The UGC regulations are only a spark. The explosive material is something far more intimate: the unexamined conviction, lodged in the deepest chamber of the collective psyche, that birth determines worth and that this determination carries divine sanction. The atmosphere itself is the disease; the regulation is at best a painkiller. India’s foundational scriptures contain the strongest possible arguments against caste. The Upanishadic view begins where hierarchy ends.
यह सारांश AI द्वारा तैयार किया गया है। इसे पूरी तरह समझने के लिए कृपया पूरा लेख पढ़ें।
Originally published in The Sunday Guardian
When a social arrangement is given the name of religion, it becomes nearly impossible to dismantle. You can legislate against it, protest against it, write constitutions that explicitly forbid it, and it will survive, because people will obey the law in the open and worship the belief in private. This is the secret of caste’s longevity in India, and no regulation has yet found an answer to it.
Two mothers filed a petition before the Supreme Court in 2019. One had lost her son at a university in Hyderabad; the other had lost her daughter at a hospital in Mumbai. Both deaths occurred inside institutions meant to educate and equalise. The petition asked for stronger mechanisms against caste-based discrimination on campuses. Six years later, the University Grants Commission notified the Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026, replacing the largely ineffective 2012 advisory framework with enforceable provisions. Protests followed swiftly. Within weeks, the Supreme Court stayed the regulations, calling them prima facie vague, and asking: “Whatever we have gained in terms of achieving a casteless society, are we now going backwards?” The question echoed across campuses, television studios, and political platforms.
