— ✍️ Sandeep Kumar Kushwaha

This article examines the everyday experiences of marginalized boys on university campuses, exploring how subtle forms of exclusion emerge within friendship, intimate relationships, academic interactions, and professional spaces. It is based on conversations with peers, personal observations, and shared experiences that reveal recurring patterns of belonging, recognition, and exclusion. Rather than presenting these experiences as universal truths, the article interprets them through the perspectives of thinkers such as B. R. Ambedkar, Antonio Gramsci, Émile Durkheim, Ernest Renan, and Jacques Rancière, to understand how caste, class, social capital, and institutional culture shape campus life. The discussion is intentionally limited to the perspective of marginalized boys, while acknowledging that other social groups experience different forms of exclusion. Constructive criticism and alternative perspectives are sincerely welcomed to strengthen this discussion.

Caste, Social Privilege, and the Hidden Structure of Exclusion

Caste is not only a system of social classification but also a structure that determines access to dignity, recognition, relationships, and opportunities. In Indian society, a person’s social position, cultural acceptance, and institutional visibility have historically been influenced by birth rather than individual ability. Sociologists Anderson and Parker explain caste as a hereditary social system where mobility between groups remains restricted. Although caste developed historically through the division of labour associated with the Varna system, it gradually transformed into a rigid hierarchy of Jatis based on birth, social closure, and unequal access to resources.

Over generations, caste became a mechanism for controlling marriage, family relations, property, social interaction, and community identity. The continuation of this hierarchy depended on maintaining boundaries between different social groups. The ideas of purity and impurity provided a social justification for inequality by associating privileged groups with honour, respectability, discipline, and superiority, while marginalized communities were historically positioned as inferior.

These ideas influenced not only religious practices but also everyday access to education, housing, public spaces, and social respect. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar argued that caste survives mainly through endogamy because controlling marriage means controlling social continuity, family honour, property, and future generations. Therefore, caste does not remain limited to social identity; it enters personal relationships, emotional choices, and institutional behaviour.

Privileged Social Capital and Unequal Entry into University Spaces

When marginalized students enter universities, they enter not only an academic environment but also a social world shaped by unequal cultural resources. Students from privileged caste backgrounds often possess greater social and cultural capital inherited through family experiences, networks, and previous exposure. They are generally more familiar with institutional language, communication styles, faculty expectations, professional behaviour, and informal systems of networking. This familiarity helps them develop relationships with teachers, access mentorship, receive recommendations, and become visible within academic spaces.

In contrast, many first-generation learners from marginalized communities enter higher education without such inherited advantages. Their struggle is not only about academic ability but also about understanding the hidden rules of institutional life. They may not know how informal academic networks function, how opportunities are distributed, or how relationships with influential individuals are developed. As a result, they may remain distant from spaces of recognition and decision-making despite possessing equal intellectual potential.

Antonio Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony explains how such inequalities continue without appearing openly discriminatory. According to Gramsci, dominant groups maintain power by making their own values and practices appear natural and universal. Similarly, dominant caste communication styles, confidence, language, and social behaviour often become accepted as signs of merit and professionalism. Consequently, marginalized students are frequently judged through privileged cultural standards, and their lack of inherited social capital is wrongly interpreted as a lack of ability.

Exclusion in Friendship and Emotional Belonging

The effects of caste privilege become particularly visible in friendship and everyday social relationships. University friendships are often presented as spaces of equality, but they are also influenced by social background, cultural familiarity, and existing networks. Marginalized students may participate in common academic and social spaces, yet they may not receive the same level of trust, emotional closeness, or long-term inclusion as privileged students. The idea of “Part and Apart,” associated with Ernest Renan, helps explain this contradiction.

Marginalized individuals may become a “part” of temporary interactions, friendships, or academic collaborations but remain “apart” from deeper forms of belonging and acceptance. They may be included when their skills, support, or presence are required but excluded from circles where social influence, recognition, and emotional intimacy are shared. This form of exclusion is often silent rather than direct. It may appear through limited invitations, restricted social networks, unequal emotional investment, or the feeling of being present but not fully accepted. The student is physically included within the university environment but socially placed at a distance. This creates a condition where belonging remains uncertain and acceptance appears conditional.

