Hyderabad:�NEET 2025 results have dismantled the myth that reservation and merit cannot co-exist as candidates across different categories performed exceptionally well.
According to National Testing Agency (NTA) data, several candidates from reserved categories ranked within the top 200 have scored 99.9 percentiles and above. These include candidates from SC, ST, OBC NCL, and EWS backgrounds, many outperforming general category peers despite systemic and social disadvantage.
From Telangana, reserved category students feature among the top 150 nationwide. Across India, over five lakh OBC students qualified. The number was 1.36 lakh for EWS, 86,902 for SC, and 38,460 for ST. These aren’t small margins. Despite this, students from marginalised backgrounds still face scrutiny from a society unwilling to shed prejudice.
Inside coaching classrooms, the hostility is more direct. Pasunuri Ravinder, writer and Dalit rights activist, shared what his daughter faced in coaching centres. “OC students openly ridicule SC and ST students. They call them lucky, saying they don’t have to struggle. There’s no awareness about what reservation actually means. The discrimination isn’t subtle. It happens every day.”
Ravinder believes the problem goes beyond student attitudes. “Families feed them wrong ideas about reservation. Post-globalisation, education became a tool for chasing doctor and engineer badges. There’s no space for empowerment or equity. SC and ST students coming this far without legacy or wealth is no small feat. But all they get is contempt.”
Prof Padmaja Shaw, a member of the Telangana Education Commission, called the nationalised exam system “a farce”.
She criticised its mechanical structure and said, “Earlier, universities had autonomy over admissions. Now it’s all centralised. The system is insensitive. There’s no human element left. Private colleges thrive on the money power, but no one talks about merit there. That hypocrisy is never addressed. Even within IITs, faculty posts reserved for SCs and STs are left vacant for years. The whole debate around merit is fake. It’s thrown at us regularly to push privatisation.”
She said the reservation was never implemented with integrity, and marginalised communities are being pushed out of public institutions. “People who attack the reservation are doing so to make people accept privatisation as normal. That’s not merit. That’s capital. The state must provide public education from primary to the highest level.”
The term ‘merit’ has always been complicated. Experts note how ‘merit’ is not objective, but tied to access to English-medium schooling, urban exposure, coaching networks and financial security. NEET performance doesn’t exist in a vacuum. What students bring to the exam hall is years of advantage or disadvantage.
“Caste has always kept the marginalised away from opportunity. A reservation was introduced to correct this. But instead, it is treated as a handout. People forget history. Reservations exist to level the field. And they will remain necessary as long as caste discrimination exists,” said Yeddu Divakar, former president of the Ambedkar Students’ Association at Osmania University.
Divakar’s words are visible in institutional behaviour. Dalit and Adivasi students are often isolated, mocked, or made to feel like intruders in elite institutes despite clearing competitive exams. Some drop out. Some don’t survive. NEET 2025 performance data, while encouraging, doesn’t prove the system is just. It only confirms what has always been true, that marginalised students have never lacked merit. What they lacked was backing.
