MANISHA

1. Introduction

The contemporary dispute over the UGC’s Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026 is often staged as a binary: either India’s universities enforce equity more aggressively, or they protect academic autonomy and due process from regulatory overreach. That binary is misleading. Caste is a persistent structure of graded inequality – and, crucially, graded advantage – that can quietly shape who belongs in classrooms, whose knowledge is treated as credible, and who receives mentorship and institutional care (Ambedkar, 1936/2014; Dirks, 2011; Mosse, 2018; Rao, 2009; Subramanian, 2019). Even when formal access expands, educational inequalities at the college level can remain strikingly durable (Desai & Kulkarni, 2008). At the same time, a compliance-heavy regime that appears to convert complaints into automatic guilt, or to shift campus governance into policing, can drain trust and deepen factionalism – turning universities into arenas of pressure rather than sites of learning (Colquitt, 2001; Tyler, 1990).

Ambedkar’s writing is unusually helpful here because it refuses the false choice between moral urgency and procedural legitimacy. In his closing address to the Constituent Assembly, he insisted that liberty, equality, and fraternity “form a union of trinity” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1216). When fraternity is absent, equality remains external – something that must be imposed. His warning was sharp and institutional: without fraternity, liberty and equality would “require a constable” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1216). In the same speech he adds a nation-building diagnosis that is often underused in policy debates: “the castes are anti-national” because they separate social life and generate jealousy and antipathy (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1217). For higher education, the implication is direct: a credible equity regime must both protect the vulnerable from discrimination and cultivate the trust, shared life, and institutional legitimacy through which caste can lose its everyday force.

The essay proceeds in five parts. Section 2 recovers Ambedkar’s design vocabulary – how he thinks about caste as a moral and institutional problem, why fraternity is a democratic condition, and how constitutional morality and proportional remedies sustain legitimacy. Section 3 anchors the policy problem in scholarship on merit, institutional reproduction, and procedural justice. Section 4 reads the 2026 regulations as an institutional architecture – identifying both what they enable and what they risk. Section 5 proposes strengthening moves that preserve the regulation’s equity objective while addressing credibility and misuse risks. Appendices A and B provide a rough amendment package and an implementation SOP template. Methodologically, this essay offers a textual–institutional analysis of the notified 2026 Regulations, read through Ambedkar’s constitutional design vocabulary and scholarship on procedural and organisational justice. For readers unfamiliar with Indian constitutional categories and reservation terminology, Box 1 offers a brief glossary.

Box 1. A short glossary of Indian categories used in this essay (for international readers)

2. Ambedkar’s design vocabulary: caste, fraternity, and constitutional morality

Ambedkar’s critique begins with a structural insight that remains relevant to institutions of evaluation. Caste is not simply occupational sorting; it is the ranking of persons. In his formulation, the caste system is not merely a division of labour; it is “a division of labourers” (Ambedkar, 1936/2014, p. 47).That sentence matters for higher education. Universities distribute dignity, voice, and opportunity through examination, recommendation, publication, and placement. If social rank is already organised through inherited status, then academic rank can become another channel through which graded inequality is reproduced in modern form (Rao, 2009; Subramanian, 2019).

At the same time, Ambedkar resisted the fantasy that coercion alone can dissolve caste. He insists that caste is not a physical barrier to be bulldozed by administrative fiat: “Caste is a notion, it is a state of the mind” (Ambedkar, 1936/2014, p. 68). If caste is partly a mental and moral infrastructure – reproduced through belief, routine, and social expectation – then the work of equity is also moral and educational. This is precisely why universities, which shape minds as well as opportunities, sit at the heart of the annihilation project.

Ambedkar’s most institutionally fertile move is to tie democracy to fraternity. His ideal society requires “social endosmosis” (Ambedkar, 1936/2014, p. 57): varied and free points of contact across social worlds. He defines democracy as more than a form of government; it is a “mode of associated living” and an “attitude of respect and reverence towards fellowmen” (Ambedkar, 1936/2014, p. 57). This definition is directly relevant to campus governance. Equity is not only a matter of sanctions. It is also a question of whether students and staff are drawn into shared academic and social worlds where mutual recognition becomes plausible – and where stigma is not silently naturalised as merit.

