PM Shri and NEP: Why Kerala must use its right to withdraw

The Union government itself has clarified in Parliament that the states have the federal freedom not to sign the PM Shri and to withdraw. This is clearly against the propaganda by the UDF regime that after the MoU in September 2025 by LDF, now we cannot withdraw from this NEP project at school level. Union Minister Jayant Chaudhary clarified this in response to a question from Abdul Wahab MP from Kerala in late July 2026. It is enough to reject the minor economic benefits that are promised to Kerala, and save the future of children and the society.

This is a golden opportunity that Kerala has got. This may also be the last chance for relief from the NEP agenda which is widely critiqued as a project of RSS and Parivar forces to achieve their Hindu Nationalist goals of education. It is also remarkable that the students and youth who made possible the resignation of Mr Pradhan as Education Minister are also demanding the complete roll back of NEP 2020.

India's education and social democracy system, based on the federal principles of our constitution based on democratic representation and the modern democratic ethical values of liberty, equality, fraternity, have given considerable justice to the people, over the past 70 years amidst limitations and shortcomings. When the Hindu nationalist party came to power at the union level in the early 21st century, programs that were incompatible with constitutional values and justice, such as saffronizing education and history textbooks and advocating narrow fanatic nationalism, were launched under the ministering of Murali Manohar Joshi. A hyped ‘historian’ Mr MGS was made the chairman of the ICHR (Indian Council for Historical Research) for this purpose of saffronizing history and NCERT texts. Later, when Javadekar took over the HRD Ministry, the Union government, under the guidance of the Swayamsevak Sangh, initiated a new National Education Policy (NEP) in 2016 and it was enacted by Parliament in 2020.

Since 2016, many educationists, intellectuals and academic critics, have been writing and saying that NEP is a corporate Brahminical Hindu nationalist education policy that contributes to communalization and commercialization of education. It is a pedagogy of Hindu Nationalism. But the covetous hidden forces of Hindutva across various party and institutional affiliations that form the oligarchy or the power elite, in all sectors ignored and silenced this serious critique and obliterated and tarnished crucial critical voices through institutional repression and silencing.

The forces of over representation and monopoly in education and public service in Kerala, the Savarna-Syrian oligarchy have been cutting off and deporting such critical voices, from their workplaces, through character assassination, false accusations, false complaints, misusing students and colleagues, and cutting off their tongues of critical dissent for the future.

The current historical truth is that the National Education Policy 2020, which is a Swayamsevak-Sangh Parivar agenda against the Indian Constitution, its foundational democratic values, and the research and postgraduate study sectors that produce critical knowledge, was implemented most diligently and hastily in Kerala. Tamil Nadu and many other states are still resisting it. Karnataka that signed it when BJP was ruling, withdrew from NEP when Congress came.

The Left in Kerala had earlier in 2018 implemented the EWS, the economic reservation for the already over represented Forward or caste Hindus or Syrian Christians, which is against the basic ethical social democratic representation structure of the Constitution, in Devaswom Board and challenged the Union government to implement it. Modi and Shah implemented the EWS in 2019 only as an election stunt.

The ethical foundation of the Constitution is democratic social representation. Without social representation and democracy there is no democratic republic possible. Modern democracy is the politics of representation everywhere in the world. In India, a caste-based society of graded inequality, community reservation is a democratic constitutional mechanism to ensure the rightful, due and adequate representation of the people who have been denied representation in the socio-political systems in the name of caste and Varna. Reservations are not an economic development program or an employment generation scheme. Economic or class status is not a factor in community representation system of social democracy and equal opportunity. Giving financial reservation to the upper castes, who have been overrepresented in all walks of life including education and public service for centuries in the name of caste, illegally, on the basis of unconstitutional economic logic and more than their population is absolute injustice, betrayal of the people and violation of the constitutional rights and values.

Even Pinarayi Vijayan was hurled with casteist slur and abuse in public on record by caste Hindu Sudra women like Mani Pilla for trying to implement the Supreme Court Constitutional Bench’s verdict for gender and social justice. 10 percent EWS in Devasam Board of Kerala that was already over represented by 96 percent by a single caste Hindu group was implemented under these pressure situations, making a mockery of democracy and the Constitution in Nov 2018!

It was only in January 2019 that the Union government implemented the EWS or economic reservation for the upper castes in the central service and education sector. It has been the agenda of RSS from 1950s onwards but they were not able to articulate it openly as they feared popular backlash. This was an act that destroyed the principles of truth and justice of the Constitution of modern democratic India. Following this, the National Education Policy called NEP 2020 was also passed.

