On a crisp January morning, 22-year-old Amit Mishra from Ballia, a first-year student at Lucknow University, marched from the faculty of law to gate number 3 of the campus — a 3-kilometre-walk. He was joined by 60 others. The banners they carried did not bear logos of political parties or student unions or associations.
The students had come together to protest the 2026 regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC), a statutory body that regulates higher education in India. Called the Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations, 2026, these rules were introduced primarily to address caste discrimination on campuses across the country.
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As protests at the university picked up, demonstrations against the UGC’s new regulations intensified — not only in parts of Uttar Pradesh, but in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttarakhand as well. Claiming that the regulations would “divide” campuses along caste lines and “villainise general category students,” the agitators demanded that they be rolled back immediately.
“We cannot permit the future of our upcoming generations to be jeopardised,” Mishra said.
What the new regulations say
The 2026 UGC regulations, notified in early January, replaced the version in effect since 2012. In the new regulations, the UGC, for the first time, introduced the term ‘caste-based discrimination,’ defining it as discrimination on the basis of only caste or tribe against members of “Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs)”. This was also the first time that the UGC was explicitly protecting OBC students from caste discrimination. The representation of OBC students on campuses has been rising ever since reservations for the category were introduced in higher education in 2006 and operationalised in the subsequent years.
The UGC introduced this term, along with stricter provisions for grievance redressal mechanisms and institutional accountability, to address concerns that the previous regulations had been inadequate. In 2019, the mothers of Rohith Vemula and Payal Tadvi — students from marginalised caste and tribal backgrounds, who had died by suicide in 2016 and 2019, respectively, alleging caste discrimination — had approached the Supreme Court. They had emphasised that it was essential to revisit the 2012 regulations.
After seven years of hearings in the Supreme Court, the UGC notified the new regulations on January 13, 2026. Immediately, protests broke out. Students belonging to the general category principally took issue with the definition of ‘caste-based discrimination’ and the removal, from the final draft, of provisions to act against complaints believed to be false. They argued that the UGC’s definition of caste-based discrimination made clear who could be a potential victim. This, they claimed, discriminated against “general category” or “upper caste” students by leaving them out of its scope. Several leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also opposed the regulations.
Petitions were filed in the Supreme Court of India, challenging these aspects of the 2026 regulations. On the 16th day of the agitation, a Bench led by the Chief Justice of India, Justice Surya Kant, stayed the regulations, calling for the UGC to revert to the 2012 rules.
But by this time, the regulations and the discourse around them had already exposed a crack inside campuses along caste lines. Widening for over a decade, this crack simply culminated in a flashpoint this January.
Rising anger
One morning, outside the Delhi University (DU) Arts Faculty building in north Delhi, students shouted, “Tum jaativad se todoge, hum rashtravad se jodenge (You break us with casteism, we will unite us through nationalism)”. With more than a dozen officers of the Delhi Police keeping watch from across the road, students, mostly men studying law, began gathering at the gate. One of them held up a copy of the new regulations, explaining why these should be protested.
Naveen Pandey, a third-year LLB student at DU’s Law Centre 1, pointed to the definition of caste-based discrimination in a copy of the new regulations. “Does the UGC mean to say that caste discrimination is always going to be committed by general category students,” he asked. “Are they saying that general category students do not face caste discrimination?”
Another student said, “This will only create further division on campus. Reading this, students from the general category may hang out only with other students from the same category, fearing false complaints.”
In front of Lucknow University’s Vivekananda Dwar, 489 km away, Mishra said, “These regulations allow swift action against accused students without sufficient safeguards. Our concern is not with acting against genuine offenders; it is that in the absence of provisions, those making false allegations will not be penalised.”
Vishal Singh, a sociology student at Lucknow University, added, “As per the regulations, a supposed victim’s identity will be kept confidential if requested. This is a big loophole. It will be exploited by divisive elements on campus. It is against the concept of natural justice.”
Protests against the regulations, in Lucknow.
| Photo Credit:
Sandeep Saxena
In front of DU too, protesters argued that the secrecy of the complainant’s identity would prevent them from defending themselves.
Students agitating against the regulations in Delhi, Lucknow, Varanasi, Allahabad, Gorakhpur, and Meerut said that the protests began to take shape after solidarity groups emerged on social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and X, where a “simple gist of the loopholes in the UGC regulations and their likely adverse consequences” were shared.
Outside the DU’s Arts Faculty gate, Pandey pointed to one such chat group. “We left access to the group open so that students from all walks of life could join the protests,” he said. “But let me show you what happened within hours of setting it up.” He scrolled through the chat till he arrived at one message. It read, “Jisko UGC se appati ho, vo gurukul taraf chale jaye. Wahan toh Dronacharya ji hain (Whoever has an issue with UGC can just go to a gurukul, or traditional Indian residential education system. There you will also find a Dronacharya).”
Pandey looked up. “What would you call this,” he asked. “Is this not caste discrimination against those of the general category and upper castes?”
The message referred to the gurukul run by Dronacharya, a master archer and teacher of warcraft, in the Hindu epic, Mahabharata. Dronacharya was precluded from teaching anyone but the royal Kshatriyas of the kingdom of Hastinapur. The obligation forced him to refuse training to Eklavya, who belonged to a caste considered lower than the Kshatriyas.
He then scrolled further till he found another message, by a fellow student of the law centre, mocking the reservations for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS), introduced in 2019 by the Union government. Pandey said, “They call it the Sudama quota and make fun of us by calling us ‘Sudama quota wale’. (Sudama, a poor Brahmin, is known as Lord Krishna’s childhood friend in the Mahabharata.) Can we file a complaint against this under ‘caste-based discrimination’?”
