Rabindranath Tagore, in his Gitanjali, envisioned schooling grounded in fearless minds and the free circulate of data, reality, and cause—an moral basis for autonomous Larger Instructional Establishments (HEIs). In parallel, the dedication to schooling for all led to reservation insurance policies that enabled college students from marginalised and traditionally excluded communities to realize entry. Collectively, these approaches have been meant to play complementary roles in shaping Indian larger schooling. But expertise revealed a persistent paradox: whereas entry was formally ensured, assimilation inside tutorial areas remained elusive for a lot of.
By the late 2000s, many HEIs reported excessive dropout charges, tutorial marginalisation, social isolation, and recurring complaints of discrimination in school rooms, hostels, and mentorship, alongside distressing scholar deaths that drew judicial scrutiny. These outcomes uncovered a vital regulatory hole: admissions have been intently regulated, however college students’ tutorial and social circumstances weren’t.
Laws vs. fragility of criticism dealing with
Below such circumstances, the Indian larger schooling regulator, the College Grants Fee (UGC), launched a collection of laws governing scholar life and welfare, protecting fairness and psychological well being, prevention of ragging and lack of life, and formal grievance redressal. This marked a shift from ethical self-regulation of autonomous establishments to institutionally mandated oversight. Key interventions included laws on ragging (2009, 2012), fairness (2012, 2026), grievance redressal (2013, 2019, 2023), and sexual harassment (2016), together with a number of student-welfare pointers, anchored primarily in complaint-handling mechanisms.
The effectiveness of this regulatory framework hinges on the equity, independence, objectivity, and credibility of the complaint-handling course of. In autonomous HEIs, nevertheless, these rules are sometimes compromised by opaque procedures, conflicts of curiosity, and notional adherence to pure justice. Institutional bias stays pervasive, with high management exercising disproportionate affect over outcomes, at occasions extending even to police processes when complaints are escalated. Consequently, misuse of authority to silence conscientious lecturers or dissenting voices will not be unusual.
Claims of “nameless” complaints usually show illusory, as complainants are normally identifiable from the details. The 2022 case of Faizan Ahmad, a third-year Mechanical Engineering scholar at IIT Kharagpur, illustrates this danger: he was shot and stabbed, and the reality surfaced solely two years later following an SIT probe and exhumation ordered by the Calcutta Excessive Court docket, after sustained efforts by his mom. His act of submitting a criticism in opposition to seniors proved deadly, reinforcing why many victims proceed to undergo in silence, fearing retaliation in the event that they report discrimination.
Legacy of UGC fairness laws
The UGC Fairness Laws, 2012 sought to stop discrimination, harassment, and victimisation of SC/ST college students by institutional authorities, academics, and non-teaching workers by establishing Equal Alternative Cells and Anti-Discrimination Officers, with mechanisms for the well timed decision of complaints and appeals. Regardless of this framework, UGC recorded 78 scholar deaths linked to ragging and equity-related points between 2012 and 2023, alongside hundreds of reported circumstances of extreme abuse—signalling systemic failure regardless of the dimensions of upper schooling enrolment.
This failure was starkly mirrored within the deaths of Rohith Vemula on the College of Hyderabad in 2016, Payal Tadvi at Topiwala Nationwide Medical School in 2019, and Faizan Ahmad at IIT Kharagpur in 2022—every from marginalised or minority communities, which shocked the nation’s conscience. Extensively related to discrimination, these deaths triggered sustained authorized and ethical resistance by their bereaved moms. In 2019, the moms of the primary two approached the Supreme Court docket of India, resulting in judicial instructions to the UGC to evaluation the implementation of the 2012 Laws and tackle deficiencies in discrimination management, grievance redressal, psychological well being help, and institutional accountability. Current stories additional point out that just about 1,600 complaints have been obtained from HEIs over the previous 5 years, at the same time as many college students proceed to undergo in silence as a consequence of institutional bias and worry of retaliation.
It was on this charged context that the UGC notified the ultimate Fairness Laws, 2026, simply two days earlier than a scheduled Supreme Court docket listening to and 4 days forward of Rohith Vemula’s tenth dying anniversary, elevating issues that the revised framework—considerably altered from the 2025 draft—was finalised unexpectedly as a reactive measure somewhat than by means of deliberative engagement with stakeholders and specialists.