Four states in India, including Tamil Nadu, declared on the same day that they would not implement the National Education Policy, which would take future generations back to the caste-based Hindu Vedic Varnasrama system, no matter what happens, and are still resisting this Hindu nationalist education agenda. At that time, Kerala, which was ruled by the Left, was the first to pass the economic reservation for the upper castes, and implemented the National Education Policy with great zeal, as if setting an example for the Centre, and completely rewrote Kerala education and the values of the Indian Constitution at a bargain price. Although it was said that a new Kerala education policy would be created with changes, a textbook based entirely on Vedanta was published in the name of Kerala Knowledge System. Narayanaguru who is also called the Kerala Buddha, who is a model for the world in secular humanistic and representative public thought and praxis, has been reduced to an Advaita Vedantin in it. Guru is made a mere follower or practitioner of Advaita Vedanta of Sankara.

The makers of this volume neither mention the genealogies of Advaita Vedanta and the ‘Buddha in disguise,’ nor the ancient enlightened histories of India, Kerala, the Chera land, and the Tamil Sangha culture, such as Ashoka, the great whose missionaries spread it to south India and South Asia. Buddha’s 2600 year old theory of Anitya and Samudaya was interpreted in CE second century as “Sunyavada” by Nagarjuna, it was linked to Vedic Brahmavada or Atmavada by Gaudapada in CE 6th century and it was renamed as Advaita by Sankara in CE 9th century. That is why Sankara is called a Buddha in disguise or Prachhanna Buddha by more conventional Brahmanical schools and pandits.

Everything was done in the spirit of caste Hinduism that is based on Vedic obscurantism its ends called Vedanta, the logic of the land of the Vedas, and the myth of caste Hinduism, by the orthodox scholars, Puranic Pandits who have taken over the leadership of Kerala education policy, wearing the mantle of the left wing. The economic reservation and national education policy that have overturned the constitution are all the work of the malicious ruling Brahminical alliance of the caste Hindu or Savarna-Syrian oligarchy, across religion, community and party or institution in Kerala.

These are the same people who, without even the knowledge of their political coalition allies, went to Delhi and secretly signed the PM Shri MoU with the help of central service personnel and therefore more servile officials to the Union regime in Sept 2025. When the controversy arose, the agreement was frozen and it was said that it would not be carried further forward.

Higher education in Kerala had already been severely affected with the NEP centralised framework and directive that was implemented in a mad or obedient hurry.

The NEP model has a four-year degree, and normally more serious and academically and critically more crucial P. G. studies and Ph D research studies are being devastated and under erasure. PG weightage has been abolished and quality and outcomes of PG studies are severely affected. It will lead to the closing down of public universities and colleges and encourages private and foreign academia in Kerala.

When PG weightage was abolished, more than 25,000 higher education teaching positions disappeared altogether. PG weightage abolition also aims to eliminate the quality of post graduate study and research, equality of social representation, and creation and dissemination of critical knowledge on centralized power and hegemonic systems like the caste Hindu structures.

It has created unemployment for advanced young people with research and post-doctoral degrees. It was when Modi and Shah's flag and banner or images/hoardings were to be hoisted in schools that many realized the threats and dangers of the National Education Policy. At that time, the current Chief Minister V D Satheesan and his team, who were critical of PM Shri, came to power in 2026 and saw the issue of Kerala and PM Shri as a mere financial agreement issue and said that they could not withdraw because they had taken money.

But it is not true that Kerala received any funds so far and moreover, the scheme is ending this academic year. In fact, Congress leaders Rahul and Kharge faced the people in the elections by saying that wherever they came to power, they would use the constitutional federal rights, the will of the people and the popular opinion to cancel the NEP and the EWS. Since the people voted for it, the Congressmen should do it first in Kerala too if they value the will and mandate of the people.

Now the Union Minister from Education Ministry himself has made it clear in Parliament that if they withdraw from the agreement, the only loss will be the funds that are due. This is the last chance. Those who are still trying to implement the education agenda of the Swayamsevaks by pretending to be more royal than the king and more Hindu than the Brahmins with a hidden caste Hindu RSS agenda, hiding in the left and the right, should correct their mistakes and PM Shri, NEP, and EWS must be abolished at the earliest for a democratic and secular India. We must urgently move away from the NEP and EWS agendas and protect Kerala and India as the agitating educated youth and students of this country demand. Long live the will of the people and the democratic Constitution.

(The author is Associate Professor of English, SSUS Kalady. He can be contacted at ajaysekher@ssus.ac.in)