In November 2024, Indian-origin Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) PhD student Prahlad Iyengar was barred from entering the campus after he authored a pro-Palestine essay in the student magazine Written Revolution. Reportedly, he has been suspended until January 2026, terminating his 5-year NSF fellowship. MIT Coalition Against Apartheid has come out in his support, calling his suspension an attack on “free speech” on campus.
Prahlad is a PhD student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Notably, in 2023, he was suspended for participating in pro-Palestinian rallies. According to an email sent by MIT Dean of Student Life David Warren Randall to the editors of the magazine, the imagery and language used by Prahlad in the essay titled On Pacifism could be “interpreted as a call for more violent or destructive forms of protests at MIT.”
Notably, the email also cited the imagery used in the essay, which incorporated the logo of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated terrorist organisation by the US State Department. The editors of the magazine are facing disciplinary action. Speaking to WBUR, Prahlad called his suspension “a gross violation of free speech.” According to him, the purpose of the magazine was to “put out in our words what we were doing, why we were doing it, and what was happening on campus.”
🚨🚨 MIT is effectively expelling PhD student Prahlad Iyengar for Palestine activism on campus. 🚨🚨
— MIT Coalition Against Apartheid (@mit_caa) December 8, 2024
EMERGENCY RALLY: Cambridge City Hall, Monday, 12/9 at 5:30pm. Org sign-on to letter: https://t.co/tCOrOLTeNy pic.twitter.com/7cAYrvn5ad
In a statement, MIT Coalition Against Apartheid said the suspension is effectively expulsion as his academic career would be disrupted. They further added that his readmission would have to be allowed by the same panel that suspended him. They noted, “Prahlad is now appealing his case with the Chancellor to revoke or reduce the unjust sanctions against him. We have launched a campaign to put pressure on MIT’s administration to stop criminalising students who stand on the right side of history. We call on all organisations and institutions of conscience to sign on and stand up to MIT’s repression.”
The essay that led to Prahlad’s suspension
OpIndia examined the essay he wrote for the online magazine, which was started to support the Palestine movement following Israel’s military action against the terrorist organisation Hamas in response to the deadly terrorist attack of 7 October 2023.
In his essay, Prahlad criticised the reliance on pacifist strategies within the Palestinian liberation movement. He raised questions about the implications of protests at institutions, including his own, MIT. He framed his argument around the ineffectiveness of “strategic pacifism,” and his language and framing could be interpreted as advocating for more disruptive and potentially destructive forms of protests on university campuses.
Notably, Prahlad called for a “diversity of tactics” and criticised symbolic protests as ineffective. His essay appeared to challenge “activists” raising their voices for the Palestine movement to consider actions that are not limited to “non-violence,” particularly in institutional settings that are complicit in state power.
According to him, the traditional pacifist approach is limited and does not achieve the anticipated effect as it is “designed into the system we fight against.” He further noted that peaceful rallies and arrests are “a charade, an example of political theatre that does more to assuage the consciences of its attendees than it does to exact a cost from the entity which is enacting the very oppression they protest.”
Interestingly, he opened the floodgates against MIT itself by highlighting its role as a military contractor and contributor to technologies used in warfare. He argued that pacifist actions are not sufficient to challenge institutional complicity, leaving room for more confrontational approaches to protests.
He wrote, “Our actions are in some sense part of the state’s inherent notion of protest—we are, in a sense, culturally pacified, not wilfully pacifist.” This notion suggests that state-sanctioned forms of protest, like symbolic arrests, are not capable of disrupting “oppressive systems” and could be seen as calling for strategies that the state cannot easily accommodate.
He criticised the reliance on non-violent forms of protest, stating, “Despite my staunch opposition to the state through my actions, I was still a cog in its system, merely the rust which develops on the gears in order to beckon for more grease. I had not clogged the system—I had fed it.”
He further criticised the reluctance to engage in more aggressive forms of action, stating, “One year into a horrific genocide, it is time for the movement to begin wreaking havoc, or else, as we’ve seen, business will indeed go on as usual.”
It is evident that the essay encouraged activists at MIT to adopt more disruptive, or even destructive, tactics in their protests. Notably, he did not explicitly advocate violence in the essay, as this could have made it a clear-cut “manifesto.” Instead, he subtly positioned his argument against traditional pacifist methods as complicit in maintaining the status quo, creating space for interpretations that align with more confrontational forms of protest.
OpIndia found that Prahlad used two posters featuring the logo of the terrorist outfit Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and also used a post of calling for “Infitada everywhere”. Pertinent to note that Intifada is Palestine’s armed action (involving terrorist acts as well) against Israel. The first poster that was featured in the begining read, “We will burn the ground beneath your feet”. The poster featured a PFLP terrorist with a weapon.
The second poster used by Prahlad had the text “Unity of blood: a step on the path of victory. Long live the joint Lebanese-Palestinian struggle in the face of zionist terrorism” written in Arabic.
Both posters were featured on social media platforms that can be seen here and here. Use of such posters can be interpreted as a call for violent protests at the campuses as mentioned by the dean in his letter.
Prahlad’s social media history shows how his life drastically changed over the years
Upon a cursory glance at the social media posts on Prahlad’s Facebook and Instagram profiles, it is evident that earlier, he was a happy-go-lucky boy-next-door who loved to travel and enjoy time with his friends. His Facebook profile was full of photographs of him travelling with his friends across Europe in 2019.
However, things appear to have changed during the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd. In May 2020, he published a dark-themed post where he claimed to have “reflected on witnessing Atlanta descending into turmoil” during protests against police brutality following Floyd’s death. He expressed a shift from passive support to active engagement and acknowledged the destructive chaos near familiar places. He claimed there was a need for outlets for “collective anger” and expressed solidarity with the African American protesters, urging others to amplify their voices.
This was the time when his profile suddenly changed to that of someone who is an activist and participates in protests. Then came the protests for the Palestinian cause, and since the military action by Israel against Hamas, he has been actively participating in the pro-Palestinian movement.
Prahlad used to be a simple, Janeu-dhari Indian-origin boy who appeared to love his life. However, campus activism and the gross radicalisation of students at campuses resulted in a complete shift, leading to his suspension from one of the most prestigious universities, MIT.
