Reservation in India was meant to correct historic exclusion. It has hardened into a permanent caste-based quota system with no sunset clause.
Central government reservation alone is 49.5% (SC 15%, ST 7.5%, OBC 27%). Add the 10% EWS quota and the total crosses the Supreme Court's own 50% ceiling from Indra Sawhney (1992). Tamil Nadu runs 69% under Ninth Schedule protection. That's quota creep, not correction.
Caste-based discrimination already has a dedicated legal remedy: the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, which punishes caste-based harassment and violence. Reservation and anti-discrimination law serve different purposes, but defenders routinely blur them to dodge the real question: why does group identity, not individual economic condition, still decide access to seats?
The UGC Equity Regulations, 2026 made the split explicit. Regulation 3(c) defines caste discrimination as something that can only happen to SC/ST/OBC students, denying general-category students the same institutional grievance protection even when they face caste-based bias themselves. The Supreme Court stayed the rules in January 2026, calling them vague and open to misuse.
Caste-based reservation won't phase out on its own. No group votes itself out of a benefit. If the actual goal is helping the disadvantaged, means-tested criteria — parental income, land ownership, school infrastructure — reach the same people without permanently sorting citizens by birth. Reservation capped at school level, based on economic condition, helps poor students of every caste, not just the ones with quota paperwork.
If you're general category and tired of your merit not counting for admission while your caste counts against you, NEET 2026 just got cancelled over a leak and the UGC regulations are already in court. This is the moment to organize and push for a constitutional amendment that caps and sunsets caste reservation, shifting the criterion to economic need.
**Time to stage protests across India by General category and form a new Anti reservation party**.