— ✍️Dr. Pankaj Tambe

India's reservation debate is being fought on an institutional map that is rapidly becoming outdated. Political parties argue over percentages in government colleges and public employment even as a growing share of professional education moves to private universities and institutions deemed to be universities.

This shift changes the question. The issue is no longer only whether a student is legally eligible for a seat. It is whether the student can afford to enter, remain and graduate. A reserved seat carrying a fee of several lakhs of rupees may exist on paper and remain unreachable in practice.

For the Reservation Badhao Andolan, therefore, the next frontier cannot be limited to raising quotas inside existing public institutions. It must extend the principles of representation, affordability and accountability to the private universities that increasingly control access to engineering, medicine, law, management, artificial intelligence and biotechnology.

The representation gap

The NIRF 2025 engineering data reveal the scale of the divide. An analysis of 97 top-100 institutions reporting four-year undergraduate data covers 62 public institutions and 35 private or public-private institutions. Public institutions enrolled 1,91,181 students, of whom 99,950 - or 52.3 per cent - were reported in NIRF's combined SC, ST and OBC category. Private institutions enrolled 3,04,050 students, but only 68,904 - 22.7 per cent - belonged to the same category.

Private institutions accounted for 61.4 per cent of all students in this sample but only 40.8 per cent of its SC, ST and OBC students. Had they matched the public-sector representation rate, they would have enrolled about 1,58,958 such students - roughly 90,000 more than they reported.

These figures require caution. NIRF data are institution-submitted aggregates, not a caste census or a legal audit. Institutional type, geography, minority status and different admission systems matter. Nor does every private university perform poorly: some reported representation above 50 per cent. But that variation reinforces the central point. Social inclusion cannot depend on the voluntary choices of individual managements.

The data also challenge the claim that reservation necessarily damages excellence. The public institutions in this sample, despite much higher SC/ST/OBC representation, reported an aggregate institutional placement rate of 74.6 per cent, compared with 67.9 per cent for the private group. These are not category-wise placement rates. They do show, however, that high social representation and strong institutional outcomes can coexist.

The next frontier of reservation is not only a higher percentage. It is a wider institutional domain.

Reservation without affordability

The Constitution already provides an opening. Article 15(5) enables the State to make special provisions for socially and educationally backward classes, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in private aided and unaided educational institutions, while excluding minority institutions protected under Article 30(1). Private management, in other words, does not automatically remove education from the field of social justice.

But constitutional permission is not a self-executing policy. It requires legislation, clear rosters and workable admission rules. The UGC's operative regulations for institutions deemed to be universities are those of 2023. Regulation 27 requires these institutions to implement reservation in accordance with the Constitution and Acts of Parliament and to disclose the information on their websites. Yet that general obligation does not, by itself, establish a uniform numerical quota for every self-financing deemed university.

State private universities present a parallel challenge. Maharashtra's 2023 law directs private universities to follow State reservation policy and reserves 40 per cent of approved intake for Maharashtra-domiciled students. These are significant footholds. But the same law denies students a claim to State scholarships or fee reimbursement. It permits the university to constitute its own fee-fixation committee, although the Government can review the fee. The danger is obvious: a legal doorway followed by a financial wall.

What the movement should demand

The most practical demand is a 40 per cent public-access pool in non-minority State private universities and privately managed deemed-to-be universities. This should not be confused with reserving 40 per cent exclusively for SC, ST and OBC students. It would be a government-regulated pool of affordable seats within which constitutionally valid category-wise reservation would operate.

Admissions to this pool should take place through transparent, government-supervised counselling using the relevant national, State or statutorily approved entrance examination. Seat matrices, rosters, cut-offs and allotment rounds should be public. The remaining seats should also follow disclosed eligibility and merit rules so that autonomy does not become opacity.

The fee for public-access seats should be determined by an independent authority on the basis of audited course costs, legitimate development needs and a prohibition on profiteering. Regulation need not mean confiscatory price controls. A transparent cross-subsidy between public-access and other seats can preserve institutional viability while preventing exclusion through arbitrary charges.

Scholarships must be guaranteed at the time of counselling and settled directly with institutions according to a statutory calendar. Support must extend beyond tuition to hostels, books, digital access, transport and living costs. A reimbursement that arrives after a student has borrowed heavily or dropped out is not an effective entitlement.

Every covered university should also publish programme-wise information on applications, admissions, fees, scholarships, retention, dropout, graduation and placements, disaggregated by legally relevant social categories with privacy safeguards. Disclosure should be independently auditable and linked to accreditation and permission to expand.

Such regulation will face objections concerning institutional autonomy, minority rights and public expenditure. These cannot be dismissed. Minority protections must be respected; national and State category lists must be reconciled; and governments must show how scholarships will be financed. The movement will need a model Bill, not only a slogan.

Reservation in private universities must also be accompanied by a major expansion of affordable public capacity. Otherwise, social justice will again be presented as a struggle among communities over a fixed number of seats. More universities, faculty, laboratories and hostels can increase open, EWS and reserved opportunities simultaneously.

This approach can support a broader coalition. Dalits, Adivasis and OBCs require representation because caste has denied them institutional power. Poor students from unreserved communities require EWS opportunities, scholarships and affordable education because economic insecurity is real. The two disadvantages are related but not identical, and one must not be used to erase the other.

The politics of reservation bachao remains necessary whenever constitutional safeguards are diluted. But reservation badhao must mean more than increasing a number within a shrinking public enclave. It must expand the institutional reach of representation, the affordability of the seat and the total supply of quality education.

If private universities are becoming the new centres of credential, mobility and power, they must also become the next centres of democratic accountability. That is the agenda the Reservation Badhao Andolan should now place before every political party.

- Dr. Pankaj Tambe is an Ambedkarite thinker, writer, and researcher based in Nagpur, Maharashtra. His work focuses on the thought of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, social justice, equality, democracy, constitutional values, and the struggle against caste discrimination. Through his writings, he promotes Ambedkarite philosophy and encourages critical thinking, education, and social transformation.