At the centre of the controversy are two distinct but intertwined developments:

1. AISA women leaders alleging verbal sexual abuse and threats inside and outside a police station. There are videos of this abuse circulating online
2. YouTuber Ruchi Tiwari claiming she was attacked by a mob of nearly 500 people while covering the protest.

As FIRs have been registered and political leaders have entered the fray, the struggle has increasingly shifted from what happened on campus to who controls the narrative of victimhood.

The Protest: UGC equity regulations and campus tensions

The protest on February 13 was organised by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) and allied groups demanding implementation of the University Grants Commission’s (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026.

The regulations — intended to strengthen safeguards against caste discrimination affecting SC, ST and OBC students — were recently stayed by the Supreme Court of India, which observed prima facie concerns of vagueness, particularly in the definitional scope of caste-based discrimination, and directed that the 2012 framework would remain in force pending further hearings.

Details may be read here.

Students supporting the regulations have emphatically argued they are essential to address structural caste bias within higher education. Opponents –many who have led aggressive and violent protests against their implementation –claim certain provisions are “vulnerable to misuse.”

This mobilisation was framed as part of a broader “Adhikar” campaign asserting dignity and institutional accountability.

The Flashpoint: Ruchi Tiwari’s presence and the confrontation

According to reports in The Print, tensions escalated when Ruchi Tiwari, who runs the YouTube channel Breaking Opinion, arrived at the site to cover the protest.

Tiwari describes herself as an “independent ground reporter”. Her channel, which has over 59,000 subscribers and more than 460 uploaded videos, frequently features a privileged caste lens depicting confrontational campus coverage, particularly around reservation, caste debates and identity politics. One of her recent YouTube Shorts is titled: “They want reservation but say don’t indulge in casteism.”

She has alleged that before she could begin reporting, individuals began calling out her name, asking her full identity and caste, after which a crowd surrounded and assaulted her. In statements to ANI (an agency that has increasingly been called out for its right-wing bias) , she claimed nearly 500 people attacked her, that she was held by the neck and arms, subjected to rape threats, and that there was an attempt to push her into a vehicle with its door open — which she described as an attempted abduction and “mob lynching.”

Videos online show pushing and scuffling. However, the full sequence remains disputed.

AISA’s Counter-Version: Provocation, altercation and selective framing

AISA has rejected Tiwari’s allegations as “false and motivated.”

According to statements cited by The Print, AISA leaders allege that the confrontation began when Tiwari engaged in provocative questioning and allegedly made casteist remarks referencing the Mahad Satyagraha led by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. AISA further claims she harassed a Dalit journalist named Naveen and attempted to snatch his camera.

Some circulating videos, according to AISA, show Tiwari striking Naveen and later pushing or punching AISA activist Anjali during the confrontation. Another clip shows activists holding Tiwari while attempting to escort her toward police presence.

AISA has argued that several clips being widely shared omit audio or preceding events and therefore reshape public perception.

It is at this point, AISA claims, that the narrative began to shift — from a protest demanding caste equity to a viral storyline of a “woman journalist attacked by Left mobs.”

Another video from the February 13 incident at Delhi University exposes the conspiracy of Sanghi-Casteist-Feudal goons against students demanding equity and social justice. These goons threatened AISA activists and DU students with vulgar abuses inside the Maurice Nagar Police… pic.twitter.com/ObROzq3H4r

— CPIML Liberation (@cpimlliberation) February 14, 2026

Condemn the right-wing assault and hooliganism against Comrade Anjali in DU! Today, AISA DU Secretary Anjali was physically assaulted by a right wing group. Despite the heavy presence of Delhi Police and CRPF, the attackers were given a free hand.

This violence is the clearest… pic.twitter.com/0AS2xYOyIZ

— CPIML Liberation (@cpimlliberation) February 13, 2026

Statement of Communist Party of India -Marxist Leninist- Liberation:

The Police Station Incident: Allegations of sexualised abuse

The most serious allegations, however, concern what happened later at Maurice Nagar Police Station.

AISA leaders Anjali and Neha allege that when they went to file complaints, a right-wing mob gathered outside the police station premises. According to AISA, the crowd swelled from dozens to hundreds, shouting slogans and issuing rape and death threats.

AAP MP Sanjay Singh publicly condemned the episode on X, sharing a video and alleging that in the presence of police personnel, AISA women leaders were abused with explicit insults directed at their mother and were told to “remove their clothes.”

देश की राजधानी दिल्ली में थाने के अंदर, पुलिस वालों के सामने AISA की महिला नेता अंजली और नेहा को मां की गाली देते हुए कहा गया, “कपड़े निकाल।” एक बिहार की बेटी, दूसरी उत्तराखंड की — दोनों सवर्ण हैं, लेकिन वंचितों के हक की आवाज उठाना उनका गुनाह हो गया। अगर यह घटना पंजाब या बंगाल… pic.twitter.com/JgRZ9cgf99

— Sanjay Singh AAP (@SanjayAzadSln) February 15, 2026

Singh questioned how such an incident could occur in the national capital and linked it to broader concerns about women’s safety. He alleged that the targeting of the two women leaders was connected to their vocal advocacy for marginalised communities.

AISA has termed the episode “state-sponsored hooliganism,” alleging that activists were effectively confined inside a room for hours while threats were issued outside. Anjali was reportedly taken for a medico-legal examination.

Delhi Police, according to ANI, has registered two FIRs — one based on Tiwari’s complaint and another based on a complaint by a female AISA student — under sections relating to assault, voluntarily causing hurt, wrongful restraint and common intention under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.

UGC का समर्थन कर रही दिल्ली यूनिवर्सिटी कि छात्राओं को दिल्ली पुलिस के सामने थाने में भद्दी-भद्दी गालियां दी जा रही हैं। UGC के नए प्रावधानो का महत्व इसी बात से लगाया जा सकता है कि दलित और पिछड़ों के हुकूक का उलंघन ना हो… pic.twitter.com/Qs8e7eew71

— Ashraf Hussain (@AshrafFem) February 15, 2026

ABVP, DUSU and administrative responses

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has maintained that Tiwari was present in her professional capacity and was attacked for asking questions. Its Delhi state secretary described the episode as an attack on media freedom and characterised Left-affiliated campus politics as violent.

Aryan Maan, President of the Delhi University Students’ Union, condemned the alleged assault on Tiwari and called for a fair and impartial investigation. DUSU leaders have stated that violence has no place in campus politics.

Meanwhile, Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh described the incident as a matter of concern and urged the university community to maintain social harmony. He confirmed having spoken with student and teacher groups as well as police authorities.

मैं दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय के सभी शिक्षकों और विद्यार्थियों से अनुरोध करता हूं कि वह आपस में सौहार्द बनाए रखें। कोई भी ऐसा काम न करें जिससे आपसी मनमुटाव बढ़े और राष्ट्र व विश्वविद्यालय की छवि को नुकसान हो।

दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय में कल जो घटना हुई वह चिंता का विषय है।…

— University of Delhi (@UnivofDelhi) February 14, 2026

The Larger Question: When violence becomes a narrative weapon

What unfolded at Delhi University is no longer simply a dispute about who pushed whom in a scuffle.

It is a case study in how protests over caste equity are rapidly reframed into spectacles of disorder; how women activists alleging sexualised abuse must compete for credibility against viral video clips; and how digital ecosystems determine which injury becomes the “real” one.

At stake is not merely the credibility of AISA or the veracity of Ruchi Tiwari’s claims. It is the deeper question of whose victimhood travels faster, and why.

When allegations of rape threats and sexualised slurs inside or outside a police station struggle to command sustained outrage — while a competing claim of assault dominates headlines within hours — it reveals something structural about public discourse. Gendered abuse against politically inconvenient women often dissolves into “partisan noise.” Caste-based mobilisation is quickly recast as mob aggression. And campus politics becomes content.

This is not to prejudge the outcome of the FIRs. Due process must determine individual liability. But focusing exclusively on the procedural neutrality of “both sides have filed complaints” risks obscuring the larger asymmetry: narrative power in the digital age is unevenly distributed.

A protest demanding the restoration of equity regulations meant to protect SC, ST and OBC students has been displaced by a battle over viral footage. The structural issue — caste discrimination in higher education — has receded behind the spectacle of confrontation.

This shift is not accidental.

Related:

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India

The stay of UGC Equity Regulations, 2026: The interim order, the proceedings, and the constitutional questions raised

Higher Education: How Centre is Undermining State Autonomy & Politicising UGC

‘Diluted Existing Rules’: Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi’s Mothers Slam UGC’s Draft Equity Regulations

Academic Freedoms at Risk: Federalism and autonomy challenged by UGC’s VC appointment guidelines

The post UGC Guidelines 2026: AISA Protest at Delhi University followed by sexual abuse allegations amid police presence appeared first on SabrangIndia.

— Rohith Vemula

It has been ten years since Rohith Vemula’s institutional murder.^[1] That emptiness is not his alone. It is the lingering feeling many from marginalised communities carry with them when they enter India’s so-called “elite” institutions –- IITs, IIMs, NITs, and Central Universities.

A 2022 survey in the Quint conducted at IIT Bombay following the Institutional Murder of Darshan Solanki found that one in every three SC/ST students had been asked about their caste identity.

Faculty spaces in these institutions reflect a similar imbalance. Despite constitutionally mandated reservations for SC, ST, and OBC communities, faculty positions continue to be dominated by those from the general category, as reported by The Hindu.

Under representation in these institutions

Under-representation is not incidental; it is structural. In at least two IITs and three IIMs, nearly 90% of faculty positions are held by individuals from the general category. In six IITs and four IIMs, the figure ranges between 80–90%, according to a report by The Wire, based on an RTI filed by Gowd Kiran Kumar, National President of the All India OBC Students Organisation.

The culture of exclusion within India’s elite institutions is not declining. It has been firmly entrenched.

Source: MHRD Data and a report in Quint, November 28, 2019

Faculty recruitment across IIMs has witnessed a significant decline between 2019 and 2026.

