IIT Bombay has suspended Professor Suryanarayana Doolla from his administrative position amid the controversy surrounding the death by suicide of 20-year-old BTech student Sahil Wakode. Doolla, who was the invigilator during the examination in which Wakode was allegedly caught using a mobile phone and seeking answers through an AI platform, will continue as a faculty member. The institute has also apologised for its earlier communication about the circumstances preceding Wakode’s death, saying that those details should not have been characterised before the investigation was complete.
The development has come a day after protests at the campus and an 18-point charter of demands submitted by students. Wakode’s parents have accused Doolla and other institute officials of caste discrimination and undue pressure. An FIR has been registered invoking provisions relating to abetment of suicide and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the Mumbai Crime Branch is investigating the case.
These allegations are serious and must be investigated. But IIT Bombay denied allegations levelled by the victim’s parents.
But so is another question that deserves to be asked: are we too readily turning an academic incident into a narrative of oppression before establishing what actually happened?
The facts currently available establish that Wakode was allegedly caught using a phone during an examination. IIT Bombay’s Faculty Forum has said that Professor Doolla was discharging his duties as an invigilator under the institute’s academic policy when he detected the alleged malpractice.
If a student is found using a mobile phone or an AI platform to obtain answers during an examination, an invigilator is expected to intervene. That is not harassment. That is the basic enforcement of academic integrity.
If every invigilator who catches a student cheating is subsequently accused of causing psychological harm merely because the student is distressed by being caught, we are entering extremely dangerous territory.
The job of an invigilator is not to protect a student from the consequences of cheating. The job is to protect the integrity of the examination.
That does not mean that the allegations of caste discrimination should be dismissed. The police investigation must establish whether any discriminatory conduct actually occurred. Wakode’s parents have made specific allegations, while IIT Bombay has denied caste discrimination and said that its SC/ST Students and Staff Cell had received no complaint from Wakode during his time at the institute.
There is therefore a crucial distinction that must not be lost in the political and ideological noise surrounding this case.
An allegation is not proof.
The fact that an FIR has been registered does not establish that caste discrimination caused Wakode’s death. It establishes that allegations serious enough to warrant investigation have been made.
And there is currently no established basis for conclusively saying that caste discrimination was the reason for his suicide.
Indeed, another possibility deserves to be examined: that Wakode experienced an acute crisis after being caught cheating and feared the consequences, embarrassment and humiliation associated with being caught.
That possibility cannot simply be dismissed because it is uncomfortable.
There was reportedly no suicide note found at the scene. Police have said the student was found dead in his hostel after the examination incident.
This does not prove that shame over being caught cheating caused his death. Nor does it disprove the family’s allegations. It simply means that the circumstances remain unresolved and that we should not manufacture certainty where the investigation has not yet produced it.
But whether or not that turns out to be the explanation in this particular case, the broader question of academic pressure is undeniable.
And this is where the conversation needs to move beyond the college.
Parents are part of the equation too
It is convenient to blame universities whenever a student dies by suicide.
Sometimes institutions may indeed be responsible for creating toxic environments. If harassment, discrimination or institutional negligence is established, there must be accountability.
But parents and families cannot outsource all responsibility for a child’s emotional resilience to a university.
Parents are the first educators.
Long before a child sits in an IIT classroom, he has already learned from his parents what success means.
Has he learned that honesty matters more than marks?
Has he learned that hard work is more valuable than a shortcut?
Has he learned that cheating is wrong even when failure is frightening?
Has he learned that his parents will still love him if he comes home with a failed examination?
Has he learned that disappointing his parents is not the same thing as losing their love?
These lessons matter enormously.
Parents cannot spend fifteen years telling a child that he must be among the toppers, that he must get into the best college, that he must secure the highest-paying job and that he must make the family proud, and then suddenly expect him to possess perfect emotional resilience when everything goes wrong.
We cannot create the pressure cooker and then blame only the university when the pressure becomes unbearable.
We have reduced success to a checklist
The problem extends far beyond IITs.
Indian society has developed an extraordinarily narrow definition of success.
First, the child must score well.
Then he must clear JEE or NEET.
Then he must get into an IIT, IIM, AIIMS or another prestigious institution.
Then he must get a high-paying job.
Then, increasingly, he must leave India and get a job in America, Britain, Canada, Australia or Europe.
Then comes the salary package.
Then the house.
Then the car.
Then the foreign holiday.
Then the children.
The entire journey becomes a checklist.
And somewhere along the way, we forget to ask the child whether he is actually happy.
A child grows up hearing that getting into IIT is success.
Then he gets into IIT and discovers that everyone around him was also a topper.
Suddenly, being a topper in school is no longer enough.
Now he must compete with hundreds of equally brilliant students.
Then perhaps he gets an average grade.
Then he begins to think that he is failing.
