so retarded about our own issues and we just look for excuses to escape. We are not citizens in the literal sense who have nothing to do with accountability. We do not ask right questions, put right demands, or participate in discussions of improvement. That’s the very basic thing that needs to be done.

One more interesting thing to add, the students rarely know about mental health and how it functions. Everyone has wrong concepts about it. You can see practical examples of that when a student consoles another student who reports some sort of mental health issue. Basic trivia – Do you know the difference between being mentally fit and not being mentally ill. I am also not aware of the same. I can say student representatives of CMHW are also not completely aware of the same. It very well reflects in Orientation, which is just a presentation of some boring slides with very little information relevant to students. More to that is their intent seems more like a job to be done rather than to educate. They just try to look cool but have never been constructive for most people, and act anti to Gymkhana activities. 

ADMIN @ IITK
A very generic heading to write about. The topic is so vast that it’s difficult to choose what to tell my perspective on. It’s not just about Deans but this ranges to bodies like SSAC, ICC, Director, CMHW, Wardens and many more. 

I certainly do not have a complete anti-admin stand. I do appreciate some efforts at times such as new festival guidelines or opening of pre-registration twice. 

But at times, the admin of this institute has taken harsh steps that need to be called out. 

1. To start with, rather obvious, is how it deals with workers on campus. They certainly lack humility towards them. A prime example of it is how dhobi ghat was demolished in early morning without proper dialogue. 
2. Another obvious, is its lack of humility towards students. A recent example was how information of a student who has left us, was shared on national TV by one of the deans. There are obviously many such examples. 
3. Admin has started taking several important or blanket decisions without consultation with students. An example of that is the ban on entry of girls in Hall 13, especially the one during our stay.
4. I also want to talk about how they use SSAC and several other powers as tools to police students and promote fear mongering. The very obvious example is again how they affect Gymkhana Leadership and elections. Another example is how offices use bureaucracy to curb our events. On paper this all seems fine, but deep down it’s very problematic and people will realise it very late.
5. Infrastructure is one of the problems which concerns us everyday. Although its not directly related to admin as the government of the country is pushing more and more students into the institute but without giving accommodation and related funds. This is causing us to be below standard living and neither institute has the voice to improve it.
6. How does our admin react to situations and problems – based on how it affects their own image and the institute image. For example, lately, I saw there was no concern shown by them on mental health issues and suicides until January suicide which cause attention of media. They go to no extent being image conscious. 
7. I talked about admin in several other parts too – Campus Discourse, Mental health etc. so as to call out. Also I can discuss more of the above points if anybody is interested.

CAMPUS DISCOURSE 

What do I mean by this ? It’s about what is the political spectrum and discussions that happen around the campus. It’s about the subject that we discuss in context of national as well as institute relevance. A very simple example – Finances of educational institutions.

Why am I writing this ? I have often heard from people on campus that I have so much political discussion in a technical institute. My answer to that is I do not see IITs as just a place one gets a degree but is also a place where a person develops socially after a rigor of JEE. We often claim ourselves to be the best brains of the country – to which I do not agree. We are surely a set of best students in terms of STEM subjects but not as social creatures. We do not have an eye on what is happening in our country or at least we do not care. I personally believe, the resources we are exposed to, the network we have, it’s not for restricting ourselves to science but for the betterment of the country in general. 

What do I want to say ? I won’t use complicated terms like left and right wings. I would say there exists two voices of campus discourse in domains of economics and culture – one is pro national regime and one is against. And in my 4 years of stay I have seen a sheer dominance of the one that is pro regime. Campus discourse has shifted a lot to them leaving very little space for debates and discussions on policies. I do not support any of the two voices completely but believe in balance. Several cultural groups are formed and events are organised which support the regime and they have access to power in the system through various ways. I will not take any names in this account of either event or groups. But what effect they have brought – Censorship of “Aasteen ka Saanp” – street play of Dramatics Club in 2024 by admin because of protest of one of such groups. We have also seen ruckus created for the “Jashn-e-Roshni”. Vox tried to host a few speakers in fleet street in 2023, but the admin did not allow it. This is at a cultural level.

At the economic level, we have pushed many policies. The primary example is of H14 Mess issue of 2025, which was a contract kind of system against the BDMR system. Read the article to understand better – https://voxiitk.com/how-mess-functions-at-iitk-part-1-fixed-cost-service-model-fcsc/

There are other examples too – eviction of Dhobis from campus. 

For students to relate more – the crunch of students in hostels. It is a direct impact of policies of the government. One should surely learn more about this. 

One of the biggest reasons for mental health deterioration among PGs is because of their economic situation – again comes from the same root of problems. 

Can explain any of this in detail if someone is interested.

And after all this we are just silent and say,’’ we do not like politics.” Some or other day this will come to you for sure because we have lost the power to speak.
There were attempts to improve discourse by Vox – fleet street was conducted for the very purpose in 2023. But it did not happen again in the next tenures. In the tenure of 2023-24 and in some part of 2024-25 tenure, Vox covered such important issues but later it pivoted to not cover serious issues. Any other body can do it, I really do not know. I had a slight attempt to do so in our annual street play production of 2025 on the topic of civic disengagement.

IIT Kanpur has a great alumni base of civil servants across the country. We are the one who has given rise to Political Consultancy in the country. IIT Kanpur is known for its protest history for within as well as outside campus issues. So I do not think we as students of IIT Kanpur should be so retarded about our surroundings. At least we should have an eye on within campus issues. Else we will keep destroying campus culture. Again to say – we are not just technical students but we are the future of this country. We will soon pay taxes to the government and see it getting wasted in potholes. If we do not speak within campus for such issues, we won’t do that outside. We need to become more educated in terms of policies so there is room for discussion again.

FURSATIYA FOREVER @ DRAMATICS CLUB

The most challenging part to write – the place has my all heart and soul throughout 4 years and its very difficult to put that in words. 

How it all started – auditions for freshers were on and all of my friends were taking part in some or other club. This created a FOMO in me, and I decided to go somewhere. When I saw number of kids in Dance, I chose not to go there. Thanks to the advice of Chitresh, one of my wing bapus, who guided me to Dramatics Club. I had a slight experience of Street Play in school so it felt like the right choice. Once I entered the room for Mime, there was no turning back. 

After freshers, the next event for us was the Antaragni’22 that was in March 2023. We were called for auditions of mime. Many came with enthusiasm but when were told about staying back on campus in endsem breaks, many backed off later. Some 10 Y22s finally came. None of us knew what was coming ahead. We had insane practices, and that too for Street Play. Our practices had gone up to 15+ hours on days. And it was physically the most challenging for us – jumping, dancing, acting, singing, structures, choreo, running, workout – everything on repeat at high energies. No scope of mistake in front of Y20s and Y19s – who always seemed dangerous to us. We all knew that we won’t get any dialogue to say, but we still stuck around. Frustrated at times, seeing batchmates enjoying Antaragni and we, in old clothes and odd conditions, trying to make things work. Rudraksh and Prathamesh were injured in between. Lakshyta was in Stage Play. The group of 6 on L8 Foyer – Asif, Rudraksh PS, Me, Kunal, Anishka, Anil. Amidst all of this I had my SSAC case going on. Maybe the toughest time for first year like me. Along with all hardships, broken body, hunger, sleepless nights, we got past those 15 days for that one performance – Akhandta ka Dhol. We came 2nd, and more than results, I remember memories. I do not mind having any dialogue because when I saw performances of Y20s, I was just in awe. Also I have seen the toughest phase and practice of the club. All done for one thing – best performance. 

(Amidst all this, I lost my good friendships of first semester)