Public criticism of the UGC Equity Regulations Bill provisions has centered on concerns about exclusion and bias towards general category students, vague definitions of caste discrimination, the risk of false complaints, and the possibility of creating a culture of fear and divide within universities. These arguments, however, emerge from an abstract understanding of higher education as a neutral space where power is evenly distributed and grievance systems already function fairly.
My field research across central universities like EFLU, NALSAR, and HCU reveals a very different institutional reality. Caste discrimination in higher education operates through power networks, compromised redressal bodies, symbolic marking, academic gatekeeping, and institutional silencing. When read in this light, the equity provisions are not excessive regulation but a necessary attempt to address long-standing institutional failure.
Why critiques of bias and vagueness miss the reality
Critics argue that definitions of caste discrimination are biased because they centre SC/ST/OBC students and vague because they include concepts like implicit bias and impact-based discrimination. Both criticisms rest on the same mistaken assumption: that discrimination is neutral, symmetrical, and only real when it is explicit. Field evidence shows the opposite. Caste discrimination in universities operates through everyday academic interactions that quietly question competence, legitimacy, and belonging, and this vulnerability is not evenly distributed across caste groups.
One respondent recalled worrying about whether his fourth-semester marks met Ph.D. eligibility criteria. An upper-caste classmate laughed and said, “Are you foolish? Eligibility doesn’t matter for your people. Just applying is enough.”
No rule was broken, no official action occurred. Yet the statement performed institutional work. It dismissed formal academic criteria, assumed reservation replaces merit, and reduced the student from an individual candidate to a stereotype. This is a stigma functioning socially: identity overshadows achievement. The laughter that followed signaled normalisation, not deviance. Such moments shape how marginalised students are seen long before any formal evaluation happens.
A similar pattern appears in faculty–student interactions. An M.Sc. Mathematics student struggling with a computer-based assignment was told by a professor, “You were selected under reservation, right? It’s my mistake to expect a correct output from you.” Another student, a gold medalist educated in English-medium institutions, presenting in a law classroom was repeatedly interrupted with “Pardon?” and later told only to “improve language,” shifting focus from substance to presumed deficiency. No slurs. No overt hostility. Yet expectations were lowered and competence reinterpreted through caste-coded assumptions.
These cases reveal a common mechanism. Academic performance is filtered through social perception before it is evaluated on merit. The harm lies not in open insult but in subtle delegitimisation, being pre-marked as less capable, less deserving, or artificially present. This shapes confidence, faculty engagement, peer trust, and evaluation trajectories. If definitions of discrimination required explicit abuse or intent, these pervasive forms would remain invisible.
This is why the focus on SC/ST students is not “bias” but empirical recognition of patterned vulnerability. General category students are not routinely told their eligibility is suspect, their merit artificial, or their presence conditional. The absence of symmetrical provisions reflects the directional nature of caste stigma, not preferential treatment. What critics call “vagueness” is actually sociological correctness that discrimination in higher education works through normalised assumptions embedded in routine pedagogic and peer interactions.
Regulatory frameworks must therefore address how legitimacy is socially granted or withdrawn, not only how rules are formally applied. Without this recognition, the most common forms of exclusion remain socially accepted and institutionally unregulated.
The fear of “false complaints” ignores documented fear of real complainants
The concern that equity regulations will lead to false or malicious complaints assumes that grievance systems operate in a context of equal power, where accusations can easily be weaponised. My research shows the opposite: students from marginalised backgrounds approach complaint mechanisms with hesitation, not aggression, because institutional structures themselves are intimidating and unreliable.
Respondents described grievance procedures as marked by delays, lack of transparency, and intimidating questioning. Rather than empowering students, these processes often reproduce the very hierarchies they are meant to address.
A female SC/ST Cell representative at NALSAR explained why she resigned from an inquiry committee which she observed had no culture of sensitivity toward caste issues and felt that remaining in the committee would only legitimise an insensitive institutional approach. Her withdrawal signals not activist exaggeration, but institutional unwillingness to confront caste discrimination seriously.
Similarly, a respondent from EFLU noted that although formal structures such as SC/ST Cells now exist, caste discrimination cases are handled by ad hoc committees largely composed of upper-caste faculty. Inquiry processes are reportedly delayed and students face procedural difficulties when narrating their experiences. This indicates that grievance bodies are not neutral arbiters but operate within existing power networks. The student entering such a space does so with clear awareness of vulnerability.
In such contexts, the real pattern is not misuse of mechanisms but reluctance to use them. The fear of academic consequences, hostile questioning, and institutional bias discourages complaints. Including harsh provisions against “false complaints” in this environment would likely intensify silence rather than ensure fairness. What critics frame as a risk of weaponisation overlooks the empirical reality that grievance structures are already weighted toward authority, not complainants.
