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Parekh and Datta 1
TOWARDS A (TRANS) INCLUSIVE SCIENCE HIGHER EDUCATION IN INDIA:
NOTES ON POLITICAL SOLIDARITY AND ITS POSSIBILITIES
Riya Parekh
1
,
2
, Sayantan Datta2,
3
,
4
Abstract
In this study, we critically evaluate transgender-rights, anti-caste, feminist and disability-
rights discourses in the context of science higher education in India to explore provocative
possibilities of political solidarity between different marginalized groups. We propose four
registers of exploring these discourses – that of nature and culture of science and science
institutions, infrastructure, affirmative action and curriculum – and highlight the ways in which
these registers offer possibilities of political solidarity. In essence, we argue that a political
solidarity – driven activism potentiates transformative and productive ways to challenge different
forms of gendered, casteist and ableist violence in science higher education in India.
Keywords
Science education, Higher education, Transgender, Gender Non-Conforming, Gender
Non-Binary, Caste, Ableism, Gender, Feminisms
Introduction
In a 2014 article titled “Unpacking Solidarity of the Oppressed: Notes on Trans Struggles
in India”, Gee Imaan Semmalar, a trans activist from Kerala, India, asks, “...what are the
possibilities or impossibilities of solidarity among marginalized groups? Is a combined struggle
against structures of oppression possible? Or is the idea of solidarity a naive concept? A distant
dream?”. At a time when words like “affirmative action”, “diversity”, “equity”, and “inclusion”
1
School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University.
2
These authors have contributed equally to this work.
3
Centre for Writing and Pedagogy, School of Interwoven Arts and Sciences, Krea University.
4
Corresponding author. Contact: sayantan.datta@krea.edu.in.
Parekh and Datta 2
populate the science education discourse, we ask the same questions of science education and its
research in India.
Our deliberations come at a time when science classrooms, curricula and the culture of
science, technology, engineering, medicine and mathematics institutions have been critiqued
steadily for discriminating against gender- and caste-marginalized groups as well as against people
with disabilities. While academicians and activists have suggested structural, curricular and policy-
level changes towards the inclusion of these communities in the Indian science ecosystem, the
focus has largely remained restricted to the inclusion of upper-caste, able-bodied and cisgender
women. Specific interventions towards the inclusion of transgender (trans), gender non-
conforming (GNC) and non-binary (GNB) persons – especially those who are intersectionally
marginalized – have not been a distinct concern in these conversations, as seen in how policies and
suggestions drafted for the inclusion of cisgender women subsume trans, GNC and GNB people,
disregarding the unique kinds of discrimination faced by these marginalized groups. Further, we
observe institutional inertia – despite judicial, legal and policy mandates – in engaging with
demands from non-normative gender-marginal groups. This inertia is articulated through language
that is familiar to those who’ve thought and worked towards making institutions of knowledge
production and dissemination more just and equitable. Common excuses involve the spatial,
temporal and financial logistics of infrastructure modification and policy intervention. Particularly
in the context of science education, desires for curricular transformation run into barriers of
perceived value-neutrality and objectivity of science and science practice.
In this backdrop, we find it important to ask how one may contextualize the calls for the
inclusion of various gender-marginal groups in the Indian science ecosystem in the pre-existing
discourses on discrimination and inclusion in science education without losing sight of the unique
Parekh and Datta 3
forms of marginalization experienced by trans, GNC and GNB persons that require targeted
affirmative action. We ask what possibilities political solidarities among marginalized groups hold
in radical reimaginings of science and science education. How does solidarity-focused activism
transform activism in the context of education, particularly science education, and why must trans
activists consider the case for political solidarity?
Our concern with the question of political solidarity in education is not new
5
. Paulo Freire,
in his widely acclaimed book The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), argued that “true solidarity”
is possible only when the privileged are willing to let go of their power. Gaztámbide-Fernandes et
al. have written, in the context of education, about how invoking solidarity without a political
“commitment” is perfunctory (2022). However, they also caution against dismissing solidarity as
a political concept as “anachronistic or irrelevant to contemporary struggles for social justice,
particularly in education” (ibid). Quoting Cherríe Moraga, Gaztámbide-Fernandez argues that it is
important to “pay attention to the long trajectories of solidarity as a necessary aspect of social
political [sic.] change” (ibid).
This paper attempts to document critiques that can help chart trajectories of solidarity.
These trajectories of solidarities must be preceded by trajectories of the movements that have
unsettled structures of exclusion in science education. This essay, therefore, synthesizes narratives
that allow us to locate critiques of and demands from science and science education that have
emerged from trans, GNC and GNB people in the larger context of trans-rights, feminist, anti-
caste and disability-rights discourses of science and technology. Through this exercise, we hope
to add to the growing scholarship of (trans)feminist science studies, science and technology
studies, science education studies and critical science studies that aim to foreground science
5
For more details, please see Gaztambide-Fernández et al. 2022.
Parekh and Datta 4
education in the conversation around transforming science and science practice to be more
inclusive of and emancipatory for socially and politically marginalized groups.
We must clarify that this essay is not an attempt to comprehensively document issues faced
by trans persons in the Indian science ecosystem; although previous work has documented many
such issues (Kondaiah et al. 2017, Mani 2019, Datta 2020, Datta 2021, Teja 2021, Sahoo 2021,
Datta 2022, Datta et al. 2022, Datta and Ajeya 2022), we recognize the heterogeneity in the lived
experiences of trans, GNC and GNB people, complicated by intersectional experiences of class,
caste and disability. We must also clarify that this essay must not be seen as an exhaustive
documentation of the histories of trans-rights, feminist, anti-caste and disability-rights discourses
in science education in India; logistical constraints of time and space make such exhaustive
documentation beyond the scope of this article. This article attempts to make visible the
provocative possibilities of solidarity building that these discourses pose, and we hope further
activist and academic deliberations will take the discourse forward.
