The article deals with the dimensions of inequalities operating through caste, class, gender, rural-urban difference, and, family which influences the achievements of education and its relationship with meritocracy as a defining feature and means of mobility in formal education enjoyed by upper social strata particularly of urban background in modern times because of the role played by cultural and economic factors in perpetuating educational inequality. The article argues that the justification of the existence and perpetuation of a meritocratic system seems to be a clever strategy for social closure and elite perpetuation and legitimizes inequality and makes its acceptable as a kind of safety value. The meritocratic principle masks the mechanism of social reproduction.