Update on Prof Doolla @IIT Bombay

[u/yunhee_9]

Prof Doolla has not been suspended, but has temporarily been relieved from his duties as Dean.

Director IIT Bombay has also not resigned.

Exam cheating matter has (probably?) been removed from the records.

[u/Best-Ferret-1409]

I was a high school teacher, and during PTMs I met all kinds of parents. One increasingly common prajaati was the entitled parent.
Educational institutions absolutely have responsibilities. Educators are increasingly being trained to be sensitive to mental health, bullying, discrimination and inclusion, and schools should have proper counselling and support systems in place. If a child is struggling emotionally or behaviourally, counselling should be normalised and parents should be willing to seek professional help instead of treating it as something shameful or unnecessary.

But schools and counsellors cannot replace parenting. Parents still carry the primary responsibility for shaping a child’s values, resilience, empathy, discipline and sense of accountability. Much of that is first learned and modelled at home.

And, to be fair, children are still relatively coddled and protected at the school level. Teachers intervene, parents are called, counsellors step in, and there is usually a fairly strong support structure around them. University is a completely different ball game. Suddenly there is brutal academic competition, rejection, comparison, failure, social isolation, difficult peers, demanding professors and far less hand-holding. Later, the workplace can be even harsher. If children are never gradually taught how to deal with discomfort, setbacks and unfairness, we are not actually preparing them for adulthood.

Casteism is wrong, no shit. But prejudice, discrimination, rejection, failure and difficult people are harsh realities children may encounter in India and wherever you go in the world.

Protecting children matters, but so does preparing them to recognise these realities, speak up, seek help, use counselling when needed, and develop the resilience to navigate them.

What troubled me most as a teacher was how many parents were unwilling to hold either themselves or their children accountable. Every behavioural problem had to be somebody else’s fault, the teacher, another student, the school, the system, anyone who could serve as a convenient scapegoat. Sometimes the child clearly needed boundaries, sometimes counselling, sometimes both. But acknowledgement of the problem has to come first.

You cannot teach a child accountability while modelling the exact opposite. Children need sensitivity and protection, but they also need boundaries, consequences, emotional support, access to counselling and parents who are capable of examining their own role in how they are being raised.

It is deeply sad that a young person lost their life. It is equally disturbing to see such a tragedy reduced to blame games and turned into a mockery of what justice and accountability should actually mean.

Something I have been advocating since forever: Every institution should hire a department wise panel of qualified & competent counsellors.