The Invisible Hands: Workers in the Political Economy

of IITs
This article is the first in a series examining the labor practices of the Indian Institutes of
Technology (IITs), with a specific focus on IIT Bombay. Renowned as premier
educational institutions in India, IITs are held in high esteem by the public. However,
these institutions are engaging in labor practices that violate existing laws and exploit
contract workers.

Pranav Jeevan P, Akshay Sawant and Rushikesh Gawade1

On the May Day of 2024 —internationally recognized as the Labour Day, a day to honor
workers and the international labor movement—Raman Garase, a former IIT Bombay worker,
died by suicide. Raman Garase, along with Dadarao Ingale and Tanaji Lad, have been fighting
an uphill battle with the mighty institute for their rightful post-retirement gratuity benefits. He had
worked for the IIT for around 38 years. In his initial letter written to the IIT Bombay
administration in January 2020, asking for the gratuity payment, Garase wrote in Marathi, “I
have served the IIT for the whole of my life. In spite of that, when we completed 60 years of age,
IIT discontinued our services without giving us anything to rely upon. I have worked for your
institution with various contractors for 38 years. I request you to grant me the gratuity benefits
as per the rules.” The IIT did not respond to his plea. Resolute in their pursuit of justice, Garase
and others took their case to the labor court.

Over the period of next four years, the labor court ruled twice in favor of the workers, ordering
IIT Bombay to disburse the gratuity payments. However, the IIT kept prolonging the legal battle.
The prolonged legal battle meant the loss of crucial years of post-retirement life where the
gratuity amount is supposed to be helpful to the workers in their old age, to ensure them a
decent standard of life on their retirement. The administration's apathetic behavior stalled the
distribution of gratuity amounts. Their highly paid registrars and lawyers (formed to look after
gratuity matters) sat in their AC ivory towers, contemplating moving to the High Court and, if
needed, to the Supreme Court against the rulings of the labor court.

Raman Garase had recently learnt that the IIT was again planning to appeal against the labor
court ruling. Disheartened by the prolonged struggle and the dimming hope of ever receiving his
gratuity of Rs 4,28,805, his death underscores the harsh realities many workers face in securing
their rights and dignity not just in IITs, but across the nation. The tragic death of Raman Garase
is a significant moment that demands an introspection on the condition of workers in IITs. In this
series of articles, we attempt to initiate a discussion on the workers' conditions, with the hope
that it will be followed by more robust discussions and political interventions that change the
current state of affairs.

IITs: The Savarna Bastions in Post-independence India

To begin with, we need to locate workers in the larger political economy of the IITs. IITs are a
set of 23 public institutions of higher education, with the original five founded between 1951-61

1
Authors are students at IIT Bombay and members of Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC).tgj
through bilateral cooperation of the Indian government and foreign governments. IITs, founded
with the idea of constructing a new Nation, were declared to be Institutions of National
Importance. Located in various corners of the nation, they were gesturing to the postcolonial
states’ zeal for both national integration and regional commitments. While placing IITs as
institutes of national importance by constituting a particular act called The Institutes of
Technology Act, 1961 (hereafter IITs Act), they were exempted from applying the reservation
policies that began for educational institutions in 1953.

It was the understanding from a top-down approach to science that, in contemporary times,
many movements and leaders have criticized. It also suggests what nation it attempted to cater
to by establishing special criteria laying at the foundation of creation. The IITs Act gave a shield
from the strong articulation and significant debates of the constitutional provision achieved by
long-time social and political movements of that contemporary time.

So much so that with the impending pressure from various organizations based in IITs, like that
of Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC) IIT Bombay and many other institutions, in
2019, a committee was formed under the chairmanship of IIT Delhi director to oversee the
proper implementation of reservation. Instead of devising a proper plan to implement the
reservation and have a clear plan of action for the coming years where they fill the backlog of
seats denied for decades to SC, ST and OBC candidates, the committee went on to demand
exemption from reservation policy invoking IITs Act.

In many ways, the marginalization of Dalits and Adivasis has been inscribed in the very
foundation stone of IITs, which continues to bear its fruits even today and will continue to do so
until robust restructuring does not take place. It is always the case with IITs that the
administration has been constituted of what is known as the ‘general category’ (savarnas).
Many chairmen of IITs, the Board of Governors, and council members come from the industrial
sector and capitalist businessmen. The administration of IITs and the faculties largely remained
savarnas as IITs were exempted from reservation. The students, too, largely belonged to the
general category, with reservation norms still not followed to the constitutional mandate. The
Dalits and Adivasis were mainly employed as grade C and grade D workers. It still continues
that the majority of the workers who are employed for manual labor on these campuses come
from Dalit and Adivasi communities, while the majority of the faculties and students are
savarnas.

