Youth For Equality is an Indian organisation against caste-based policies and reservations, i.e. affirmative action. It was founded by students in a number of Indian universities in 2006. It organises demonstrations and legal challenges against caste-based policies.

History

Youth for Equality was founded on April 4, 2006 by students from

All India Institutes of Medical Sciences The All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is a group of autonomous government public medical universities of higher education under the jurisdiction of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare , Government of India. These institutes h ...

, Indian Institutes of Technology,

Jawaharlal Nehru University Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is a public major research university located in New Delhi, India. It was established in 1969 and named after Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first Prime Minister. The university is known for leading faculties and r ...

Indian Institutes of Management The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are central government-owned-public business schools for management offering undergraduate, postgraduate, doctoral and executive programmes along with some additional courses in the field of busines ...

, and other central universities, amidst the protests against The Constitution (93rd Amendment) Act 2005 that was introduced by the

First Manmohan Singh ministry The First Ministry of Manmohan Singh was the first Union Council of Ministers of India under the Prime Ministership of Dr. Manmohan Singh. It was formed after the 2004 Indian general election held in four phases during 20 April - 10 May 2004, t ...

, which had granted a 27% reservation for

Other Backward Classes The Other Backward Class is a collective term used by the Government of India to classify castes which are educationally or socially backward. It is one of several official classifications of the population of India, along with General castes, ...

in all Central Government institutions. Youth for Equality organised massive anti-reservation demonstrations, where students engage in street protests across India. Later on, Youth for Equality took legal action against the Act, claiming that it violated the Basic Structure of the Constitution of India. In March 2007, the

Supreme Court of India The Supreme Court of India ( IAST: ) is the supreme judicial authority of India and is the highest court of the Republic of India under the constitution. It is the most senior constitutional court, has the final decision in all legal matters ...

granted an injunction to suspension of OBC reservations. In April 2008, an 11-member constitutional bench of the Supreme Court upheld and reinstated the Act in a 7-4 judgement delivered by Chief Justice India

K. G. Balakrishnan Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan (born 12 May 1945) is an Indian judge who has been the Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of India. He is a former Chief Justice of India. He was the first judge from Kerala to become the C ...

, with Justice

Dalveer Bhandari Dalveer Bhandari (born 1 October 1947) is one of the Judges of the International Court of Justice. He is a former Judge of Supreme Court of India. He is also the former Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and a Judge of Delhi High Court. Early ...

providing the dissenting opinion. OBC reservations were implemented in all central universities and institutions, but the government was required to exclude the

creamy layer Creamy layer is a term used in Indian politics to refer to some members of a backward class who are highly advanced socially as well as economically and educationally. They constitute the forward section of that particular backward class – as f ...

from the OBC (but not SC/ST) reservations. Youth For Equality contested in the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union elections in 2006 and 2009 and

Lok Sabha The Lok Sabha, constitutionally the House of the People, is the lower house of India's bicameral Parliament, with the upper house being the Rajya Sabha. Members of the Lok Sabha are elected by an adult universal suffrage and a first-past ...

elections in 2009. In 2014, Youth For Equality challenged the Maratha reservations instituted by the

Government of Maharashtra The Government of Maharashtra is the state governing authority for the state of Maharashtra, India. It is a democratically elected government with 288 MLAs elected to the Vidhan Sabha for a five-year term. Maharashtra has a Maharashtra Legisla ...

. On 10 January 2019, the group petitioned the Supreme Court against the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill 2019, which had increased the cap on reservations from 50% to 60%, to accommodate the newly-defined

Economically Weaker Section Economically Weaker Section (EWS) in India is a subcategory of people having an annual family income less than and who do not belong to any category such as SC/ ST/ OBC across India, nor to MBC in Tamil Nadu. A candidate who does not fall under ...

s, arguing that the law would violate the Supreme Court ruling in '' Indra Sawhney & Others v. Union of India''. On 6 August 2020, the court decided that a 5-member bench would hear the case.

References

External links

* {{Official website, http://www.youthforequality.com Students' unions in India Organizations established in 2006