In a manner, it is an extension of the violence visited upon the Dalits and the minorities by Hindutva proponents on the streets and in homes
A recent piece of news reported by a few national English dailies, but which didn’t seem to get much traction in regional newspapers or in public discussions, was regarding a substantial cut in the number of National Overseas Scholarships (NOS).
The NOS programme was instituted in 1954-55 to provide financial support to students from Scheduled Castes (SC), Denotified Nomadic Tribes (DNT), semi-nomadic tribes, landless agricultural labourers, or traditional artisan categories, with a family income below Rs 8 lakh per annum, for study and research in foreign universities.
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Left in limbo
On July 1, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment announced provisional scholarship awards to only 40 of the 106 candidates selected for NOS for the academic year 2025-26, with a statement that letters for the remaining 66 candidates “may be issued... subject to availability of funds.”
In previous years, all students in the selected list had received provisional scholarship letters at the same time, but this year less than half of the selected candidates received the award letters, leaving the rest in limbo, not knowing what the outcome is going to be.
A Ministry official was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times, “It is an issue with the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs not approving the money allocated to these scholarship schemes. We have the money but we also need green signal from above to give it out.” The Cabinet committee is headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
BJP govt's larger agenda
While this may appear to be a minor glitch in the flow of funds — which will be rectified in a short time and all the selected candidates allowed to pursue their higher studies and further their careers — a closer look will suggest there is much more to the picture than what is apparent. And that it is in line with a much larger agenda of the BJP government of systematically denying students of the SC, ST and minority communities scholarships and much needed support for their education.
On February 7, the Ministry of Minority Affairs issued an abrupt order to close down the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, without assigning any reasons for the decision.
A simple enumeration of developments in the last few years will serve to place the matter into perspective:
• In the 2022-23 Union Budget, there was a huge reduction of over 99 per cent in funds allocated to the Maulana Azad Education Foundation (MAEF), which works for the educational upliftment of minority communities such as Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis and Jains. While the previous year’s Budget allocated Rs 90 crore, the 2022-23 Budget allotted a paltry Rs 1 lakh to the foundation. As a result, the stipend payments of more than 1,400 PhD scholars from these communities have been stalled since January 2025 and some from even earlier.
• Funds for the National Fellowship for SC and ST students were cut by 99.99 per cent as the allocation dropped from Rs 240 crore in the revised estimates (RE) for 2024 to just Rs 0.02 crore in the budget estimates (BE) for 2025.
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• The National Testing Agency (NTA) initially released a selection list of 865 scholars in March 2025 for the National Fellowship for SC and ST students, but a ‘revised list’ was issued in April which cut down selections to only 487 of the previously chosen candidates.
• The NOS scheme, mentioned earlier, saw a reduction of 99.8 per cent from Rs 6 crore in RE 2024 to Rs 0.01 crore in BE 2025.
• In 2022, the Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment had excluded "topics/courses concerning Indian Culture/heritage/History/Social studies on India based research topics" from the NOS scheme.
• The Pre-Matric Scholarship for Minorities was reduced by 72.4 per cent to Rs 90 crore in BE 2025 from Rs 326.16 crore in RE 2024. It has also been restricted to students of classes IX and X.
• The Post-Matric Scholarship for Minorities has been decreased by 69.9 per cent, from Rs 1,145.38 crore in RE 2024 to Rs 343.91 crore in BE 2025.
• The Merit-cum-Means (MCM) Scholarship first saw a reduction 42.6 per cent to Rs 19.41 crore in the 2025 Budget. According to the latest reports, it has been discontinued due to “overlap with similar schemes of other ministries.”
• The Dr Ambedkar Scheme of Interest Subsidy on Educational Loan for Overseas Studies for OBC and OEC students incurred a cut of 56.66 per cent to Rs 8.16 crore from Rs 15.30 crore in BE 2025.
• An RTI enquiry filled by activist MA Akram brought to light that more than 50 per cent of the funds slotted for minority educational programmes have not been used. Specifically, of the Rs 305.8 crore allocated for fee reimbursement scheme, Rs 174.23 crore remained unutilised.
Maulana Azad Foundation shut
Even more tellingly, on February 7 of this year, the Ministry of Minority Affairs (MoMA) issued an abrupt order to close down the Maulana Azad Education Foundation, without assigning any reasons for the decision.
The Foundation was established in 1989, coinciding with the birth centenary of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the first Education Minister of India, as a non-profit organisation under the MoMA to address the educational disparities faced by minority communities, particularly Muslims, in India.
