NEP2020 fails to address social justice and promotes privatization and commercialization of education that will consolidate caste-based, low-skill occupations, according to the All India Forum for Right to Education. The policy ignores reservations and positive discrimination while using "merit" to justify systemic social exclusions. It aims to centralize, commercialize, and communalize education to discourage critical thinking and social transformation. Upholding social justice requires rejecting NEP2020 and building peoples' movements to resist regressive policies that privilege some religions and castes over others.

1. All India Forum for Right to Education (AIFRTE)
Resolution on Social Justice
Social Justice is a direct casualty of NEP2020's agenda. Reservation and positive discrimination are
ignored and discredited. "Merit" is used as an excuse for not even planning for the removal of
entrenched systems of injustice. Systematic forms of social exclusion (caste, class, gender, religion,
disability and regional inaccessibility) are not even mentioned as the reason for `under-representation'
of large categories of persons. Social and political commitment and increased state funding for
extending a quality education for all is actually given up as privatisation and commercialisation of
education on the one hand, and a form of `vocationalisation' which will only consolidate low-skill,
caste-based occupations on the other, are systematically promoted.
NEP2020 is a policy which demands to be rejected because it sees education only as a means of
indoctrinating the mass of children and youth to fall in line with the Government's agenda of preparing
a work-force that will labour in the low-paid jobs market and satisfy corporate requirements. NEP2020
recommends, and in fact has already started implementing, changes that aim to centralise,
commercialise and communalise education so that critical thinking, scientific approach and the desire
for social transformation are discouraged. NEP2020 constantly talks about education with an "Indian
ethos" based on "Sanskrit knowledge systems". This shows the ideology that it wants to promote.
Dissent and democratic functioning which are so important for a dynamic education system find no
place in this policy.
The concept of social justice is the very opposite of pre-feudal and feudal forms of heirarchy of status
and oppression. India is a diverse country with many historical and cultural differences. Although caste
divisions underlie the dominant forms of oppression in many parts of the country, its historical diversity
also provides examples of types of egalitarianism and more subtle forms of inequality especially among
the different tribal and adivasi communities.
The right-wing Brahmanical/ Hindutva and patriarchal forces in India are determined to destroy the
Constitutional guarantees of equality, social justice, and measures for affirmative action like
reservations and other welfare measures. The Hindutva ideology is blatantly being promoted by the
present regime to privilege one religion above others, upper castes against `lowered' castes and
patriarchy over gender equality. There is an urgent need to build peoples' movements to resist these
regressive policies.
Social justice is also rejected by contemporary neoliberal theory and practice which only looks at the
exchange value of persons, services and products in the market-place. Whereas after World War II, with
its devastating effects on humanity, the Universal Charter of Human Rights was adopted so that equality
of rights should be recognised for all members of the human race, the ideas of human rights and of
justice for all are not respected by neoliberal policies. Our struggle against neoliberalism is therefore
an important part of the contemporary struggle for social justice.
The Indian Constitution, under the able leadership of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar as Chairperson of the Drafting
Committee specifically refers to all forms of systemic discrimination based on caste, class, gender,
religion, language, tribal/adivasi affiliation, and disability. To remove these forms of discrimination the
constitutional principle of social justice based on the universal rights of all human beings to a life of
liberty, equality and fraternity is an essential feature of contemporary society.
To ensure education of comparable quality for all, it is necessary to establish a state-funded, well-
equipped and compulsory Common School System based on Neighbourhood schools (CSS-NS) for all
children up to Class XII.