Caste Boundaries in Love and Intimate Relationships

The sphere of love and emotional relationships reveals another important dimension of caste-based exclusion. Personal relationships are often considered private matters, but in caste society they remain deeply connected with family honour, social identity, and community expectations. A marginalized boy may experience emotional closeness and acceptance in private interactions with a privileged caste girl, yet the situation may change when the relationship seeks public recognition.

The concepts of hypergamy and hypogamy explain why relationships crossing caste boundaries create social anxiety. Since caste reproduces itself through marriage, relationships between privileged caste women and marginalized caste men are often perceived as challenges to established hierarchy. Such relationships question the assumption that caste status should continue through family and future generations. As a result, social pressure may emerge through family expectations, peer influence, rumours, questioning of character, and emotional distancing. The marginalized individual may experience a painful contradiction: being accepted as a friend or emotional companion privately but rejected when seeking equality, commitment, and public dignity. In this way, caste operates not only through social separation but also through control over emotional and intimate choices.

Exclusion from Professional Recognition and Institutional Visibility

The same patterns of inequality also appear in professional and academic spaces. Marginalized students may contribute significant intellectual, technical, and organizational labour, yet remain excluded from visible positions, leadership opportunities, and public recognition. Their work may be valued privately while representation and visibility are provided to individuals who fit dominant ideas of confidence, communication, appearance, and professionalism. This process reflects how social privilege influences institutional recognition. The ability to present oneself confidently, communicate in accepted ways, and maintain influential networks often becomes an unofficial requirement for success. Students who lack such inherited cultural resources may perform essential work but remain invisible in moments of appreciation, representation, and opportunity.

Victimization, Isolation, and the Psychological Impact of Exclusion

The continuous experience of exclusion across friendship, love, and professional spaces gradually produces emotional and psychological isolation. Jacques Rancière’s idea of visibility explains that exclusion is not only about absence but also about being denied recognition as an equal participant. When marginalized students demand dignity, question inequality, or express confidence, their assertion may sometimes be interpreted as aggression, indiscipline, or personal difficulty rather than a legitimate demand for equality.

Yogesh Maitreya, in his article, highlights that caste discrimination in modern institutions often functions through humiliation and symbolic exclusion rather than openly declared practices. It appears through jokes, social distancing, questioning of merit, administrative neglect, exclusion from informal networks, and denial of dignity. These repeated experiences create emotional exhaustion, self-doubt, and a feeling of not belonging. Over time, such conditions affect academic confidence, professional growth, and mental well-being. When marginalized students struggle due to these pressures, institutions often interpret their difficulties as individual failures rather than consequences of unequal social environments.

Labelling students as “quota students,” limited mentorship, weak grievance mechanisms, and inadequate representation further deepen their vulnerability. Therefore, the exclusion of marginalized students in universities is not limited to one area of life. It operates across friendship, love, emotional belonging, academic collaboration, and professional recognition. These subtle mechanisms reveal how caste continues to shape everyday experiences by deciding who receives trust, visibility, acceptance, and opportunity within contemporary educational spaces.

Conclusion

This article shows that the exclusion of marginalized students in universities is often silent, subtle, and embedded in everyday social and institutional life rather than expressed through direct discrimination. From friendship and love to academic and professional spaces, unequal access to social capital, recognition, and opportunities shapes students' experiences in different ways. By engaging with the ideas of Ambedkar, Gramsci, Durkheim, Renan, Rancière, and Yogesh Maitreya, the article argues that these experiences should be understood as part of broader social structures rather than as individual failures. Recognizing these hidden forms of exclusion is an important step toward creating universities where dignity, belonging, equal participation, and constitutional values are practiced in everyday life, not merely guaranteed in principle.

- The author is a research scholar at Central University of South Bihar.