Lalit Shastri

I write this not as a career politician or a seasonal agitator, but as someone who has consistently stood against the caste-based reservation regime and its corrosive impact on Indian society. As the Founder of Sanatan Mission, and as one who launched the SAPAKS movement (Samanya Pichhda Alpsankhyak Kalyan Sanstha) in Madhya Pradesh in 2017–18, my position has been unwavering: social justice cannot be built on the permanent fragmentation of society.

The latest UGC rules—sold under the soothing language of “equitable academic outcomes”—are nothing but an extension of competitive caste politics into the last remaining sanctuaries of merit, scholarship, and civilisational continuity. If implemented in their present form, these rules will inflict a long-term injury on the Hindu civilisational fabric far deeper than most policy blunders of the past decades.

Let us be clear: this is not reform. This is institutionalised social engineering.

By reducing universities to arithmetic laboratories of caste representation, the State is abandoning its most sacred duty—to nurture excellence, inquiry, and intellectual independence. Knowledge traditions that survived invasions, colonial disruption, and decades of ideological hostility are now being hollowed out from within by a government that claims to speak for Hindu interests.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi may believe that tactical one-upmanship against the Opposition—first through the caste census narrative and now through education policy—will neutralise Dalit politics. It will not. What it will do instead is permanently legitimise caste as the primary organising principle of Indian life, something Hindu society itself has struggled for generations to transcend.

This is where the betrayal lies.

Sanatan Dharma is not a vote-bank theology. It is a civilisational ethos rooted in guna, karma, and adhikara—not birth-certified entitlement. When the State enforces identity over ability, it is not uplifting the disadvantaged; it is freezing them into categories that can never be escaped.

Even if the government retreats tomorrow and pushes the proposed education bill to the backburner, the damage has already been done. A message has gone out—loud and clear—that merit is negotiable, excellence is suspect, and universities are instruments of political messaging.

The people of this country will not forget this easily.

No amount of global photo-ops, EU handshakes, or international applause can compensate for the quiet dismantling of India’s intellectual foundations at home. A nation that weakens its universities weakens its future—and a civilisation that abandons its principles for electoral arithmetic risks losing both its soul and its direction.

This is not opposition for opposition’s sake.
This is a call for introspection, correction, and courage.

If the Hindu cause is reduced to symbolism while its core institutions are sacrificed at the altar of divisive politics, history will judge this moment harshly—and rightly so.

The Supreme Court on Thursday 29 January 2025 ordered that the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations, 2026, be kept in abeyance. The Court expressed certain reservations about the Regulations, which are being challenged as discriminatory towards the general category.