Open letter english

1. A Year of NEP, A Year of dismantling of education system in India
AIFRTE’s Open Letter Urging the People of the Country to Reject NEP 2020
Education is a fundamental right of every child and youth in India. The constitutional principles of equality and social justice provide the
framework for all fundamental rights. Therefore, no child can be denied access to or provision of scientific and rational education of
comparable quality on grounds of caste, class, gender, status and wealth, disability, tribal, religious, linguistic or regional affiliation.
Education is included as a subject in the concurrent list of the Constitution. This means that the Union Government and all State governments
are obligated to provide adequately and in a non-discriminatory manner for the education of every single child. The fundamental right to
education of comparable quality also forms an aspect of the one’s fundamental right to not just life but, to a `life of dignity' with equal
opportunity to develop and enhance one's talents as an equal member of society.
The burden of providing for education cannot be allowed to fall on individual families or students. This is exactly what the NEP2020 is
attempting to do with its promotion of `twinning' public and private schooling, with public-private `partnership' (PPP) schemes to siphon
public funds and help to consolidate private corporate players in the education sector right from Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE)
up to higher educational and professional level. Instead of pursuing policies for strengthening and expanding a government-funded
compulsory neighbourhood-based common school system, policies for the merger and closure of existing government schools are being
promoted in the name of `rationalisation' to facilitate creation of `school clusters', and massive fee hikes, without any regulation in the case
of private institutions, are being implemented across the board even in top tier public universities and professional institutions like the I.I.T's
and I.I.M's.
NEP2020 claims that the neoliberal strategy of privatisation, corporatisation and centralisation of education will provide "universal
access" to "quality education" for all. However, this claim is not just false but is a betrayal of our constitutional rights and an dishonest
act of deception that is being imposed on the people. The inequalities in life conditions of the great majority of the Indian people are so
extreme that this is not feasible at all. In fact, if NEP2020 is implemented, which is currently being done most anti-democratically through
government orders in the absence of open debate amongst parliamentarians in the Parliament let alone in education - students, parents,
and academicians. It will lead to a denial of any meaningful education for over ninety percent of children.
This is more than obvious in the statement on NEP2020 given to the press (Express News Service, The Indian Express, July 9, 2021) by the
new education minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan. He explained that Indian youth can be "categorised in three categories -in formal
education, anganwadi system and those who could be part of the skill force." Clearly only a small section which can afford commercialised
private education will be in the formal system. The vast majority will find their `education' limited to the foundational level of 5 years
acquiring basic skills of literacy and numeracy. They will not even get the present RTE Act's assured schooling up to Class VIII. Finally, it will
be the tribals, the Bahujans, the poor, the oppressed and the marginalized who will receive vocational skill training through a selectively
early vocationalisation of curriculum and courses. This will equip them only for lowly paid jobs and the insecurity of constantly having to
`upgrade' their `skills' each time technological advances make them redundant and jobless.
The misguided policy decisions of the neoliberal "developmental reforms", the devastating impact of the ill-conceived demonetisation
decision on livelihoods of almost ninety percent of the population, followed by the ruinous conditions imposed by the Corona virus pandemic
and the political and administrative failure to cope with it, made life impossibly difficult for workers, farmers, migrant labour and daily wage
workers and even for professional employees. Today people are faced with rising unemployment, which is already at its highest level in 45
years, and contractualisation of jobs in both the public and private sector, with food and fuel prices showing unprecedented and steady
hikes, with government provided healthcare systems shrinking due to being deprived of public investment and unable to prevent
Government's policies of corporatisation of medical facilities so that these costs consume whatever little resources or savings are left with
the people.NEP2020 is aimed at ensuring that education too suffers the same fate as the right to work and to health. It is to be converted
into a market `commodity' to be sold and traded for corporate profit and not seen as an end itself or at least as a vital component of
human and social development.
Just as compulsory government-funded formal school education of comparable quality up to Class XII is a constitutional fundamental right
of every child which can only be possible if Union and state governments also ensure that full nutritional requirements and other
infrastructural requirements (even the very least as listed in the RTE Act which is deemed unnecessary to be implemented by NEP2020) are
provided for, so that children are not forced into labour. Access to higher and professional education must be ensured for those who want
to proceed further in their studies. However, NEP2020 makes this prohibitive with its privatisation and commercialisation policies on the
one hand, and on the other with its centralisation of eligibility, entrance and evaluative criteria in the name of promoting so-called `merit'.
This only ensures that privileged sections, i.e., those from well-to-do families, educated in elite English medium schools and economically
equipped to benefit from expensive private coaching centres, are allowed to further consolidate their economic and social advantages. It is
no wonder that NEP2020 makes no mention of the promotion of diversity and social justice through the Reservation policy. However, due
to political compulsions of impending elections in several states the prime minister has just declared that reservation will be provided for
not only for SC/ST but also for OBC and EWS candidates in the All-India quota of the medical and dental NEET exam! Of course, this follows
an order from the Madras High Court.
Instead of encouraging and advancing greater social, linguistic and academic diversity in higher education, NEP2020is focused only on
ensuring `ease of doing business' for corporate investors with `single window' regulatory authorities (Higher Education Commission of
India[HECI], with a National Higher Education Regulatory Commission[ NHERC], under its wing to regulate financial and audit matters as well
as administration, basic infrastructure, employees, faculties, courses etc.,) in its multi-disciplinary university complexes with thousands of
students. It is significant that NEP2020 is already increasing the percentage of online courses to cater to such large numbers of students
Such courses are costly if privately marketed besides which students will have to further bear costs of accessing digital devices and facilities.

