International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

The Unfinished Emancipation: Ambedkar’s Educational Vision and the Structural Exclusion of Scheduled Caste Students in Indian Higher Education

This paper critically reviews the gap between policy-driven access and genuine educational emancipation for Scheduled Caste (SC) students in Indian higher education. While constitutional mandates and reservation policies have improved enrollment numbers, this review argues that entry without structural transformation fails to dismantle caste-based humiliation. Synthesizing recent literature from critical caste studies, psychology, and legal scholarship, the analysis reveals that SC students continue to endure everyday microaggressions, curricular erasure, and hostile campus climates that severely impact mental health and academic persistence. Drawing on Ambedkar's framework of education as a tool for annihilating caste rather than merely securing employment, the paper highlights how the "leaky pipeline" from undergraduate to doctoral levels reflects cumulative economic, cultural, and institutional barriers. The review also identifies pathways toward meaningful emancipation, including cultivating anti-caste consciousness, centering Dalit perspectives in pedagogy, ensuring faculty representation, and leveraging youth-led disruption. Ultimately, the paper concludes that sustainable change requires simultaneous intervention across three dimensions: access, psychological safety, and epistemic justice. Moving beyond token inclusion, genuine social transformation demands that SC students not only enter universities but also actively reshape institutional cultures, curricula, and decision-making bodies.