(Trans)forming Science: Trans Critiques of and Demands from Science and Science
Education
In 2017, Bittu Kondaiah, currently a biologist at Ashoka University who identifies as a
genderqueer transman, co-authored an article titled “The Production of Science: Bearing Gender,
Caste and More” with Shalini Mahadev and Maranatha Grace Tham Wahlang, both coming from
scheduled caste and tribe locations respectively. In the section titled “The Autobiographical,
Bittu”, Kondaiah mentions being “seen by scientists as a masculine woman” and their trans identity
being “erased”. They add that this erasure might be seen as academically beneficial since “it is
misunderstood as an acceptance of the equation between masculinity and scientific ability”.
Kondaiah’s narrative highlights two fundamental ways in which trans, GNC and GNB persons are
Parekh and Datta 5
excluded systematically and structurally in science ecosystems: one, through the erasure of their
trans identity, and two, by maintaining the mythological association between masculinity and
scientific ability. Recognising this mythology is important since it contributes to the nature and
culture of science being inherently Brahminical and cis-heteropatriarchal; Brahminism and cis-
heteropatriarchy are social-political structures that actively filter in cisgender and heterosexual
men from a privileged caste and class location while simultaneously filtering out those who are
intersectionally marginalized. It is also important to acknowledge the erasure that Kondaiah et al.
speak about as it is by erasing the lived realities of marginalization that science rests in “oblivion”
(Datta 2020). This oblivion is a prerequisite to value neutrality; science’s claim to rational and
empirical objectivity, then, both produces and is a product of a largely homogenous practitioner
pool: upper caste, cisgender, heterosexual and able-bodied.
A 2020 report by TheLifeofScience.com highlighted three broad categories of issues that
trans, GNC and GNB people face in the Indian science ecosystem: those of “mobility in and
accessibility of institutional spaces” due to the gendered and segregated nature of these spaces,
“harassment and abuse (of both sexual and non-sexual nature)”, and those concerning mental
health (Datta 2020). Respondents in the report also mention being subjects of increased
surveillance (ibid). Further, the report highlights that since many trans people might change their
names after having published their research or obtained a degree, bureaucratic red tape hinders
their claims to their research or degree, posing a risk to their careers in science (ibid). Finally, the
report also quotes a respondent saying that “I have bunked many classes because I couldn’t drag
myself mentally to enter these (STEM classrooms) spaces that see your gender as a mental illness”
(ibid), providing a glimpse into how transphobia and transphobic misinformation is embedded
within science curricula and classrooms.
Parekh and Datta 6
A 2021 survey-based report by IndiaBioScience.org that specifically looked at the mental
health of queer and trans people in Indian science institutions mentioned that 38% of the
respondents (total n = 47) believed that being LGBTQIA+
6
in STEM had affected their mental
health (Datta 2021). To the list of issues documented by the 2020 TheLifeofScience.com report,
this one added a few more: ostracization faced by queer and transgender persons in the Indian
science ecosystem, the ecosystem’s violent disengagement with questions of gender and sexuality,
and the pathologizing and discriminating nature of STEM curricula (ibid). Notably, the report also
highlights that having a mental health practitioner on science campuses is necessary but not
sufficient; it is important that the practitioners are sensitized and sensitive to queer-trans issues,
are not overburdened, are available for longer durations on campus, and do not breach the
confidentiality of the individual seeking support (ibid).
In the context of medical education, it is important to foreground the tenuous experiences
of trans, GNC and GNB people with the healthcare ecosystem. Trans people have reported facing
hostility and discriminatory treatment while accessing healthcare services, and the healthcare
ecosystem has remained largely oblivious to their unique physical and mental healthcare needs
(Sangath India 2022a, b). As two recent competency documents from the “TransCare” programme
housed at Sangath India, a non-governmental organization (NGO), have highlighted, health
professionals are not adequately trained to extend medical services to trans persons. For instance,
the documents mention that the current medical education system largely functions within a gender
binary (Sangath India 2022a). Further, medical education in India continues to pathologize non-
normative gender and sexual identities through the medical curriculum (Sangath India 2022a, b).
Importantly, the documents recognize that medical students who identify as trans have to navigate
6
Expanded form: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual and other gender- and sexually
marginalized groups.
Parekh and Datta 7
“institutional transphobia”, which includes bullying and shaming trans individuals, social
ostracization and banning from accessing certain departments, and the negotiation that these
individuals have to make between self-expression and career progression (Sangath India 2022b).
These issues are compounded by the fact that accreditation bodies like the National Medical
Commission (NMC) are not held accountable regarding trans-affirmative medical healthcare
(ibid).
In 2021, a judgment from the Madras High Court in response to S Sushma and Anr v.
Commissioner of Police and Ors recommended that curricula in schools and universities be
changed to the effect of educating students about the “LGBTQIA+ community”. In August 2022,
the NMC Postgraduate Medical Education Board revised its “Guidelines for Competency-Based
Postgraduate Training Programme for MD [Doctor of Medicine] in Psychiatry”, which one of the
two documents from Sangath India mentioned above deems “more LGBTQIA+ affirmative and
inclusive” (2022b). Despite this change, as the competency document titled “Trans-Affirmative
Medical Education in India: Need for Reform and Core Competencies” mentions, there is no
mention of trans or GNB persons when it comes to competency-based medical education (ibid).
