CHENNAI: He didn't just stop with accepting his award and crediting his teachers. Dhananjay Balakrishnan, who bagged the governor's prize for all-round proficiency at IIT Madras's 61st convocation on Friday, said, "I feel like I would be doing myself and everything I believe in a great injustice if I do not use the stage I am presented with to say something important.
This is a call for action. There is a
mass genocide
going on in
Palestine
. People are dying in vast numbers, and there is no end in sight."
He said, "Why should we be bothered about this, you ask. Because STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) as a field itself has historically been used to advance the ulterior motives of imperial powers, such as Israel."
On the role of tech giants in the war, he said, "As engineering students, we work hard to get top-level jobs at tech giants, which offer lucrative jobs with great benefits. However, these tech giants control various aspects of our lives today, as you know better than anyone.
Many of these prestigious companies are also directly and indirectly implicated in the war against Palestine, by providing Israel with technology used to kill."
Dhananjay said he also didn't have all the answers.
"But I do know this as engineers graduating into the real world, it is our job to be aware of the consequences of the work we do. I hope we can incorporate this awareness more into our daily lives, attempting to understand what we can do to liberate the oppressed, on lines of caste, class, creed, and gender."
He urged his fellow students to work to lift people out of misery. "I want to say this I am here, we are here by standing on the magnanimous shoulders of the great Indian populace. We owe it to them to lift every single person out of their misery. Inaction is complicity," he said.
English (US) ·