F or a few weeks after Aditi Kumar arrived in New York City to pursue her masters, she could not afford a mattress. She had carried a few coats with her, which she owned because her family belonged to a cold, mountainous region in India. She piled these one on top of another, threw a bedsheet over them and went to sleep.
Soon, however, she started to suffer from backaches. Kumar realised she could not put off the purchase any longer and bought a mattress. But she could not afford a blanket and was worried about how she would manage in the cold – she was relieved when a friend lent her an old blanket.
This was just one of the many struggles that Kumar faced after she travelled to the United States to begin a master’s programme. (She, like all the students Scroll spoke to for this story, asked to be identified by a pseudonym.) These struggles were particularly bitter because a year earlier, Kumar had been awarded the National Overseas Scholarship, administered by the Indian government’s ministry of social justice and empowerment.
The scholarship “aims to empower low-income students from marginalised communities, including the Scheduled Castes, denotified nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, landless agricultural labourers and traditional artisans”. In 2023, the ministry offered 125 awards. Out of these, 115 were for students from Scheduled Castes, six for students from denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and four for students who were children of landless agricult.