OBC, SC, ST – FACULTY IN IIM’s

This was first put out on social media. Verifying this we found that, according to a report in The Print on “The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports titled “2025–26 Demands for Grants of the Department of Higher Education” as of January 31, 2025, 28.56 percent of the total sanctioned teaching faculty positions (18,940) remained vacant across IITs, National Institutes of Technology (NITs), Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs), Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs), Central Universities, and other higher education institutions.

The data further reveals that 17.97 percent of the 11,298 Assistant Professor positions (entry-level posts) are vacant, 38.28 percent of the 5,102 Associate Professor positions (mid-level posts) remain unfilled, and an alarming 56.18 percent of the 2,540 Professor positions are currently unoccupied.

The question then is stark: Why are SC, ST, and OBC positions left unfilled even when institutions have vacancies and eligible candidates are available?

When questioned about their recruitment processes, many institutions claim to follow a “flexi” system. When asked why reservation policies are not implemented, some have anonymously stated that hiring is done purely on “merit”. This raises a troubling question, does “merit” imply that candidates from marginalised communities are deemed intellectually unfit to teach in elite institutions? It is also frequently argued that an “adequate talent pool” is unavailable.

The experience of Subrahmanyam Sadrela illustrates the deeper structural problem. After completing his M.Tech and PhD from IIT Kanpur, Sadrela joined the institute as an Associate Professor in the Aerospace Engineering Department in January 2018. Soon after his appointment, colleagues reportedly remarked that his selection was “wrong”, that he did not deserve to be a faculty member, that his English was inadequate, and that he was mentally unfit. In April 2019 nearly a year after he raised allegations of caste-based discrimination on campus, he was accused of plagiarism in his thesis and threatened with the revocation of his PhD degree, as per a report in ­the Times of India. A detailed investigation by the Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement (DCRE) and reported by the Mooknayak said that the corroborated allegations of caste based discrimination inside IIM – B made by an associate professor Dr Gopal Das were vaild.

A significant portion of the 2025 data is not available online. Most publicly accessible information is from 2023–24, with limited material from early to mid-2025. This absence itself is telling, particularly as the pace of erosion of transparency –by institutions under the union government–appeared to accelerate in 2025, as per a report in the Wire.

RTI data from 2024 revealed that no SC, ST, or OBC faculty members were recruited in 2023 at IIT Bombay. Further, 16 departments at IIT-B did not admit a single student belonging to the ST community in the 2023–24 academic year. Shockingly, in five departments at IIT-B, no ST student had been admitted in the last nine years. This data was shared by the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle (APPSC), a student group at IIT Bombay, based on an RTI response received on February 6, 2025. In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on 9 April, the group alleged that IIT Bombay “Is violating reservation norms despite the MMR (Mission Mode Recruitment) announcement.”

Notably, no information was put out by the Circle regarding 2025 data on PhD enrolments or faculty recruitment. The Circle, which had consistently been active in raising questions of injustice, appeared to fall silent on these figures. Speculations can be made that the voice of the student group was curbed by the institute. Established in 2017, the Circle had positioned its X account as a strong voice responding to issues affecting students within and beyond IIT-B. 

The death of Darshan Solanki, a Dalit student at IIT-B, further intensified concerns. His father claimed that caste-based harassment led to his son’s suicide. However, the committee constituted by the institute concluded that the suicide was linked to poor academic performance, stating that none of Darshan’s close associates had reported instances of caste-based harassment. It must be noted that the committee did not include a single external member; it comprised only IIT staff. The inquiry was entirely internal. To many, it appeared a complete white wash.

Similar patterns of hostility have surfaced in other premier institutions. Students at the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, reported that casteist messages such as “SC/ST leave the campus” and “Jai Parshuram” were circulated by fellow students on unofficial WhatsApp groups. Memes targeting Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar were also shared.

When anonymous complaints were submitted, the institute’s director and faculty reportedly responded that since the complaint had been made anonymously, it could not be entertained. This was conveyed by a senior official on the condition of anonymity.

If students are made to feel this unwelcomed within these institutions, why would they not drop out? Why would faculty members not resign? 

The dropout rates of SC, ST, and OBC students in these elite institutions are often attributed to financial difficulties or “excessive academic pressure.” Yet, the lived experiences of students suggest a far more troubling reality.  Following Darshan Solanki’s death, a survey was conducted at IIT Bombay. Students were asked a series of questions about campus climate and discrimination. One such question, along with several responses, is reproduced here. These responses reveal the brutal reality of a systemic failure—one that institutions attempt to downplay or conceal, even when exposed by the deaths of students like Darshan.

1.  What Has The Survey Revealed?

• On being asked if anyone has hurled “caste/tribal slurs or abuses or discriminated against you on campus,” 83.5 percent students said ‘No’.
• While 16.5 percent students said that they had, in fact, witnessed such instances, 70.4 percent students said that they had not witnessed anyone else being discriminated against on campus
• Nearly 25 percent, or one in every four students, said that the fear of disclosing their identity has stopped them from joining an SC/ST forum or collective.
• As many as 15.5 percent of students said that they have faced mental health issues arising from caste-based discrimination.
• Nearly 37 percent of students said that they were asked their Joint Entrance Exam (JEE)/ Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE)/ Joint Admission Test for Masters(JAM) /Undergraduate Common Entrance Examination for Design (U)CEED rank by fellow students on campus in a bid to find out their (caste) identity.
• 26 percent of students were asked their surnames with the intention of knowing their caste.
• 6 percent, or one in every five students, said that they feared backlash from the faculty if they talked back against caste discrimination.
• 2 percent, or one in every three students, said that they feel SC/ST Cell needs to do more to address casteism on campus.
• Nearly 25 percent of the 388 students, that is one in every four students, did not attend an English-medium school in class 10.
• Nearly 22 percent of students are first-generation graduates from their family.
• Nearly 36 percent of students foretell that open category students perceive their academic ability as ‘average’. This is in contrast to 51 percent SC/ST students perceiving the academic ability of open category students as ‘very good’. (Source: the Quint)

There is a powerful story from the Solomon Islands that when people wish to uproot a tree, they gather around it and hurl abuses at it until the tree withers and dies. Whether or not this myth holds true for plants, its metaphor is painfully relevant in the context of India’s elite institutions.

An unwelcoming, hostile environment does not merely push students to drop out; it drives faculty members to resign as well.

Vipin V. Veetil resigned from IIT Madras in July, 2021. He had joined in 2019 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences (HSS) in August the previous year. In his resignation email to the institute’s authorities, Veetil stated that his sole reason for quitting was caste-based discrimination allegedly faced from senior Brahmin faculty members within the department. However, the committee constituted by IIT Madras concluded that there was “no evidence of decisions being biased due to caste discrimination,” reasoning that most faculty members had “hardly interacted” with Dr. Veetil.

This was not the first instance. In January 2022, Veetil had also resigned after rejoining the institute in August 2020.

In another case, K. Ilanchezhian, a senior assistant director at the institute, filed a complaint alleging that his office space had been shifted to a students’ hostel, while his original office was allotted to an ‘upper’ caste research assistant.

Similarly, the Director of the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT), Chennai, was booked at the Taramani police station under the SC/ST Act following allegations of caste discrimination against a colleague.

In 2024, an FIR was registered under various provisions of the SC/ST Act and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita by the Bengaluru Police in a case alleging caste-based atrocities and systemic discrimination at IIM Bangalore. Eight individuals were named, including the institute’s Director and seven professors. The Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement (DCRE), in its investigation findings dated December 20, 2024, confirmed systemic caste-based harassment faced by Associate Professor Gopal Das, a globally acclaimed Dalit scholar at IIM Bangalore, as per a report in the Mooknayak.

These cases represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Data on PhD enrolments in these institutions reveals that only a small number of students from SC, ST, and OBC communities have been able to secure admission into these prestigious doctoral programmes

Source: Table showing the 2022 PhD admission data of 13 IIMs obtained by RTI filed by APPSC IIT Bombay, The Wire

Scholarships for SC, ST, and OBC students are delayed and the students often get the amount after the end of their semesters. It has become an annual tradition for students to receive their scholarships after the end of their academic semester as reported in The Hindu. Minister Subhas Sarkar in this winter session of the Lok Sabha presented statistics that reveal the harrowing figures about dropouts by marginalised students studying in central universities, Indian Institutes of Technology, and Indian Institutes of Management.

In response to a question raised by BSP Member of Parliament (MP), Ritesh Pandey in 2023, the government disclosed that over the preceding five years, a staggering 13,626 SC, ST, and OBC students had discontinued their education.

The data further revealed that in Central Universities alone, 4,596 OBC students, 2,424 SC students, and 2,622 ST students had dropped out during this period. In the IITs, 2,066 OBC students, 1,068 SC students, and 408 ST students discontinued their studies. Similarly, in the IIMs, 163 OBC, 188 SC, and 91 ST students dropped out, reported SabrangIndia.

As stated before, no data for 2025 is accessible as of now, online.

Background

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT), the nodal central government agency on matters relating to reservation, issued an order in 1975 exempting certain scientific and technical posts from the reservation policy.

Siddharth Joshi, an IIM Bangalore doctoral alumnus and researcher who co-authored a paper with IIMB Professor Deepak Malghan on caste bias in IIMs, noted: “In 1975, an exemption was granted to IIM Ahmedabad by the Department of Personnel and Training with respect to reservation in faculty positions. While IIM Ahmedabad had expressly sought this exemption, other IIMs simply assumed that they were also exempt and began not implementing reservations in faculty recruitment.”

Institutions have frequently justified the marginal representation of SC and ST faculty by arguing that there is a lack of a sufficiently qualified applicant pool, as reported by the Quint.

However, marginalised communities remain underrepresented in these institutions both as students and as faculty. They are subjected to grave mental harassment on the basis of caste identity, by peers, by authorities, and by colleagues. At the same time, institutions routinely deny the existence of discrimination and attempt to curb voices that raise these concerns.

The deeper truth is this: people from marginalised communities are seldom truly accommodated within these spaces. They are rarely made to feel that they belong. They are otherised – their culture, language, and food practices subtly or overtly looked down upon. In these elite institutions, they continue to remain “they,” never fully accepted as “us.”

