On 17 January 2016, we lost the young promising Dalit scholar, Rohith Vemula, because of circumstances created by right-wing forces at the helm of affairs from the Central University of Hyderabad up to the Education Ministry. This incident was aptly identified by social justice forces as an institutional murder. As we recollect this painful loss, it is hard to overlook the palpable caste discrimination and unequal access to quality education in the country; be it admission especially in premiere institutions and courses, hostel intake, fee concession, timely disbursal of scholarships, and so on. In this way, the limited and unequal access to quality university education reproduces the segmented job market wherein large sections of the country’s masses are unable to get out of inherited occupations, poverty, and stigma.

A truly inclusive and radical envisioning of higher education naturally means forging a more organic link with the educational needs and aspirations of the millions of less privileged youths standing on the margins, if not outside the very high walls of existing universities. *Such restructuring of the university system, which expands access to the marginalized, serves to make them part and partners of what knowledge does to them as well as to larger society.* Further, enhanced access to quality university education is not just about the upward mobility gained but also about the critical knowledge(s) facilitated.

Delhi university  Teachers