Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M).
Credit: PTI Photo
Chennai: Utilising the opportunity to speak at the IIT Madras convocation, a M.E. student who won the Governor’s Prize on Friday spoke about the Palestine-Israel war, asking engineers to be aware of the nature of the work of the companies they are hired for, some of which aid imperial powers like Israel.
Dhananjay Balakrishnan of the Department of Mechanical Engineering stunned everyone by talking about the war in Palestine.
“There is a mass genocide going on in Palestine. People are dying in large numbers and there is no end in sight. Why should we bother by this, you may ask? Because stem as a field in itself has historically been used to advance the ulterior motives of the imperial powers such as Israel,” he said.
Engineering students work hard to get to top-level jobs at tech giants, which offer them very lucrative space and great benefits, he said.
“However, these tech giants control various aspects of our life today, as you know, better than anyone. Many of these prestigious companies are also directly and indirectly implicated in the war against Palestine for providing state of the technology that's used to kill citizens,” the student added.
“There are solutions. I don'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. And, also to intricate our own position in these complex systems of power imbalance, he said.
“I hope that we can incorporate this awareness more into our daily lives attempting to understand what we can do to leverage your best,” he said, adding that engineers should help lessen the miseries of the Indian populace.