Opinion Is there ‘merit’ in an unequal classroom? UGC guidelines send a moral signal
Equity is not merely about securing admission. It is about surviving the academic journey with dignity.
The merit-versus-quota debate continues to divide the nation because we refuse to interrogate what merit means in an unequal society. When I teach, I often begin by asking my students a simple question: What do you think of Ambedkar? It is painful how frequently students describe him as the man who “took away” their “merit” through reservation. The merit-versus-quota debate continues to divide the nation because we refuse to interrogate what merit means in an unequal society.
I often wonder how unequal social conditions can produce equal competition. I’m appalled by the level of discourse surrounding the UGC’s Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026, which superseded the 2012 guidelines by the same name. The hue and cry over what might have been a run-of-the-mill revision is disheartening, if not surprising. What’s more heartbreaking is that these sentiments are being echoed by so-called beacons of academia, who lament that these regulations will lead to discrimination against them.
It is preposterous to think that any regulation safeguarding the rights of the marginalised will in any way hamper the interests of the dominant castes. The criticism is premised on the assumption of the regulations’ misuse by the 85 per cent — SC/ST/OBC — against the dominant caste groups. What this view fails to acknowledge is that the same 85 per cent are grossly underrepresented in education, whether as faculty or students. As per data presented in Parliament, of the 423 posts sanctioned for professors in central universities under the OBC category, only 84 have been filled. For the ST category, 83 per cent of posts are vacant as only 24 of 144 have been filled. In the SC category, 64 per cent of posts sanctioned are vacant, with only 111 of 308 being filled.
Data tabled in the Lok Sabha in December 2023 showed that more than 13,500 students from SC, ST and OBC categories had dropped out of central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in the previous five years. When humiliation, excessive scrutiny, isolation and exclusion become routine, discrimination stops appearing extraordinary — it just becomes invisible. Dropouts, then, are not individual failures but a collective failure.
The tag of “not found suitable”, rising cases of suicides in IITs and persistent criticism of reservation in employment and education has led to an environment in which efforts to bring parity and equity keep getting derailed. This begs also the question: Why have decades of reservation failed to bear any results in bringing parity in representations? How, despite quotas and allegedly watered-down merit lists, do we continue to be underrepresented in the media, judiciary and other corridors of power?
Equity is not merely about securing admission. It is about surviving the academic journey with dignity. Perhaps it cannot be enforced by UGC guidelines alone, but in seeking institutional accountability, these guidelines become moral signals that we cannot ignore.
The writer is assistant professor of Sociology, Lakshmibai College, Delhi University
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