After all these years, IIT Kanpur, a national institution of significance, has finally decided to label the dhobi community, who have been providing affordable, convenient, and regular laundry services to the campus community and students for over 60 years, as unauthorized residents. The institute has now decided to evict them from their homes, warehouses, and washing areas.
Did the dhobis suddenly occupy the land within IIT Kanpur, a place where even birds supposedly consult with the administration before building their nests? No. It was IIT itself that invited them to work on campus and provided them with space to operate. Since laundry work resembles a cottage industry, the institute also provided them with housing. Did these dhobis build their own houses? No, IIT built those homes for them—just as it did for its teachers and staff. The difference is that teachers and staff receive hefty salaries during their service and retire with generous pensions and gratuities. They eventually vacate their quarters and lead a respectful life elsewhere.
Meanwhile, these dhobis still pick up clothes from homes and student rooms at just ₹10 per item, wash them, and return them clean.
Despite this, the dhobis are being humiliated, labeled unauthorized, and evicted. Granted, many of the original allottees are no longer alive. But does that alone render their families unauthorized? In our country, a dhobi is not just an individual but a family, a community. Those who fail to understand this social reality, regardless of their academic prowess or official status, are socially ignorant. In India, people do not choose to become dhobi voluntarily; they are born into it, much like the Valmiki community members who also struggle to find alternative work.
The dhobi community living in IIT Kanpur is no different. Entire families work together—elders, children, men, and women. Some wash clothes, some iron, some dry them, some oversee operations, some collect clothes, and others distribute them. Everyone works collaboratively. By allotting houses in the name of the male head of the household, IIT demonstrated its patriarchal mindset. If the man is no longer present, does that mean the work of washing clothes has ceased? The family continues to do the same work as before.
The IIT administration claims that these houses are now unfit for habitation. Wasn't it the administration's responsibility to maintain and repair them periodically? Why did IIT never consider building proper toilets or workspaces for these dhobis? Is this the standard in other departments of the institute? Absolutely not. So why has this discriminatory treatment been meted out to the dhobi community, both then and now?
Granted, IIT needs space for expansion. But must the weakest and most marginalized community within the campus be sacrificed for this growth? Where will these dhobi families go after being displaced? What will happen to their work? How will their families sustain themselves?
Shouldn't a institution of national and international significance consider these questions? If such an institution cannot value and support the weakest and most marginalized members of its community, its talk of nation-building becomes hollow.
Is this the fate these families, who have served the community for decades, deserve—humiliation and eviction? What crime have they committed?
Does IIT Kanpur bear no social responsibility?
Why can't IIT make alternative arrangements for these families? Or why can't it provide compensation for forcing them to abandon their established livelihoods and face uncertainty? Don't these families deserve at least this much?
Will IIT simply discard these families like used tissue to fulfill its aspirations?
By doing so, IIT will only reveal its casteist mindset.