UGC Guidelines: Context, Counter-revolt and protest 

It is in this overall context of entrenched exclusion and othering that recent developments around the much-needed UGC guidelines 2026 need to be understood. Brought in following a rigorous human rights battle in the courts –spearheaded by the mother of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi—they evinced visceral reactions from sections of the privileged caste elite. The union government, without putting up a spirited defence of its own enacted guidelines capitulated in its arguments of caste elite organisations in the Supreme Court. The Court too was prompt to stay implementation of these measures that would go a long way in addressing entrenched exclusion. Dozens of campuses across the country have seen spirited protests against this capitulation. Chandrashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army party even held a demonstration at Jantar Mantar on February 11 demanding that the 2026 Guidelines be implemented without change. Read references to this issue here, here and here.

Conclusion

“One out of three SC/ST students reported being asked about their caste,” revealed an IIT Bombay survey conducted in 2022.

Many students from the general category have reportedly hurled casteist abuses at SC/ST students. These elite institutions increasingly resemble exclusive spaces of savarna dominance. Yet, reports such as Caste-Based Enrolment in Indian Higher Education: Insights from the All-India Survey on Higher Education (AISHE) are published, claiming that nearly 60% of seats in higher education institutions are occupied by students from marginalised communities (p. 11 of 26).

While the AISHE data indicates a rise in enrolment from marginalised communities in recent years, it fails to answer a fundamental question: which institutions are being counted? Are these Tier 2 and Tier 3 colleges in urban peripheries, or institutions located in remote rural areas? Or are we speaking of IITs, IIMs, NITs, AIIMS, and Central Universities, the institutions that command prestige, resources, networks, and opportunity?

The distinction matters. A BSc degree from IIT Bombay can open doors to high-paying corporations and global opportunities. A BTech degree from an under-resourced college in a remote district often cannot. Access to elite institutions translates into access to power.

Meanwhile, over 13,000 SC, ST, and OBC students have dropped out of higher education in recent years. In Central Universities alone, approximately 4,500 OBC students, over 2,400 SC students, and nearly 2,600 ST students discontinued their studies. In the IITs and IIM’s, India’s premier institutes of learning — renowned not only for academic excellence but increasingly for caste discrimination and student suicides – around 2,000 OBC students, 1,000 SC students, and 408 ST students dropped out. At the IIMs, 163 OBC, 188 SC, and 91 ST students discontinued their education reported SabrangIndia.

The disbursal of fellowships and scholarships is frequently delayed, often reaching students only after the semester has ended. Students are made to feel undeserving and unwelcome—by faculty and by peers alike. They are shunned for their caste identities. They are made to feel like outsiders, as though these institutions belong only to certain classes and castes. Even their food practices are policed and mocked, as has been reported in several IITs. Sabrangindia has frequently reported on this alienation and discrimination.

Faculty positions in these institutions are overwhelmingly occupied, often 80 to 90 percent—by those from the general category. Those who dominate these spaces frequently go on to hire within the same social circles, reproducing exclusion in the name of “merit.” It becomes a vicious cycle. Even when scholars like Gopal Das or Subrahmanyam Sadrela manage to reach the other end of this black hole, the system finds ways to pull them back.

Nearly 79 years after Independence, sections of our people continue to be treated as second-class citizens within spaces that claim to represent the pinnacle of knowledge and progress. India prides itself on constitutional morality, yet its elite institutions often operate within what increasingly resembles an internal apartheid.

How long will this continue? How long will students like Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi, Darshan Solanki, and countless others be pushed into a system so steeped in humiliation and mental harassment that death appears to them more bearable than a life stripped of dignity?

That is the question we must confront.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Natasha Darade)

[1] A suicide born of distress, mental and other torture and alienation at the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) on January 17, 2026 inspired the Dalit students movement to coin the term “institutional murder” as this was the last of many and the beginning of several such deaths with institutions of higher learning in India

Related:

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India | SabrangIndia

A Long Battle, A Swift Stay: The Fight for Equitable Campuses | SabrangIndia

My birth is my fatal accident, remembering Rohith Vemula’s last letter

Rohith’s death: We are all to blame

To Live & Die as a Dalit: Rohith Vemula

The post Cementing exclusion: What the numbers say about SC, ST, OBC presence in India’s elite institutions appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The 2026 regulations were not a radical departure but an attempt to strengthen and enforce what had already been promised 14 years earlier. The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulations, 2012 were meant to combat discrimination on campuses by mandating equity committees, grievance redressal mechanisms, and preventive measures. Yet, for over a decade, these regulations were never implemented. They were ignored from the outset, then quietly forgotten, as if they had never existed.

This systemic neglect was precisely what drove Radhika Vemula and Abeda Tadvi to file their landmark public interest litigation in 2019. Having lost their children—Rohith and Payal—to caste atrocities in educational institutions, they sought legally binding and enforceable safeguards to protect the students. Their core demand was clear: transform the non-binding, toothless 2012 guidelines into mandatory regulations with accountability mechanisms and penalty for violations. Had the 2012 regulations been implemented properly, countless lives might have been saved. The pervasive casteism in our universities thrives due to institutional apathy and regulatory impunity. The 2026 rules were born from that grief and struggle, aiming to close the enforcement gap. The fact that they were stayed within a week, while the original guidelines gathered dust for 14 years, underscores not just bureaucratic inertia, but active resistance to equity from those who benefit from the status quo.

Even if the 2026 guidelines were to take effect, their implementation across our savarna-dominated campuses remains a distant hope. These institutions have long flouted even mandatory reservation norms in faculty hiring and student admissions with systemic impunity. They are shielded by a savarna bureaucracy that turns a blind eye, a savarna judiciary that provides a legal free pass, and a savarna media apparatus that sanitizes their image—all while our DBA children face daily hostility and violence within these very spaces. There is a profound confidence among these savarnas that no political will exists to enforce equity, and that even if exposed, their institutions will be protected by judiciary.

The contrast is telling. Regulations like POSH and anti-ragging policies, however imperfect, were adopted in many campuses without major backlash. But the moment caste equity is on the agenda, the entrenched resistance is immediate and visceral. This reveals not a problem of feasibility, but one of fundamental opposition to dismantling caste privilege. The guidelines, therefore, are not merely a policy challenge—they are a litmus test of the willingness to cease being a site of exclusion and violence.

Though these regulations faced improbable implementation, savarnas instantly mobilized narratives of unfairness and “reverse discrimination.” This reaction exposes the fragility underlying their power: it is the panic of a fortress at the first sign of a single blade of grass upon its walls. Despite all their control over the machinery of state, capital, and media, their dominance is so brittle that they perceive the slightest reform as an existential threat. Their panic is the ultimate confession; it screams to the world that they want to continue harassing and killing DBA students with impunity.

Documented through countless surveys and research, the reality of harassment faced by DBA students is both systematic and routine. A survey in 2022 shed light into this harassment which begins at admission, where the entrance rank of the student itself becomes a public marker used to question their merit, label them quota students, and justify exclusion. Daily life is punctuated by casteist slurs, derogatory anti-reservation jokes and memes shared openly on social media and in group chats, and the constant probing for surnames to out their identity. Some face untouchability in hostels, harassment due to the way they speak, for eating non-veg food, or the way they dress. Academically, they face discrimination from faculty who deny courses or project opportunities, offer insensitive mentorship, and fail to curb open anti-reservation rants in classrooms. They are socially ostracized—excluded from study groups, friendships, and casual conversations—and their opinions are routinely sidelined. Even institutional support structures fail them: counselling services lack caste sensitivity and breach confidentiality, scholarship staff deliberately complicate processes, and book bank usage is met with harassment. This environment enforces a constant message of being “undeserving,” inflicts profound guilt for availing rightful benefits, and associates any academic struggle not as an individual issue but with their caste identity. The casteist logic emphasises the failure of one savarna as an individual flaw, while the failure of one DBA student becomes proof of lack of merit of an entire community. The cumulative effect is a relentless assault on their dignity, mental health, and academic trajectory, all while the institution and its savarna majority normalize and embolden this violence.

The evidence of violence towards DBA students is overwhelming: with systemic non-implementation of past guidelines and reservation, the countless lives that has been taken from us, the invisible dropouts, life-long severe mental health crises, and survey after survey documenting these caste-based hostility. Yet, all it takes is for the savarnas to invoke the spectre of fraudulent complaints—a ghost they themselves have conjured—for the entire discourse to shift and the long-suppressed cry for justice is, once again, buried beneath their feigned victimhood.

In a nation where a savarna lawyer can hurl footwear at a Dalit Chief Justice with impunity—where even the highest offices offer no refuge from casteist humiliation—what genuine safety or dignity can students from socially marginalized communities possibly expect within the savarna bastions of academia? If the pinnacle of judicial authority is not shielded from such brazen contempt, what hope remains for a DBA student in a hostel, a classroom, or a library? These institutions are not merely indifferent; they are active enablers of a hierarchy that views our presence as an affront, our success as a threat, and our justice as a disruption to be dismissed. Our campuses do not fail by accident; they perform exactly as designed—as fortresses of caste, gatekeepers of exclusion, and open halls of violence.

These guidelines represented a crucial first step. At the very least, they offered a thin hope for students to hold onto by establishing a formal mechanism for grievance redressal, even if their full implementation always seemed unlikely. Without reservation being implemented properly in faculty recruitment, which can increase the representation of DBA in faculty and administration, these campuses will always remain graveyards for students. These grievance redressal mechanisms and structural inclusion must be complemented by compulsory caste-sensitization courses for all students and faculty, modelled on existing POSH sensitization programs. Before teaching engineering or science; we must teach humanity. We have had too many institutes of eminence; we now need institutes of empathy. Furthermore, accountability cannot be confined to campus gates. For these policies to have teeth, representation must extend beyond academia into the very bureaucracies and judiciaries that oversee these institutions. Only when the systems meant to audit and enforce are themselves reflective of the diversity, can we ensure that campuses are truly held accountable for their violations.

Related:

Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India

The stay of UGC Equity Regulations, 2026: The interim order, the proceedings, and the constitutional questions raised

Higher Education: How Centre is Undermining State Autonomy & Politicising UGC

The post A Long Battle, A Swift Stay: The Fight for Equitable Campuses appeared first on SabrangIndia.

