When Doing Your Duty Becomes a Dilemma

An examination hall is meant to be one of the most democratic spaces in an educational institution. For those few hours, social background, economic privilege, influence and personal connections are supposed to disappear behind a simple principle: every student must be judged by the same rules. The student who has spent months preparing for an examination and the student who may have had access to far greater resources are expected to sit on equal terms. That principle is the foundation of examination integrity. Once an unauthorised mobile phone, outside assistance or artificial intelligence enters that equation, the issue is no longer merely whether one student has violated a rule. It becomes a question of fairness to every student who has obeyed it. The recent IIT Bombay tragedy, following the death of student Sahil Wakode and allegations of caste-based harassment against a professor, has consequently raised a question that extends well beyond one campus: what happens to academic discipline when the teacher entrusted with enforcing it begins to fear the consequences of doing so?

The death of a young student is, above everything else, a human tragedy. A grieving family deserves sensitivity and respect, and allegations of caste-based discrimination must be investigated with the seriousness demanded by law. But an investigation must remain an investigation. IIT Bombay has disputed the allegations and has provided its account of the examination incident, while other accounts have alleged pressure and harassment. These competing narratives must ultimately be tested against evidence. In a constitutional democracy, neither a teacher's position nor a student's social identity can substitute for due process. The temptation to decide a complicated matter through immediate public outrage may be understandable, but it cannot replace an impartial determination of facts.

The larger issue is the role of the teacher in maintaining academic standards. An invigilator is not a judge and should not become one. The teacher's immediate responsibility is to maintain the prescribed examination conditions, identify an apparent violation, record the relevant facts and report the matter to the competent authority. Whether the student should face a particular disciplinary consequence is for the institution to determine under its rules. This distinction is not a technicality. It is a vital institutional safeguard. It protects students from arbitrary punishment while protecting teachers from being personally identified with a disciplinary decision that they were never authorised to make. A healthy education system should ensure that the teacher reports, the institution examines and the competent authority decides.

The challenge is becoming more serious because academic malpractice itself has entered a new technological age. A mobile phone is no longer simply a means of communication. With internet access and artificial intelligence, a small device can potentially provide information, generate answers, translate text, solve problems and process questions within seconds. Examination regulations designed for an earlier era therefore need to evolve. IIT Bombay's current framework reportedly prescribes consequences for unauthorised use of electronic devices and academic malpractice, including the use of certain AI-enabled devices. The lesson is relevant to universities and colleges across the country: an institution cannot ask an invigilator to enforce a rule that has not been clearly defined or supported by a transparent procedure.

Every examination system should answer basic questions before a crisis occurs. What exactly constitutes malpractice? What should an invigilator do when an unauthorised device is detected? How should the incident be recorded? Who decides whether the student's explanation is credible? Who imposes the penalty? What right does the student have to appeal? What happens if the student alleges discrimination or harassment? These questions should not be improvised after an incident has already become controversial. Clear procedures protect everyone. They protect the student from an arbitrary decision, the teacher from an allegation arising merely from the performance of an assigned duty and the institution from uncertainty about whether its own rules were followed.

There is, however, another line that must never be crossed: the line between discipline and humiliation. A student who is found violating an examination rule must be dealt with according to the rules, but enforcement does not require contempt, ridicule or unnecessary public embarrassment. Teachers should be trained to enforce discipline firmly while preserving the dignity of the student. This is particularly important in an era when academic competition has become intense and young people face pressures that educational institutions cannot afford to ignore. But compassion must not be confused with permissiveness. Every student who has prepared honestly has a right to expect that the institution will protect the credibility of the examination. Ignoring malpractice to avoid confrontation would itself be unfair.

This question has particular resonance for the Northeast. Students from Assam and the other northeastern states increasingly compete for places in India's premier institutions, professional courses, scholarships and national-level examinations. For many families, educational success represents years of financial sacrifice and personal effort. A fair examination system is therefore an instrument of social mobility. If technology-assisted malpractice is allowed to undermine genuine performance, the consequences will fall disproportionately on students who depend upon merit-based opportunities. Academic integrity is not an elite concern; it is a matter of educational justice.

At the same time, the protection of students belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable communities cannot be diluted. India's constitutional framework rightly insists that discrimination has no place in educational institutions. Allegations of caste discrimination must be heard and investigated seriously. But protection becomes meaningful only when it operates through due process. An allegation should neither be dismissed because it concerns a disciplinary episode nor treated as established merely because it has been made. The same standard of fairness must apply to both the student making an allegation and the teacher against whom it is made.

This is where institutional leadership becomes decisive. Universities cannot frame examination regulations, appoint invigilators and then leave individual teachers to navigate the legal and social consequences of enforcing those regulations alone. Teachers require clear instructions, appropriate training and institutional support. Students require clearly communicated rules, counselling, grievance mechanisms and meaningful avenues of appeal. Institutions require reliable documentation so that disputes can be examined on the basis of records rather than conflicting memories. A well-designed system should make it difficult for a routine academic-discipline matter to become a personal confrontation between teacher and student.

Artificial intelligence makes this reform urgent. The answer cannot simply be to prohibit every new technology. Nor can educational institutions surrender the integrity of examinations because technology has made supervision more difficult. Universities will have to rethink assessment itself. Some examinations may require strict restrictions on technology; other forms of assessment may deliberately allow AI but require students to disclose and critically evaluate its use. More application-based questions, supervised assessments, oral examinations and project-based evaluation may become increasingly important. The objective should be to assess understanding rather than merely the ability to reproduce information—and to teach students that technology carries ethical responsibilities as well as extraordinary possibilities.

The IIT Bombay tragedy should therefore not become another occasion for society to choose sides before the facts are established. The investigation must determine what happened and whether any individual or institution bears legal responsibility. But the education system does not have to wait for an investigation to examine its own procedures. Every university should ask whether its examination protocols adequately protect students and teachers, whether its rules reflect the realities of smartphones and AI, whether its disciplinary mechanisms are transparent, and whether its counselling systems are sufficiently responsive when a student experiences distress.

There is a dangerous possibility that education systems rarely discuss openly: a teacher who becomes afraid to enforce a legitimate rule will eventually stop enforcing it with confidence. That would not make education more humane. It would make institutions less fair. The student who obeys the rules would pay the price, the teacher's authority would gradually erode, and the credibility of the examination itself would suffer. At the same time, unchecked authority would be equally damaging. The answer lies neither in weakening teachers nor in giving them unrestricted power. It lies in building institutions strong enough to uphold discipline and compassionate enough to protect dignity.

The dignity of the student and the authority of the teacher are not competing values. They are two sides of a credible educational system. A student accused of malpractice deserves due process. A teacher performing an assigned duty deserves institutional protection. An allegation of discrimination deserves impartial examination. And an examination deserves to remain an examination.

India is preparing a generation that will live and work in a world transformed by artificial intelligence. The values they learn in classrooms and examination halls will matter as much as the knowledge they acquire. If we want young Indians to believe in fairness, accountability and responsibility, our educational institutions must demonstrate those principles in practice. The real lesson is not that teachers should become more powerful or students more cautious. It is that institutions must become more mature.

A teacher should never have to choose between doing the right thing and protecting himself or herself from the consequences of doing it. A student should never have to choose between asserting a legitimate grievance and receiving a fair hearing. The responsibility of the institution is to ensure that neither has to make that choice.