The nation-building dimension of this argument is explicit in Ambedkar’s closing speech. He cautions that India’s political democracy cannot be secure without social fraternity, and he names caste as a direct obstacle to nationhood: “In India there are castes. The castes are anti-national” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1217). They are anti-national, he says, because they produce separation, jealousy and antipathy, and thus prevent fraternity from becoming a fact (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1217). The policy lesson is not that universities should suppress conflict through force, but that they must treat fraternity as an institutional output: a campus norm produced by fair procedures, shared spaces, and credible remedies. Otherwise, as Ambedkar warns, liberty and equality remain “no deeper than coats of paint” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1217).

Ambedkar’s constitutional design further highlights legitimacy as a practical problem. In his speech introducing the Draft Constitution, he warns that “constitutional morality … is not a natural sentiment” and “has to be cultivated,” adding that democracy in India is “only a top-dressing” on an “essentially undemocratic” soil (Ambedkar, 1948/2014, p. 61). Translated into higher education: regulation alone does not produce democratic practice. Institutions must build procedures that are experienced as neutral, respectful, and trustworthy, and they must cultivate habits of fairness among campus actors.

Finally, Ambedkar repeatedly returns to proportionality and legitimacy in remedial policy. Defending reservations, he cautions that reserved seats must be “confined to a minority of seats,” otherwise the exception may “eat up the rule” (Ambedkar, 1948/2014, p. 393). While addressed to constitutional rights, this is also a general design principle: protective mechanisms must remain strong, but their architecture must be visibly fair and proportionate, or they become politically unstable and practically ineffective. For campus equity governance, the implication is clear: protection must not be built on presumptions of identity-to-guilt; it must be built on evidence, reasons, and credible methods.

Table 1 summarises how Ambedkar’s design vocabulary maps onto the central design choices (and vulnerabilities) of the UGC 2026 framework, and the corresponding strengthening moves proposed in this essay.

3. Merit, institutional reproduction, and why procedure matters

The policy question raised by the 2026 regulations is not only whether discrimination exists – scholarship and lived experience both affirm that caste continues to structure educational life. The deeper question is how institutions make hierarchy legible as fairness. Young’s (1958) classic satire shows how meritocracy can mutate into a new hereditary order: those who succeed attribute outcomes to virtue, those who fail are blamed for deficiency. Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) theorised this as institutional reproduction: education systems reward forms of cultural capital that are unevenly distributed, thereby reproducing social hierarchy while presenting outcomes as neutral achievement.

In India, caste structures the distribution of cultural capital, social networks, linguistic confidence, and the everyday experience of authority. That is why the “caste of merit” is not only a metaphor but a mechanism: technical and professional institutions can convert inherited advantage into the appearance of pure competence (Subramanian, 2015, 2019). Galanter’s (1984) account of compensatory discrimination similarly emphasised that formal equality cannot address entrenched group subordination without institutional remedies. The implication is not to abandon merit, but to recognise that merit is always institutionally produced – and therefore institutionally contestable.

A globally legible way to name one channel through which hierarchy persists is the literature on stigma and evaluation. Stigma is not only a label; it is a social process that links categories to status loss and discriminatory treatment through everyday interactions and institutional routines (Link & Phelan, 2001). In evaluative settings, the fear of being judged through a group stereotype can itself depress performance and increase withdrawal – an effect demonstrated in classic work on “stereotype threat” (Steele & Aronson, 1995). For Indian campuses, the practical lesson is straightforward: an equity regime must be designed for interactional dignity and epistemic credibility, not only for formal compliance.