Points with the 2026 laws
Whereas the UGC Fairness Laws, 2026 search to strengthen protections for college students from marginalised backgrounds—significantly SC, ST, and OBC communities—by means of expanded fairness infrastructure reminiscent of Equal Alternative Centres, fairness committees, helplines, squads, and time-bound criticism decision with enhanced monitoring and illustration, their design raises substantive issues. Most notably, the definition of “caste-based discrimination” is narrowly framed, successfully excluding college students from non-reserved or common classes from statutory safety even after they face caste-based discrimination or institutional bias. This rests on an unfounded assumption that caste-based discrimination operates solely in a single path, overlooking its advanced manifestations throughout and inside social teams; ragging—abuse by seniors in opposition to freshers—stays a grave and generally deadly type of discrimination, as illustrated by the dying of Faizan Ahmad at IIT Kharagpur.
Critics warn that such restrictive framing dangers reinforcing segregation somewhat than inclusion. The Laws additionally lack safeguards in opposition to false, malicious, or motivated complaints, at the same time as they impose stringent penalties, together with monetary sanctions and potential withdrawal of grants. Coupled with imprecise definitions, inner ambiguities, and overlapping provisions, the framework dangers selective enforcement and unintended institutional hurt, undermining trust-based fairness governance.
These issues drew scrutiny from the Apex Court docket, which questioned the sensible and constitutional soundness of the 2026 framework. The Court docket sought readability on addressing ragging in caste-related contexts, dealing with harassment throughout the similar caste the place energy asymmetries exist, and justifying references to separate hostels as responses to caste bias. Emphasising that fairness regulation should be inclusive somewhat than segregative, the Court docket cautioned in opposition to insurance policies that would erode progress towards a casteless society and, citing dangers of vagueness and misuse, directed UGC to redraft the Laws.
The best way ahead: Sturdy, trusted, AI-driven criticism dealing with
As famous above, the complaint-handling mechanism lies on the core of UGC laws, but it stays essentially the most fragile aspect of campus governance. In lots of HEIs, entrenched institutional and private biases, coupled with retaliatory practices, weaken grievance redressal, usually working on the discretion of institutional heads within the title of autonomy. As an alternative of well timed decision, complainants—significantly real victims—steadily face delay, intimidation, or persecution. The grave penalties of such systemic failure are starkly illustrated by the case of Faizan Ahmad, underscoring the hazards of unsafe and ineffective complaint-handling frameworks.
Making certain justice requires a clear, impartial, third-party, impartial, and time-bound grievance redressal system. A completely clear on-line mechanism ought to assure equity, confidentiality, and accountability, whereas incorporating safeguards in opposition to misuse. The method should be multi-staged: preliminary screening to filter frivolous complaints and identification of sufferer and accused, adopted by formal registration, classification, proof gathering, mediation, and determination. Mediation ought to be pursued earnestly to resolve most circumstances at this stage, with recourse to the police saved to a minimal. Mediators and investigators ought to be impartial and impartial, chosen by means of goal, AI-enabled processes from a nationwide panel to minimise bias, and guided by clear SOPs grounded in pure justice and transparency.
Every stage ought to have clearly outlined duties and strict timelines. To construct belief, the names, designations, and profiles of officers dealing with complaints, together with institutional responses, ought to be publicly accessible. Demonstrably motivated complaints ought to entice proportionate penalties, duly recorded. Such a structured, clear, and time-bound grievance redressal system is important to revive confidence, defend victims, and make sure that fairness laws obtain their supposed objective.
Conclusion: Wishful pondering
In the end, the pursuit of fairness in larger schooling can not relaxation on wishful pondering or an ever-expanding maze of laws. What is required is a unified, coherent framework that replaces fragmented guidelines with express, principled norms, permitting tutorial areas to reclaim their core objective—the free circulate of data, dialogue, and significant inquiry with out worry or limitations. A zero-tolerance strategy to discrimination should be matched by a grievance redressal system that’s impartial, honest, clear, and adjudicatory, whereas additionally recording demonstrably motivated complaints to protect stability and belief.
Larger Instructional Establishments, meant for studying, mental progress, and social mobility, shouldn’t grow to be battlegrounds of administrative and authorized SOPs; they need to as an alternative be nurtured as inclusive areas the place concepts flow into freely, and participation stays unimpeded by worry, violence, or discrimination.
Within the spirit of Rabindranath Tagore, HEIs ought to aspire to be locations the place data is free, and minds are led towards ever-widening thought and motion; solely in such a heaven of freedom can establishments actually awaken to their highest objective.
India’s expertise reveals that tighter guidelines alone don’t work with out efficient, micro-level implementation. Nice universities are sustained not by heavy regulation, however by belief, mental openness, and light-weight however tight governance, as envisioned within the Nationwide Schooling Coverage, 2020.
(Rajeev Kumar is a former Professor of Laptop Science at IIT Kharagpur, IIT Kanpur, BITS Pilani, and JNU, and a former scientist at DRDO and DST)
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