One morning, this author received a flyer of the event ‘South Asian Capitalism(s)’ organised at the UC Berkeley and co-organised by the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. The flyer had a cartoon caricature that resembled a communist cartoon ‘Pyramid of Capitalist System’ but was customised for Indian context, with India’s current leaders.

Shocked by finding the misuse of taxpayers’ funds for such propaganda, this author posted it on X (formerly Twitter). The poster caused a controversy followed by the distance of the IIT Bombay from this event by releasing an official statement.

This event was sponsored by the New Political Economy Initiative (NPEI), headed by IIT Bombay’s Humanities faculty who is a British citizen. The initiative is a part of Centre for Liberal Education and has received a fund worth INR 35 crore from Ford Foundation. Still the output of the head, at least academically, has not been great. IIT Bombay’s official website displays very few research works in his profile and in fact no published works since 2023. NPEI’s one research paper uses Wikipedia as a citation, limited survey and news report as reliable sources to draw conclusions.

This is not just one isolated event where IITs are in bad focus. One faculty member of ADCPR, IIT Bombay gave a call for class war on social media platform X. The same professor has been working for five years but doesn’t have any first author research paper.

Another faculty member of ADCPR wrote in a magazine that Shrimad Bhagvad Gita teaches insider trading and his claims were debunked by this author and Ami Ganatra recently. IIT Gandhinagar has also been in news for having such faculties at the humanities departments. These faculties from humanities departments are not just activists on taxpayer’s funds but also inefficient and ineffective in their........

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