This is where procedure becomes decisive. If stakeholders perceive decision-making as biased, opaque, or humiliating, they interpret outcomes through the lens of group competition and exit into politics – protest, pressure, and factionalism – rather than accept institutional resolution. Procedural justice research shows that people comply with decisions not only because outcomes are favorable, but because procedures are experienced as neutral, respectful, and transparent (Tyler, 1990). Organisational justice scholarship similarly shows that procedural and interactional fairness strongly shape perceptions of legitimacy (Colquitt, 2001). For a campus equity regime, these are not secondary concerns. They are the infrastructure of credibility.

4. What the UGC 2026 framework enables, and what it risks

4.1 What it enables

The 2026 regulations are institution-building. They move equity from an aspirational commitment to a mandatory governance function by requiring Equal Opportunity Centres, an Equity Committee, complaint channels, public reporting, and national monitoring (UGC, 2026). They do so in supersession of the UGC’s 2012 equity framework, and they explicitly link the ‘Ombudsperson’ role to the student grievance architecture under the UGC’s 2023 regulations (UGC, 2012, 2023, 2026). Most importantly, the UGC attaches enforceable consequences to institutional non-compliance. This is consistent with institutional sociology: organisations respond when norms are translated into duties, reporting, and sanctions (Meyer & Rowan, 1977).

4.2 The ‘EWS gap’ and conceptual incoherence

At the centre of the current controversy is a conceptual mismatch. The Regulations foreground Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in their objectives (Regulation 2), yet the operative definition of “discrimination” restricts cognisable grounds to religion, race, caste, gender, place of birth and disability (Regulation 3(1)(e)) (UGC, 2026). Economic disadvantage is not listed as a ground. In effect, EWS is named as a constituency, but not clearly operationalised as a basis of actionable discrimination. This is not a minor drafting glitch. It shapes what can be complained of, what must be proved, and what an institution is authorised to remedy.

The incoherence becomes sharper once one notices how Indian affirmative-action categories are legally constructed. SC and ST status is constitutionally “scheduled” through Presidential notification, producing authoritative lists for Union purposes (The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950; The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950). OBC/SEBC, by contrast, is an administratively plural category: there is a Union “Central List” for central services and institutions, and separate state lists for state purposes, which do not fully overlap. More importantly, eligibility for OBC reservation is already filtered by the “creamy layer” exclusion, which uses socio-economic criteria to exclude the advanced sections within listed groups (Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India, 16 November 1992). Put plainly: Indian law already treats socio-economic position as relevant to who is “backward enough” to receive remedial protection.

When the Regulations omit socio-economic status from the grounds of discrimination while simultaneously naming EWS – and while treating OBC as a protected constituency despite its own socio-economic filtering – the architecture sends mixed signals. It risks rendering class-coded humiliation and exclusion non-cognisable unless it can be reframed as caste or another enumerated ground. Because socio-economic position is itself a status marker, stigma may be expressed through language, consumption, “ability to pay,” or access to informal networks (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977; Link & Phelan, 2001). The predictable result is threshold contestation: committees are pushed into politically fraught gatekeeping about what “counts” as discrimination. Table 2 sets out where the text generates this friction and what minimal clarifications could reduce it.

4.3 Group-exclusive drafting and the ‘oppressor-by-elimination’ critique

A second vulnerability lies in the group-exclusive drafting of “caste-based discrimination” (Regulation 3(1)(c)). The text defines caste-based discrimination as discrimination “against the members of SC, ST and OBC” (UGC, 2026). The move may be motivated by a desire to foreground historically disadvantaged communities. But it also shifts the regulatory grammar from prohibited acts to protected identities. That shift fuels what critics call the ‘oppressor-by-elimination’ problem: the more the definition specifies who can be a victim, the more it tacitly constructs everyone else as the residual category to be suspected.

The OBC category makes this drafting choice especially unstable. Unlike SC/ST, which are constitutionally “scheduled”, OBC/SEBC is an administrative class category with state-specific variation and a Union Central List for central institutions. It also contains an explicit internal stratification via the “creamy layer” doctrine, which excludes the advanced sections from reservation benefits (Indra Sawhney vs. Union of India, 16 November 1992). Treating OBC as a homogeneous victim category therefore flattens graded caste power. It can also obscure the reality that dominant intermediate castes may be perpetrators of exclusion and humiliation, including vis-à-vis SC communities. In design terms, the regulation imports a complex, graded social field into a binary grammar of victim and oppressor.

