A new social science textbook released by the NCERT for Class VIII has included “economic background” as a factor for discrimination alongside traditional identity markers.
The development is significant against the backdrop of the outrage faced by the government from its core supporters in the Hindi heartland over the UGC’s equity rules that several claimed discriminated against social elites. The rules were later stayed by the Supreme Court.
The second part of the NCERT social science textbook, Exploring Society: India and Beyond, explains how economic backwardness could make children vulnerable to discrimination, besides their appearance and sexuality.
“Discrimination is mistreating any person or group because of their caste, religion, ethnicity, disability, race, physical appearance, gender, sexuality, or economic background. This is not only unethical, but also legally prohibited,” states the chapter on “Citizenship: Rights and Duties”.
The top court had banned an earlier version of this book over controversial content about the judiciary.
The UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Education Institutions) Regulations 2026 had defined discrimination as “any unfair, differential, or biased treatment or any such act against any stakeholder, whether explicit or implicit, on the grounds only of religion, race, caste, gender, place of birth, disability, or any of them”.
They had defined caste-based bias as “discrimination only on the basis of caste or tribe against the members of the SC, ST, and OBCs”.
After the new rules were notified, petitions were filed in the top court arguing that they had effectively denied protection to individuals from the "general" categories.
Prof. N. Sukumar, a faculty member of political science at Delhi University, said the NCERT book had tried to prioritise discrimination based on economic backwardness and physical appearance over social backwardness.
“The majority of the poor in India belong to backward castes. The economic discrimination against a person belonging to forward castes cannot be compared with the economic discrimination against SC, ST and OBCs. Ambedkar had said caste and class are two sides of the same coin. Denial of opportunity by taking caste into account leads to economic discrimination. They should have included it as an example of caste-based discrimination so that students could have understood the social reality better,” he said.
Bibekananda Nayak, an associate professor at Maulana Azad National Urdu University in Hyderabad, welcomed the wider definition of discrimination. “Students coming through reservation for the economically weaker sections face discrimination, too. This definition accommodates wider aspects of discrimination,” he said.