What followed has only deepened that concern. Across campuses, students protesting the Supreme Court stay on UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026 have faced intimidation, surveillance, violence, and criminal process. Instead of debate, there has been policing. Instead of institutional introspection, securitisation. And instead of engagement with the substance of caste discrimination, there has been an aggressive narrowing of what may even be spoken.

Together, these developments mark a dangerous convergence: the criminalisation of speech, the judicial suspension of equity safeguards, and the shrinking of democratic space within institutions meant to nurture critical thought.

देशभर में यूजीसी एक्ट के समर्थन में बहुजन छात्रों के प्रदर्शन हो रहे हैं, लेकिन मुख्यधारा का मीडिया चुप है। pic.twitter.com/Nqdq8CpJhd

— Hansraj Meena (@HansrajMeena) February 4, 2026

A judicial stay that did not calm campuses—but exposed a fault line

The immediate trigger for nationwide student mobilisation was the Supreme Court’s decision to stay the UGC Equity Regulations 2026, observing that the framework appeared “too sweeping” and required closer scrutiny. The stay was framed as a neutral act of caution. On campuses, it was experienced as something else entirely: a sudden withdrawal of long-awaited recognition.

As reported by India Today, students argued that the regulations were halted before they could even be tested. No implementation, no data, no demonstrated misuse—only a speculative fear that accountability mechanisms might be abused. The contrast was striking. In a legal system where far-reaching executive actions are often allowed to operate while constitutional challenges remain pending for years, a framework designed to protect marginalised students was frozen at inception.

The context matters. The 2026 regulations did not emerge in a vacuum. They were the product of years of litigation, including the long-pending petition filed by the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi, both of whom died by suicide after alleged caste-based harassment. Over time, the Supreme Court itself sought reports, monitored compliance, and pressed for reform. A Parliamentary Standing Committee reviewed the draft regulations in late 2025, recommending substantive changes—many of which were incorporated.

Yet, at the very first hearing after notification, the framework was stayed.

For students already navigating hostile campuses, the implication was stark: caste discrimination may be acknowledged rhetorically, but meaningful institutional safeguards remain deeply contested.

Campuses Respond: Different languages, the same demand for justice

The response to the stay has varied across universities, shaped by institutional histories and student politics. But taken together, protests at JNU, BHU, and Delhi University reveal a shared insistence that equity cannot remain a matter of administrative goodwill.

JNU: The defence of ideological space

At Jawaharlal Nehru University, students organised torchlight processions demanding immediate implementation of the regulations and renewed calls for a statutory Rohith Act—a central anti-discrimination law for higher education.

Placards and slogans opposing Brahmanism and Manusmriti dominated the march. Defending the language used, JNUSU representatives told PTI that the slogans were ideological critiques, not attacks on any caste group—an important distinction grounded in established free-speech jurisprudence. Political critique, even when sharp or unsettling, lies at the heart of constitutional democracy.

Student leaders also raised a pointed question: why was extraordinary urgency shown in staying these regulations when countless cases involving civil liberties remain pending for years? The warning from the campus was clear—if justice is indefinitely deferred within universities, it will not remain confined there.

UGC गाइडलाइन के समर्थन में जेएनयू स्टूडेंट्स का मार्च#JNU #UGCRegulations2026 pic.twitter.com/S9tlsULus0

— Dalit Dastak | दलित दस्तक (@DalitDastak) February 4, 2026

BHU: Evidence, reports, and institutional failure

At Banaras Hindu University, the protest took a different form. Hundreds of SC, ST, and OBC students marched carrying letters, official reports, and citations, demanding Equal Opportunity Centres, Equity Committees, transparency in grievance redressal, and public disclosure of compliance.

As reported by India Today, students cited the Thorat Committee Report (2007) and the IIT Delhi study (2019), both of which document systemic discrimination and its links to mental health crises, dropouts, and suicides. The emphasis here was not symbolic resistance but institutional accountability.

A heavy police presence and alert proctorial boards accompanied the march—an unsettling reminder of how quickly claims of discrimination are met with securitisation rather than reform.

Delhi University: From regulation to law

At Delhi University, Left-backed student groups led an “Equity March” through North Campus, framing the issue as a legislative and constitutional question. According to The Times of India, speakers argued that without statutory backing, grievance mechanisms remain fragile, easily diluted, and subject to withdrawal.

The demand for the Rohith Act surfaced repeatedly—reflecting a growing consensus that enforceable rights, not discretionary guidelines, are essential to address structural caste discrimination.

Violence, policing, and the price of naming caste

Even as students mobilised, reports of violence and intimidation surfaced from multiple campuses. As per reports, a BHU student allegedly being beaten by upper-caste peers for sharing a poster supporting the UGC protests in a WhatsApp group. At Allahabad University, students discussing equity regulations were reportedly attacked, with allegations pointing to ABVP-linked groups.

Most chilling was the Allahabad University episode itself: students allegedly assaulted, and one student arrested or warned for speech alone. If the use of the word “Brahminism”—a staple of academic critique—can invite police action, the boundary between maintaining order and enforcing ideological conformity has all but vanished.

For many protesters, these incidents crystallised the argument for equity regulations: without enforceable safeguards, marginalised students are left vulnerable not just to bureaucratic neglect, but to physical and legal harm.

चप्पा चप्पा गूंज उठेगा , जय भीम के नारों से pic.twitter.com/5eb3H59nXr

— Dr. Om Sudha (@dromsudhaa) February 4, 2026

This is shocking and absolutely unacceptable in university campuses. Students who were peacefully discussing equity regulations in University of Allahabad were reportedly beaten up by Brahmanical forces of ABVP. This is exactly why we need equity regulations. The safety of… pic.twitter.com/beFHX0xoSh

— Rehna Raveendran (@Rehna_AntiCaste) February 4, 2026

A BHU student was brutally beaten by upper-caste students simply for sharing a poster about the UGC protest in a WhatsApp group.

To stop this kind of hooliganism and violence on campuses, strong and enforceable UGC regulations are absolutely necessary.
pic.twitter.com/vUKPXjAjm1

— Harshita Narayani (@DearAspirant) February 4, 2026

Faculty Unease and the Limits of the Framework

Faculty responses have complicated the picture rather than resolved it. The JNUTA noted that the regulations fail to address the deep-rooted and systemic nature of discrimination. At protest gatherings, faculty speakers acknowledged these limitations—pointing to the absence of punitive provisions, excessive power vested in principals, and the exclusion of elite institutions like IITs and IIMs.

Yet the consensus among many educators was striking: even an imperfect framework represented a rare institutional acknowledgment that caste discrimination exists on campuses. To halt it before implementation was not correction—it was erasure.

Media silence, political quiet, and democratic erosion

A recurring concern across protests has been the muted response of large sections of the mainstream media and the conspicuous absence of sustained parliamentary debate. Students questioned how a nationwide mobilisation demanding discrimination-free campuses could unfold without political engagement at the highest levels.

When speech is criminalised, safeguards are stayed, and violence is normalised or ignored, trust in democratic institutions begins to fracture—not through apathy, but through lived experience.

देशभर में यूजीसी एक्ट के समर्थन में बहुजन छात्रों के प्रदर्शन हो रहे हैं, लेकिन मुख्यधारा का मीडिया चुप है। pic.twitter.com/Nqdq8CpJhd

— Hansraj Meena (@HansrajMeena) February 4, 2026

More Than a Regulation: A test of university democracy

As highlighted by the incidents above, the battle over the UGC Equity Regulations has outgrown the regulations themselves. It has become a test of whether universities will remain spaces of critique or instruments of control; whether caste can be named without punishment; and whether equality will be treated as a constitutional obligation or an administrative inconvenience.

When students are arrested for words, protections are suspended before they are tried, and dissent is met with force rather than reason, the crisis is no longer confined to campuses. It speaks to the health of the republic itself.

The question now confronting India’s universities is no longer about guidelines or committees. It is about whether democracy—messy, uncomfortable, and argumentative—still has a place in the classroom.

.Related:

Hate Speech Before the Supreme Court: From judicial activism to institutional closure

When Protest becomes a “Threat”: Inside the Supreme Court hearing on Sonam Wangchuk’s NSA detention

Another Campus, Another Death: Student suicides continue unabated across India

My birth is my fatal accident, remembering Rohith Vemula’s last letter

‘Diluted Existing Rules’: Rohith Vemula, Payal Tadvi’s Mothers Slam UGC’s Draft Equity Regulations

The stay of UGC Equity Regulations, 2026: The interim order, the proceedings, and the constitutional questions raised

The post Campuses in Revolt: How the UGC Equity Stay and Criminalised Dissent Have Ignited Student Protests Across India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Mumbai Police have registered an accidental death report (ADR) and initiated an inquiry, stating that it is too early to draw conclusions. As reported by Deccan Herald, Agarwal was officially residing in Hostel No. 3, but fell from the terrace of Hostel No. 4, raising questions about his movements in the hours leading up to his death. Police officials told the newspaper that his roommate and other students are being questioned, a panchnama of his room has been conducted, and the body has been sent for post-mortem examination. His family in Pilani, Rajasthan, has been informed.

A police officer quoted by The Indian Express said authorities were “conducting inquiries from all possible angles” and would not rule out any possibility at this stage. If evidence of abetment or coercion emerges, officials said further legal action would follow.

Student organisation APPSC (Ambedkar Periyar Phule Study Circle) described Agarwal’s death as the second suicide at IIT Bombay in the last six months. The group explicitly linked the incident to a pattern of institutional failure, recalling earlier student deaths on the campus.

Naman Aggarwal died of suicide last night after jumping from Hostel-4. He was a second year Civil Engineering student and convenor of Style Up club in IIT-B. This is second death by suicide in IIT-B in six months. #IITkills pic.twitter.com/lqZp8fvVwu

— APPSC IIT Bombay (@AppscIITb) February 4, 2026

A spate of campus deaths in a matter of days

What makes Agarwal’s death especially alarming is that it occurred amid a cluster of student suicides reported across India within days, cutting across states, disciplines, and institutional hierarchies.

