From Rohith to Reform: UGC Equity Regulations 2026, born from tragedies, threaten caste dominance, not merit

By Jayant S Ramteke

The deaths of Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi and Darshan Solanki were not accidents. They were warnings. They exposed a brutal contradiction at the heart of India’s higher education system – institutions that speak the language of merit and excellence while silently tolerating humiliation, isolation and caste prejudice. When Rohith wrote that he had been reduced to a “number” and stripped of his human worth, he was not only describing his own suffering – he was indicting an entire institutional culture that refuses to confront caste honestly.

For years, universities responded with committees, condolences and cosmetic reforms. But nothing structural changed. It took the Supreme Court’s repeated interventions in these cases to make one truth unavoidable – anti-discrimination mechanisms in Indian universities were hollow. The University Grants Commission’s 2012 regulations existed largely on paper, unenforced and invisible. Tragedy followed tragedy, and silence followed tragedy.

It is in this moral and judicial context that the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 were born. These regulations are not sudden or arbitrary. They are the product of bloodstained evidence – of young lives lost inside campuses that claimed to be temples of learning. They represent the first serious attempt to move from symbolic grievance cells to enforceable institutional responsibility.

UGC Equity Regulations 2026: Recognising the truth

At their core, the new UGC equity regulations recognise a truth that Indian academia has long denied: discrimination is not merely interpersonal; it is institutional. That is why every university and college is now required to establish an Equal Opportunity Centre. These centres are meant to be living institutions of support – offering counselling, guidance, and legal coordination for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. They are not decorative offices; they are meant to intervene before despair turns into death.

Equally significant is the creation of Equity Committees with mandatory representation of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, Other Backward Classes, women and persons with disabilities. This is not tokenism; it is justice by design. For too long, complaints of discrimination were judged by those who had never experienced it. The regulations finally accept that lived experience matters in understanding humiliation and exclusion.

The 24x7 Equity Helpline is another radical departure from the past. It acknowledges fear as a real barrier. Students hesitate to complain because power is unequal and retaliation is real. Confidential reporting and time-bound inquiry mechanisms give victims something they never had before – institutional courage to speak.

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UGC Equity Regulations: Of accountability, dominance

The most transformative element of the regulations is accountability. Institutions that fail to implement these provisions can lose recognition, funding and the right to run degree and online programmes. This is precisely why resistance has emerged. Privilege feels threatened when power becomes accountable. Universities that were comfortable ignoring caste now fear scrutiny.

Sections of upper-caste groups argue that these UGC regulations will be misused, that they create an atmosphere of suspicion, and that they undermine merit. But what they truly fear is not misuse – it is visibility. What they call loss of merit is, in reality, loss of unchecked dominance. The regulations do not introduce new reservations. They do not change admission cut-offs. They do not dilute academic standards. They only insist that discrimination be named, reported and punished.

This opposition reveals a deeper problem – the belief that equality is a zero-sum game. That protecting marginalised students somehow injures others. But equity is not revenge; it is repair. It is the attempt to make campuses humane spaces where students are judged by their ideas, not their birth.

Dr BR Ambedkar warned India about precisely this moral failure when he said, “We must begin by acknowledging that there is complete absence of two things in Indian society – equality and fraternity.” Education, for Ambedkar, was not merely about degrees; it was about dignity.

He also cautioned that “Cultivation of mind should be the ultimate aim of human existence,” reminding the nation that education loses its moral purpose when it becomes an instrument of hierarchy rather than liberation. And in words that resonate sharply with today’s campus protests, Ambedkar declared, “Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of it social democracy,” meaning that universities cannot claim excellence while reproducing caste inequality within their walls. Universities were meant to be engines of social transformation, not laboratories of silent discrimination.

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UGC Regulations: Moral test, not policy debate

From a legal standpoint, the Supreme Court has consistently held that the right to education is inseparable from the right to dignity under Article 21 and that discrimination within educational institutions violates Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution. While examining cases arising from Rohith Vemula’s death and subsequent campus suicides, the Court repeatedly questioned the effectiveness of existing anti-discrimination mechanisms and urged the University Grants Commission to evolve a stronger, enforceable regulatory framework. These observations transformed the issue from a moral concern into a constitutional obligation. This principle finds powerful expression in Ambedkar’s words: “If you believe in equality, you must believe in the equality of education for all.”

The protests against the UGC Equity Regulations 2026 expose how deeply caste privilege depends on invisibility. As long as discrimination remained unnamed, it could be denied. As long as victims remained silent, institutions could claim neutrality. The new regulations break that comfort. They force campuses to confront the question: will universities serve democracy or hierarchy?

This is not merely a policy debate. It is a moral test for Indian higher education. Either campuses acknowledge caste and act against it, or they continue to produce apologies after funerals. The memory of Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi and Darshan Solanki demands more than sympathy. It demands structural transformation.

The UGC Equity Regulations 2026 offer a chance to rebuild trust between universities and the most vulnerable students. They remind institutions that excellence without justice is hollow, and merit without dignity is cruelty disguised as achievement. The fear these regulations provoke among privileged groups is the sound of accountability knocking at closed doors.

India’s universities stand at a crossroads. One path preserves comfort, silence and inherited advantage. The other leads toward transparency, equity and human dignity. The UGC Equity Regulations 2026 do not threaten education; they redeem it. If implemented sincerely, they can transform campuses from spaces of quiet suffering into communities of genuine learning. The question is no longer whether these regulations are needed. The question is whether India’s higher education system has the courage to honour the lives that made them necessary.

Alumnus of IIT Bombay and IIM Calcutta, Jayant S Ramteke is an educationist and founder & CEO of Meritorium Knowledge Academy