The suicide of a second-year B. Tech student at IIT Bombay on 18th September 2026 has stirred outrage and handed those who thrive on playing caste politics an unmissable opportunity to turn the deceased Sahil Wakode into another ideologically useful Rohith Vemula.

Caught using ChatGPT on his phone to solve a question paper, Sahil Wakode committed suicide hours later; IIT Bombay professor booked under SC/ST Act FIR

The 20-year-old student from a Scheduled Caste family in Yavatmal was found dead in Hostel 4 on the evening of 18th September, hours after he was caught using a mobile phone and an AI chatbot for cheating during an exam.

Wakode’s parents have alleged caste discrimination; leftist student bodies are demanding IIT Bombay Director Shireesh Kedare’s resignation. The protesting students are also demanding police action against Professor Suryanarayan Doolla and others for allegedly abetting the student’s suicide through caste discrimination.

The IIT Bombay Professor Suryanarayan Doolla, on invigilator duty, caught Sahil Wakode using the generative AI tool ChatGPT on his phone during the examination to solve the question paper. According to the administration, he had uploaded the question paper to ChatGPT to get answers. After being caught, he was asked to leave the examination hall, and hours later he was found dead in his hostel room.

The parents of the student told the police that he had earlier informed them that he was facing discrimination and difficulties on the campus. The father mentioned in his complaint that Professor Doolla had been subjecting his son to caste discrimination for the past three months, on the instructions of IIT-Bombay Director, Professor Shireesh B Kedare.

The varsity administration denied subjecting Sahil Wakode or any student to caste discrimination and that Wakode’s suicide was triggered by any caste bias-related incident. The SC/ST Students and Staff Cell of the institute also said that no complaint relating to caste-based discrimination was filed by the student.

IIT Bombay administration stated that no disciplinary proceeding was initiated against Sahil Wakode. The instructor, faculty advisor and Head of Department to Wakode counselled and assured him that this episode will in no manner wreck his academic record.

However, Professor Doolla and others have been booked under the sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, in addition to the charges relating to abetment of suicide (BNS Section 108).  

Catching a student using a mobile phone during an examination for cheating, even if handled with supposed clumsiness, is not by itself a caste atrocity. The police are probing the deceased student’s family’s claim that he was subjected to caste-based discrimination or mockery earlier. However, the registration of an FIR under the stringent SC/ST Act turns an uninvestigated allegation into a criminal case overnight because that is how this legislation is structured. Perhaps, the SC/ST Act’s arrest-before-investigation provision is one of the key drivers of this law’s rampant misuse.

As soon as an alleged ‘caste discrimination’ claim emerged in the suicide of the IIT Bombay student, the political-ideological machinery that thrives on caste politics swung into action. A narrative is being woven that in recent years, a significant number of students from SC and ST communities have committed suicide over on-campus caste discrimination, while the majority of faculty members across India’s top educational institutions are ‘Savarn’ (general category). This apocryphal narrative is gaining traction even as government data shows that the majority of students dying by suicide across IITs, NITs, and IIMs were from the general category.

All the accused should be immediately arrested and @iitbombay Director should resign. There savarna casteist faculties has been abusing students in campuses. They want to gatekeep these spaces from marginalized communities, savarnas occupy more than 90% of faculity positions https://t.co/dBNl40TUq5

— Cloudwalker (@13cloudwalker) September 19, 2026

Leftists wove a caste discrimination narrative after IIT Bombay student Darshan Solanki’s death despite no evidence, and went dead silent after the abettor turned out to be a Muslim

This, however, is not the first time that a student’s death has been given a caste discrimination spin even before a police probe. On 12th February 2023, an IIT Bombay student named Darshan Solanki took his own life. He was a Hindu Dalit who hailed from Ahmedabad city in Gujarat.

He jumped to his death from the 7th floor of his hostel building. It had only been a day since the semester exams ended. Solanki had even called his mother before committing suicide and discussed plans about having a family get-together on 14th February that year.

Soon after the incident, speculations began about the cause of Darshan Solanki’s untimely death. A notorious organisation on campus named ‘Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC)’ alleged that the victim took his own life due to ‘caste discrimination.’

Caste-baiters and leftist propaganda outlets like Newslaundry exploited Solanki’s death for their own ‘caste discrimination’ agenda even as the institute’s administration ruled out caste discrimination allegations. The whole leftist coterie went silent as soon as the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Mumbai Police arrested a 19-year-old batchmate of Darshan Solanki named Arman Iqbal Khatri and found a suicide note, in which the deceased Hindu Dalit blamed his Muslim batchmate for his decision to end his life.