Then the comparison starts again.
His cousin has gone abroad.
His school friend has joined Google.
Someone else has secured a ₹50 lakh package.
Another friend has started a company.
Someone has bought a Mercedes at 27.
Someone has settled in New York.
And the young person begins to believe that his own life is inadequate.
This is the social pressure we rarely acknowledge.
The problem is not ambition.
Ambition is good.
Competition can be good.
Hard work is unquestionably good.
The problem is convincing children that these are the only things that give their lives value.
Parents must teach children that failure is survivable
A child needs to hear something very different from his parents.
If you get 95%, we are proud of your effort.
If you get 60%, we are still proud of you.
If you don’t clear JEE, we will find another route.
If you don’t get into IIT, your life is not over.
If you don’t become an engineer, you can become something else.
If you don’t get a job immediately after graduation, we will help you.
If you make a mistake, tell us.
If you fail, come home.
That last sentence may be one of the most important things a parent can say.
If you fail, come home.
Not: How could you do this to us?
Not: What will people say?
Not: Look at Sharmaji’s son.
Not: You have ruined our reputation.
And certainly not: We sacrificed everything for you.
Children should never be made to believe that their parents’ sacrifices have created a debt that can only be repaid through academic success.
Parents have children because they love them.
That love should be communicated explicitly.
A child should not have to infer it from school fees, coaching fees and material comforts.
Tell them.
Show them.
Make them understand that their existence has value independent of their marksheet.
Don’t burden your children’s shoulders with your dreams. Their existence itself is a cause of supreme happiness. Your children don’t have to constantly prove their worth by consistently acing one life challenge after another.
Academic integrity still matters
There is another uncomfortable truth that must not disappear from this debate.
Cheating is wrong.
It does not become right because competitive examinations are stressful. It doesn’t become right because there is cutthroat competition in premier institutes.
It does not become right because a student belongs to a particular caste.
It does not become right because the consequences of being caught are frightening.
And it certainly cannot become acceptable because we are afraid that enforcing examination rules might hurt someone’s feelings.
Academic institutions exist partly because qualifications are supposed to mean something.
If a student obtains marks by using an unauthorised phone, AI system or other prohibited assistance, the institution has every right, and indeed a responsibility, to intervene.
The solution to academic pressure cannot be to abandon academic standards.
It is to teach children that an honest failure is infinitely better than a dishonest success.
That lesson has to begin at home.
Parents should celebrate effort, discipline and integrity, not merely outcomes.
A child who scores 60 honestly should never be made to feel morally inferior to someone who scores 90 through cheating.
And when a child is caught cheating, parents should have the courage to tell him that what he did was wrong.
But they should also tell him something else:
“You made a mistake. Now accept the consequences and learn from it. You have not become worthless.”
That is parenting.
The tragedy should make us rethink what we demand from children
The IIT Bombay case will ultimately have to be decided by evidence.
If the investigation establishes caste discrimination, those responsible must face the law.
If it establishes institutional wrongdoing, there must be accountability.
If the allegations are not substantiated, that must also be accepted.
But whatever the outcome, India needs to confront the larger epidemic of academic and social pressure.
A young person’s life cannot be reduced to his examination result.
A person’s worth cannot be determined by whether he clears NEET.
A person’s intelligence cannot be reduced to his JEE rank.
A person’s future cannot be decided by whether he gets an IIT degree.
And a person’s success certainly cannot be determined solely by whether he gets a foreign job.
There are many ways to live a meaningful life.
There are many definitions of success.
Being a good son or daughter is success.
Being a good parent is success.
Being honest is success.
Doing work you enjoy is success.
Building something meaningful is success.
Helping other people is success.
Living peacefully is success.
And sometimes, simply having the courage to begin again after failure is itself an enormous achievement.
Indian parents need to teach their children this.
Love them when they win. Love them when they lose. Love them when they succeed. Love them when they make mistakes.
Demand honesty.
Demand hard work.
Demand accountability.
But never make a child believe that your love depends upon his performance.
Because examinations are temporary.
Careers can change.
Jobs can be lost and found again.
Countries can be changed.
Degrees can be earned later.
Mistakes can be corrected.
But a life lost to a temporary crisis cannot be recovered.
No IIT seat, no NEET rank, no job package, no foreign posting and no social status are worth a child’s life.
The responsibility for teaching that lesson does not belong to IIT Bombay alone.
It begins at home.
As a father, I want my son to outlive me. I would willingly give up my own life if it meant he could live forever. I am certain fathers across the world share this instinctive desire to protect their children at any cost.
That is why it is our collective responsibility to make sure our children never feel that death is preferable to facing failure, shame, disappointment, or our expectations. We must teach them that no mistake, examination, failure, or moment of embarrassment is greater than the value of their life, and that they will always have a safe place to return to in their parents.