2. The claim that the Academic Bank of Credit will allow students to move freely between disciplines is again only a cover-up. Choices will be
determined not by students’ choice but by availability of courses offered by the institution and by the ranking of institutions. The value of
credits will be determined by the `skills' acquired by students in their qualifying courses, so students particularly from oppressed sections
who have been `persuaded' to take up vocational courses in earlier education will not be able to move freely to academic courses as it is
being claimed.
NEP2020 will result in a clear disempowerment of academicians at all levels. Even courses and syllabi are to be centrally determined and
Boards of Governors with little or no academic credibility will have complete autonomy in governing institutions of higher education. Faculty
and students are even denied the democratic right to establish their associations and unions, let alone be elected to governing bodies. In
case of grievances, they must approach the same authorities and do not even have recourse to the courts.
NEP2020 has a limited and negative approach to education as a diverse, plural and interactive process of learning. However, it clearly has a
two-pronged agenda of what is to be achieved through its implementation. Firstly, the destruction of what remains of the neglected system
of government-funded education system and the diversion of its financial allocations and large physical assets and infrastructure to building
up a profitable base for investors in a privatised system of education. Secondly, and this is probably more dangerous and insidious as its
impact is deeper and longer lasting, is the transformation of education into a system of indoctrination for furthering the Hindutva ideology
and inculcating subservience to the concept of a Hindu Rashtra. Both these agendas violate the principles of the Indian Constitution which
requires advancing scientific temper and critical learning on the one hand, and on the other, rejects discrimination of any section on the
basis of caste, religion and gender identities and disabilities.
Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) members and supporters have already been appointed to head and staff educational institutions across
the country, and `volunteers' are to be inducted at the ECCE and school levels for indoctrinating children in `Indian', i.e. Hindu value systems
and practices. Sanskrit has not only been declared the mother of all Indian languages (concealing the history of Brahmanical pressure for
Sanskritising other languages) but also amazingly identified as a "modern Indian language" (spoken today by less than one percent of the
people) so that it can be paired with Hindi/ other Indian languages in the `three language formula' for school education. At any rate it is to
be made a compulsory, though for now, it is being introduced as non-credit course across all levels of education. The introduction of courses
like astrology in universities, and permitting the setting up of private school boards by Ramdev's Patanjali foundation for Vedic education
which will allow providing recognition to RSS-run Vishwa Bharti and Shishu Mandir schools until the Union government itself funds them to
introduce Maths and Science courses for inclusion under regular state and central school boards, will only further blur the distinction
between scientific education and ideological indoctrination.
The recent `appeal' to the public at large to send email requests for what they want included as correctives or deleted as distortions from
History courses makes a complete mockery of academic learning and the methodology of historical research. It will convert a discipline for
which Indian universities and academics are renowned worldwide into an academic scandal.
The AIFRTE, a united platform of academics, students’ and teachers’ organisations and activists in defence of democratic rights and struggles
of all sections against the Union government's dictatorial goals and methods to push through its neoliberal and fascist agenda under the
cover of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, reject outright the NEP2020 in toto because it
• violates the rights, principles and goals set and recognised by the people of India in the Constitution;
• seeks to centralise the education system by denying the federal structure of the Constitution and the Union of India;
• acts in the interest of private capital, both Indian and foreign, to commercialise and corporatise the education system;
• seeks to communalise and diminish the achievements of Indian academics;
• discriminates against marginalized communities; on the basis of caste, class, gender, and disability; and against religious, linguistic
and regional minorities;
• promotes inequality and injustice.
Clearly, the anti-student, anti-teacher, anti-people and thereby anti-India NEP 2020 has been framed and imposed autocratically, anti-
thetical to India’s pluralistic and democratic ideals furthering the interests of the oligarchal few. In fact, over the last year, we have witnessed
how dictatorially the NEP2020 is being implemented on urgent and ad-hoc modes yet at alarming speeds at all levels including that of the
Union and the States & Union Territories. Further, on 29th July 2021 marking one year of adoption (read imposition) of NEP, the Prime
Minister and his henchmen who did not even care to discuss for once in the Parliament, the that affects literally every person of the country
directly or indirectly resorted to a shoddy public relation stunt in the name of addressing the nation. The Prime Minister as always, did not
address the pertaining issues involved. Speaking about education, he did not care to mention about massive drop-out of students from
educational systems across the country, the closures or re-opening of schools, the disruptions in providing the mid-day meals schemes, the
leaks of databases of students online, the precarity of working conditions and job-losses for teachers and other staffs, the issues associated
with online learning or even the cuts made by his own government in the budget for education despite there being a need to in fact increase
it, especially in the times of the pandemic. Rather, he chose to brag about how the NEP becomes crucial for the country given that India is
stepping into its 75th year of Independence. Yes. NEP2020 becomes crucial and holds the key in the sense that its very adoption and
implementation might mark the beginning of the end of Independent India.
Therefore, it is at this very crucial juncture that we demand that the people of the country to join hands in not just resisting the
implementation of NEP2020 but also in rejecting the NEP2020 in toto. It is the need of the hour for India to be independent. For India to be
independent, education must be independent. Independent of the corporates, independent of the fundamentalists and independent of
anti-science ideologues. In this regard, we urge the masses to not just pressurize the government to discuss the policy in the ongoing session
of the Parliament before pushing for its implementation stead-fast across States and Union Territories but to urge the political parties and
other citizens to reject NEP 2020 in toto.

3. [Please note that this open letter has been released for the widest circulations as a part of All India Forum for Right To
Education’s call for All India Protests against the NEP 2020 to be organized in both – physical and online mode on 10th,
11th and 12th August 2021 as #NEPQuitIndia. For media circulations and more details about the campaign, contact: +91-
9844120966]