Social justice to social division: A framing analysis of UGC equity regulations 2026 in Hindi print and television media

Efforts to reduce caste-based discrimination in India have been made from 19th-century social reformers to modern laws and policies, yet the problem remains systemic today. Only providing access to education is not enough; institutional cultural change is also essential. In this context, this study analyses how Hindi print and television media frame the UGC Equity Regulations 2026 in terms of social justice and social division. The main objective of this public policy is to eliminate caste-based discrimination in higher education and to promote inclusiveness and social justice. Following the regulation’s implementation, there were strong protests over Clause 3(e), which received extensive media coverage. In this coverage, the regulation was often framed in terms of ‘misuse’ and ‘reverse discrimination’ and pushing the policy’s objective into the background. This study adopted a mixed-method approach based on content analysis and framing theory, in which 44 news reports were systematically analysed. The findings indicate that episodic framing was more dominant than thematic framing, highlighting individual incidents and conflict-based narratives, while structural dimensions of caste inequality and the public policy’s social justice objectives received comparatively less emphasis. At the same time, the media presented the regulation as a caste conflict and portrayed lower-caste protests through threat-orientated framing, marginalising their voices while depicting the upper caste in a victimhood frame and giving elite representation greater prominence. Overall, this study shows how selective media framing shifts emphasis away from the public policy’s positive objectives, such as social cohesion, social justice, and equal access, and reframes them through the lens of social division.