Over the years, it has provided significant service for the educational upliftment of minorities through a variety of schemes spanning across the entire spectrum of education from the primary to higher education and research. Despite this, the order of closure came without any warning. It also mandated the transfer of surplus funds worth Rs 669.71 with the Foundation to the Consolidated Fund of India.
The NITI Aayog guidelines stipulate that it is mandatory to allocate amounts proportionate to the population, however there is a shortfall of Rs 40,634 crore and Rs 9,399 crore for SC and ST allocations in the 2022-23 Budget.
Criticism of MoMA
It is crucial to note that the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Social Justice and Empowerment, chaired by BJP lawmaker PC Mohan, was quite caustic in its criticism of the Ministry of Minority Affairs for the sharp reduction in funding and the inordinate delays in funding approvals.
In its report of January 2025, the Committee stated that the delays and cuts have left students and institutions in high uncertainty, disrupting their planning and enrolment processes. The cuts in the pre-matric scholarship scheme, traditionally supporting thousands of minority students in primary and secondary education, was flagged as a major concern.
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The Committee saw the drastic reduction of the Maulana Azad National Fellowship (MANF) and the NOS scheme as a major setback for higher education opportunities for international education for minority students. It also observed that no new schemes have been introduced to replace these schemes, though it was claimed that they were being discontinued due to overlaps with other government programmes.
The report urged the government to restore funding, reinstate the discontinued schemes, and ensure the timely disbursement of scholarships. It emphasised that these programmes are crucial for promoting education among marginalised groups and warned that the delays and cuts would have a disastrous effect on students who rely on these initiatives for quality education and careers.
Rahul's letter to PM
Rahul Gandhi, the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, also wrote to the Prime Minister on June 10, citing the “deplorable” conditions of hostels and scholarship disbursements, and pointing out that students from the Dalit, Scheduled Tribe, Economically Backward Class, Other Backward Class, and minority sections of society were particularly affected.
There is only one inescapable conclusion possible, that there is a deliberate, planned strategy at work, to exclude members of the SC, ST and minority communities from educational opportunities and to deny them the social enablement that comes through education.
He highlighted the case of Bihar as an instance, where the scholarship portal has allegedly remained non-functional for three years, with no scholarships being disbursed from 2021-22. Most importantly, he also wrote about a sharp decline in beneficiaries, “The number of Dalit students receiving scholarships fell by nearly half, from 1.36 lakh in FY23 to 69,000 in FY24.”
Even as predictably there has been no response forthcoming from the Prime Minister, the response from the Ministry to the Committee’s report was at best laconic, if not downright dismissive.
Diversionary tactic
Apart from the repetition of the earlier argument that the cuts are part of efforts to streamline and consolidate educational programmes for minority students, as also to prevent overlaps with the schemes of other ministries, it also resorted to a diversionary tactic, mentioning that more than 50 per cent of the recipients of the minority scholarship schemes are female, surpassing the 30 per cent reservation for women in these schemes.
Understandably, no actual figures in terms of numbers, either that of beneficiaries or of the amounts spent, were shared.
It is here that the Dalit Adivasi Budget Analysis 2022-23 by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) becomes pertinent. It points out that the allocation for SC and ST communities in that financial year stood at Rs 1,42,342.36 crore and Rs 89,265.12 crore respectively.
However, targeted schemes for SCs avail only 37.79 per cent of the allocated amount with Rs 53,794.9 crore, whereas those for STs avail only 43.8 per cent with Rs 39,113 crore.
Inescapable conclusion
The NITI Aayog guidelines stipulate that it is mandatory to allocate amounts proportionate to the population. However, there is a shortfall of Rs 40,634 crore and Rs 9,399 crore for SC and ST allocations in the 2022-23 Budget. It is only reasonable to assume that things have not improved in the last two years; if at all, they have only worsened.
Putting all the pieces together, there is only one inescapable conclusion possible, that there is a deliberate, planned strategy at work, to exclude members of the SC, ST and minority communities from educational opportunities and to deny them the social enablement that comes through education.
In a manner, it is an extension of the violence visited upon the Dalits and the minorities by Hindutva proponents on the streets and in homes. But here, it is a systemic violence inflicted under the official auspices of a majoritarian state that sees Dalits and minorities as second class citizens or, if they can have their way, as non-citizens.
Worse still, it is a contemporary recreation of the age-old, inhuman system of caste brutality, which for decades Indian democracy and social movements have been at pains to eradicate. Both go hand in hand, and both bode no good for the country.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
