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The interim enactment by the Supreme Court connected the UGC Promotion of Equity successful Higher Education Institutions Regulation, 2026, arsenic reported by the Supreme Court Observer, arrives astatine a pivotal moment. These regulations emerged from Abeda Salim Tadvi v Union of India, a pending lawsuit earlier the Supreme Court concerning caste-based favoritism and pupil suicides successful higher acquisition institutions. The lawsuit highlights organization failures successful creating an adjacent and inclusive learning space.
When discussing caste favoritism successful higher education, it is indispensable to clarify what is being addressed. The 2026 regulations nether 3(c) specify “caste-based discrimination” arsenic favoritism based connected caste oregon people against members of the Scheduled Castes, the Scheduled Tribes, and Other Backward Classes. This specificity is not exclusionary; rather, it is indispensable to recognise caste arsenic a continuing operation of marginalisation alternatively than isolated incidents.
Why neutrality fails
The explanation has been criticised for excluding ‘general category’ students, with suggestions to follow a caste-neutral explanation that includes them, successful enactment with Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equality earlier the law. However, this reasoning misunderstands some however caste favoritism operates successful signifier and however equality is understood nether the Constitution.
Editorial | Stay the course: On the UGC’s Promotion of Equity successful Higher Education Institutions rules
The Constitution does not mandate an abstract, one-size-fits-all neutrality. Article 15 not lone prohibits favoritism but besides empowers the State to marque “special provisions” for socially and educationally backward classes, SCs and STs to guarantee substantive equality. Equality, successful this framework, is substantive alternatively than formal.
Formal equality assumes that favoritism operates symmetrically and that each societal groups necessitate identical protection. However, caste favoritism is structural, embedded successful graded hierarchies that signifier entree to dignity, resources, and organization power. Including “general category” groups into a caste-neutral explanation risks collapsing this structural inequality into a cosmopolitan grievance framework, wherever systemic oppression is equated with isolated interpersonal bias. Such neutrality does not grow protection; it dilutes the law’s quality to code caste arsenic a strategy of power.
For decades, SC and ST students person experienced societal exclusion, unequal treatment, humiliation, and organization bias. In respective cases, specified structural favoritism has led to intelligence distress and suicides. These realities, reflected successful the pending lawsuit nether which the equity regulations were formulated, amusement that the model is grounded successful systemic concerns, not isolated incidents.
A caste-neutral explanation would flatten unequal societal positions into a ceremonial conception of sameness that the Constitution itself does not endorse. Articles 14 and 15 licence differential attraction precisely to remedy humanities and societal disadvantage. Treating caste-based oppression arsenic symmetrical crossed groups disregards the hierarchies done which caste operates and shifts the absorption distant from structural exclusion to abstract idiosyncratic grievances. Therefore, defining caste-based favoritism done historically marginalised groups is not arbitrary. It recognises that favoritism operates done powerfulness structures that vantage immoderate portion disadvantaging others. This is not “reverse discrimination,” but an acknowledgement that equality requires fairness successful practice. A caste-neutral attack would obscure these structural realities and weaken the law’s capableness to code caste-based exclusion successful higher education.
Enforcement matters more
The equity regulations successful higher education, including a focused explanation of caste-based discrimination, are not meant to exclude others from protection. Rather, they purpose to make a baseline of dignity and inclusion for those who person historically been excluded. This attack aligns with Articles 14 and 15, which let differential attraction to region disadvantage and execute substantive equality. In a nine shaped by caste, law equality cannot beryllium achieved done context-blind neutrality.
More importantly, the question is however efficaciously they whitethorn relation connected the ground. The nonaccomplishment to code caste-based favoritism lies mostly successful anemic implementation and mediocre organization accountability.
Instead of diluting the scope of the UGC regulations, the absorption should beryllium connected strengthening them — by ensuring autarkic ailment mechanisms, time-bound inquiries, transparency successful outcomes, and wide consequences for organization non-compliance. The UGC guidelines indispensable beryllium supported by monitoring, regular audits, and meaningful oversight. A model meant to forestall caste-based harm cannot win unless institutions are made answerable for however they respond to favoritism successful practice.
Shifting the statement distant from enforcement and towards abstract concerns astir neutrality risks missing the halfway issue. For students facing mundane exclusion, the question is not inclusive definitional purity, but whether the strategy volition respond erstwhile favoritism occurs. Strengthening the functioning of the UGC model is truthful indispensable to fulfilling the law committedness of equality and dignity successful higher education.
Priya Chaudhary is simply a Research Associate, CLPR
