There’s something rotten in India’s higher education system. One would imagine that more than a quarter way into the 21st century, merit, deep learning and research application and innovation would be the larger issues of campus discussion and debate. Instead, over-subsidised colleges and universities are still convulsed by divisive debates on archaic caste, religion, and gender discrimination issues. If not, how does one explain the nationwide protests against the University Grants Commission (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations 2026 issued on January 13?

Driven by a stream of complaints about caste discrimination from Dalit students in higher education institutions (HEIs) and several suicides on campuses, UGC was obliged to promulgate the new regulations earlier this year mandating establishment of Equal Opportunity centres, Equity Committees, policing squads and helplines to stamp out caste inequities in colleges and universities. This initiative aroused the indignation of merit (upper caste students) countrywide who protested the wide latitude of the provisions which could result in quota students — scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and Other Backward Castes (OBCs) — accusing upper caste students of unwarranted and vexatious caste discrimination especially since the new regulations (stayed by the Supreme Court on January 29) allowed for anonymous complaints.

Given this archaic petty-mindedness of students and faculty in India’s HEIs, for whom an allocation of Rs.55,727 crore was made in Union Budget 2026-27, is it surprising that an estimated 75-85 percent of graduates of the country’s 45,000 colleges and 1,276 universities are unemployable and have failed to build or design a global product, service or brand in 78 years since independence from foreign rule? Time students and faculty in India’s infantile HEIs grew up.