Going by the precedent set by the 2016 Rohith Vemula suicide case, the left liberal coterie is not going to let Wakode’s suicide go unused for their political attacks against the BJP government and the sinister ‘Manuvad/Brahminvad se Azadi’ agenda, claim that Professor Doolla is pro-BJP, Sanghi, and hold seminars, protests, and years later, maybe a ‘secular’ I.N.D.I. Alliance member party enact on-campus anti-caste discrimination law in Wakode’s name.

Beyond pushing back against the predictable playbook, there is a serious need to understand how India’s top institutions known for their educational excellence are falling into the grip of dubious caste activists masquerading as ultra-intellectual professors.

IIT Bombay and beyond: How India’s technical institutes are becoming a hub of far-left activism and Hinduphobia

To a great extent, the popular imagination that the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are temples of technical excellence—producing engineers, scientists, and innovators who have powered India’s progress- is true. IITs are, in fact, seen as high-pressure merit factories.

However, beyond the chimaera of unparalleled STEM success and fetishisation of academic excellence. India’s top educational institutions are undergoing an unannounced leftist takeover.

This takeover, or, to keep it less alarming, assertion, is three-layered.

First, there are active student collectives rooted in Leftist-Marxist ideology that are determined that some IITs and other top institutes are ‘pro-Savarn’, faculties are mostly dominated by ‘Sanghi Savarns’, failures are the result of ‘caste-based humiliation ‘, and suicide is ‘murder’. They play judge, jury, and executioner, based on the religious and caste identity of the deceased.

The second layer comprises the left-liberal media. The Wire, Newslaundry, Scroll, and numerous self-styled ‘Ambedkarite’ YouTubers portray incidents such as the suicide of Rohith Vemula or Sahil Wakode as proof that Indian educational institutions are a hub of caste-based biases, harassment and discrimination regardless of the evidence to back their claim.

The third layer is less talked about but much more concerning: humanities and policy faculty. Though left-liberal ideological biases are not exclusive to humanities faculty only, or that all professors in these departments are leftists, those with such biases treat caste as the root cause of most, if not every campus conflict.

The humanities and policy centres in technical institutes are small in headcount; however, they punch above their weight and exploit the unmatched national prestige of IITs for intellectualising their caste propaganda and disseminating it as universal truth.

This dissemination of caste atrocity or Hinduphobic propaganda is interesting. For example, a professor writes that vegetarian mess tables are ‘purity-pollution’ or that Article 370 abrogation was ‘constitutionally illegitimate’, ideologically aligned student groups then cite faculty, the faculty cite the group’s ‘surveys’, and leftist media cites both, creating a citation loop lending each other ‘intellectual credence’.

While the Leftist-Marxist rot is infecting several Indian higher education institutions, since IIT Bombay is at the centre of the issue, let’s take a look at the problematic shenanigans of some of its professors.

Suryakant Waghmore: The IIT Bombay Sociology professor who believes Indian vegetarianism is ‘social illness’

Suryakant Waghmore is a professor of Sociology in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at IIT Bombay. BA from Karnataka University, MA in Community Development from TISS, PhD from Edinburgh as a Commonwealth Scholar, Suryakant Waghmore’s research work focuses mainly on Dalit politics, caste and violence, ‘Hinduism’ civility and exclusion.

Professor Waghmore earlier wrote that Indian vegetarianism is more about caste hierarchy than animal ethics. During the 2023 IITB mess-table dispute, he called “Bhartiya vegetarianism of purity and segregation” a “social illness”. Waghmore equated assertive vegetarian students to militants.

Unsurprisingly, Professor Waghmore’s social justice activism, as is the case with most self-declared Ambedkarites, is all about Brahmin bashing and vilification. As reflected in one of his X posts, wherein he wrote that Hindus, particularly Brahmins, facing racism in the US are not facing Hinduphobia but their ‘Karma’.

“A true Brahmin should not cross the seas as per Manu and Dharmasutras. Brahmins experiencing racism in the US is not Hinduphobia… it’s karma?” he wrote.

Waghmore has expressed his disdain for the RSS, as exemplified by this post, in which he wrote, “One key lesson .. there’s nothing essentially south about ‘south India’ .. sublated-Hinduism of RSS has reached Kerala too. This forward and backward moment is here to stay. More reason for us to stay alert and take nothing for granted.”

