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Paper long abstract

In independent India, affirmative action schemes are framed as pathways to educational mobility for caste oppressed and Indigenous Adivasi communities. Overseas scholarships are one such promise which seemingly translates social justice into global opportunity. This paper argues that access to scholarship is only the beginning. Focusing on Telangana’s Ambedkar Overseas Vidya Nidhi scheme, I examine what happens after students are selected and how mobility is mediated by welfare governance.

Based on in-depth interviews and digital ethnography with Dalit and Adivasi recipients studying in the United States and Europe, I show how delayed or partial disbursements, opaque decisions, inconsistent communication, and bureaucratic paperwork trail disrupt students’ ability to pay fees, register for courses, secure housing, and meet visa linked academic requirements. Students describe high interest loans, long hours of campus work, and anxiety about grades and legal status. In some cases, studies are interrupted.

Conceptually, I engage Satish Deshpande’s critique of caste-lessness in public institutions and Trina Vithayathil’s work on Brahminical bureaucracy to argue that academic casteism is enacted not only inside universities but also through state administration. Delays, discretion, and bureaucratic deflection allow the state to appear neutral while shifting risk onto marginalised students and their families. By shifting the lens from access to aftermath, the paper speaks to educational aspirations and polarised futures, showing how a mobility policy can reproduce inequality through the very infrastructure that claims to deliver justice.

Keywords

Caste, overseas scholarships, welfare governance, bureaucracy, academic casteism, Dalit and Adivasi students, educational mobility, Telangana, digital ethnography