<p>The Rohith Vemula Act in Karnataka has the potential to do what a decade of University Grants Commission (UGC) circulars and campus committees have not, and to guarantee every student and staff member the right to study, teach, and live with dignity.</p>.<p>Since 2012, the UGC Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions Regulations have required universities to create equal opportunity cells. Yet compliance remains superficial. Reports have highlighted that many institutions lack these cells. It has also been noted that in institutions where the cells exist, they are reduced to units where the problems are brushed under the carpet. At IIT Bombay, for instance, an internal panel investigated Dalit student Darshan Solanki’s 2023 suicide, keeping the inquiry within the very hierarchy it was meant to challenge. Unsurprisingly, that interim report dismissed any caste bias despite evidence from campus surveys.</p>.<p>In February this year, the UGC issued its draft Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations 2025 mandating ex-officio chairs for those cells, Equity Ambassadors in every department, and a 24/7 helpline for discrimination complaints. Yet, the draft has come under criticism for limiting itself to nominal actions and mirroring provisions from earlier regulations. Worse, the enforcement, exactly as in 2012 guidelines, would still rest with the very institutional heads it hopes to hold to account.</p>.<p>A strong Rohith Vemula Act should create an independent mechanism in the form of a State Equity Ombudsperson who can summon records, overturn sham inquiries, and levy substantial fines on institutions that shield perpetrators. It must then guarantee time-bound redress by prescribing a seven-day window for prima facie scrutiny, 30 days for a full inquiry, and 60 days for a speaking order published online. Protection of whistle-blowers and witnesses must be built in through explicit clauses against victimisation.</p>.<p>The law also needs to provide reparative support by mandating counselling, academic flexibility, relocation, and compensation for affected students. Finally, it must make discrimination measurable by requiring annual equity audits and public scorecards that track admissions, faculty hiring, scholarships, and dropouts across caste, gender, and disability. These measures should <br>be funded through a dedicated Equity and Inclusion Fund ring-fenced at not less than 1% of the higher education budget.</p>.<p>None of these ideas is radical. Each appears somewhere in Indian law already. The SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act offers a compensation scheme. The law on sexual harassment insists on an external member for inquiries. The Right to Information Act stresses proactive disclosure. What is new is the prospect of welding them together for the specific context of education.</p>.<p><strong>Implementation, the real test</strong></p>.<p>Even the tightest clauses fail when universities treat the law as one more checklist. Karnataka must therefore back the principle with credible carrots and sticks. It should deny affiliation and State grants to colleges that refuse compliance while rewarding campuses that reduce complaint backlogs and raise the number of first-generation graduates. Institutional rankings already shape student choices. A publicly released Equity Index could do the same for social justice.</p>.<p>The State must also resist outsourcing responsibility to marginalised students themselves in the name of peer learning. Professional counsellors trained in caste-sensitive practice, language accessibility for rural and Adivasi students, and routine orientation for faculty are not negotiable. Without these safeguards, even the best-drafted statute risks becoming an empty epitaph for Rohith Vemula.</p>.<p>That the initiative comes from a state rather than the Centre is fitting. Education is a concurrent subject and progressive federalism often begins in the states. Madhya Pradesh’s Right to Public Services Act 2010 and Tamil Nadu’s midday meal programme of 1956 offer clear examples. Yet the moral burden of discrimination is not Karnataka’s alone. If the state’s experiment is executed effectively, transparently, and with accountability, it can become a template for a central statute that finally gives teeth to Article 15’s promise of non-discrimination at the national level.</p>.<p>Rohith Vemula’s suicide note closed with the haunting line, “My birth is my fatal accident.” A law bearing his name will mean little if it merely commemorates his death. Its purpose must be to ensure that no student in India again sees an accident in their birth, whether Dalit, Adivasi, disabled, or otherwise marginalised. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has taken the first political step. The drafting table must now match that ambition, and the rest of the country would do well to watch, learn, and soon follow.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a lawyer and research consultant)</em></p>
