UGC’s New Rules: Fighting Discrimination With More Discrimination Is A Dangerous Game

New Delhi: India reportedly has a painful history of caste discrimination. No honest citizen denies that. For centuries, sections of our society were denied dignity, opportunity, and basic human rights. Independent India responded with constitutional safeguards, reservations, and legal protections designed to level a deeply uneven playing field. The intention was justice. The promise was equality.

But somewhere along the way, the mission has drifted.

The new UGC rules, framed as a progressive step to address discrimination in higher education, risk walking straight into a trap that India can no longer afford - the trap of correcting historical injustice by institutionalising fresh inequity. In trying to eliminate discrimination against some castes, the policy mindset now seems comfortable discriminating against others. That is not social justice. That is political arithmetic dressed up as morality.

And it is a ticking time bomb.

The language used to defend such policies is always the same: representation, social justice, inclusion, diversity. These are noble words. But when implementation turns into rigid quotas, lowered thresholds, and category-first evaluation systems that override merit, we must ask - are we empowering individuals or merely managing vote banks?

Education, especially higher education, is not just another welfare domain. Universities are where future scientists, judges, engineers, doctors, administrators, and policy-makers are shaped. When entry and advancement systems are perceived to be based less on competence and more on caste labels, the damage goes far beyond campus walls. It erodes trust in institutions themselves.

Young Indians today are not blind. They see classmates with drastically different scores entering the same programs. They see faculty recruitment battles framed around identity blocs rather than academic excellence. They hear phrases like ‘social justice’ but experience personal injustice. Resentment grows quietly - not always spoken aloud, but deeply felt.

A system that breeds silent anger is not stable. It is volatile.

Let us state an uncomfortable truth: discrimination does not become virtuous just because the target changes.

If we agree that denying opportunity to someone because of their birth is wrong, then it is wrong - full stop. It does not become right when done in the name of historical correction. Justice cannot be built on a principle that we otherwise condemn.

Affirmative action was envisioned as a temporary corrective measure, not a permanent parallel structure. Its moral force came from the promise that it would one day make itself unnecessary by creating genuine equality of opportunity. Instead, we now see an expansionist mindset - more categories, more sub-quotas, more segmentation.

We are not moving toward a casteless society. We are hard-coding caste deeper into the system.

The UGC’s evolving framework reflects this shift. Instead of aggressively improving school education, economic access, and early-stage support - the foundations of real equality - we are doubling down on end-stage adjustments at the university level. That is like ignoring malnutrition for years and then arguing over who gets priority in the emergency ward.

One of the most dangerous narratives being pushed today is that ‘merit’ is a privileged construct. That it is somehow unfair. That it must be diluted for equity.

This is intellectually lazy and socially corrosive.

Merit does not mean ignoring disadvantage. It means creating conditions where everyone has a fair shot at developing their potential. That means better government schools, nutrition, digital access, mentoring, language support, and financial aid - interventions that lift capability rather than mask gaps at the final selection stage.

When merit is dismissed, excellence suffers. When excellence suffers, the nation pays.

No country becomes a global leader by telling its brightest young minds that effort is secondary to identity. Nor does it build social harmony by telling another group that their hard work may count for less because of their surname.
Policies that are perceived as unfair do not create solidarity; they create division.

Students who feel systemically excluded despite high performance do not blame ‘history’. They blame the present system. They blame institutions. They blame communities that are seen as beneficiaries. This is how social fractures widen - not through loud riots, but through quiet alienation.

At the same time, beneficiaries of such policies are unfairly stigmatised, regardless of their individual talent. They carry the burden of suspicion - “Were you selected because you’re capable, or because of your category?” That is not empowerment. That is a shadow that follows them into classrooms, workplaces, and professional life.

A good policy uplifts without humiliating anyone. A bad policy helps one group while breeding bitterness in another. The latter is what we are inching toward.

The Constitution of India begins with ‘We, the People of India’ - not ‘We, the Castes of India’.

If equality is truly the goal, then the long-term direction must be clear: reduce the relevance of caste, not reinforce it. Support should be increasingly based on economic disadvantage, regional backwardness, and first-generation learner status - factors that cut across caste lines and address real deprivation without deepening identity silos.

The message from the state must be unambiguous: Your future in India will be shaped by your effort and ability, with support where needed - not permanently determined by birth categories.

Right now, the signal is confused. And confusion in matters of identity and opportunity is dangerous.

India is a young nation demographically. Millions enter the education and job market every year. Aspirations are rising faster than opportunities. In such an environment, perceived injustice becomes combustible.

You cannot preach unity while designing systems that constantly remind citizens of their caste location. You cannot build national pride while institutional frameworks tell sections of youth that the system is structurally stacked against them. And you cannot indefinitely suppress frustration with moral slogans.

Social harmony is not maintained by rhetoric. It is sustained by fairness that people can see and feel.

If policymakers continue to treat education as a tool of caste management rather than national capacity building, the backlash may not come tomorrow. But it will come. In voting patterns, in campus unrest, in social polarisation, and in declining faith in public institutions.

That is the ticking time bomb.

India does not need less justice. It needs better-designed justice - justice that expands opportunity without manufacturing new grievances. Justice that moves us toward being Indians first, last, and always.

Anything else is not reform. It is slow-burning instability.

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