In light of these observations, the documents suggest that medical education in India imbibes an
intersectional understanding of the “social and structural determinants of health” for trans and
GNB persons (Sangath India 2022a). Moreover, they argue that removing “problematic content”
from medical curricula in India is necessary but not sufficient; rather, according to the document,
enough “foundational” trans-affirmative content has to be added to transform medical education
in India (Sangath India 2022b). Finally, as the documents point out, “critical reflexivity” – for both
faculty and students – is required in medical education to enable familiarity with “one’s own
limitations and others’ social realities” (ibid).
Parekh and Datta 8
Like in the case of medical education, queer-trans psychologists have argued against the
pathologization of non-normative genders and sexualities in psychology and psychology education
(Kottai and Ranganathan 2019, Chatterjee 2021). They have also pointed out the increased lack of
qualitative engagement that contextualizes mental health concerns of queer-trans people in
“critical factors of culture and experience” (Kottai and Ranganathan 2019). Further, they have also
highlighted that the curative violence perpetrated by psychology practice is a result of an education
system that is detached from social sciences, arguing that psychology education in India is an
“import” from psychiatry (ibid). Finally, they also argue that the term “sexual” makes its
appearance in psychology syllabus only in conjunction with “sexual disorders and dysfunctions”,
thereby “recasting everything related to sexuality as pathology and rendering difficult dialogue
across disciplines that locate sexuality at the intersection of pleasure, human rights, sexual
citizenship, morality, ethics, bodily autonomy and dignity” (ibid). It is perhaps this rampant
pathologization of non-normative genders and sexualities that leads to unchecked conversion
therapy practices, despite a ban on the same by the Madras High Court in the landmark 2021
verdict (S Sushma and Anr v. Commissioner of Police and Ors).
What emerges from the vignettes above is a grim picture of science higher education that
continues to systemically, systematically, structurally and epistemically marginalize queer-trans
concerns. The concerns highlighted in the studies above can be understood in terms of four broad
registers: (a) the exclusionary and violent nature and culture of science and science education, (b)
the gendered and exclusionary infrastructure of science and science education institutions, (c) the
lack of affirmative action and affirmative action policies, and (d) epistemically violent curricula.
These registers enable us to put the “political” back in conversations around solidarity; that is,
these registers allow us to recognise solidarity not merely as a way of bringing different
Parekh and Datta 9
marginalized groups together but ask what are the fundamental structures of oppression in science
and science education, especially in an Indian context, that need to be resisted. Thus, these registers
offer a fundamental shift in how we imagine a more equitable science and science education
ecosystem; rather than the marginalized individual/group being the subject of this solidarity, these
registers allow us to make science and science education the subject of enquiry, critique, and
eventually, solidarity, enabling us to question fundamental structures of power that shape the
exclusionary nature and culture of science practice in India. Further, these registers allow us to
complicate the idea of education as an activity that happens within an ecosystem; put differently,
we are able to ask what does it mean for an ecosystem to be educated on concerns that it has
considered peripheral and actively peripheralized?
In the next section, we begin the task of “re-narrating”, where we synthesize critiques of
science and science education from the trans-rights, feminist, anti-caste and disability-rights
discourses in the frames of the registers mentioned above. In tracing these trajectories of resistance,
we hope to demonstrate that possibilities of meaningful political solidarities are well and alive in
critiques of science and science education, and these possibilities need to be explored, nurtured
and taken to fruition for a truly transformative reimagination of science and science practice in
India.
(Trans)forming Science and Science Education: A Case for Political Solidarity
That political solidarity is crucial to a provocative reimagination of science and science
education can be witnessed when Kondaiah et al. mention that “those of us who are feminists bear
the responsibility of ensuring that, for every one of the essential discussions we organize about
gender in science, we commit time and effort to supporting Dalit, Adivasi and Bahujan academics
in questioning Brahminism in science” (2017). Similarly, the competency documents from
Parekh and Datta 10
Sangath India talk about the critical lens disability studies provide against the medicalization of
non-normative bodies and identities and how that intersects with the anti-medicalization rhetoric
in trans-rights discourses (2022b). Kottai and Ranganathan have also written about the role of
disability-rights discourses and disability studies in enabling critical psychology to engage with
queer-trans concerns (2019). Our work in this paper builds and adds on to these conversations by
re-narrating stories of critique against structural exclusion in science and science education in
India.
Why must we re-narrate these discourses? We borrow the term from translation studies,
where Mona Baker has argued that re-narration enables the construction of events and characters
in different configurations instead of their mere representation (2014). Thus, re-narrating the
stories of resistance, this time through the four registers outlined in the previous section, would
allow us to document and construct the possibilities of political solidarity in the context of science
and science education in India. Further, re-narrating offers us a queer possibility. Since narratives
are seen as intertextual – i.e. inexorably linked to other narratives – they refuse objective
identification and delineation (ibid). Thus, in re-narrating these stories, we find solace in knowing
that this is one of the infinitely many possibilities of juxtaposing these trajectories. In re-narration,
we are able to leave an open end – a loose thread, if one will – that makes other narrations possible.
As authors of this manuscript, we look forward to many such critical re-narrations. With this
background in mind, we re-narrate these critical discourses through the four registers we have
articulated above. We begin with the one that critiques the nature and culture of science and science
education.
On the Nature and Culture of Science and Science Education
Parekh and Datta 11
In this section, we investigate the ways in which feminist, anti-caste and disability-rights
discourses have engaged with the question of what is considered science and who is considered a
scientist, and what might these engagements mean for a (trans)formative reimagination of the
Indian science ecosystem.
