Injecting caste into the campus

Before diving into the raging UGC controversy gripping the nation, I would like to share a personal note as a teacher-one that I often repeat to my students. Discrimination usually stems from envy or prejudice. People hate seeing others outshine them. But here’s the exception: a parent beams with pride when their child surges ahead, and a teacher feels the same glow watching his students excel. In that “defeat,” they spot their own victory, forged through their nurturing role.

Their shadow lingers in those triumphs. I know countless teachers like me who’ve shaped students like their own kids, regardless of caste or community share this pride. In a bustling classroom or years as a research mentor, students become just that: students. No caste label. They bond with you over your knowledge and dedication, not your caste background. Contrast this with the so-called campus discrimination horror stories. They are still not as rampant as made out to be nor do they justify the UGC’s one-sided, risky “equity promotion” law – a powder keg for misuse. UGC seems to have bulldozed this without campus-wide consultations-ignoring teachers, students, VCs, and stakeholders who could have flagged the lop sides early on. No town halls, no feedback loops, just top-down diktat has made it controversial. On campus students make friends and rivals, they spat and yet collaborate with each other often without caste considerations.

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That is how healthy societies form. Now imagine the scenario post-UGC regulations. A fresh 12th-pass kid, buzzing with excitement of learning new subjects and skills, ready to experiment and fail, finds “Equal Opportunity Centers” and “Equity Squads” more prevalent than innovation centres or “Equity Committees” more visible than cultural clubs or sports committees. Can his personality bloom in the shadow of fear? Will he vibe freely with peers, his faculty, or campus folk? Amid prowling Equity Squads and 24×7 Hotlines, can he hone questioning, creative and critical thinking – the skills to uplift himself and society? The UGC guides and boosts higher education, free thought, and research, backed by India’s top academics. How can one expect it to make regulations that breed fear, stifle teaching and dissuade scholarship? Do we want our campuses to turn into police states? Seems UGC has rushed this without giving sufficient thought.

Sadly, post-independence, our higher education fell prey to left-wing class-war narratives. Literature, history, politics, sociology – all painted Indian society as a vast canvas of oppressors and oppressed, erasing all models of harmony between people of different castes and communities. Theories like Manuvaad, Brahminism, patriarchy and feminism first exploded on elite campuses. Then they became widespread. Campuses echoed with offensive and hateful slogans like “Tilak-Taraazu aur Talwar”, branding everybody in the general category as quintessential oppressors who deserve to be booted out. Leftist ideologues hailed it as progressive free speech–a must for breaking imaginary upper caste tyranny.

This divisive poison seems to have triumphed again: UGC’s regulation endorses the same left binary, pitting castes against each other. Once it comes into action it will empower grievance-mongers, fracture student unions, and revive day-to-day conflicts under the banner of justice. Will our institutions be able to handle it? On the contrary, to fulfil the dream of ‘Vikasit Bharat’ our campuses needed to go “caste-neutral”. They should be empowered to shield all against bias, hate-mongering caste politics. This demands ironclad zones where nobody, with zero exceptions, is discriminated against on caste or community lines. An inclusive and harmonious academic environment should be allowed to flourish. That’s vital for free thinking and quality research. Sadly, UGC’s regulation presumes general-category students and teachers guilty of casteism and discrimination – echoing the oppressor-oppressed tale leftists peddled for decades.

Will this weaken casteism or augment it further? Everyone, prejudices aside, must ponder seriously. The UGC’s 2026 Equity Regulation boasts of wiping out caste bias-but it’s a Trojan horse inviting chaos. Prime peril: rampant misuse via false accusations. General-category students and faculty now live in dread of baseless complaints from rivals over grades, project credits, or personal grudges, twisted into “caste discrimination”. Petty academic beefs could explode into career-wrecking probes, with accusers facing zero blowback. Besides, mandatory equity committees and EOCs will swamp small colleges in paperwork, pulling focus from classrooms to endless investigations. Quality teaching is likely to be buried under complaint piles.

Harsh penalties will demotivate faculty and students. UGC grant blackouts or derecognition could bankrupt modest institutes, widening the urban-rural education gap. Chilling surveillance will stifle free speech. 24×7 monitoring and reports will breed self-censorship. Consequently, professors will dodge tough debates while students will fear their question may be interpreted as offensive. Eventually, innovation will die; echo chambers will thrive. Reverse discrimination will brew on campuses. Worse, this regulation flouts Article 14’s right to equality before law. General-category professors, students, and staff get zero safeguards against witch-hunts-no presumption of innocence, no burden of proof on accusers. Motivated, malicious complaints are likely to swell as there is no deterrence of penalty or punitive action for motivated and false accusations.

It’s a one-way street: the “oppressed” wield unchecked power, while others cower defenseless. Eventually courts will have to strike down this lopsided farce. Unfortunately, these one-sided inclusivity traps will breed fresh inequalities. But all is not lost. The ball is now in the government’s court. It’s a government which is empathetic towards all sections of society as it follows the goal of “Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas.” One is confident it will listen to the legitimate concerns and help every student and campus bloom its best. It will not allow the cherished ‘Viksit Bharat’ dream of the nation to derail due to such manageable glitches.

(The writer is a former Principal Faculty of National Institute of Design and an acclaimed author.)