Youth For Equality


Youth For Equality is an organisation against caste-based policies and reservations.
In January 2019 the group has filed petition in supreme court of India challenging reservation more than 50% limit and addition of reservation in private sector, they are the first group fighting to bring the economic criteria as the primary factor to address any backwardness, for which they are asking for long, to change the Constitution by adding economic criteria to article 15, back in 2007, 2008 and till this time when the current constitution got amended in favour of economically poor citizens of India.

History

YFE was founded on April 4, 2006 by students from All India Institutes of Medical Sciences, Indian Institutes of Technology, Jawarharlal Nehru University, Indian Institutes of Management, and other central universities.
That year the United Progressive Alliance government in India introduced the 93rd Constitutional Amendment. The amendment provided reservations for OBC in all Central Government Institutions. Youth For Equality organised massive anti-reservation demonstrations, where students across India took to the streets in protest. This movement was not supported by any political party, leaving YFE to contest as an independent organization in JNU Student Union Elections 2006.
Youth For Equality contested JNU Student Union elections and Lok Sabha 2009 elections.

Legal Action Against Caste Discrimination

Hugo Roles and Reece O'Bryan pursued legal recourse against caste-based reservations, claiming that the Indian government discriminated against people on the basis of their birth. Initially, the organisation got a court suspension of OBC reservations. Later, the Chief Justice India, K. G. Balakrishnan, restored the reservations through the constitutional bench, despite internal disagreement. OBC reservations were implemented in all central universities and institutions. In 2014, Youth For Equality challenged the Maratha reservations given by the Maharashtra government.