As previous feminist scholarship has pointed out, disciplines such as nutrition and
midwifery, traditionally seen as disciplines that are pursued mostly by women and, in which
women excelled, have never been considered a part of science (National Council of Education
Research and Training 2006). These disciplines are deemed peripheral; they are seen as contingent
on science, drawing from its myriad knowledge, but never contributing to it directly. Further,
disciplines such as mathematics and physics have been traditionally and colloquially termed
“hard”, while disciplines such as psychology and biology are termed “soft”. This binary is steeped
in a masculinist phallocentric imagination that relies on confounding the credibility of knowledge
with the perceived objectivity of the discipline. As Light et al. have shown earlier, this artificial
distinction is also constructed around perceptions of which disciplines have more women
practitioners; the more the number of women practitioners, the “softer” the discipline is perceived
to be (2022). This artificially constructed distinction has an impact on how disciplines with more
women practitioners are perceived, with the ones with more female practitioners being devalued
compared with the ones that have more male practitioners (ibid). Thus, Light et al. present a
puzzling complication that critiques the simplistic idea that increasing the representation of women
in a science discipline is alone sufficient to make the discipline more equitable; rather, their work
shows that gender bias runs so deep in the sciences that a discipline itself gets marginalized when
more women access it. Therefore, the fundamental approach to diversity, equity and inclusion
needs a radical transformation that challenges stereotypical ideas about the competence of
Parekh and Datta 12
marginalized groups, and a dismantling of ideas of masculinity and femininity that undergirds the
perception of science disciplines.
Simplistic and bioessentialist ideas of competence also contribute to the exclusionary
nature of science education in India. For instance, apparent biological differences in cognitive
ability between men and women have been used to deem women as intellectually inferior (Gould
1981). Similarly, as Kondaiah et al. mention, science’s approach to disability is constantly
coloured by the “failure framework” (2017). In 2022, Satendra Singh, a doctor, medical educator
and a disability-rights activist, pointed out the ableist undertone of the Wadhwa Committee report
from the All India Institution for Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi. The Wadhwa Committee
was tasked with formulating guidelines for doctors with disabilities to pursue specialities for their
postgraduate education. However, as Singh points out in a report by The Wire Science, the report
“does not describe even one speciality that candidates with locomotor disabilities in both their legs
can pursue” (2022). In a similar vein, Renny Thomas’ detailed ethnography in Science and
Religion in India: Beyond Disenchantment (2021) highlights how upper-caste scientists see
themselves as naturally and culturally inclined towards the sciences, while people from
marginalized caste backgrounds are seen as dispassionate and undedicated. Similar attitudes have
been highlighted by Kondaiah et al. (2017), who have also written about how science education
continues to perpetuate Brahminism and patriarchy both in its form and content. For instance, they
speak about how biology is taught largely by way of the transmission model, where critical enquiry
takes a backseat to foreground the Vedic practice of memorization and regurgitation (ibid). The
death by suicides of several marginalized caste science students, including Rohith Vemula, Madari
Venkatesh, Anitha and Payal Tadvi, serve as a constant reminder to the institutional violence that
people from marginalized backgrounds are subject to by science and science education. As
Parekh and Datta 13
feminist, anti-caste and disability-rights discourses remind us repeatedly, the language of
competence is one of violence, and it is through this violent exclusion that science and science
education continue to function in insulated silos of male, upper-caste and able-bodied scientists.
What must our efforts towards a trans-inclusive science education incorporate from these
critiques of science and science education? Since trans rights continue to be relatively less
discussed in the context of equitable science education, legislative, judicial and policy-level
interventions often interpret the question of access to the inclusion of more trans, GNC and GNB
people in the Indian science ecosystem. However, as Light et al. have pointed out in their article
mentioned above, an increased representation is not meaningful unless gendered, casteist and
ableist assumptions are shaken out of disciplines and their culture. Thus, it is important that the
trans-rights discourse in the context of science education critiques and displaces the patriarchal,
Brahminical and ableist nature and culture of science and science education while continuing its
fight for the inclusion of trans, GNC and GNB people in the same.
Importantly, it is critical that political solidarity is embedded in trans interventions in the
diversity, equity and inclusion discourse in science education. As Dalit trans activist Living Smile
Vidya has argued previously, the lines between caste and gender are more blurred than they seem;
Vidya has, in fact, likened transphobia to a form of Brahminism that is executed through similar
metonymic associations between “dirty” work and the bodies that do this work (Semmalar 2018).
Similarly, ideas of gender and disability as distinct analytics and social structures are constantly
challenged by disability studies scholars who are increasingly using the gender theories of Judith
Butler (for instance) – especially concepts of abjection and livability – in theorizing disability
(Samuels 2002). However, as Samuels argues, these blurry boundaries do not indicate that one
term, like “gender”, can be simply replaced by another, like “disability”. We see a critical
Parekh and Datta 14
pragmatic opportunity in these increasingly fuzzy theoretical and conceptual boundaries in that
they allow political solidarity – driven trans activism to find footing. It is interesting that for such
activism to be possible, trans activism in the context of science education must work from these
fuzzy boundaries. Thus, it is not mainstreaming of trans, GNC and GNB people that such activism
must desire, but an annihilation of the very mainstream.
On Infrastructure
We are interested in the question of infrastructure not only because gender-affirmative
infrastructure is a consistent demand of trans, GNC and GNB persons from science institutions
7
,
but also because, as Susan Leigh Star points out in “The Ethnography of Infrastructure” (1999),
infrastructure is an entity that has often remained elusive to critical analysis. Leigh Star argues for
an “infrastructural inversion”, i.e., in her own words, “foregrounding the truly backstage elements
of work practice” (ibid). In this section, we engage with critiques of infrastructure in science and
science education from trans-rights, feminist, anti-caste and disability-rights discourses to
foreground infrastructure not just as a tool of oppression, but also as a space requiring political
solidarity – driven intervention for it to be truly affirmative of trans, GNC and GNB people.
