The students at the IIT Hyderabad campus have expressed concern about potentially being compelled to consume vegetarian meals in the upcoming semester if they couldn't secure registration for non-vegetarian food at the canteens.
The development surfaces at a time when IIT-Bombay was dealing with accusations of caste discrimination due to certain students reserving a portion of the dining hall for vegetarians.
As per a report by The News Minute, IIT-Hyderabad received an email containing a survey for hostel residents.
It said the survey is aimed to gauge whether students were interested in registering for a dining hall exclusively serving vegetarian food.
The report said email included a link to a form and indicated that the survey was initiated at the request of the IIT-H Director and some students.
It mentioned the survey closed on the following day, and by July 27, another email was sent to students who had chosen the 'pure vegetarian' option, giving them a one-day window to complete their registration for it.
“During the initial week of August, students noticed that a designated vegetarian area had been established within the new mess dining hall”, the report said.
The report mentioned the IIT-Hyderbad has two canteens: one is the old canteen, and the other is a newer one.
“The old canteen does not have any such segregation. The vegetarian-only section is in the new canteen, where even faculty and other staff members come to eat now. It may also have something to do with the faculty members. They have set up a separate section entirely with utensils for vegetarians. The result of that survey was not made public," the report quoted a student from IIT-Hyderabad as having said.
“…the introduction of the vegetarian section might have been influenced by the presence of other faculty members who utilize the same canteen. This unidentified IIT-Hyderabad teacher mentioned that a significant portion of the faculty at the institute belongs to upper-caste groups,” it mentioned.
“Following the creation of a vegetarian-only section, the IIT-Hyderabad administration is currently considering the possibility of establishing a dedicated vegetarian dining hall in the upcoming semester,” the report said.
On September 12, they sent out another survey to gather feedback before proceeding with the selection of catering services for the“possibility of running a veg mess in one of the dining halls,” it mentioned.
In July of this year, posters bearing the message "Vegetarians only are allowed to sit here" were affixed to the walls of Hostel 12's canteen at IIT Bombay.