On January 31, Ronak Raj, a 19-year-old first-year engineering student at SVKM NMIMS Hyderabad’s Jadcherla campus, died by suicide in his hostel room. According to reports carried by India Today, the student had allegedly been accused by college authorities of cheating during semester examinations. Multiple reports stated that he appeared deeply distressed and humiliated following the accusation. The incident sparked student protests on campus, with student unions demanding accountability and transparency in disciplinary processes.

On February 4, a 19-year-old second-year nursing student, Bheeshmanjali, was found dead in her hostel room at a private college in Tirupati, according to information released by the Tirupati East Police and reported by DT Next. Police stated that she had remained alone in the hostel while her roommates attended classes. A case has been registered on the basis of a complaint filed by her parents, and an investigation is underway.

Only days earlier, a 20-year-old third-year engineering student, Vishnavi Jitesh, was found hanging in her hostel room at the BITS Pilani Goa campus, as reported by The Indian Express. Police confirmed that this was the sixth suicide reported on the campus in the past two years. The growing number of deaths at the Goa campus was raised in the Goa Legislative Assembly during the winter session, where Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, as reported by The Indian Express, stated that academic pressure had emerged as a common factor in several cases. The Goa government subsequently constituted a district-level monitoring committee to examine the deaths. The committee’s preliminary findings referred to the possibility of “copy-cat suicides”, where one suicide triggers imitative behaviour within a closed institutional environment—a phenomenon well documented in suicide-prevention research.

National data confirms a worsening crisis

The recurrence of such deaths is supported by national data. As per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) 2023, student suicides in India rose by 64% between 2013 and 2022, with 103,961 student suicides recorded over that decade. 

A report by the IC3 Institute, titled Student Suicides: An Epidemic Sweeping India, estimates that over 13,000 students die by suicide every year. The report warns that the actual numbers are likely underreported, due to stigma, institutional reluctance to report deaths accurately, and misclassification of suicides as accidental deaths.

State-wise NCRB data shows that Maharashtra reported the highest number of student suicides. In 2023, India reported 13,044 student suicides, or about 36 a day, with Maharashtra (2,578) and Tamil Nadu (1,982) having the highest number, followed by Madhya Pradesh (1,668). These states have the largest educational ecosystems, or competition for schools, outside of state-controlled educational ecosystems.  

Gender-disaggregated data presents another troubling trend. While male student suicides declined by 6% between 2021 and 2022, female student suicides increased by 7% in the same period, with women accounting for nearly 47% of all student suicides in 2022, according to NCRB figures.

Detailed report may be read here.

Policies on paper, protection absent on campus

India is not short of policy frameworks. The Mental Healthcare Act, 2017 decriminalised suicide. The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 explicitly recognises suicide as a product of intersecting personal, academic, and social pressures, including humiliation, academic competition, transitions, and insensitive institutional cultures.

Yet the central problem lies in implementation. Many institutions may formally appoint counsellors, but the quality, accessibility, confidentiality, and suicide-prevention expertise of such services remain deeply uneven. Poorly trained or inadequately resourced counselling mechanisms, experts warn, can aggravate distress rather than mitigate it.

Supreme Court intervention—and institutional resistance

In a recent judgment of January 16, 2026, the Supreme Court of India had held higher educational institutions directly accountable for student mental well-being. Acting on the recommendations of a National Task Force chaired by former Justice Ravindra S. Bhat, the Court mandated:

• Mandatory reporting of all student suicides and unnatural deaths, irrespective of where they occur
• 24×7 access to medical care on or near residential campuses
• Protection of students from punitive measures due to scholarship delays
• Time-bound filling of vacant faculty positions, especially reserved posts
• Strengthening of Equal Opportunity Centres and Internal Complaints Committees

The Court was unequivocal in its assessment, observing that existing UGC and institutional guidelines remain “largely prescriptive and on paper”, with little enforcement or accountability.

Where is UMMEED when students die?

Despite the existence of a dedicated national framework on suicide prevention in educational spaces, the spate of recent student deaths raises serious questions about whether such measures exist anywhere beyond official documents. The UMMEED Guidelines— issued by the Union Government in 2023 as a comprehensive framework for mental health promotion and suicide prevention in educational institutions—were meant to institutionalise early identification, peer support, emergency response, and accountability mechanisms within campuses. Yet, the deaths at IIT Bombay, NMIMS Hyderabad, BITS Pilani Goa, Tirupati, and elsewhere demonstrate a stark disconnect between the guidelines’ stated objectives and campus realities.

UMMEED mandates the constitution of School or Institutional Wellness Teams, headed by the principal or head of the institution, tasked with identifying students at risk, coordinating responses, ensuring counselling access, and conducting periodic reviews. It also stresses the importance of safe campus design, supervision of vulnerable spaces, sensitivity training for staff, and the creation of non-punitive, non-stigmatising environments. However, in case after case, students continue to die in hostel rooms, terraces, and unsupervised spaces, suggesting that even the most basic preventive measures envisaged under UMMEED—such as surveillance of high-risk areas and timely intervention—are either absent or treated as mere formalities.

Crucially, UMMEED emphasises early identification of distress and immediate response, distinguishing between students showing warning signs and those actively at risk. Yet, recent incidents indicate that distress is often noticed only in hindsight—after allegations of cheating, academic humiliation, isolation, or prolonged silence have already taken a severe toll. The deaths of students who were reportedly distressed following disciplinary action or academic pressure directly undermine the claim that institutions are effectively identifying or responding to warning signs, as UMMEED requires.

The guidelines also stress sensitivity, confidentiality, and non-judgemental engagement, cautioning against actions that could shame or alienate students. This stands in sharp contrast to incidents where students were allegedly humiliated following accusations or subjected to rigid, unsympathetic administrative processes. The persistence of such practices highlights how disciplinary regimes often operate in direct contradiction to suicide-prevention frameworks, exposing students to precisely the kinds of stressors UMMEED warns against.

Perhaps most telling is UMMEED’s insistence on shared responsibility—placing obligations not just on counsellors, but on administrators, teachers, staff, and even peers. Yet, when deaths occur, responsibility is routinely diffused: police inquiries are initiated, institutions express regret, and investigations are framed as premature to conclude. What is conspicuously missing is any public accounting of whether UMMEED-mandated structures existed, whether they functioned, and if they failed, who is answerable.

In this sense, UMMEED mirrors a broader pattern in India’s mental-health governance: robust language without enforceability, ambition without accountability. Like UGC advisories and NEP mandates, it lacks clear statutory backing, monitoring mechanisms, or penalties for non-compliance. The result is a framework that allows institutions to claim compliance on paper while students continue to fall through the cracks—sometimes, quite literally.

Beyond condolences

Despite judicial directions, national policies, and repeated institutional assurances, students continue to die—often following episodes of humiliation, isolation, academic pressure, or silent distress.

The deaths of Naman Agarwal, Ronak Raj, Vishnavi Jitesh, Bheeshmanjali, and thousands of unnamed students across the country are not failures of individual resilience. They are failures of institutions that continue to privilege discipline over dignity, reputation over responsibility, and procedure over care.

As police inquiries continue and administrations issue carefully worded statements of regret, the most pressing question remains unanswered: how many more deaths will it take before existing safeguards are enforced—not merely cited—after another student is gone?

Related:

Lives in the Margins: Reading India’s suicide data beyond the numbers

KIIT Suicide Case: Nepalese student’s harassment complaint ignored for 11 months before tragic suicide

Raman Garase’s suicide on May Day, 2024 is a sombre reminder of how badly IITs treat their labour

Another student lost to suicide at IIT-Delhi

Another Dalit student dies by suicide after being attacked in Tamil Nadu, activists demand urgent action

Another student, belonging to the Scheduled Caste community, dies by suicide in IIT

The post Another Campus, Another Death: Student suicides continue unabated across India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

According to a notification uploaded on the board’s website, the 50 supernumerary seats shall be distributed strictly based on the NEET-UG merit of the candidates concerned and their preferences among the seven newly established government medical colleges. The U-turn came after weeks of national outrage when the board had r said it cannot conduct fresh counselling for MBBS admissions and that the allocation of supernumerary seats to those who were admitted to the SMVDIME should be decided at the government level.

This sudden clarification came in a letter to the Union Territory’s health and medical education department, which sought its intervention in the relocation of students of the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME).

Now, the Jammu and Kashmir Board of Professional Entrance Examination (BOPEE) said it will  conduct fresh counselling for the 2025-26 session for the medical students of Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME). Students have now been called for their counselling tomorrow, Saturday January 24 reports The Hindistan Times and Indian Express. This is for allotment of colleges across the Valley and Jammu.

The students, it is reported, would now be adjusted in seven government medical colleges of the union territory – three in the Kashmir valley and four in the  province of Jammu. While 22 seats are available spread across Kashmir colleges, 28 students will be adjusted in Jammu.

The National Medical Commission (NMC) had earlier this month withdrawn the permission it had earlier granted to SMVDIME to conduct an MBBS course in the current academic year. This has left 50 MBBS students who joined the institute without a college. Ironically, the NMC had cited deficiencies in college infrastructure and operations; however, the much criticised decision had come in the wake of far right-wing groups protesting against the course’s demography – of the 50 students, 44 were Muslim, and most were from Kashmir.

“That the Board shall conduct the physical round of counselling to accommodate MBBS students of SMVDIME Katra to the Govt. Medical Colleges within the UT of J&K against the supernumerary seats so created,” the BOPEE has now said in a fresh notification.

The notification said that the Health and Medical Education department has conveyed the seat matrix of the 50 supernumerary seats. As per the matrix, seven additional seats each have been allotted in four government medical colleges in Jammu province – GMC Udhampur, GMC Kathua, GMC Rajouri and GMC Doda – while seven additional seats each have been allotted in GMC Baramulla and GMC Handwara. Eight have been allotted in GMC Anantnag. Incidentally, the seven government medical colleges that have been allotted the supernumerary seats have been set up only in the past seven years. The government has not allotted any supernumerary seats in premier institutes like GMC Srinagar, GMC Jammu or the SKIMS Medical College.

