Discrimination in Indian Higher Education: Everyday Exclusion of the Dalit-Adivasi Student

This study is based on the lived experiences of the Dalit and Adivasi students in an elite higher education institution in India. It describes the everyday struggle undertaken by the students from socially marginalized communities, who experience discrimination, alienation and exclusion due to their identity. The study analyses the narratives of students about their educational experiences to develop an understanding of the regulatory and gate-keeping mechanisms operating in the academic and non-academic spheres in the educational institutions. Further, by revealing the serious limitations of existing practices of inclusion it reflects upon the manifest reproduction of caste inequalities within educational institutions today.