In the popular imagination, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have long stood as temples of technical excellence—producing engineers, scientists, and innovators who have powered India’s progress and made their mark globally. But behind the gleaming façade of STEM success, a silent ideological takeover is underway—particularly within the humanities and social sciences departments that have taken root in these institutions. What began as a noble attempt to integrate liberal arts into technical education has devolved into a machinery of ideological indoctrination, often at odds with India’s civilisational ethos and national interest.

An X thread by a social media user provides a glimpse into what’s ailing India’s premier technical institutes, where STEM education is increasingly being sidelined in favour of humanities and political activism.

Professor of Humanities (Policy Studies) at IIT Bombay. Our IITs have become trash due to humanities departments.

I repeat once again: defund humanities from IITs. Save IITs. pic.twitter.com/RpfthiHkwT

— Harshil (હર્ષિલ) (@MehHarshil) June 3, 2025

Case study: Anupam Guha — AI researcher or political activist?

One of the most glaring examples of this phenomenon is Anupam Guha, an Assistant Professor at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies at IIT Bombay. While Guha’s academic focus is on Artificial Intelligence, AI policy, and the future of labour as the official website of IIT Bombay describes him, his public statements on social media reveal a deep-seated ideological commitment to Marxist and far-left politics—often manifesting in open hostility towards Indian sovereignty, capitalism, and democratic processes.

In a recent tweet, Guha heaped praise on 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 lionized her act as brave and exemplary, admitting he lacked the “courage” to do something similar in his youth.

This wasn’t an isolated incident. Guha has also 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”.

His views on capitalism are no less radical. During the violent Sterlite Copper Plant protests, which left nine people dead, Guha tweeted that “capitalism cannot function without state terrorism,” and referred to the deceased as “martyrs.”

His activism extended into the anti-CAA protests, where he actively urged people to hit the streets against a law that had been passed in Parliament, offering expedited citizenship to persecuted minorities from neighbouring Islamic countries. Despite being on a government payroll, Guha used his platform to fan unrest, often amplifying separatist voices and questioning India’s sovereignty over Kashmir.

In one particularly telling tweet, he 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.

IIT Bombay’s humanities professor wants to persecute those who use the term ‘tukde tukde gang’.

For him, those who speak that term are terrorists. pic.twitter.com/52T0BBGyul

— Harshil (હર્ષિલ) (@MehHarshil) June 3, 2025

In yet another striking incident, Guha haughtily projected himself as an unabashed communist, barely concealing his contempt for those who don’t subscribe to his worldview. 

An email has been sent to Anupam Guha from IIT Bombay seeking his comments on the above mentioned viral thread on X (formerly Twitter). In the interest of fairness, OpIndia has asked Guha to clarify whether the account and its opinions are indeed his—or if someone has impersonated him to malign him as a communist and supporter of anti-national elements. At of the time of publishing, OpIndia has not received any response from him.

Institutional rot: Humanities Depts as ideological weapons

Guha is not an outlier but a symptom of a deeper malaise. The humanities departments within IITs—originally introduced to provide well-rounded education to engineering students—have become bastions of far-left activism, often under the guise of academic inquiry. These departments, which are supposed to study history, culture, ethics, and society with balance and objectivity, are now increasingly promoting a worldview that undermines the very foundations of the Indian state.

Consider the case of IIT Gandhinagar, where the Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) department has recently come under the scanner for seemingly promoting Islamic theology under academic pretenses. 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”

These research subjects, far from offering a critical or comparative lens, appear to romanticize and propagate Islamic dogmas, often devoid of critical inquiry into their socio-political implications. It is a matter of grave concern that a premier government-funded technical institute is serving as a platform for theological glorification under the garb of social science research.

While the outrage over these thesis topics is yet to subside, a fresh controversy had emerged. Screenshots of purported WhatsApp chats of IIT Gandhinagar students had surfaced, suggesting that Hindu students are being threatened against leaking internal communications and discouraged from condemning terror attacks targeting Hindus. One such conversation, allegedly involving a Hindu student, indicated that after the Pahalgam terror attack—where Hindus were singled out and killed by Pakistan-backed Islamic terrorists—students were pressured not to speak publicly about the incident.

The chats further suggests that condemning Islamist violence against Hindus is suppressed, even as the institution appears to permit, and even encourage, political expression in support of global Islamic causes. Alarmingly, 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.

This stark double standard—where Hindus killed in India are erased from public discourse, while Islamist extremists in other parts of the world are glorified—reflects not only ideological bias but also a growing atmosphere of hostility toward Hindu identity within these institutes.

To make matters worse, Associate Professor Nishaant Choksi of IIT Gandhinagar has allegedly threatened disciplinary action against students who questioned this ideological shift—using the ‘honour code’ as a weapon to silence dissent. The very students who should be encouraged to question and debate are being muzzled in the name of political correctness and academic decorum.

A dangerous convergence: Activism, ideology, and academia

This transformation of IITs into ideological factories mirrors similar patterns seen in Western institutions, particularly in the Ivy League, where critical theory, identity politics, and Marxist discourse have overtaken classical liberal education. In India, however, the stakes are higher. Unlike in the West, where private endowments and alumni donations fund universities, Indian institutions are funded by taxpayers—most of whom do not subscribe to these divisive ideologies.

The convergence of taxpayer-funded academia with anti-state activism creates a paradox: citizens are unwittingly financing intellectual subversion that seeks to delegitimise their nationhood, culture, and governance. Professors like Anupam Guha are not merely expressing dissent—they are embedding a political worldview into impressionable young minds under the sanctified halo of academic freedom.

Time for course correction

There is a pressing need to re-evaluate the structure, curriculum, and hiring practices in the humanities departments of technical institutes. While academic freedom must be preserved, it cannot be a license to promote ideological indoctrination, separatism, or religious glorification at the cost of national cohesion.

Some concrete steps could include:

• Mandatory review of humanities syllabi by neutral academic panels.
• Transparency in research funding and publication sources.
• Accountability mechanisms for faculty promoting political activism under academic pretense.
• Integration of Indian civilisational studies and comparative religion from a critical and balanced perspective.

India’s IITs should remain beacons of innovation, logic, and excellence—not echo chambers for imported ideologies or political theatre masquerading as scholarship.

Ideological corrosion of India’s premier institutes a reality 

The ideological corrosion within India’s premier technical institutions is not a conspiracy theory but an observable reality. When a professor at a leading IIT praises anti-India activism, questions parliamentary decisions, and amplifies separatist views—all while being paid by the Indian taxpayer—it’s time to ask: are our institutions truly serving the nation’s interests, or have they been hijacked by those who fundamentally oppose it? The answer may well define the future of India’s intellectual sovereignty.

What makes this trend especially concerning is that IITs are globally respected for their excellence in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). These institutes were established to fuel India’s technological advancement and innovation ecosystem. However, the increasing focus on political activism—particularly from ideologically driven faculty within humanities departments—dilutes the academic environment, distracts from core STEM priorities, and shifts the institutional culture away from scientific inquiry toward political agitation.

By allowing these institutes to become cradles of left-wing activism, we risk eroding the very foundation that earned them their international reputation. The infiltration of ideological agendas not only compromises the objectivity and focus essential to technical education but also deters serious students and researchers from pursuing excellence in a space that is increasingly politicised. Over time, this ideological creep threatens to undermine the quality of education, research output, and the global stature that IITs have worked decades to build.