Previously, in a communication to the J-K’s Health and Medical Education department dated January 21, BOPEE had said it cannot conduct fresh counselling for the 2025-26 session, and asked the J-K government to admit students to supernumerary seats in other medical colleges “at its own level”. “The creation and allotment of supernumerary seats doesn’t fall within the ambit of BOPEE,” the communication said. The change of stand came within hours. In fact, both communications are dated January 21.

Related:

Partitioned minds, a Saffron Fatwa & Denial of Fair Opportunity: Mata Vaishno Devi University, Jammu

The post Flip and then a Flop: 50 students of the Vaishno Devi MBBS institute will now be admitted to 7 medical colleges in Jammu, Kashmir appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Why the agitation at all? Because. Because. How can Muslim students –that too 42 of the 50 admissions!–study in a college bearing this name! On streets, within official corridors, the voices were shrill and focussed, cancel these admissions, No Muslims in this “Holy Medical College!” they said.

A strident and crude local unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) joined in as part of a neatly scripted plan, visible, vocal and crass pitching its demand to snatch away legitimately procured admission and ensure that ‘only Hindus’ study in that medical college since the Jammu-based medical institute funded by Mata Vaishno Devi Shrine Board! The BJP also sought the L-G’s intervention to reserve all the seats at the varsity for Hindus because “it has come up over donations of Hindu devotees”. Only seven Hindus had made it past the test in a batch of 50. The fact that this august institution, had also been funded by public money from the state exchequer, Rs 24 crores last year and Rs 28 crores this year was immaterial to the protestors drunk on prejudice and power.

The agitation that had been launched in late November 2025–as visible on the streets as on social media was backed by the Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha— who responded, we are reportedly told—and ensured that the “National Medical Commission” issued a saffron fatwa to the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi Institute of Medical Excellence (SMVDIME). Following a hasty inspection carried out on site four days prior (around January 4), orders were given to “shut down” the MBBS Course for which, after due process, permission had been granted four months ago.On January 6, 2026, the NMC’s Medical Assessment and Rating Board withdrew the Letter of Permission granted to the varsity for running the MBBS course with 50 seats for the academic year 2025-26. No show-cause notice was given to the college, there is no room for appeal or due process.

Do we not believe in instant (in) justice in this version of a Hindu rashtra?

The turnaround intervention by the NMC, guided, is not only a tale of gross violation of fundamental rights of equality and non-discrimination enshrined in the Constitution. Worse or as bad is how openly credits were distributed by the victorious. The Hindu reported on January 7, how members of the Sangarsh Samiti in Jammu distributed sweets and played loud music to celebrate the “victory” of their agitation, which began on November 22, 2025 precisely.  These images were played out on the ever visible and intrusive social media too. “We have come to celebrate the victory of our agitation. We especially thank the Union Home Minister and Health Minister for respecting our sentiments. We believe the decision took longer because of the legal process. We also thank the prominent personalities who joined us in our protests,” convener of the Sangarsh Samiti Sukhvir Mankotia is reported to have said.

Moreover, what does this means for the region? Kashmir, Ladhakh and Jammu have seen and witnessed multiple levels and layers of betrayals by the Indian state and officialdom. This latest is, above all else, an abdication of this government’s own hollow promises and rhetoric that it has used since the abrogation of Article 370 in August 2019. Any efforts at return to participative, representative rights-based citizenship by Kashmiris is thwarted by a prejudiced and exclusivist governance by the centre’s representatives and other institutions influenced by the Centre. This augurs ill on principle and also in terms of the social peace of the state and region given the overall fragility of the Valley and Jammu.

Alienation has been the tale that most Kashmiris grow up with, real, not imagined. When 42 students pass a gruelling NEET test for the MBBS Course and are told –after they are horrifyingly witness to crude slogans of protests and shoddy dances of victory in the streets–that they cannot exercise their Right to Education (now a fundamental right under article 21a of the Constitution) because of the colour of their faith, and because they are Kashmiris, it is not only alienation that they will once again have been forced to feel. There will be anger too.

Today the NMC justifies its unjustifiable step citing ‘shortage of teachers/tutors, lecture theatres and library resources’, unconvincing as an argument as all these facilities had been scrutinized and passed when permission was obtained four months ago. Key to the inevitable fallout out is whether out of any last grain of shame, the SMVDIME will appeal the NMC’s unjust scrapping of its MBBS permission in court and fight on constitutional principle. If this college succumbs, as have others to the might of a majoritarian agenda, we can again say with bitter conviction that India is now almost completely deep down into an abyss of its own making!

Related:

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Is India’s unique experiment on people’s democracy with the right to universal franchise being lampooned by a compliant Election Commission?

When the state turns rogue even protests dry up, Salutes & Apologies Professor Saibaba!

The post Partitioned minds, a Saffron Fatwa & Denial of Fair Opportunity: Mata Vaishno Devi University, Jammu appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On January 3, 1831, 176 years ago Savitribai Phule, arguably India’s first woman teacher and forgotten liberator was born. With the first school for girls from different castes that she set up in Bhidewada, Pune (the seat of Brahmanism) Krantijyoti Savitribai as she is reverentially known, by the Indian Bahujan movement, blazed a revolutionary trial. There have been consistent demands to observe January 3 as Teachers Day. Without her, Indian women would not have had the benefits of education.

To mark the memory of this remarkable woman we bring to you her letters to life partner Jyotiba. Jyotiba and Savitribai were Comrades in Arms in their struggle against the emancipation of India’s disenfranchised people.

Translated from the Original Marathi with an introduction Sunil Sardar Reproduced here are the English translation of three important Letters – (originally in Marathi and published in MG Mali’s edition of her collected works, Savitribai Phule Samagra Wangmaya) – that Savitribai wrote to her husband Jyotiba in a span of 20 years.

The letters are significant as they write of the wider concerns that drove this couple, the emancipation of the most deprived segments of society and the struggle to attain for them, full human dignity and freedom.

This vision for a new and liberated society – free from ignorance, bigotry, deprivation, and hunger – was the thread that bonded the couple, arching from the private to the personal.

Theirs was a relationship of deep and shared concerns, each providing strength to the other. When large sections of 19^th century Maharashtrian society was ranged against Phule’s reconstructive radicalism, it was the unfailing and shared vision and dedication of his life partner that needs have been emotionally sustaining.  In our tribute to this couple and the tradition of radical questioning that they harboured, we bring to our readers these letters.

1856. The first letter, written in 1856, speaks about the core issue: education and its transformative possibilities in a society where learning, had for centuries been the monopoly of the Brahmins; who, in turn, used this exclusive privilege to enclave, demoralize and oppress. Away at her parental home to recuperate from an illness, Savitri describes in the letter a conversation with her brother, who is uncomfortable with the couple’s radicalism.

October 1856
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!

After so many vicissitudes, now it seems my health has been fully restored. My brother worked so hard and nursed me so well through my sickness. His service and devotion shows how loving he really is! I will come to Pune as soon as I get perfectly well. Please do not worry about me. I know my absence causes Fatima so much trouble but I am sure she will understand and won’t grumble.

As we were talking one day, my brother said, “You and your husband have rightly been excommunicated because both of you serve the untouchables (Mahars and Mangs). The untouchables are fallen people and by helping them you are bringing a bad name to our family. That is why, I tell you to behave according to the customs of our caste and obey the dictates of the Brahmans.” Mother was so disturbed by this brash talk of my brother.

Though my brother is a good soul he is extremely narrow-minded and so he did not hesitate to bitterly criticize and reproach us. My mother did not reprimand him but tried instead to bring him to his senses, “God has given you a beautiful tongue but it is no good to misuse it so!” I defended our social work and tried to dispel his misgivings. I told him, “Brother, your mind is narrow, and the Brahmans’ teaching has made it worse. Animals like goats and cows are not untouchable for you, you lovingly touch them. You catch poisonous snakes on the day of the snake-festival and feed them milk. But you consider Mahars and Mangs, who are as human as you and I, untouchables. Can you give me any reason for this? When the Brahmans perform their religious duties in their holy clothes, they consider you also impure and untouchable, they are afraid that your touch will pollute them. They don’t treat you differently than the Mahars.” When my brother heard this, he turned red in the face, but then he asked me, “Why do you teach those Mahars and Mangs? People abuse you because you teach the untouchables. I cannot bear it when people abuse and create trouble for you for doing that. I cannot tolerate such insults.” I told him what the (teaching of) English had been doing for the people. I said, “The lack of learning is nothing but gross bestiality. It is through the acquisition of knowledge that (he) loses his lower status and achieves the higher one. My husband is a god-like man. He is beyond comparison in this world, nobody can equal him. He thinks the Untouchables must learn and attain freedom. He confronts the Brahmans and fights with them to ensure Teaching and Learning for the Untouchables because he believes that they are human beings like other and they should live as dignified humans. For this they must be educated. I also teach them for the same reason. What is wrong with that? Yes, we both teach girls, women, Mangs and Mahars. The Brahmans are upset because they believe this will create problems for them. That is why they oppose us and chant the mantra that it is against our religion. They revile and castigate us and poison the minds of even good people like you.

“You surely remember that the British Government had organised a function to honour my husband for his great work. His felicitation caused these vile people much heartburn. Let me tell you that my husband does not merely invoke God’s name and participate in pilgrimages like you. He is actually doing God’s own work. And I assist him in that. I enjoy doing this work. I get immeasurable joy by doing such service. Moreover, it also shows the heights and horizons to which a human being can reach out.”

Mother and brother were listening to me intently. My brother finally came around, repented for what he had said and asked for forgiveness. Mother said, “Savitri, your tongue must be speaking God’s own words. We are blessed by your words of wisdom.” Such appreciation from my mother and brother gladdened my heart. From this you can imagine that there are many idiots here, as in Pune, who poison people’s minds and spread canards against us. But why should we fear them and leave this noble cause that we have undertaken? It would be better to engage with the work instead. We shall overcome and success will be ours in the future. The future belongs to us.

What more could I write?