<p>The Rohith Vemula Act in Karnataka has the potential to do what a decade of University Grants Commission (UGC) circulars and campus committees have not, and to guarantee every student and staff member the right to study, teach, and live with dignity.</p>.<p>Since 2012, the UGC Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions Regulations have required universities to create equal opportunity cells. Yet compliance remains superficial. Reports have highlighted that many institutions lack these cells. It has also been noted that in institutions where the cells exist, they are reduced to units where the problems are brushed under the carpet. At IIT Bombay, for instance, an internal panel investigated Dalit student Darshan Solanki’s 2023 suicide, keeping the inquiry within the very hierarchy it was meant to challenge. Unsurprisingly, that interim report dismissed any caste bias despite evidence from campus surveys.</p>.<p>In February this year, the UGC issued its draft Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions Regulations 2025 mandating ex-officio chairs for those cells, Equity Ambassadors in every department, and a 24/7 helpline for discrimination complaints. Yet, the draft has come under criticism for limiting itself to nominal actions and mirroring provisions from earlier regulations. Worse, the enforcement, exactly as in 2012 guidelines, would still rest with the very institutional heads it hopes to hold to account.</p>.<p>A strong Rohith Vemula Act should create an independent mechanism in the form of a State Equity Ombudsperson who can summon records, overturn sham inquiries, and levy substantial fines on institutions that shield perpetrators. It must then guarantee time-bound redress by prescribing a seven-day window for prima facie scrutiny, 30 days for a full inquiry, and 60 days for a speaking order published online. Protection of whistle-blowers and witnesses must be built in through explicit clauses against victimisation.</p>.<p>The law also needs to provide reparative support by mandating counselling, academic flexibility, relocation, and compensation for affected students. Finally, it must make discrimination measurable by requiring annual equity audits and public scorecards that track admissions, faculty hiring, scholarships, and dropouts across caste, gender, and disability. These measures should <br>be funded through a dedicated Equity and Inclusion Fund ring-fenced at not less than 1% of the higher education budget.</p>.<p>None of these ideas is radical. Each appears somewhere in Indian law already. The SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act offers a compensation scheme. The law on sexual harassment insists on an external member for inquiries. The Right to Information Act stresses proactive disclosure. What is new is the prospect of welding them together for the specific context of education.</p>.<p><strong>Implementation, the real test</strong></p>.<p>Even the tightest clauses fail when universities treat the law as one more checklist. Karnataka must therefore back the principle with credible carrots and sticks. It should deny affiliation and State grants to colleges that refuse compliance while rewarding campuses that reduce complaint backlogs and raise the number of first-generation graduates. Institutional rankings already shape student choices. A publicly released Equity Index could do the same for social justice.</p>.<p>The State must also resist outsourcing responsibility to marginalised students themselves in the name of peer learning. Professional counsellors trained in caste-sensitive practice, language accessibility for rural and Adivasi students, and routine orientation for faculty are not negotiable. Without these safeguards, even the best-drafted statute risks becoming an empty epitaph for Rohith Vemula.</p>.<p>That the initiative comes from a state rather than the Centre is fitting. Education is a concurrent subject and progressive federalism often begins in the states. Madhya Pradesh’s Right to Public Services Act 2010 and Tamil Nadu’s midday meal programme of 1956 offer clear examples. Yet the moral burden of discrimination is not Karnataka’s alone. If the state’s experiment is executed effectively, transparently, and with accountability, it can become a template for a central statute that finally gives teeth to Article 15’s promise of non-discrimination at the national level.</p>.<p>Rohith Vemula’s suicide note closed with the haunting line, “My birth is my fatal accident.” A law bearing his name will mean little if it merely commemorates his death. Its purpose must be to ensure that no student in India again sees an accident in their birth, whether Dalit, Adivasi, disabled, or otherwise marginalised. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has taken the first political step. The drafting table must now match that ambition, and the rest of the country would do well to watch, learn, and soon follow.</p>.<p><em>(The writer is a lawyer and research consultant)</em></p>
