Born Disadvantaged: The Struggle of General Category Males in India.

We constantly hear about "equality" and "fair opportunities," but the reality is far from it. Suppose you’ve just completed your schooling and are ready to enter a government college. You soon discover that caste-based reservations allow candidates from reserved categories to secure seats at elite institutions with scores that are half or even a fraction of what’s required from a general category male. You, meanwhile, have to work twice as hard just to compete. And it doesn’t stop there—upon entering college, you’re faced with a new kind of discrimination, this time based on gender.

Women receive gender-based reservations in many educational institutions, meaning that, yet again, you are expected to compete on unequal terms. This isn't meritocracy, this is systematic favoritism, all in the name of progress. You, a general category male, are forced to fight harder for the same opportunities, with none of the safety nets others enjoy.

And it doesn’t end after college. Government jobs maintain the same caste-based reservations and gender quotas, leaving general males to compete for what little is left. And in the private sector, it’s no different. Gender diversity hiring has become the norm, lowering the hiring bar for women in the name of inclusivity, while you, as a man, are held to much stricter standards. The odds are stacked against you everywhere you turn.

Then comes marriage. And if things don’t work out, you find yourself facing a legal system that is heavily biased against men. In the event of a divorce, alimony laws often leave men paying large sums to their ex-wives, regardless of the circumstances of the marriage. The wife is often granted child custody, sometimes based on false accusations, while the husband is left to fight an uphill battle just to be in his children’s lives. The legal system assumes that the woman is the victim, with men having to prove their innocence.

So here’s the cycle: from education to employment, from marriage to divorce, the general category male is systematically disadvantaged at every turn. All this, while being told to be thankful for "equal opportunities."

At some point, it’s natural to wonder, what options are left for a general category male in this country? Is it truly fair to be condemned by a system that was designed to help others at your expense? If society is going to continue down this path, maybe the government should just be upfront and deny us everything from the start—why pretend? It would be more merciful to end the false hopes than to watch us struggle through a life of systemic bias.