A fraternity-centred design alternative is clearer and more stable. It defines discrimination on the ground of caste/tribe as wrongful whenever – and against whomever – it occurs, while separately mandating enhanced duties of prevention, representation, and support for historically excluded groups (Ambedkar, 1936/2014; Galanter, 1984). If the Regulations wish to name OBC as a priority constituency for safeguards, they should align this with the creamy-layer logic and specify OBC/SEBC (non-creamy layer) for targeted support, rather than using “OBC” as a definitional boundary for caste discrimination. This reframing keeps the moral centre on annihilating caste practices, not administering caste identities – and it reduces the legitimacy costs that spill into committee composition and adjudication.

4.4 Committee design, graded inequality, and capture risks

Committee design is where definitional ambiguity becomes lived governance. The Regulations require representation of multiple categories on institutional committees, but they do not specify minimum voting seats, external membership, or case-based quorum rules (UGC, 2026). In settings where caste and class operate as graded hierarchies, this under-specification is not neutral. It shapes who can meaningfully speak, who can be outvoted, and whether decisions are perceived as fair or as factional.

Ambedkar’s diagnosis of caste as graded inequality is useful here because it warns against treating “the disadvantaged” as a single bloc. Hierarchy is sustained not only from the top, but also through intermediate strata that may be socially subordinate in relation to elites yet locally dominant over those below. The lowest – SC/STs – sit at the bottom of this graded order. They do not have a lower rung from which to draw status; they instead absorb the cumulative weight of exclusion and humiliation produced by the whole structure (Ambedkar, 1936/2014). By contrast, some groups classified within broad backward categories can exercise everyday dominance over SC/ST communities in particular regions, including through control of local institutions, social sanctions, and informal gatekeeping (Mosse, 2018). A committee that includes OBC and SC/ST representation but is numerically dominated by intermediate groups can therefore reproduce graded inequality inside the very mechanism meant to counter it.

This is not an argument for removing OBC or EWS representation. It is an argument for designing against predictable capture risks. At minimum, SC and ST members should have guaranteed voting presence in any inquiry sub-panel dealing with caste-based discrimination, with an external member added to reduce internal pressures. Institutions can go further through graded-equity safeguards: for example, a concurrence rule (no dismissal of an SC/ST discrimination complaint without the agreement of SC/ST members on the panel), or supermajority thresholds that prevent simple numerical outvoting. Such devices are conceptually consistent with the paper’s core design claim – universal rights with graded protections – and they preserve legitimacy by ensuring that “representation” does not become a token and that the bottom rung is not procedurally silenced.

The importance of these safeguards increases under the Regulations’ compressed timelines. When composition rules are loose and timelines are tight, processes become easier to capture, and decisions become easier to contest. The following subsection, therefore, turns to how speed without an explicit method can create a ‘complaint = guilt’ perception.

4.5 Speed without method and the ‘complaint = guilt’ perception

The regulations demand rapid timelines for meetings, reports, and action. Speed is valuable where vulnerability is acute. But procedural compression without explicit safeguards invites the legitimacy crisis the regulations seek to prevent. If an allegation is treated as a conclusion – particularly in a high-salience caste dispute – the institution becomes a stage for political pressure rather than a forum for justice. Procedural justice research predicts this: where people perceive neutrality and voice to be absent, they resist and delegitimise decisions (Tyler, 1990). The remedy is not slower justice, but explicit method – written notice, right of response, conflict-of-interest recusal, evidence handling, reasoned findings, and privacy protections – so that both complainant and respondent can recognise the process as fair (Colquitt, 2001).

Table 3 lists a small set of minimum procedural safeguards that often determine whether an internal equity process is experienced as credible by all parties. The “status” column records whether the safeguard is explicitly specified in the 2026 Regulations, only implicit, or largely silent – highlighting where institutional SOPs and drafting amendments are most needed.

