The recent stay ordered by the Supreme Court of India on the UGC (Equality Promotion in Higher Education Institutions) Rules, 2026 marks yet another moment where the state has sided with entrenched caste privilege over social justice.
The UGC Equality Rules 2026, framed by the University Grants Commission, did not emerge overnight. They are the result of long-term struggles by students against caste discrimination, humiliation, social boycott, academic exclusion, and institutional violence in India’s higher education system. Since the 2012 anti-discrimination guidelines, multiple incidents across the country like student suicides, expulsions, fact-finding reports, and sustained protests, have exposed the failure of advisory-level mechanisms. Those guidelines lacked enforceability and accountability from institutions. Discrimination did not stop.
The 2026 Rules were shaped precisely to overcome those limits (at least on paper). They moved beyond moral instructions and defined equality as an institutional responsibility. They mandated Equal Opportunity Centres, representative committees, time-bound grievance redressal systems, and clear investigative procedures in every university and college. Their primary aim was to safeguard the educational rights of historically oppressed communities: SC, ST, OBC, minorities, women, and persons with disabilities.
It is therefore no surprise that as soon as these rules were notified, sections of forward caste students and reactionary groups mobilised to demand their withdrawal, particularly in North Indian states. The atmosphere resembled the Mandal Commission backlash, where social justice was projected as persecution. Demonstrations were organised both in favour of implementation and against it. While oppressed-caste students demanded accountability and protection, privileged groups projected the rules as discriminatory against them.
In this context, irrespective of the long history of struggles by SC, ST, OBC and minority students, the judiciary chose to halt a regulatory mechanism meant to protect them. Once again, it exposed that the judiciary, overwhelmingly dominated by forward castes, remains structurally disconnected from the lived realities of caste oppression.
Parallel to these demands has been the long-standing call for the Rohith Act, named after Rohith Vemula of University of Hyderabad, whose institutional murder exposed the brutality of caste within campuses. The Rohith Act demands criminal accountability for caste discrimination in higher education institutions, time-bound investigations into harassment complaints, and fixed responsibility on university authorities in cases of student suicides linked to discrimination.
Since 2016, repeated incidents across universities have shown that without enforceable laws, administrations close ranks to protect faculty and dominant caste students while isolating complainants. The UGC Equality Rules and the Rohith Act together represent attempts, though limited but necessary, to shift power away from caste networks and towards institutional accountability.
This is precisely why protests have erupted across India. Students in Delhi, Banaras, Allahabad, Agra, Patna, and several other universities have demanded immediate implementation of the Rules and removal of the Supreme Court’s stay. These movements are the results of years of discriminatory experiences, accumulated humiliation, and growing political consciousness among the oppressed students.
In University of Delhi, protests demanding implementation were met with physical assault by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Casteist slogans like “Brahmanwad Zindabad” were raised. Threats of violence (“desh ke gaddaron ko, goli maro saalon ko”) were openly issued. Protesters were attacked for peacefully discussing equality regulations. Inside the police station, a student activist was asked to remove her clothes and rape threats were extended to her family. The police did nothing.
This is very ironic. The very acts of casteist abuse and sexual violence during protests become living evidence of why enforceable anti-discrimination laws are required in India. Institutional demography shows faculty positions in central universities remain dominated by forward castes. Vice-Chancellors and decision-making bodies reflect similar patterns. The higher judiciary, bureaucracy, and media houses mirror the same imbalance.
Since the BJP came to power, saffronisation of education has intensified. On one hand, there is ideological consolidation through Hindutva narrative; on the other, there is hostility towards affirmative measures. The introduction of 10% reservation for economically weaker sections among forward castes, despite their overwhelming institutional dominance, reflects this political direction. The targeting of celebrated intellectuals like Irfan Habib for speaking against casteism and communalism further demonstrates how even addressing these problems is a threat to the Hindutva goons.
Of course, the UGC Rules and the Rohith Act are not enough to annihilate caste. But they open institutional cracks through which justice can be demanded. So opposing them is a defence of caste superiority. Every arm of the state has revealed its position. The judiciary by staying protective regulations, the executive, through complicity with ABVP goons, and the mainstream media by portraying protesters as instigators.
This moment demands collective resistance. Caste will not disappear through polite debate or symbolic reforms. It requires organised struggles on campuses, in courts, on the streets, in the villages, and within communities. The fight for UGC regulations and the Rohith Act is not merely about policy. It is a struggle against Brahminical ideology championed by the state.