With humble regards,

Yours,

Savitri

The Poetess in Savitribai

The year 1854 was important as Savitribai published her collection of poems, called Kabya Phule (Poetry’s Blossoms).
Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (The Ocean of Pure Gems), another collection of what has come to be highly regarded in the world of Marathi poetry was published in 1891. (The Phules had developed a devastating critique of the Brahman interpretation of Marathi history in the ancient and medieval periods. He portrayed the Peshwa rulers, later overthrown by the British, as decadent and oppressive, and Savitribai reiterates those themes in her biography.)
Apart from these two collections, four of Jyotiba’s speeches on Indian History were edited for publication by Savitribai. A few of her own speeches were also published in 1892. Savitribai’s correspondence is also remarkable because they give us an insight into her own life and into the life and lived experiences of women of the time.

1868. The Second letter is about a great social taboo – a love affair between a Brahman boy and an Untouchable girl; the cruel behavior of the ‘enraged’ villagers and how Savitribai stepped in. This intervention saves the lives of the lovers and she sends them away to the safety and caring support of her husband, Jyotiba. With the malevolent reality of honour killings in the India of 2016 and the hate-driven propaganda around ‘love jehad’ this letter is ever so relevant today.

29 August 1868
Naigaon, Peta Khandala
Satara
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
I received your letter. We are fine here. I will come by the fifth of next month. Do not worry on this count. Meanwhile, a strange thing happened here. The story goes like this. One Ganesh, a Brahman, would go around villages, performing religious rites and telling people their fortunes. This was his bread and butter. Ganesh and a teenage girl named Sharja who is from the Mahar (untouchable) community fell in love. She was six months pregnant when people came to know about this affair. The enraged people caught them, and paraded them through the village, threatening to bump them off.

I came to know about their murderous plan. I rushed to the spot and scared them away, pointing out the grave consequences of killing the lovers under the British law. They changed their mind after listening to me.

Sadubhau angrily said that the wily Brahman boy and the untouchable girl should leave the village. Both the victims agreed to this. My intervention saved the couple who gratefully fell at my feet and started crying. Somehow I consoled and pacified them. Now I am sending both of them to you. What else to write?
Yours
Savitri

1877. The last letter, written in 1877, is a heart-rending account of a famine that devastated western Maharashtra. People and animals were dying. Savitri and other Satyashodhak volunteers were doing their best to help. The letter brings out an intrepid Savitri leading a team of dedicated Satyashodhaks striving to overcome a further exacerbation of the tragedy by moneylenders’ trying to benefit.  She meets the local District administration. The letter ends on a poignant note where Savitribai reiterates her total commitment to her the humanitarian work pioneered by the Phules.

20 April, 1877
Otur, Junner
The Embodiment of Truth, My Lord Jyotiba,
Savitri salutes you!
The year 1876 has gone, but the famine has not – it stays in most horrendous forms here. The people are dying. The animals are dying, falling on the ground. There is severe scarcity of food. No fodder for animals. The people are forced to leave their villages. Some are selling their children, their young girls, and leaving the villages. Rivers, brooks and tanks have completely dried up – no water to drink. Trees are dying – no leaves on trees. Barren land is cracked everywhere. The sun is scorching – blistering. The people crying for food and water are falling on the ground to die. Some are eating poisonous fruits, and drinking their own urine to quench their thirst. They cry for food and drink, and then they die.

Our Satyashodhak volunteers have formed committees to provide food and other life-saving material to the people in need. They have formed relief squads.
Brother Kondaj and his wife Umabai are taking good care of me. Otur’s Shastri, Ganapati Sakharan, Dumbare Patil, and others are planning to visit you. It would be better if you come from Satara to Otur and then go to Ahmednagar.

You may remember R.B. Krishnaji Pant and Laxman Shastri. They travelled with me to the affected area and gave some monetary help to the victims.

The moneylenders are viciously exploiting the situation. Bad things are taking place as a result of this famine. Riots are breaking out. The Collector heard of this and came to ease the situation. He deployed the white police officers, and tried to bring the situation under control. Fifty Satyasholdhaks were rounded up. The Collector invited me for a talk. I asked the Collector why the good volunteers had been framed with false charges and arrested without any rhyme or reason. I asked him to release them immediately. The Collector was quite decent and unbiased. He shouted at the white soldiers, “Do the Patil farmers rob? Set them free.” The Collector was moved by the people’s plights. He immediately sent four bullock cartloads of (jowar) food.

You have started the benevolent and welfare work for the poor and the needy. I also want to carry my share of the responsibility. I assure you I will always help you. I wish the godly work will be helped by more people.

I do not want to write more.
Yours,
Savitri

(These letters have been excerpted with grateful thanks from A Forgotten Liberator, The Life and Struggle of Savitrabai Phule, Edited by Braj Ranjan Mani, Pamela Sardar)

Bibliography:

Krantijyoti : Revolutionary flame
Brahmans: Priestly “upper” caste with a powerful hold on all fairs of society and state including access to education, resources and mobility (spelt interchangeably as Brahmins)
Mahars:The Mahar is an Indian Caste, found largely in the state of Maharashtra, where they compromise 10% of the population, and neighboring areas. Most of the Mahar community followed social reformer B. R. Ambedkar in converting to Buddhism in the middle of the 20th century.
Mangs: The Mang (or Matang -Minimadig in Gujarat and Rajasthan) community is an Indian caste historically associated with low-status or ritually impure professions such as village musicians, cattle castraters, leather curers, midwives, hangmen, undertakers. Today they are listed as a Scheduled Castes a term which has replaced the former the derogatory ‘Untouchable’
Satyashodhak Samaj:  A society established by Jyotirao Phule on September 24, 1873. This was started as a group whose main aim was to liberate the shudra and untouchable castes from exploitation and oppression
Shudra: The fourth caste under the rigid caste Hindu system; these were further made more rigid in the Manu Smruti
Ati Shudra: Most of the groups listed under this category come under the untouchables who were used for the most venal tasks in caste ridden Hindu society but not treated as part of the caste system.
Jowar: The Indian name for sorghum

How the Education for girls was pioneered

The Phule couple decided to start schools for girls, especially from the shudra and atishudra castes but also including others so that social cohesion of sorts could be attempted in the classroom. Bhidewada in Pune was the chosen site, a bank stands there today. There is a movement among Bahujans to reclaim this historic building. When the Phules faced stiff resistance and a boycott, a Pune-based businessman Usman Shaikh gave them shelter. Fatima Shaikh Usman’s sister was the first teacher colleague of Savitribai and the two trained teachers who ran the school. The school started with nine girl students in 1848.

Sadashiv Govande contributed books from Ahmednagar. It functioned for about six months and then had to be closed down. Another building was found and the school reopened a few months later. The young couple faced severe opposition from almost all sections. Savitribai was subject to intense harassment everyday as she walked to school. Stones, mud and dirt were flung at her as she passed. She was often abused by groups of men with orthodox beliefs who opposed the education for women. Filth including cow dung was flung on her. Phule gave her hope, love and encouragement. She went to school wearing an old sari, and carried an extra sari with her to change into after she reached the school. The sheer daring and doggedness of the couple and their comrades in arms broke the resistance. Finally, the pressure on her eased when she was compelled to slap one of her tormentors on the street!

Once the caste Hindu Brahmanical hierarchy who were the main opponents of female education realized that the Phule couple would not easily give in, they arm-twisted Jyotiba’s father. Intense pressure was brought by the Brahmins on Phule’s father, Govindrao, to convince him that his son was on the wrong track, that what he was doing was against the Dharma. Finally, things came to a head when Phule’s father told him to leave home in 1849. Savitri preferred to stay by her husband’s side, braving the opposition and difficulties, and encouraging Phule to continue their educational work.

However, their pioneering move had won some support. Necessities like books were supplied through well wishers; a bigger house, owned by a Muslim, was found for a second school which was started in 1851. Moro Vithal Walvekar and Deorao Thosar assisted the school. Major Candy, an educationalist of Pune, sent books. Jyotirao worked here without any salary and later Savitribai was put in charge. The school committee, in a report, noted, “The state of the school funds has compelled the committee to appoint teachers on small salaries, who soon give up when they find better appointment…Savitribai, the school headmistress, has nobly volunteered to devote herself to the improvement of female education without remuneration. We hope that as knowledge advances, the people of this country will be awakened to the advantages of female education and will cordially assist in all such plans calculated to improve the conditions of those girls.”

On November 16, 1852, the education department of the government organised a public felicitation of the Phule couple, where they were honoured with shawls.
On February 12, 1853, the school was publicly examined. The report of the event state: “The prejudice against teaching girls to read and write began to give way…the good conduct and honesty of the peons in conveying the girls to and from school and parental treatment and indulgent attention of the teachers made the girls love the schools and literally run to them with alacrity and joy.”

A Dalit student of Savitribai, Muktabai, wrote a remarkable essay which was published in the paper Dyanodaya, in the year 1855. In her essay, Muktabai poignantly describes the wretchedness of the so-called untouchables and severely criticizes the Brahmanical religion for degrading and dehumanizing her people.

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On October 28, the Modi-led BJP government attempted, much like Lord Curzon during colonial rule, to muzzle the democratic and federal character of Panjab University by dissolving its Senate. Under the Panjab University Act of 1947, the Senate is the highest democratic body of the university, responsible for its management, property, and governance. It consists of 91 members—47 elected, 36 nominated by the Chancellor, 2 from the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, and 6 ex-officio members. Punjab has direct representation through 15 graduate seats, with graduates eligible both to vote and contest elections. The Senate functions as the “parliament” of the university, while the Syndicate, its executive body, is elected from among Senate members.

Ironically, in 1904, Lord Curzon had introduced amendments to the Punjab University Act precisely to curb anti-colonial sentiment by weakening the Senate and increasing imperial control. Today, the Modi government appears to be following a similar path—seeking to abolish the Senate to undermine Punjab’s historical claim over Panjab University, erode its autonomy, centralise control, and pave the way for privatisation. However, the historic and organic movement led by students and supported by broader democratic forces shattered the BJP–RSS dream of turning Chandigarh into a “small Nagpur”.

The dissolution of the Senate sent a clear message: Panjab University was being taken away from Punjab, its democracy murdered, and its autonomy destroyed. This sparked widespread outrage across Punjab. Even opportunist electoral parties—many of which had previously betrayed people’s struggles—were compelled to join the protest. Conscious sections of Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, and other regions also recognised this as an attack on autonomy and democratic institutions and extended their support.