Redressal mechanisms exist on paper but fail in practice
A frequent argument against stronger equity regulations is that universities already possess grievance bodies such as SC/ST Cells, making additional oversight unnecessary. This view assumes that the mere existence of institutional structures ensures justice. My field findings show a stark difference between institutional form and institutional function.
At NALSAR, a respondent described how the SC/ST Cell, though established years ago and expanded in membership, still lacks a basic organisational structure and clear protocol regarding whom victims should approach. This indicates that institutional presence does not translate into accessibility or clarity. A body without defined procedures leaves complainants uncertain and vulnerable, effectively discouraging reporting rather than enabling it.
The problem deepens in how committees operate. A respondent from EFLU described SC representatives within inquiry bodies as being under strong institutional influence. Rather than acting independently, they often align with administrative interests, attempting to pacify complainants, undermine their credibility, or even file counter-complaints. This is not portrayed as personal hostility but as a structural condition in which representatives operate under pressure within a hierarchical system. Such dynamics demonstrate what can be called institutional capture, where redressal bodies become extensions of authority rather than safeguards against it.
These accounts show that grievance mechanisms do not fail due to absence, but due to embedded power relations. Committees function within the same hierarchies they are meant to regulate, making impartial redress structurally difficult. In this context, arguments that additional regulation is unnecessary ignore the documented gap between institutional design and lived experience. Strengthening accountability mechanisms is therefore not duplication but an attempt to address systemic malfunction in existing structures.
Reverse discrimination as a claim of status displacement, not structural harm
Another strand of criticism frames equity provisions as producing “reverse discrimination” because general category students are not positioned as potential victims within caste-specific protections.
What my findings suggest, however, is that this claim arises less from evidence of structured disadvantage and more from a shift in normative comfort. For decades, institutional culture has operated in ways that align seamlessly with the social experiences, language styles, and educational capital more common among socially dominant groups. When regulations begin naming caste as a factor shaping disadvantage, this previously invisible alignment becomes visible. What is experienced as “exclusion” is often the discomfort of seeing long-standing institutional norms treated as socially situated rather than universal.
Importantly, structural discrimination requires more than the feeling of being left out of a policy framework. It involves patterned identity-based suspicion, stereotyping that shapes evaluation, and institutional pathways that are harder to access or trust.
My research documents these as recurring features in the experiences of marginalised students: merit being doubted through reservation stigma, competence judged through preconceived expectations, and grievance systems perceived as risky to approach. No equivalent body of evidence appeared showing general category students encountering systemic barriers because of their caste identity. The absence of such a pattern is analytically significant.
Thus, the language of “reverse discrimination” conflates two different phenomena: regulation of historical inequity and production of new structural harm. Equity provisions may unsettle assumptions that academic space is naturally neutral, but unsettling dominance is not the same as producing oppression. My findings indicate that what is being reinterpreted as discrimination is, in fact, the redistribution of institutional attention toward those who have long borne the weight of unaddressed disadvantage.
The “surveillance” argument misreads accountability
Critics argue that equity regulations will introduce fear and division into campuses, suggesting that closer scrutiny of discrimination will disturb institutional harmony. This perspective assumes that campuses currently function as socially cohesive spaces and that regulation is what produces anxiety. The respondent’s narrative from HCU challenges this assumption by showing that fear and division already operate internally, long before any formal oversight begins.
The student describes encountering the reservation column in a Ph.D. notification and experiencing “a little pain,” followed by a feeling of inferiority compared to general category peers. This reaction did not arise from surveillance by authorities, but from the social meaning attached to reservation within academic culture. The student initially avoided applying under the reserved category, despite eligibility, in order to escape the symbolic stigma associated with it. Only after failing to secure admission otherwise did they “compromise” and apply through reservation. This is not merely an administrative decision that reflects internalised division produced by institutional and social discourse around merit and caste.
From the critic’s perspective, fear is imagined as something that equity mechanisms will impose externally. The narrative shows that fear already exists as self-surveillance. The student monitors their own identity, worries about how they will be perceived, and adjusts their academic choices accordingly. Division is likewise not introduced by regulation, it is embedded in institutional structures that visibly separate categories and attach unequal symbolic value to them.
Thus, the equity bill does not create fear but addresses the social processes that already produce it. By recognising caste-based stigma and regulating discriminatory practices, such provisions attempt to reduce the conditions under which students internalise inferiority. What critics perceive as divisive regulation is, from the lived perspective of marginalised students, an effort to make visible and accountable the silent hierarchies that already fragment campus life.
Dr Murali Ramathoti is a young social scientist and writer whose work focuses on caste, inequality, and higher education in India. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Hyderabad with a thesis titled ‘Caste Discrimination in Higher Educational Institutions: A Comparative Study of the English and Foreign Languages University, NALSAR University of Law, and the University of Hyderabad’. His research critically examines how caste hierarchies shape experiences and institutional practices in elite universities.
This article is based on the findings of the author’s Ph.D.
Views expressed are the author’s own.