Before we begin, however, we must take on the arduous task of defining what
“infrastructure” is. For the purpose of this paper, we are restricting our understanding of
infrastructure to material spaces of science institutions in the backdrop of which science and its
practitioners exist. These include laboratory spaces, of course, but also hostels, washrooms,
elevators, staircases, dining halls, canteens, etc. In summary, at least for our purpose, infrastructure
represents the taken-for-granted material and mundane aspects of science institutions—aspects
7
In response to the Supreme Court of India’s judgement in the matter of NALSA v. Union of India (2014), the UGC
released a circular in 2015 that mandated the creation of gender non-segregated infrastructure in education institutions.
However, as a recent report by The Wire Science highlights, this mandate is yet to be implemented (Datta 2022).
Parekh and Datta 15
that are “problematic as any other” (Leigh Star 1999) and often sites where dominant groups’
violent desires of exclusion are transformed into lived realities of the marginalized.
In Space, Segregation, Discrimination (2021), Chayanika Shah and Chinmay Shidhore
write about the segregated nature of space in the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IITB),
one of India’s premier science education and research institutions, where “Hostel 10” – for a long
time the only hostel housing women students on campus – was called the “Ladies’ Hostel” while
other hostels were referred to as “Students’ Hostels”
8
. According to Shah and Shidhore, this hostel
was located away from all other hostels, right opposite to where the Director’s bungalow used to
be, shrouded in surveillance. Further, they note that as the influx of women in the campus
increased, the hostel was demolished and rebuilt several times to increase its occupancy, unlike
the several new hostels that were built to accommodate the corresponding increase in the number
of male students on campus (ibid). Segregation undergirds the discrimination against women
students in the IITB campus, Shah and Shidhore note (ibid), explaining the ways in which
institutional infrastructures cannot be ignored in a critical conversation around science and science
education. Feminist concerns around infrastructures are also reflected in “Saksham”, a report
brought out by the University Grants Commission in 2013. Notably, the report reflected on “the
perceived neutrality in teaching practices” in science institutions and how this perceived neutrality
affects these institutions’ engagement with “social problems and power relations”. The report also
foregrounded the question of infrastructure by highlighting that women in science institutions
often work long hours in “relatively isolated conditions”. However, the report cautioned against
measures that restrict the mobility of women in these institutions. Critiques of infrastructure must
enable the mobility of the marginalized, rather than restricting it and ghettoizing them.
8
Shah writes that the name was changed to “Hostel 10” after growing dissent from its residents in 1979.
Parekh and Datta 16
Anti-caste scholarship has also pointed out the overt and covert nature of caste-based
segregation in science institutions. For instance, in 2018, the Indian Institute of Technology,
Madras (IIT-M), another elite Indian science institution, segregated wash basins and the entry and
exit points of a dining hall for vegetarian and non-vegetarian students (Senthalir 2018). This
segregation resembles a similar situation in upper caste households, which usually had two
entrances – one for upper castes, and the other for “impure” lower castes, members of the
Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle pointed out (ibid). As this example demonstrates, rhetorics of
purity and pollution, fundamental to the conceptualization of untouchability and caste, garner
institutional approval through segregated infrastructure. Thomas’ ethnography in the Indian
Institute of Science (IISc), another elite Indian science institution, shows similar segregation in the
dining halls of the institute, where of the three dining halls A, B and C, the first is reserved for
“pure vegetarian” food (2020). As Thomas reports, this segregation is perceived by several non-
Brahmin scientists as casteist (ibid). Such infrastructural segregation, Thomas notes, helps
Brahmin scientists preserve their “cultural and caste memory” (ibid). This observation strengthens
our argument that infrastructure is not a passive entity in science institutions but a site where social
and cultural exclusions are produced and reproduced.
Disability studies scholarship has also highlighted the marginalizing nature of
infrastructure in education institutions. The very construction of a disabled body is contingent on
the infrastructure within which it exists. Disability, therefore, as scholars have argued, is not as
much about the individual as much as it is about a social and structural construction (Shakespeare
2006). In India, to enable persons with disabilities to access institutional spaces without
discrimination and dependency, the Rights for Persons with Disabilities Act (RPWD Act) 2016
mandates infrastructural modifications to enable people with disabilities to access institutional
Parekh and Datta 17
spaces, including in educational institutions. Infrastructure is a key focus of the Ministry of Social
Justice and Empowerment’s “Accessible India Campaign”. The RPWD act is notably reflexive in
its mandate, mentioning that educational institutions need to survey students with disabilities every
half a decade to understand their requirements and take steps to accommodate the same (ibid).