4.6 The helpline-to-police interface and early ‘constabling’

Finally, the regulations contemplate police involvement where penal-law issues are implicated (UGC, 2026). Criminal offences must be addressed through criminal law. The design risk is early and expansive escalation. If “prima facie” becomes synonymous with “alleged,” over-referral becomes likely, producing chilling effects for complainants and respondents alike. Ambedkar’s closing speech warned against abandoning “constitutional methods,” describing extra-constitutional tactics as “the Grammar of Anarchy” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1215). Read institutionally, the warning is relevant here: if policing becomes the default language of campus equity, universities risk shifting from adjudication and learning to surveillance and factional mobilisation. A strengthened regime would reserve police escalation for defined thresholds and urgent safety risks, while enabling universities to adjudicate institutional harms through fair administrative process.

5. Strengthening proposals: enforcement that builds trust

What would it mean to strengthen the 2026 Regulations without weakening their equity objective? Drawing on Ambedkar, the answer begins with a simple premise: a rights regime that is experienced as arbitrary will not build fraternity; it will accelerate factionalism and – precisely in Ambedkar’s terms –invite early “constabling” rather than the internalisation of equality. Strengthening therefore requires designing enforcement in a way that produces trust. Five commitments follow.

First, universality in rights. The norm against discrimination should be framed as a universal right of any stakeholder, not as a group-exclusive privilege. This drafting choice matters because it shifts the grammar from protected identities to prohibited acts, reducing the ‘oppressor-by-elimination’ reading while remaining fully compatible with compensatory remedies in contexts of entrenched group subordination (Galanter, 1984).

Second, graded protection. Universality need not imply symmetry of vulnerability. In a society of graded inequality, historically excluded communities face higher baseline risks, and institutions have stronger duties of prevention, support, and interim protection in such cases. The aim is not identity-to-guilt but vulnerability-aware design: the law remains general, while safeguards and remedies are calibrated to context (Ambedkar, 1936/2014).

Third, act-focused definitions. The prohibited ground – caste – should be drafted to target discriminatory acts and their effects, including exclusionary practices that operate through evaluation, gatekeeping, and credibility deficits. Group-specific language is best reserved for aggravated harms and for institutional duties (such as mentoring, bridge support, and anti-retaliation measures) that respond to historically produced disadvantage. This preserves the annihilation project by preventing caste from becoming the permanent administrative grammar of campus life.

Fourth, procedural justice as the core of legitimacy. If equity governance is to remain institutional rather than political, the process must be visibly fair: voice, neutrality, respectful treatment, reasoned findings, and consistent standards. These safeguards are not formalities; they are what allow both complainants and respondents to recognise the authority of the decision even under disagreement (Colquitt, 2001; Tyler, 1990).

Fifth, proportionality in policing. Where criminal law is implicated, escalation should occur through clear thresholds and documented reasons, with urgent safety risks treated immediately. Otherwise, the university’s primary role remains administrative and educational – building norms, preventing harm, restoring the conditions of learning, and cultivating the fraternity without which equality remains externally imposed. Appendices A and B operationalise these commitments through a rough amendment package and an SOP template, keeping the focus where it belongs: on critique and strengthening of the existing policy, not the invention of an entirely new regulatory regime.

6. Conclusion

Ambedkar’s project was the annihilation of caste. That project requires enforceable safeguards precisely because caste is a durable, graded inequality. But his design philosophy also warns against a model of justice that relies primarily on coercion. When fraternity is absent, equality remains external and must “require a constable” (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1216). He also names the deeper nation-building injury: “the castes are anti-national” because they fracture social life and block fraternity from becoming a fact (Ambedkar, 1949/2014, p. 1217). For higher education, the lesson is direct: an equity regulation will succeed only if it protects the vulnerable and also builds trust in procedures and shared campus life.

