Arise Bharat

Author : Col. Ajay Kumar (retd)

Higher education in Bharat has shifted in character over the past few years. What began as a project of reform—aimed at widening access while strengthening institutions—has gradually hardened into a system governed more by identity management than academic judgment. The tension this has produced is no longer muted. It is increasingly visible in classrooms, faculty rooms, and administrative offices across the country.

At the heart of this tension lies a growing disconnect between the state’s obligation to pursue affirmative action and the lived experience of the General Category. The immediate cause of this unease is clear. The University Grants Commission’s Equity Regulations of 2026 have altered the basic operating logic of higher education. Discrimination is no longer treated as an allegation to be examined through process and evidence. It is treated as a condition assumed to exist in advance, embedded in structures, relationships, and routine interactions.

That change is not semantic. It is structural.

From Redress to Risk Management

On 13 January 2026, the UGC notified the Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, replacing the 2012 anti-discrimination framework. The older regime treated equity as a guiding principle, enforced largely through grievance redressal. The new regulations convert equity into a binding governance mandate backed by severe institutional penalties.

The definition of discrimination under the 2026 framework is strikingly expansive. It includes not only explicit acts, but also conduct deemed implicit, indirect, or structural. Responsibility is no longer diffused across institutional processes; it is concentrated. Heads of institutions are now personally accountable for any instance of discrimination on campus.

To operationalise this framework, the UGC has introduced Equity Squads to monitor “vulnerable spaces” such as hostels and common areas, along with Equity Ambassadors drawn from the student body. These mechanisms are justified as preventive, but their practical effect has been the creation of a surveillance-heavy environment where intent and context are secondary to perception.

The system now functions primarily through liability. When discrimination is defined so broadly, exposure becomes the central concern. This is reinforced by another crucial change: the removal of penalties for false or malicious complaints. Accusation carries consequence; misuse does not.

The outcome is predictable. Institutions will begin to withdraw from judgment. Academic decisions will be filtered through legal defensibility rather than scholarly merit. Faculty will avoid difficult conversations. Administrators will prioritise compliance over quality. Universities will do less teaching and more risk management.

Law Without Balance Produces Damages, Not Justice

Few would deny that caste-based discrimination exists in Bharat’s educational institutions. The issue is not whether protection is necessary. It is whether protection can remain credible without balance.

A grievance system that imposes immediate costs on the accused while carrying no deterrent against misuse invites distortion. Over time, the law stops responding to conduct and begins responding to identity. Accusation becomes leverage. Defence becomes exposure.

This is not an abstract concern. Legal frameworks built on similar asymmetries have repeatedly produced high acquittal rates alongside irreversible reputational damage. Careers are derailed long before verdicts arrive. Even when innocence is established, the cost is rarely recoverable.

Justice cannot function when only one side bears risk.

Electoral Reliance and Demographic Alienation

The political implications of this shift are already visible. The present ruling dispensation has historically depended on strong consolidation among General Category voters. In both the 2019 and 2024 general elections, roughly 53 per cent of this demographic supported the party, making it its most stable electoral foundation.

Yet the 2026 regulations have triggered a crisis of trust within this group. While the government has attempted to broaden its coalition through measures such as the 10 per cent EWS quota, the new equity framework is widely perceived as one-sided. Slogans such as Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas and Ek Rahenge Toh Safe Rahenge ring hollow when a segment of students believes it is rendered institutionally unsafe by design.

The political fallout has not been subtle. In Lucknow, eleven BJP office-bearers resigned in protest against the UGC rules. In Bareilly, a senior PCS officer, Alankar Agnihotri, resigned publicly, describing the regulations as a “black law” that treats General Category students as presumptive offenders. The resentment is sharpened by a visible disconnect: while unreserved students face rising cut-offs and shrinking legal protections at home, the children of political elites often study abroad, insulated from the consequences of the very policies they defend.

A Familiar Legal Pattern

Critics have drawn comparisons between the 2026 UGC regulations and the UPA-era Prevention of Communal and Targeted Violence Bill of 2011. That bill was opposed at the time by the present ruling dispensation (at that time in opposition)  for presuming fixed categories of victim and aggressor, defined by group identity rather than conduct.

The irony is difficult to ignore. The current UGC framework operates on a similar logic. Protection is extended only to specified groups—SC, ST, OBC, EWS, women, and persons with disabilities—while others are excluded by default. In both cases, the state pre-determines vulnerability and culpability based on birth, not behaviour.

Such frameworks sit uneasily with Article 14 of the Constitution, which guarantees equal protection of the laws. When policy institutionalises identity categories in this manner, it risks deepening the very divisions it claims to address.

The Unreserved Are Not Protesting. They Are Leaving.

This moment is politically uncomfortable precisely because it is quiet. The General Category has not mobilised en masse. It has disengaged.

In higher education, this group now faces the least institutional reassurance. Cut-offs continue to rise. Seats remain limited. Costs escalate. Legal safeguards are asymmetrical. Public resignations in Uttar Pradesh were not dramatic gestures; they were indicators of withdrawal.

This demographic does not organise street protests. It recalibrates life choices.

Brain Drain as a Rational Response

For many unreserved families, studying abroad is no longer about prestige. It is about predictability. Foreign universities offer clear rules, contestable evaluations, and stable due process.

This migration is not driven by ambition alone. It is driven by the perception that effort at home carries asymmetric risk. When outcomes depend more on interpretation than process, rational actors seek systems where rules are transparent.

The loss this creates is not emotional. It is structural.

Credibility Lost Elsewhere Still Matters Here

This crisis cannot be viewed in isolation. Bharat’s recent experience with skill development policy still shapes public trust. Under Dharmendra Pradhan’s oversight, the flagship skill mission collapsed under audit scrutiny—ghost trainees, fake placements, duplicated records, and unspent funds. These were not isolated lapses; they were governance failures.

Which makes the question unavoidable: has the same pattern of administrative overreach and institutional damage reappeared in higher education?

Youth policy does not absorb repeated failures without consequence.

The Constitutional Fault Line

Ultimately, this debate is not about reservation. It is about symmetry under law.

Article 14 promises equal protection, not selective protection. When policy assigns vulnerability and culpability by category, it stops governing conduct and starts governing identities. Such systems do not integrate societies. They segment them.

What Is Being Lost

Merit does not vanish overnight. It erodes gradually—through caution, compliance, and exit. Universities become procedural spaces rather than intellectual ones. The most capable students leave. Those who remain learn to stay quiet.

The General Category is not demanding privilege. It is asking not to be treated as a permanent risk.

A republic that cannot extend fairness to its quietest supporters will not notice their absence until it is permanent.

Bharat does not need softer language. It needs better institutional design.

And it needs it before the silence hardens into departure.