In another post, Waghmore suggested that Hinduism lacks ‘civility’.

This taxpayer-funded academic has consistently been peddling anti-Hindu propaganda with an intellectual outlook.

In June 2025, a show-cause notice was issued to Suryakant Waghmore after a Times of India op-ed he authored triggered backlash. The article, headlined “Mumbai’s Big Cash Polls”, was a politically charged one, published without the prior institutional clearance, in violation of Schedule B, Paragraph 5(ii) of the institute’s code of conduct.

Waghmore has also taken delight in ‘gaumutra’ jibes at his critics.

Anupam Guha: Another ‘gem’ of IIT Bombay

Such is the ideological dominance left liberals have in Indian academia that India’s premier technical institutes and STEM education is increasingly being sidelined in favour of humanities and political activism. In fact, a closer look at the IITs, IIMs and even top private universities reveals how India’s educational institutions are turning into playgrounds for radical leftist ideologues.

Anupam Guha, an Assistant Professor at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay, is more of a political activist than a professor imparting education pertaining to his officially assigned focus areas, including Artificial Intelligence, AI policy, and the future of labour.

While Guha talks about dissent and glorifies dissenters, he can’t stand dissent against himself, and thus keeps his social media posts protected.

Earlier, Anupam Guha lauded MIT student Megha Vemuri for using her graduation ceremony to launch a vitriolic anti-Israel tirade. Rather than maintaining the intellectual neutrality expected of a taxpayer-funded educator, Guha glorified her act as brave and exemplary, admitting he lacked the “courage” to do something similar in his youth.

Back in 2019, Guha publicly endorsed an article branding the abrogation of Article 370—an act passed by the Indian Parliament and upheld by the Supreme Court—as “constitutionally illegitimate”.

Expressing his radical views on capitalism, as exemplified by his remarks during the violent Sterlite Copper Plant protests a few years back. The IIT Bombay assistant professor wrote, “capitalism cannot function without state terrorism,” and referred to the deceased as “martyrs.”

Anupam Guha, the IIT Bombay assistant professor, was also at the forefront of urging people hit the streets against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in January 2020. Despite being on a government payroll, Guha used his platform to fan unrest, often amplifying separatist voices and questioning India’s sovereignty over Kashmir. Guha incited people against a legislation passed in the Parliament, which simply offered expedited citizenship to persecuted religious minorities from neighbouring Islamic countries. 

In one of his posts, Guha denounced the term “Tukde Tukde Gang”—a colloquial phrase used to describe secessionist and anti-national elements—as an act of “stochastic terrorism,” and suggested that those using the phrase should face prosecution. This is not the language of an academic, but of a political ideologue engaged in narrative warfare against the Indian state.

Guha, however, is not a closet communist; rather, he has openly boasted of his political ideological alignment.

In an October 2024 post, Guha wrote that he has been a communist for over 15 years.

Meet Palestine and Hamas-loving IIT Bombay professor Sharmishtha Saha

Back in November 2023, just weeks after the Palestinian Islamic terror group Hamas carried out a massacre of innocent Israeli civilians, an IIT Bombay professor, Sharmishtha Saha, spoke in support of the terrorist outfit during a virtual lecture.

The professor at the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) department of IIT Bombay invited guest speaker Sudhanva Deshpande to address the event for an academic course, namely ‘HS 835 Performance Theory & Praxis’.

Deshpande openly lionised Palestinian terrorists Zakaria Zubeidi and Ghassan Kanafani and glorified Hamas’s violent jihad against Jews.

“He not only admitted to having met Palestinian terrorist Zubeidi in 2015 but also defended and glorified violence and armed rebellion. Zubeidi is a known figure associated with the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an organisation designated as a terrorist entity by various governments and international organisations, including the United States, the European Union and Israel,” a complaint filed by IIT Bombay students back then, stated.

This episode was part of the same pattern, wherein HSS classrooms in technical institutions are weaponised as platforms for radical politics and glorification of violence. These professors are not some secret cell or workers of political parties but those enjoying the tag of intellectuals and the accompanying respect.

Dubious individuals secured key positions in IIT Bombay, targeted OpIndia with trashy study

IITs are taxpayer-funded institutions meant to impart technical education free from any political influence or biases; however, India’s premier institutes are being exploited for leftist ideological agendas.

The Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay commissioned a research paper titled “Delving deeper into OpIndia.com’s representation of Hindus and Muslims.” The paper analysed 54,580 articles published by OpIndia from 12 December 2014 to 15 May 2023, and unsurprisingly concluded that the portal “fosters anti-Muslim narratives” while positively portraying Hindus.

Among the authors of this piece of propaganda packaged as ‘academic research’ is Shinjinee Majumder, a staff member at the controversial and far-left portal Alt News, which often pushes Islamist narratives and does selective and politically convenient ‘fact-checking’.

Such studies churned out by entities running on taxpayer money are essentially sophisticated and intellectualised partisan political hit jobs. These entities are becoming echo chambers of leftist political activism, vilifying India’s political right-wing, Hindutva, and by extension, Hinduism. While most people are still debating why IITs and IIMs even have humanities departments, these departments are lending scholarly credence to themes that undermine the Indian state’s foundations.

IIT Gandhinagar: Another premier technical institute undergoing ideological takeover by Leftist-Marxists

An interesting example of this can be found in the case of IIT Gandhinagar, where the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) department received flak in 2025 for seemingly promoting Islamic theology under academic pretences. PhD topics included titles such as:

• “Fishing With Faith: Islam, Indigenous Knowledge, and Ecological Sustainability in Lakshadweep”
• “Robes of Authority: Sunni Ulama, Sartorial Tradition, and Embodied Piety in Malabar”
• “From Gods to Jinn: Ontological Rewriting and the Islamization of Spirits in Kerala”
• “Beyond Cultural Brokers: Speech Mediation and Ritual Efficacy in Mosque Speeches in Kozhikode”

There was no critical or comparative lens or any critical inquiry; rather, the study was designed to romanticise and propagate Islamic dogmas. It is alarming that a premier government-funded technical institute is serving as a platform for theological glorification under the garb of social science research.

When the issue came out in public, an email sent by Professor Nishant Choksi went viral, in which he threatened students with disciplinary action and penalties for revealing thesis projects and student information. Professor Choksi was also in the news for his association with Adilok NGO, which is said to have a religious agenda.

Later, OpIndia reported how some teachers are associated with controversial NGOs working in tribal areas, while others are active on social media and are propagating leftist ideology. 

It was reported last year that while Islamic dogmas were being romanticised, Hindu students were being threatened against leaking internal communications and discouraged from condemning terror attacks targeting Hindus, particularly the Pahalgam attack, wherein Hindus were singled out and shot dead by Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorists.

However, just seven days after Hamas—a designated Palestinian terrorist outfit—massacred civilians in Israel on 7th October 2023, IIT Gandhinagar reportedly held a “Sham-e-Azadi” candlelight march to express solidarity with Palestine.

Like IIT Bombay, IIT Gandhinagar has also employed several controversial professors. One such professor is Amit Arora of the Department of Material Science. In some of his posts, the professor expressed support for the terrorist organisation Hamas and Umar Khalid, an accused under the UAPA in connection with anti-Hindu Delhi riots. Arora also made some political posts mocking the policies of the Modi government. Following backlash over his social media posts, Arora deleted his account.

On May 27, 2020, Arora posted some comments on the Ram Temple on X. A few months before that, the Supreme Court had passed the verdict in the Ayodhya Ram Mandir dispute, and the formation of the Ram Mandir trust was underway.

Amit Arora wrote in his post, “Ram Lalla is in the child who is trying to wake up his mother’s corpse lying on the platform. As long as there is even one such child, Ram Lalla will never come to your temple. Go and build a temple.”

Arora’s post reflected typical leftist mindset which always portrays Hindus as inferior by linking any social or economic problem to their temples or Gods. Such things can be in the context of religion or sect, but the leftist minds always target Hindus.

On April 2, 2025, Professor Arora commented on a post made by a leftist account on X questioning why “Sanghis” have started using the name “Bharat” in their conversations instead of “India”. “What is the sudden onset of Sanghis using the name Bharat while conversing about in English about India? What are they trying to do? Trying to fool everyone to make them believe that Bharat is a different developed version of India?” the post read.

Professor Arora has also reposted Ravish Kumar’s posts. He reposted a post of Twitter troll Arpit Sharma, who wrote in support of Umar Khalid that if his name was Umesh or Umang, he would have been out of jail by now.

Caste discrimination, Hindutva, Palestine, ‘syncretic culture’, vegetarianism and such charged and divisive themes are gradually defining IITs and IIMs while these premier institutes were meant to be temples of educational excellence not political propaganda.