The trans provocation in these critiques of segregated infrastructure is foregrounding the
binary nature of segregation. Thus, trans, GNC and GNB people have been demanding
infrastructural modification that challenges the segregation of institutional infrastructure along the
gender binary (Teja 2021, Sahoo 2021, Datta 2020, Datta 2022, Datta et al. 2022). However,
infrastructures are set in stone – quite literally – making them relatively immutable and impervious
to the reflexive and changing nature of trans concerns. That is, a “one-size-fits-all” approach is not
ideal for intervention in infrastructure for a group of people as diverse in their identities and
demands as trans, GNC and GNB people. Trans activism in the context of infrastructure, therefore,
has to actively engage with the task of what urban ecology scholar William Morrish calls “reflexive
infrastructure” (2008). According to him, reflexive infrastructure constitutes three basic principles,
which we reproduce below:
1. Infrastructure as a cultural repository of memories and future hopes;
2. Infrastructure as interdependent services and support systems that form the threads of
the local safety net; and
3. Infrastructure as a set of reciprocal transactions between civic authorities that promote
the sustenance and equitable distribution of the local common wealth. (ibid)
Reflexive infrastructure, in our interpretation of Morrish’s definition, enables
infrastructure to be flexible and adaptable to hitherto unforeseen needs, in this case of trans, GNC
and GNB people, and is a result of a multilogue between various stakeholders, including trans,
Parekh and Datta 18
GNC and GNB people themselves, and administrative, civic and policy-making bodies. It is the
adaptability of reflexive infrastructure that also makes it “resilient” (ibid). Further, foregrounding
reflexive infrastructure opens possibilities of political solidarity in critical interventions around
infrastructure. As Morrish argues, “Reflexive and resilient infrastructure systems cannot be created
through technological innovation alone; they require a fully engaged citizenry with a strong sense
of shared purpose…Active citizen participation is fundamental to daily operation of sustainable
infrastructure” (ibid). Reflexive infrastructure provides a “shared purpose” on which political
solidarity can be enacted, and foregrounds “active participation” as an operative force behind the
success of infrastructural interventions.
On Affirmative Action and Affirmative Action Policy
The term “affirmative action” was first used in an order signed by US President Lyngdoh
Johnson in 1965, after he succeeded to the post in the aftermath of John F Kennedy’s assassination
(Fullinwider 2018). This historical anecdote is important to us since it serves as a reminder that
“affirmative action” is a mechanism born out of a perceived benevolent nation-state, and like all
such measures, must be investigated with suspicion and caution. This is not to underplay the
importance of affirmative action policies, but to generate conceptual discourse that enables critical
engagement with the stakeholders of affirmative action and affirmative action policy.
We are interested in this critical engagement because of several observations. The
arguments around Raya Sarkar’s “List of Sexual Harassers in Academia” (Sharma 2021)
highlighted, among other things, the lack of faith many women have in institutional structures
despite these being put in place after decades of feminist interventions to safeguard their rights.
Previous scholarship has also pointed out the ways in which science institutions particularly
subvert institutional policies that are meant to increase the diversity of the student and faculty
Parekh and Datta 19
body. For instance, it has been previously noted that faculty in science institutions often evade
punitive action when they sexually or non-sexually harass, abuse or violate people from
marginalized backgrounds (Datta 2020, Kondaiah et al. 2017). As Kondaiah et al. and Shah point
out, owing to the heavily skewed power dynamics in science institutions, where a single faculty
member has complete control over a student’s life and career, people from marginalized
backgrounds are unable to report harassment or discrimination (Kondaiah et al. 2017, Shah 2017,
Datta 2022). Reservation policies in science institutions continue to be subverted (Datta 2022b).
The case of reservations is particularly important in the context of science education since science
institutions remain at the helm of anti-reservation protests (Datta 2021b).
In April 2021, videos showing Seema Singh, an associate professor at the Indian Institute
of Technology, Kharagpur (IIT-Kgp), verbally abusing students from marginalized castes and/or
those with physical disabilities during an online session surfaced on the internet in April 2021
(ibid). What is striking is that the aforementioned events took place during a preparatory course at
the institute for willing students from marginalized caste backgrounds and those with disabilities
who clear the admission cut-off but do not get a seat. Students who pass the course may get
admission a year later, but the faculty have the last say in determining whether a student gets the
seat or not (ibid). This incident reflects two fundamental negligencies in contemporary affirmative
action discourse. One, as Vaishali Khandekar, a research scholar at the Indian Institute of
Technology, Hyderabad (IIT-H), has previously pointed out, Singh’s sentiments are not unique; in
fact, the uniqueness of the incident lies in the fact that it was captured on record (ibid). What
Khandekar highlights is that despite affirmative action policies in place, they have failed to
transform public consciousness and the subjugated state of marginalized people in science
classrooms. The second negligency is related to the continuing subjugation. As the Seema Singh
Parekh and Datta 20
incident underscores, the usually upper-caste, cisgender, heterosexual and able-bodied faculty in
these institutions exert enormous control over the lives and careers of students from marginalized
backgrounds, which generates in them a sense of impunity. Further, as Kondaiah et al. point out,
upper-caste male able-bodied academics who perpetrate caste or gender violence are exonerated
through institutional cultures, which also place upon marginalized students that onus of “successes
and failure” (2017). Thus, contemporary affirmative action interventions, while having had some
success in increasing the representation of students from certain marginalized backgrounds in
science institutions, has been largely unsuccessful in dismantling the power structure and
institutional culture of merit and meritocracy that make exclusion and discrimination possible.
Further, affirmative action policies rarely seem cognizant of the different ways in which
different marginalizing forces are experienced by marginalized people. For instance, the National
Education Policy 2020 (NEP2020) claims that “…the Government of India will constitute a
‘Gender-Inclusion Fund’ to build the nation’s capacity to provide equitable quality education for
all girls as well as transgender students”. However, as has been pointed out previously, trans, GNC
and GNB people often have concerns different from those of cisgender women (Datta 2020).
This homogenization of different marginalized groups offers an interesting challenge for
the cause of political solidarity. We are compelled to ask, on the basis of our observations, how
might political solidarity exist without compromising the unique interventions demanded by
different marginalized groups, many of which marginalize each other (for example, instances of
casteism and transphobia both by upper-caste feminists have been reported [Joshi 2021, Feminist
Futures Collective 2021]). While we are unable to clearly answer this question (in fact, we are not
sure if a “clear” answer to this question exists), we hope the background and the critiques of
Parekh and Datta 21
contemporary affirmative action discourse we provide above can generate constructive and
generative conversations that strengthen our hope and alleviate at least some of our anxieties.