“Casual” laborers in “Eminent” Institutions

All the IITs have been built on huge pieces of land, and they are well known for their lush green
campuses. However, lesser known facts are how the land was acquired for these campuses
and who got displaced. Many of the stories and struggles of Adivasis are buried under the rubric
of IITs, where they were/are displaced from their land, cut off from their livelihood, and made to
be dependent on the employment provided by IITs, mainly catering manual labour. Often, IITs
promised permanent employment and rehabilitation for their land. However, they never kept
these promises and they often ended up landless and becoming manual laborers in IITs. In the
last decade itself and the still ongoing process of IIT Bombay evicting local adivasi communities
of Peru Baug for constructing a research park. Sometimes, the local communities became
successful in pushing away the land grab, as in the case of how the protests led to a change of
IIT Goa campus site away from Sanguem.

Around the 1970s-80s, the process of contractualization of labour work started when IITs
introduced interim contractors for various works related to maintenance and smooth functioning
of the campus. They proceeded to move away from employing permanent workers and started
replacing them with contract workers (at times called as casual laborers). The contractors acted
as intermediaries only for making the payment of wages. The authority that has the ultimate
control over the affairs of the establishment and the said work always remained with the IIT
officials and not with the contractors. This enables IITs to hold more power over workers and not
take any responsibilities of providing worker benefits and security.

The casual/contract workers were paid less than half the amount which the permanent workers
were paid for the same work. Such a shift in IITs like most other industries and institutions
saved loads of money, some of which was shared to the intermediate contractors. This change
in the relationship of workers with the establishment also significantly reduced the ability of
workers to negotiate as they could be arbitrarily fired, which also held them back from unionizing
for fear of individual targeting and retaliation.

In IITs, as the campus area is large, the work allotted to contractors is broken into smaller
geographical areas targeting particular kind(s) of work. For instance, tender for housekeeping
work in the academic area is called for separately than with the residential area. Depending on
the floor area, the number of workers and the material for the work are estimated, and the
quotation is given. However, as noted, IITs continued to allot the work to these contracts, which
was much beyond their area of work under the said tender specification of the contractor.

So, for instance, Raman Garase, along with many other workers, was asked to remove the
hutments of the Adivasis living in the Peru Baug where today's building of Research Park
stands, calling them ‘illegal’. In this way, the IIT administration comprising of savarna and
corporate lobby pitted the workers who themselves belong to marginalized communities against
the indigenous people living in the area who are being forced to leave their land and their
sources of livelihood are also destroyed. Also, on a regular basis workers are shifted to different
locations within campus to attend to specific works.

There is also a culture of treating workers as suspected criminals. Workers in IIT Kanpur have
to open and show their bags when they leave the campus area. Workers in IIT Bombay were
made to deposit utensils in a centralized location by the contractors as they claimed that they
could not trust the workers as they might steal them. Such practices which are employed in the
pretense of security are actually casteist practices of terming certain communities as criminals.
Similarly, a practice of housekeeping workers taking signatures from students as a proof to
show they have worked in the respective area every day.

Wage Theft: Violation of Labor laws in IITs

The Criteria for Prohibition under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
(CLRA) clearly states that if the work is perennial in nature (i.e., it is not seasonal or temporary
but lasts throughout the year), it needs to be done by regular workers rather than contract labor.
Perennial work includes works such as cleaning building floors, and roads, mess work, janitorial
work, plumbing, electrical maintenance, gardening, and fumigation, which are essential parts of
the campus. CLRA also states that any work requiring significant control and supervision by the
principal employer is unsuitable for contract labor. Despite the law being there for over 50 years,
these clauses of CLRA are being violated all over India, with premier higher education institutes
such as IITs being no exception. Even though regulations stipulate that these jobs should be
handled by permanent workers and not by contractual labor, IITs bypass these rules, opting to
employ contract workers to avoid the obligations and costs associated with permanent
employment.
There are various rights that are guaranteed for contract workers under the various labour laws.
All contractual employees are eligible for the Employee Provident Fund (EPF popularly known
as PF), a retirement benefit scheme, and the Employee State Insurance (ESI), a social security
and health insurance scheme. These worker protection schemes provide an array of benefits,
which includes medical treatment, maternity benefits, disability benefits, dependent benefits,
and unemployment allowance under certain conditions. Both schemes are crucial in the socio-
economic architecture of India, providing financial security and healthcare benefits to a
substantial portion of the Indian workforce.

However, in practice, multiple mechanisms are in place to avoid providing the majority of such
benefits. Contractors do several tricks to steal the benefits from the workers, whereas IIT
officials, even in full knowledge of such practices, pay no heed to those violations. Many
contractors deliberately do not create bank accounts for workers, sometimes even deliberately
delaying their creation or even creating with mistaken names and paying the workers in cash for
the entire time period. These workers are not paid EPF even though the contractor deducts EPF
contributions from their wages. When workers demand their EPF, a small amount is given,
much lower than the worker’s contribution over the years, and without employer contribution.
Workers are forced to accept the lower amount as any legal route for redressal will only further
delay the payment for years. Multiple instances of a contractor’s cheque given against PF and
bonus getting bounced were reported to the IIT Bombay administration but no action was taken
against them. In 2022, more than 50 mess workers did not receive any PF amount, even though
(Rs.1800) was deducted from their wages every month. The same caterer was found to violate
the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Sometimes, money is deducted from wages for uniforms, while
no new uniforms are provided. Despite complaints raised by student groups, the contractor was
not blacklisted by the administration, moreover received few new tenders.

