THE Supreme Court’s dismissal in May 2025 of a petition seeking to enforce the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 in states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and West Bengal should be welcomed. The apex court rightly held that it cannot compel states to implement the NEP and may only intervene if the policy's implementation or non-implementation violates citizens’ fundamental rights. But beyond this formal legal restraint lies within a more profound political battle between top-down policy imposition and the spirit of federal democracy.

The verdict comes at a time when the BJP led centre has weaponised funding by linking state education grants and university grants to NEP compliance, effectively strong-arming dissenting bodies into submission. It has eroded institutional autonomy by empowering governors to override elected university bodies and installing centralised regulatory authorities without meaningful consultation with state governments or universities. Through coercive mandates, standardised curricula – designed for corporate-Hindutva nexus, private participation in infrastructure requirements, and rigid performance targets, the union government is forcing a uniform policy blueprint onto diverse regional and institutional landscapes.

Although education falls under the Concurrent List, centralising tendencies have increasingly dominated the sector. The NEP is not the starting point of this trend, but it is its most conspicuous manifestation – a glossy, seemingly progressive document that conceals deep contradictions and coercive intent.

Framed as a roadmap to universalise and modernise education, the NEP 2020 champions “multidisciplinarity” and “21st-century skills.” However, these buzzwords mask the real shift towards centralisation, commercialisation, and communalisation. At its ideological core, the NEP advances a vision of education that prioritises control over liberation. The so-called ‘experts’ of the NEP drafting committee proudly noted that the policy aims to produce a workforce aligned with market demands. Terms like “employability,” “discipline,” and “flexibility” are presented as progressive, but in reality, they function as a Trojan horse – used to impose a regressive vision that prepares students to become compliant products for corporate markets.

The very idea that a policy like the NEP with its explicit majoritarian cultural codes, its push for Hindi through the three-language formula, and its alignment with neoliberal market logics must be adopted in “letter and spirit” by all states disregards India’s plural and federal constitutional design. Resistance to the NEP must be seen as part of a long-standing assertion of regional autonomy, linguistic diversity, and the right to quality education. In this context, the Supreme Court’s rejection of the petition filed by a BJP leader, who argued that states were constitutionally obligated under Article 32 to implement the NEP, goes beyond a legal judgment. It stands as a judicial affirmation of a crucial federal principle: that states are not mere administrative subunits of the union, but political entities with constitutionally guaranteed autonomous powers. The Court’s verdict, when read alongside its earlier ruling in State of Tamil Nadu vs. Governor R.N. Ravi, reinforces the idea that federalism is not a procedural formality but a foundational pillar of Indian democracy.

The PIL in the Supreme Court had argued that by refusing to implement the NEP, the three states were denying schoolchildren their right to education. However, this assertion collapses under scrutiny. Tamil Nadu’s subsequent challenge under Article 131 – accusing the Centre of withholding Rs 2,291 crore in education funds as punishment for non-compliance – exposes the real stakes. Whenever the BJP-led government fails to impose the NEP or other policies through democratic consensus, it resorts to fiscal blackmail.

 While opposition-ruled states like Congress-led Karnataka and Telangana, and TMC-led West Bengal have proposed their own education policies as rhetorical counters to the NEP, these often remain trapped in the same market-driven, exclusionary logic, offering little more than symbolic gestures. Kerala, however, presents a radical and substantive alternative: a higher education system with enrolment rates surpassing the national average, driven by public investment, gender parity (with a 1.52 equality index – the highest in India), and democratic governance. The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government has resisted the NEP by actively strengthening its own education ecosystem. This includes SC/ST scholarships for foreign studies, the development of top-rated state universities, consistent public funding for infrastructure, mandated student representation in academic councils, and more – directly challenging the exclusionary design of the NEP.

Kerala further distinguishes itself in its defense of public schooling. Thousands of government schools have been revitalised rather than shut down under so-called ‘viability’ clauses. Curricula remain secular and locally relevant, and are regularly updated. By refusing to adopt the NEP’s privatisation agenda, the state has seen rising enrolments in government schools and robust community participation in educational decision-making.

The battle over the NEP is far from over – legally or politically. The progressive student movement, especially the Students’ Federation of India (SFI), has been at the forefront of this resistance. From campus referendums rejecting the NEP to nationwide protests against its exclusionary character, students have exposed the policy’s undemocratic roots, directly challenging the centre’s claim of “no opposition.” The Supreme Court’s verdict, then, is not just a procedural affirmation of federalism – it is an invitation to amplify democratic alternatives. Kerala’s success in democratising education offers a model for resistance. While the NEP and its state-level clones may speak the language of reform, their grammar remains authoritarian and communal. The task ahead is to make real, people-centric alternatives resonate louder than the noise of the Sangh Parivar.