Was not that bad when I was growing up. Sure there was pressure to become engineer/doctor but IIT was not be-all end-all. There was always DCE, REC. Have things changed that much in last 20 years?
IIT gives you a lot of name recognition and opens up many doors automatically. As someone who didn’t get in, I missed out on foreign internships and research opportunities by not attending them. The universities you mention are still great but don’t have the same recognition I guess. Every foreign grad students first question after learning Im from India “ oh did you go to... IIT?”