Those working from before the 2000s have also noted that IIT Bombay was not giving EPF and
ESI to the majority of its workers. It was after much demand from workers that IIT Bombay
finally conceded to provide them with these benefits. However, for many other workers, such as
mess workers and canteen workers, even today, minimum wages are also not paid, no proper
accommodation facilities are given, and they are always made to do overtime without being
paid. Most construction workers lack systematic EPF/ESI accounts and other basic labor
entitlements.

The arbitrary firing of workers is another perverse phenomenon employed by the IITs to control
and exploit workers. IIT Kanpur fired 72 workers from its Visitor’s Hostel in 2017. On 1 August
2022, 18 workers from the water supply and sewage department of IIT Kanpur were fired
without prior notice, owing to a change in the contractor. IIT BHU fired around 200 workers
without prior notice claiming a change of contractors in 2019. On January 27, 2024, Jagdish Pal,
a Hall 2 mess worker of IIT Kanpur with 13 years of service, was unfairly dismissed without
reason after protesting strict attendance policies that led to pay deductions and unpaid work. His
suspension and subsequent dismissal underscore the severe exploitation and mistreatment of
mess workers at IITs. In one of our next segment, we will also discuss a detailed case of 59
female mess workers who were removed by IIT Bombay.

Even the workers who are employed often face months long delays in receiving their wage
payments. Section 5 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, specifies the timing for the payment of
wages and mandates that wages should be paid before the tenth day after the last wage period.
IITs letting contractors violate these laws and withholding the wages of workers has become
commonplace now. 4 men were killed when a contractor in IIT Mandi fired on workers protesting
the non-payment of their monthly wages and EPF. Protests have been organised by workers in
IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, over post-retirement medical schemes, pension, promotions,
regularization of dependents of deceased/disabled employees.

Multiple construction workers have died in IIT Bombay due to a lack of proper safety gear and
unsafe working environments. Similar deaths have occured in IIT Kanpur where a gardener in
the academic area tragically died within hours of reporting for work on a severely cold winter
morning. In 2019, the collapse of the Earth Science building wall in IIT Kanpur resulted in death
of three workers and in 2022, a worker at the Type-III apartment construction site behind the
director’s residence died from excessive bleeding after a hand-held grinder slipped and severely
injured his leg. The living conditions of construction workers at IITs are also deplorable, as they
are compelled to reside in cramped, overcrowded cabins that lack basic hygiene and proper
sanitation facilities.

Prestige and Precarity

These violations of workers’ rights are not just limited to the IITs and happen all over the
country. These “eminent” institutions are no different than any other institutions in the country,
when it comes to respecting the rights of workers. They are as exploitative as the others.
However, the overwhelmingly Savarna nature of these institutions does add a new layer to the
exploitation of contract workers. The tag of an “eminent” institution also adds a structural angle
to such exploitation. Many contract workers who started working here some decades back, had
this hope in their mind that they will be accepted as “permanent” employees, some day or the
other. Such acceptance would mean better living conditions. But for most of them, that day
never arrived.

Even after multiple complaints about denial of workers’ rights, and even judgements from labor
court ordering to comply with labor laws, IITs have been ignoring them just the way they ignore
the constitutional mandate of implementing reservation for SC ST OBCs. They continue to give
contracts to the same contractors who were violating these laws. This alludes to a collusion
between the contractors and the administration of IITs to exploit these workers.

The workers of IITs face issues in getting their minimum wages, EPF, ESI, gratuity, healthcare,
lack of safe working environment, arbitrary firing, and lack of strong unions that can claim their
demands by negotiating with the administration. It is paralleled with the violation of reservation
norms, stiffing voices of descent with imposing stringent code of conduct for students, workers
and faculties, and rapidly expanding privatization of education.

The death of Raman Garase highlights significant issues within labor rights and the struggle for
justice by contractual workers. It is a somber reminder of the impact that prolonged legal
disputes and denied rights can have on individuals. Workers like Raman Garase, Dadarao
Ingale, and Tanaji Lad, who have served institutions for decades, often face uphill battles for
their rightful benefits, reflecting broader systemic issues that need addressing.

The decision of the IIT Bombay administration to appeal the labour court's order, thereby
extending the legal process, underscores the challenges faced by workers in securing what is
legally theirs. Such situations also bring to light the need for stronger safeguards and more
efficient legal mechanisms to protect workers' rights and ensure timely justice.

Raman Garase's tragic death, particularly on Labour Day—a day meant to celebrate workers
and their contributions—adds a layer of poignancy to the story and calls for a reflection on how
societies and institutions treat their labor forces. It is a call to action for not just ensuring legal
compliance but also fostering a culture of respect and dignity for all workers.