The UGC’s 2026 regulations move decisively toward enforceability. Their vulnerabilities lie in conceptual mismatch (especially around EWS), group-exclusive drafting that invites moral binaries, procedural under-specification that can produce ‘complaint = guilt’ perceptions, and policing creep. Strengthening the framework is not a retreat from justice. It is a reorientation toward legitimacy: universal rights, graded protections, act-focused standards, and institutional procedures robust enough to be internalised by the academic community. That is how universities remain universities – spaces of inquiry – while becoming what Ambedkar demanded: institutions where caste ceases to determine human worth.

Appendix A. Draft amendment package (rough, operational text)

A1. Align objectives and protected grounds

Either (a) add socio-economic status / economic disadvantage as a protected ground in the definition of “discrimination,” or (b) clarify that EWS is covered only insofar as discrimination maps onto the enumerated grounds. The present mismatch invites contestation.

A2. Re-draft “caste-based discrimination” as ground-based

Define caste-based discrimination as discrimination on the basis of caste/tribe against any person. Separately state that HEIs must prioritise preventive measures and support for historically excluded communities (SC/ST and similarly situated groups).

A3. Insert a non-presumption / natural justice clause

Add: “No complaint shall by itself create a presumption of guilt. The Equity Committee shall follow principles of natural justice, provide reasoned findings, and base conclusions on evidence.”

A4. Define “prima facie” and structure the police interface

Define “prima facie” as requiring specific, articulable facts indicating elements of a penal offence. Create a triage protocol: immediate police referral for urgent safety risk or legally mandatory situations; otherwise, permit a short preliminary assessment and document reasons.

A5. Graded-equity quorum for SC/ST matters

Where allegations involve discrimination against SC/ST members, require an inquiry sub-panel constituted with a majority of members belonging to SC/ST communities, including at minimum one SC member, one ST member, and one independent member not affiliated with the HEI. Consider a graded-equity decision rule for SC/ST matters – e.g., no dismissal/closure without concurrence of SC/ST panel members, or a supermajority threshold – so that numerical majorities do not procedurally silence the bottom rung.

A6. Recusal and conflict-of-interest rules

Mandate recusal where a committee member has administrative proximity, supervisory power, departmental dependency, or other conflicts that could compromise neutrality; record recusals in writing.

A7. Malicious complaint safeguard (high threshold)

Permit action only where a complaint is found – by a reasoned finding – to be knowingly false or malicious. Non-substantiation alone must not attract sanctions.

Appendix B. Campus SOP for equity complaints (rough implementation template)

Figure 1 provides a simple triage flow for the SOP in Appendix B. It clarifies when the institution should proceed with administrative adjudication and when a criminal-law interface is warranted.

B1. Intake and safety triage (0–24 hours)

Acknowledge receipt; offer immediate support options.

Screen for imminent risk (violence, coercion, self-harm) and implement interim protective measures without presuming guilt.

Classify the matter: administrative discrimination; urgent criminal risk; or referral to specialised committees (e.g., sexual harassment, ragging), with written reasons.

B2. Preliminary assessment (24–72 hours)

Collect brief statements and any readily available materials.

Apply the defined “prima facie” threshold for any police interface; document reasons for escalation or non-escalation.

Offer legal aid and counselling options, with confidentiality protections.

B3. Inquiry (Day 3 to Day 15 working days)

Issue notice to the respondent with particulars; allow a written response.

Maintain an evidence log; adopt witness protocols; and enforce recusal rules.

Apply a civil standard of proof for administrative findings; provide a reasoned report with findings and recommendations.

B4. Decision and remedies (within 7 working days of report)

Issue a reasoned order; ensure proportionality of remedies (education, restorative measures, disciplinary action where necessary).

Implement anti-retaliation monitoring for a defined period (e.g., 90 days).

B5. Appeal (within 30 days)

Provide an appeal route for all stakeholders (students, staff, faculty).

Ensure time-bound disposal and reasoned appellate orders.

B6. Reporting and institutional learning

Publish only aggregate, privacy-safe statistics (counts, timelines, outcomes).

Use annual reviews and training to prevent recurrence and improve campus climate.

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