Only a handful of the Dalit students who clear the Joint Entrance Exam are allowed to join the Institute and some of them are forced to take a one year training called Preparatory Course and they are taught school portions once more. The institute then conducts internal exams, and a few of them are selected to join the institute & are made a year junior to upper caste classmates Conducting of Preparatory Courses only to Dalit students is violative of Right to Equality and is a highly discriminatory practice.
Dalit students selected for the B.Tech are continuously harassed & they are wantonly failed in courses by Brahmin faculty. This is facilitated because student's caste is mentioned in the roll call given to Faculty members. Very few Dalit students are allowed to complete their B.Tech degree and many discontinue. Dalit students are entirely denied admissions to other programs like M.Tech, M.S. & Ph.D.
In the Department of Mathematics, IIT Madras, till 1998 no Dalit student had been selected for the Ph.D. program. Despite appearing twice for interview a Dalit student Mr.S.R.Kannan was not selected. For selecting him Dr. (Mrs.) Vasantha Kandasamy, an Associate Professor of the Department had to appeal to various social justice forums to see that he was selected. Till date he is yet to be allotted an office room in the Mathematics Department.