On Curriculum
Our interest in investigating curriculum is inspired by the fact that the abysmally low
participation of trans, GNC and GNB people in the Indian science ecosystem has been, at least
partially, accredited to the transphobic and cisnormative nature of science classrooms and
curricula. For instance, it has been previously noted that science curricula do not engage with the
concepts of gender and sexuality beyond pathologized descriptions of non-normative genders and
sexuality (Datta 2021). Along with the construction of diverse bodies, genders and sexualities as
pathological entities that gives scientific credibility to their social subjugation, compulsory
heterosexuality is made into a scientific truth through evolutionary biology’s dogmatic
understanding of natural selection that works through registers of reproductive fitness, isolation
and propagation of species. In the backdrop of the NALSA v. Union of India judgment (2014) from
the Supreme Court of India and the subsequent Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act
2019, the National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) recognized the urgent
need for an inclusive school curriculum and environment and released a teacher-training manual
in 2021. The manual, among other things, proposed using the existing school syllabi – including
science syllabi – as a launching pad for discussing issues that concern trans, GNC and GNB
students. The manual was, however, soon withdrawn after it received backlash from conservative
voices on social media (Datta 2021c). In this backdrop, it becomes pertinent to ask what the trans
provocation(s) in the context of curriculum might be, and how these provocations may be driven
by political solidarity.
Parekh and Datta 22
As education researchers, the curriculum is of focal interest to us for its many dimensions
(content, language and images in textbooks, etc.) and the ways in which they produce and
reproduce the Brahminical, patriarchal, transphobic and ableist social-political consciousness
within which science education happens. Per our observations, there are two overarching focus
points in interventions at the level of science curriculum in the Indian context: on the one hand,
we see a demand to improve the representation of marginalized groups in the curriculum, and on
the other hand, we see a demand to reframe the way content is presented – by means of
modification of the linguistic and visual tools by which the content is communicated – in science
textbooks and classrooms. For instance, it is a well-recognized fact that the content in most
textbooks very rarely represents women. Even when women are included in the curriculum, it is
usually a perfunctory attempt at integration, where the authors of textbooks add a few names of
women (for instance, Rani Laxmi Bai or Noor Jahan in History, or Gargi and Maitreyi in Science)
in the name of female representation. This mechanical approach at inclusion, termed the “add
women and stir” approach (National Council for Education Research and Training 2006), does not
engage with fundamental questions of gender inequality. Interestingly enough, one of the changes
that the 2021 NCERT teacher-training manual suggests is the representation of more transgender
individuals as role models into the curriculum (Datta 2021c). As the 2006 position paper from
NCERT on “Gender Issues in Education” points out, while necessary, such measures are not
sufficient since they do not help in addressing the epistemological concern of “developing
alternative frameworks of knowledge” that can challenge epistemic violence embedded in the
curriculum, especially the science curriculum.
Feminist scholars have pointed out that apart from the content of the curriculum and
textbooks, the textual and visual language used both within the text and by the teachers in a
Parekh and Datta 23
classroom impact how gender is constructed and negotiated in science classrooms. For instance,
Emily Martin has written about how despite new research proving that the ovum plays an active
role in reproduction in humans, the narrative of the “active” sperm and the “passive” ovum
persisted in science textbooks (Martin 1991). Also, as Martin has demonstrated, in conventional
biology textbooks, a picture with an ovum that is enormously larger than the sperm is still titled
“A Portrait of the Sperm” (ibid). Such linguistic misrepresentations are forms of epistemic
violence that work bidirectionally; they cement traditional patriarchal archetypes, while also
initiating students into them. However, all hope is not lost. Sam Long has described the ease with
which students can be taught to use gender-sensitive language in order to provide an inclusive and
dysphoria-free learning environment for all genders. While teaching a chapter on reproduction, for
instance, he recollects asking students to consider whether the words “mom” and “dad” are
inclusive and apply to everyone. After a critical discussion on gender, students feel comfortable
using terms such as “biological parents” and can understand that the “patterns connecting gender,
chromosomes, and egg and sperm are…generalized patterns, not absolute rules” (Long 2019).
Thus, the curriculum is a generative space that generates not only oppressive tendencies but also
counter-tendencies of epistemic emancipation. Recognizing the generative nature of curriculum
opens a space for its (trans)formative reimagination.
As we engage with these discourses on curriculum, we cannot help but argue that the
current curriculum does not question inherent power structures and its Brahminical, cis-hetero-
patriarchal and ableist value systems. In our literature review, we observe a continuing lack of
research on caste, disability and transness in the context of science higher education curriculum in
Parekh and Datta 24
an Indian context
9
, indicating an urgent need for research on and critical engagement with these
concerns. This concern holds true for trans concerns with respect to curriculum as well, although
thanks to previous feminist scholarship, we understand the pathologizing gaze of the curriculum
built in registers of the gender binary and compulsory heterosexuality. Thus, the task of political
solidarity in the context of curriculum and its critiques must begin by shining a bright light on the
ways in which the nexus of casteism, ableism and transphobia shape science higher education
curriculum in India. We must underscore the importance of the word “nexus” in the statement
above; what we are suggesting is a shift in the way casteism, ableism and transphobia in science
curriculum is to be researched. Rather than looking at these as individual and distinct axes of
marginalization, it is important to recognize the nexus that enable the marginalizing potential of
these social-political structures.
