Last week, 18-year old Darshan Solanki, a first year Dalit student at IIT Bombay, son of Rameshbhai, a plumber and Tarlikaben, a domestic worker, died by suicide.

Reading about this young man’s death, of his parents’ heartbreak; of his father sending him some money to have a good weekend just two hours before his death is painful. But IIT’s unwillingness to admit that campus casteism has something to do with such a death, is enraging. It not only echoes, but bolsters upper caste pretense that merit is not socially acquired, and the resentment about reservations.