In one of the petitions filed before the Supreme Court challenging the 2026 regulations, Mrityunjay Tiwari, a post-doctoral researcher at the Banaras Hindu University, has cited slogans and graffiti in higher educational institutions as signs of caste discrimination against general category students or upper castes. The petition referred to slogans such as ‘Brahmins leave the campus’ being graffitied in December 2022 on a wall inside Jawaharlal Nehru University, and ‘Brahmin-Baniyawad Murdabad (Down with Brahminism-Baniyawad)’ being raised at Ashoka University in Haryana in 2024.
It also recalled chants by the Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association in Jawaharlal Nehru University last year, echoing the Mandal-era slogan “tilak-taraazu-aur talwar, inko maaro joote chaar” — which means that the vermilion mark representing Brahmins, the balance scales representing the Baniyas or trading community, and the sword representing the Kshatriyas or warrior class should be hit with shoes.
“I can promise you that the students chanting these slogans do not understand the difference between Brahmanwad (Brahminism) and Brahmins,” Pandey said, asserting that there is only one way of perceiving these slogans — hostility towards upper caste people. “How will these regulations help us report these complaints as caste-based discrimination?”
Neha Upadhyay, a first year LLB student at DU, who was among the few women at the protest, added that these new regulations “are further dividing the campus into caste categories”. Explaining why she was at the protest, Upadhyay pointed to an incident she had seen on social media. “In Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), a reserved category student complained of caste discrimination when a general category woman he had asked out on a date rejected him. How is this okay,” she asked.
On January 29, the SRCC put out a public statement. Acknowledging the rumours circulating on social media, it clarified that “no such alleged act/incident has been reported in the college”.
Being ‘casteist’
While the protests highlight the divide between the reserved and unreserved categories, this rift has been shaping experiences of students across higher education campuses for a few decades now. The death of Vemula in 2016 accelerated the formation and activism of student groups such as the Ambedkar Periyar Phule Student Circle, which advocate for stricter implementation of the 2012 anti-discrimination guidelines.
Even as Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi students narrated their lived experiences of caste discrimination — manifested in derision towards reserved categories, caste-based questioning, and “casteist” remarks passed off as “ice-breakers” — those from the unreserved category, or students from the general category or upper castes, said that it is they who are facing discrimination on campuses.
A 2019-20 student survey conducted among about 550 undergraduate students in the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, had found that 11% of respondents across the SC, ST, OBC, and general categories reported knowing professors or administrative staff who had made casteist remarks. The survey added that 6% of general category respondents, 9% of OBC respondents, and 26% of SC and ST respondents had reported this.
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Observing the protesters chanting slogans outside the DU campus, Aniket Gautam, a postgraduate student at the political science department, said, “I come from an SC background. I entered DU with a score of over 80%. I remember the remarks I had received for ‘gobbling up a seat’ because I had availed myself of the reservation. Some people even said they wished they could get SC certificates to enter college campuses.”
Gautam, who is associated with the Students’ Federation of India, a Left-affiliated outfit, added, “If they want to label these casteist remarks ‘banter,’ should we also say that referring to a ‘Sudama quota’ is banter? How is the EWS quota anything but a reservation for upper castes?”
Yet, a few dozen metres away, Pandey asked, “With these new regulations in place, would we ever be able to have free and democratic political discourse? We are terrified of what will happen when universities like DU hold student union elections. Will allegations made by some general students in the heat of campaigning be understood as caste discrimination?”
Drawing comparisons
While the agitation largely centred on the claim that the 2026 regulations divide campuses, some protesting students have also called for explicit representation of the general category in the monitoring and accountability mechanisms that the UGC plans to establish as part of the regulations.
However, largely, the protesting students said that the 2012 regulations are better than the 2026 ones. Other sections of society also believe this, though for the opposite reason: they argue that the new regulations have diluted the definition of ‘discrimination,’ leaving its determination open to interpretation.
The 2012 regulations had defined ‘discrimination’ and covered varied forms of it, including specific types of discrimination faced by SC and ST students. On the other hand, the 2026 regulations have introduced the term ‘caste-based discrimination’ and shortened the definition of ‘discrimination’. They have eliminated a sub-section on the types of discriminations faced by SC and ST students at various stages of their university education, such as admissions and interviews.
The 2026 regulations have provided for institutions to set up equity squads and equity committees, calling for fair representation in these mechanisms of SCs, STs, OBCs, minority groups, women, and persons with disabilities. The 2012 regulations had provided for the assignment of just one official as a liaison officer on campuses to monitor implementation of regulations.
The 2026 regulations also have stricter accountability measures, prescribing punishments for institutions found not following these rules. These include loss of accreditation and being debarred from offering degrees. These provisions were absent in the 2012 version.
While hearing petitions seeking the strengthening of the 2012 regulations, the Supreme Court was informed about the status of their implementation, including the establishment of SC/ST Cells and Equal Opportunity Cells (EOCs). According to an affidavit submitted to the Court by the UGC, only 3,522 higher educational institutions out of more than 50,000 in India had responded to the regulatory authority’s call for reporting. Of these, 3,067 had set up an EOC and 3,273 had set up an SC/ST Cell.
But even as the Court stayed the 2026 regulations, the anger has not subsided. There are calls for a Bharat Bandh, or nationwide strike, on February 1, demanding a full rollback of the 2026 regulations. This anger has largely been directed towards the BJP by upper caste groups in parts of north India, particularly U.P., which is heading towards Assembly elections in 2027.
As Asad Rizvi, a Lucknow-based political observer, noted, “Upper castes are the core voter base of the BJP and the key driver of the party’s success in the State. Upper caste office bearers of the party have even resigned from party posts in some districts, expressing displeasure with the UGC regulations. If they think the ruling party is not protecting their broader interests, it may negatively impact the BJP regime.”