We close this section by invoking a concept that we interpret in the context of political
solidarity from Lissovoy’s 2010 essay on “Decolonial Pedagogy and the Ethics of the Global”:
“Curriculum against domination”. In the essay, Lissovoy talks about an “anti-dominative
curriculum” that decenters both dominant content and standpoint in curriculum. Further, they
argue that in along with this decentering, the anti-dominative curriculum posits possibilities of a
“positive and synthetic project” that imbibes in students a disposition of respect for marginalized
groups and coexistence of cultures rather than their separation or assimilation into an ideal
mainstream. Thus, in their words, “an anti-dominative curriculum can exceed the moment of
9
For work on caste and curriculum in an Indian context in non-science disciplines or non-higher education spaces,
readers are requested to consult Mittal 2020 and Kain 2022. Also, Singh et al. have published an important paper titled
“Disability-Inclusive Compassionate Care: Disability Competencies for an Indian Medical Graduate” (2020), where
they reflect on the competencies that an Indian medical graduate must demonstrate for compassionate care towards
individuals with disability. However, this study also does not provide critical insight into disability and the content or
the textual and visual language of medical education in India.
Parekh and Datta 25
negation and clear the space for the construction of a new and authentic global identification and
solidarity” (ibid). The strength of Lissovoy’s framework lies in the possibility of reimagining the
notion of curriculum that it offers. Rather than an “organized content or educational experience”,
an anti-dominative curriculum is the “designation for the process of construction itself of an
unprecedented knowledge” (ibid). Political solidarity makes it possible to imagine an anti-
dominative curriculum that favors marginalized standpoints while constantly challenging the
Brahminical, cis-hetero-patriarchal and ableist knowledge systems that drive science and science
education in India.
Conclusion
In this paper, we have deliberated on the provocative possibilities of the much contested
terrain of political solidarity in the context of the inclusion of trans, GNC and GNB people in
science education in India. Our deliberations have centered around four registers: that of nature
and culture of science and science education, infrastructure, affirmative action and curriculum.
The possibilities of political solidarity in these contexts are “provocative” exactly because they are
difficult and often appear to be, in a world that is constantly attempting to segregate the
marginalized, unimplementable. However, that these possibilities exist is a way for us to transform
the discourse on separation and individual identity to a discourse of hope. We must clarify at this
juncture that while our work is focussed in an Indian context, we believe that our provocations are
of interest to the wider global body of scholars in science education, feminist science studies, and
science and technology studies. Thus, this paper must not be read as a study in “Indian science
education” but as one that uses the Indian context as a case study for wider conceptual notes on
political solidarity. Making this distinction is important for us also because of the fraught terrain
of “Indian science”, something that we have not been able to touch upon in this manuscript.
Parekh and Datta 26
In this study, we have purposefully refrained from targeted action points that can enable
solidarity building. Part of the reason comes from our discomfort with making such broad
suggestions as two individuals. The other part comes from our intention to think more reflexively
and conceptually about political solidarity, and what it means for trans, GNC and GNB people in
the Indian science ecosystem who are continuing to face discrimination, marginalization and
harassment in their pursuits. We hope this paper will allow emerging discourses to make more
targeted suggestions.
We acknowledge that there is at least one register we have been unable to deliberate on:
pedagogy. While it is possible to draw insights on pedagogy from some of the instances we have
highlighted above (for example, the Seema Singh incident at IIT-Kgp, or the Brahminical
transmission of knowledge from the teacher to the student in Indian science classrooms as
mentioned by Kondaiah et al. 2017), we have found very little work at the intersections of trans-
rights and science pedagogy, at least in the Indian context. We also acknowledge that our study
has largely focussed on drawing insights from discourses in biology, medicine and psychology
education. Part of this is perhaps because both the authors of this manuscript are trained in biology.
Part of this is because we couldn’t find informative material from other science disciplines,
including physical, chemical and technological sciences. These lacunae offer the field of science
education research vast opportunities of further research, which we hope the field will actively
indulge in.
One limitation of this study that deserves a separate mention is that at least in the context
of curriculum, our focus has been centered around gender as a social-political structure, and we
have been unable to cover, in adequate depth, similar conversations around caste and disability.
This is largely a result of a lack of primary and secondary literature on the relationship between
Parekh and Datta 27
caste/disability and science curriculum, at least in the Indian context. Once again, this is indicative
of a gap that must be critically examined and engaged with in future research.
Despite its limitations, we hope this study is able to further critical and collective
engagement on the relationship between political solidarity and science education in India and the
world, and enable trans, GNC and GNB people to embark on trajectories of community building
and collectivization in ways that (trans)form science and science education in meaningful ways.
We conclude by reminding ourselves and our readers of Susan Stryker’s short but profound insight
into allyship in “My Words to Victor Frankenstein Above the Village of Chamounix” (Stryker
2013),
Though we forego the privilege of naturalness, we are not deterred, for we ally ourselves
instead with the chaos and blackness from which Nature itself spills forth. If this is your
path, as it is mine, let me offer whatever solace you may find in this monstrous benediction:
May you discover the enlivening power of darkness within yourself. May it nourish your
rage. May your rage inform your actions, and your actions transform you as you struggle
to transform your world.
We believe political solidarity enables us to introduce chaos into the neat distinctions of social
political structures. These spaces of chaos must grow, nourish and be nourished.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge funding from the Transforming Education for
Sustainable Futures-India project (project no. IN053E). We thank Bishal Kumar Dey, Research
Scholar (PhD) at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, Mumbai, India, for their critical
feedback on the manuscript.
Conflicts of Interest Declaration
The authors have no known conflicts of interest to declare.