The Panjab University struggle has once again highlighted the urgency of addressing unresolved questions of federalism—particularly Punjab’s claim over Panjab University and Chandigarh, issues of river water sharing, other federal rights, and the systematic daylight assassination of democracy.

At its core, neoliberal policy directly undermines federalism by centralising power to facilitate large-scale privatisation. International institutions such as the IMF, World Bank, and WTO actively promote this centralisation to enable the exploitation of resources and labour. Thus, the erosion of federalism and democracy is not accidental but structural to the neoliberal project.

Indian rulers have historically preferred a highly centralised state rather than a genuinely federal one. During the anti-colonial struggle, the Indian National Congress promised linguistic federalism. However, after Independence, the Nehru–Patel–Sitaramayya (JVP) Committee rejected the Dhar Commission’s recommendations, arguing that state formation on linguistic lines would threaten “national unity”. In reality, greater state autonomy was seen as an obstacle to imperialist exploitation. Hence, a “strong Centre” was prioritised over true federalism.

Although popular struggles eventually forced the government to create linguistic states, this process lacked a sincere federal spirit. Punjab faced particularly harsh discrimination. After a prolonged struggle, the Punjab Reorganisation Act of 1966 created a truncated Punjab, carving away Punjabi-speaking areas, undermining Punjab’s river-water rights, and snatching Chandigarh—constructed by demolishing more than 28 Punjabi Puadhi villages. The three-language formula was imposed, and the religious and cultural demands of Sikh minorities were ignored.

Sections 72, 78, 79, 81, 84, and 87 of the same Act placed Panjab University, Punjab Agricultural University, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, the Bhakra Beas Management Board, and Chandigarh under central control. Despite widespread protests, betrayal continued. Although the Rajiv–Longowal Accord promised Chandigarh to Punjab in 1986, the Centre reneged. Central control over the BBMB, the increased presence of the BSF, and the appointment of a centrally controlled administrator in Chandigarh continue to erode Punjab’s federal rights.

The assault on federalism intensified with the 42nd Constitutional Amendment in 1976, which transferred key subjects like education, forests, and minerals from the State List to the Concurrent List. The neoliberal reforms of the 1990s further weakened states’ political and financial autonomy. With GST, states have been reduced to little more than municipalities, facing centralised revenue collection, decentralised expenditure responsibilities, and constant administrative interference.

Under the BJP–Sangh’s Hindi–Hindu–Hindutva project—embodied in slogans like “one nation, one language,” “one nation, one tax,” “one nation, one election,” and “one nation, one education policy”—the fascist bulldozer has moved from vote theft to Senate theft. When the Centre attempted to snatch Panjab University, the people rose up and forced Modi to retreat once again.

The struggle also firmly rejected attempts to pit Punjab against Haryana. Protesters consistently emphasised that the Centre deliberately foments inter-state conflicts to push privatisation and allow corporate plunder of natural resources across Ladakh, Himachal, Kashmir, Manipur, and central India. This is not the time for people to fight among themselves; the real struggle is against a centralised state serving imperialist interests.

The dissolution of the Senate was carried out under the NEP 2020, which explicitly eliminates elected Senates, student unions, and teacher unions, replacing them with nominated bodies. Universities are being forced to raise fees, rely on loans instead of grants, generate profits, and submit to centrally imposed curricula and regulations. This is the BJP’s idea of “federalism”.

While the Centre strangles federalism, state governments and political parties have largely failed to resist. The Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab government neither provides adequate funding to Panjab University nor actively participates in Senate meetings. Universities across Punjab face acute financial crises, student and Senate elections are avoided, and the NEP 2020 is implemented without resistance.

Ultimately, no mainstream political party appears genuinely committed to federalism. History shows that the struggle for true federalism cannot be led to its logical conclusion by opportunist electoral forces. It must be led by the people themselves—by workers and peasants—through the uprooting of parasitic neoliberal imperialist policies.

Today, as centralisation and privatisation obstruct the development of emerging nationalities from Kashmir to the North-East and push Centre–State relations to a dead end, there is an urgent need for a united national struggle of working people for true federalism. Such federalism is impossible without complete democratisation of society, including the uprooting of feudalism and imperialism. The historic struggle at Panjab University can become a powerful starting point.

Sandeep Kumar PhD, Panjab University, Chandigarh, Member, Panjab University Bachao Morcha

Courtesy: Counter Currents

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On Friday December 12, 2025, the Union Cabinet cleared HECI Bill under changed name the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhikshan (VBSA) Bill 2025. The Bill has been tabled in the Winter Session. The press conference of over two dozen organisations including the All India Forum for the Right to Education (AIFRTE) has demanded that the Bill, which will redefine Government’s commitment towards public funded higher education and therefore, its purpose, is referred to the Standing Committee for wider consultation.

Reminding the public that the VBSA Bill 2025 is a revived version of a similar HECI Bill 2018, a draft of which was released in June 2018. The revision is largely around renaming the Commission and Councils under it. The Draft HECI Bill 2018 had received more than a lakh unfavourable responses from concerned citizens, students’ and teachers’ associations, parliamentarians and other stakeholders. The public opposition to the Bill was so strong and vocal that the then-NDA government was forced to shelve it, and let it fade from public memory in these seven years before bringing it back.  The draft VBSA Bill 2025 was released on the portal of Members of Parliament on 14.12.2025. The feedback from the stakeholders on the draft HECI Bill 2018 seems to have been ignored completely. Pointing out that the VBSA Bill 2025 will simultaneously repeal the University Grants Commission (UGC) Act 1956, All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) Act, 1987 and National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) Act, 1993. The draft VBSA Bill 2025 was released on the portal of Members of Parliament on 14.12.2025. The feedback from the stakeholders on the draft HECI Bill 2018 seems to have been ignored completely.

Some of the most pressing concerns about the VBSA Bill 2025 are:

1. Delinking of funding and regulation: No Council under the Commission has been set for funding of HEIs. The VBSA Bill is to make the Ministry of Education (MoE) responsible for disbursing grants. This will make the process of grant allocation more bureaucratic, arbitrary, and subject to political considerations. By delinking the function of policy-making from the allocation of financial resources, the proposed Bill will use ‘public funding’ as a reward or punishment for ideological It will also heighten hierarchies between different tiers of institutions (Central and state, general and professional, scientific and technical, research and vocational, metropolitan and rural).

2. Composition of members: The composition of the VBSA Bill 2025 signals a takeover of higher education by the officials of the Central government. 10 out of the 12 members of the Commission are either direct recruits of or nominated “experts” by the Central government. Teachers are reduced to just two in number, which is absolutely unacceptable in a body that is to determine the standards and quality of higher education in the country. Both teacher representatives from state higher education institutions will, by virtue of being ‘nominees’ of the Central government, will also likely be political appointments. The composition of the commission does not also reflect the diversity of the country and gives no representation to marginalised groups like SCs, STs, OBCs, women, transpersons, persons with disabilities, and minorities.

3. Centralised regulatory regime: The regulatory provisions of the Bill — grant of authorisation, graded autonomy, and ordering closure of institutions — will install a heavily centralised regime that will lead to punitive annual audit, wastage of time and resources, greater job insecurity for teachers, massive fee hikes, and This will cause students and their family’s great unrest and anxiety. Finally, the fact that the VBSA Bill will have overriding effect over all previous legislation has serious consequences for the nation’s federal character.

4. Complete disregard for diversity: With regards to the setting of standards for higher education, a ‘one size fits all’ model can never succeed. The diversity of this country, and the fact that higher education is still expanding to various sections and particularly rural sectors of society, demands a regulator that is socially responsive and geared towards social justice. The HECI Bill instead aims at downsizing higher education, and completely ignores questions of equity and access. It threatens the closure of ‘underperforming’ public-funded institutions, which are anyway reeling under decades of policy neglect through lack of infrastructure, faculty and other physical-intellectual

5. Threat to autonomy of institutions and principle of federalism: The VBSA Bill puts an end to the autonomy of institutions of higher education from government control. Every regulation relating to standards made by the Commission has to have the prior approval of the Central government. This not only violates the constitutional character of education as part of the Concurrent list, but also leaves the vast majority of the country’s higher educational landscape – run and aided by state governments – in a political tussle with the ruling party at the Centre. It will also encourage the use of regulations as a means to stifle freedom of speech, thought, and dissenting opinion in higher educational institutions. An atmosphere of forced obedience does not encourage meaningful improvements in society or in the state of knowledge.

6. Heightening the crises caused by NEP 2020: It is being argued that the setting up of the VBSA is in alignment with the vision proposed by NEP 2020. Colleges and universities across the country are currently struggling under the weight of the NEP’s vision – which has skewed syllabi and curricula with diluted content, delayed admissions processes through a compromised common university entrance test (CUET) and left seats unfilled, increased costs of undergraduate education with an extra year of college but zero value addition under the four year programme, contractualized teaching positions through lopsided teaching workload across semesters, slashed public funding through proposals for college mergers and institutional loans from the Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA), reduced the capacity of the research sector and curtailed research fellowships. Under such circumstances, the introduction of another disastrous reform move through the establishment of HECI will be the last nail in the coffin of Indian higher education.

Post-Independence, the historic purpose of nurturing Higher education through public spending has been to enable progressive social and material transformation that will eventually result in greater Equity between various interest-groups in Society. The Constitution had envisaged education as a public good – a means to ensure dignity and upward mobility to individuals and for strengthening the democracy. Education was seen as domain to be shared by the Centre and States. The VBSA Bill 2025 is a structural change, which will lead to extreme centralisation and commercialisation and privatisation of public funded HEIs as they will be pushed to be self-reliant.

As stakeholders, we appeal that the Bill to be referred to the Standing Committee so that teachers, students, and educationists are given enough opportunity to present their case.

Related:

Higher Education: How Centre is Undermining State Autonomy & Politicising UGC

Public Education is Not a Priority in Union Budget 2025-26

“We have come to save public education, shoot us if you will,” feisty JNUSU president Dhananjay challenges Delhi police

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