Reshaping India’s education system: As the world teeters between technological triumph and moral turbulence, the urgency to make peace a core priority of public policy has never been more pressing. The 2020s have seen a disturbing surge in geopolitical flashpoints — the war in Ukraine, relentless violence in Gaza, escalating tensions in South Asia, and the steady global drift towards authoritarianism. Alongside these, nations are grappling with internal upheavals: deepening communal rifts, rising economic inequality, climate-induced displacement, and a growing mental health crisis, particularly among the youth.
The World Economic Forum 2023 dubbed this the era of polycrisis, an interlocking web of threats that erode human security and deepen social fragmentation. But these are not only geopolitical crises; they are psychological and socio-economic ruptures. Algorithm-fuelled outrage, growing inequality, and fragile democratic institutions have bred a culture of fear, alienation, and mistrust.
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The answer cannot lie solely in deterrence or diplomacy. It must also emerge from classrooms — from what we teach, how we teach it, and what kind of citizens we hope to shape. This article explores the critical role of education in peacebuilding, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, and examines whether India’s National Education Policy (NEP 2020) offers a credible framework for nurturing both inner and societal peace.
Education in India: Promise and paradox
The philosophical roots of peace education run deep — from Maria Montessori and John Dewey to Johan Galtung, who distinguished between negative peace (the absence of war) and positive peace (the presence of justice and equity). Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970) framed education as a tool for liberation, while thinkers like Betty Reardon and the UNESCO Global Citizenship Education (GCED) movement have championed intercultural understanding and education for sustainable peace. Empirical evidence backs this approach: the Global Partnership for Education (2016) found that each additional year of schooling can reduce a youth’s likelihood of joining armed conflict by 20%. The Brookings Institution (2018) highlighted emotional intelligence and cultural literacy as critical tools against radicalisation.
India’s education system embodies both aspiration and contradiction. The Kothari Commission Report (1966) memorably declared, “The destiny of India is being shaped in her classrooms,” advocating for a common school system to promote equity and national integration. Yet, as scholars like Krishna Kumar (Prejudice and Pride, 2001) and Amartya Sen (The Argumentative Indian, 2005) have argued, Indian education has often failed to fulfil its emancipatory promise. Rather than fostering democratic values and critical thinking, it has at times reinforced social hierarchies and historical omissions.
Progressive measures like the Right to Education Act (2009) have expanded access, particularly for marginalised communities. However, issues persist—particularly around curricular politicisation and exclusionary narratives. The National Curriculum Framework (2005) made a bold attempt to embed peace education, promoting values such as empathy and tolerance. But implementation has been uneven, especially in conflict-prone regions like Kashmir, Chhattisgarh, and Manipur, where schools often oscillate between being sanctuaries of hope and instruments of state control.
Education in India is, thus, a double-edged sword: a tool that can bridge divides—or deepen them. Its transformative potential hinges not only on content but also on inclusion, pedagogy, and the ability to accommodate difference.
NEP 2020: An opportunity to reimagine peace
The National Education Policy 2020 represents an attempt to reorient India’s education system. It promises curricular reform, skill-based learning, and a holistic, flexible model focused on both innovation and inclusivity. While much of the policy narrative centres on employability and global competitiveness, it does reference key values: ethics, empathy, constitutionalism, and global citizenship. These nods offer a latent blueprint for peacebuilding.
NEP 2020’s emphasis on multidisciplinary learning and critical thinking echoes global frameworks like UNESCO’s GCED and the OECD’s Education 2030, which advocate for intercultural competencies, emotional resilience, and ethical engagement. Experiential learning—via community engagement, the arts, and vocational education—has the potential to root students in empathy and cooperation. The policy’s promotion of multilingualism, if implemented inclusively, could strengthen respect for India’s linguistic and cultural diversity.
Yet, critical gaps remain. Unlike Rwanda’s curriculum reforms after genocide or Colombia’s peace education aligned with transitional justice, NEP 2020 lacks a concrete roadmap for institutionalising peace education. Without detailed guidelines, teacher training, and monitoring mechanisms, the policy risks becoming yet another document of good intentions. Educationists like Poonam Batra and Vimala Ramachandran have also noted that NEP 2020 fails to grapple meaningfully with entrenched structural inequities—caste, gender, economic disparity, and the digital divide—which underpin educational and social injustices. Peace cannot be built on exclusion. Without a justice-oriented approach, the policy’s transformative potential will remain unrealised.
Peace is also psychological
Peace is not just political — it is profoundly psychological. The global spike in youth mental health issues signals a crisis that traditional education systems are ill-prepared to manage. The World Health Organisation (2022) reports that one in seven adolescents worldwide experiences a mental health condition. In India, the tragedy is stark: over 13,000 student suicides were reported in 2022 alone (NCRB).
Psychologists such as Urie Bronfenbrenner and Daniel Goleman have long stressed that emotional development is foundational to social well-being. Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) programs have demonstrated improvements in emotional regulation, peer relationships, and reductions in aggression. Yet, India’s exam-centric, high-pressure schooling leaves little space for emotional care.
To its credit, NEP 2020 gestures toward life skills and SEL integration and supports initiatives like Manodarpan, a government mental health support programme. But these efforts remain underfunded and peripheral. If peace is to take root, schools must become emotionally safe environments where students are not just evaluated—but understood. Countries like Finland, with their emphasis on well-being, and New Zealand, with integrated mental health curricula, offer instructive models. India must adapt these to its own complex cultural and institutional contexts.
Investing in peace — A policy imperative
Peace is not merely the absence of violence—it is the presence of justice, dignity, empathy, and emotional well-being. When imagined holistically, education becomes peace infrastructure: a long-term investment in social harmony and resilience. In the Indian subcontinent—scarred by Partition, insurgencies, and communal violence—the classroom remains one of the few remaining spaces where alternate futures can still be rehearsed.
NEP 2020 provides an opening, but the window will close unless the policy is implemented with transparency, inclusiveness, and cultural sensitivity. What’s needed is a whole-of-society approach—blending curriculum reform, teacher development, mental health investment, and civic education.
In an era when billions are poured into arms, surveillance, and border fortification, we must ask: what if just a fraction of that were invested in building peace—through schools, through empathy, and through a renewed imagination of what education is for?
Debdulal Thakur is Dean, Vinayaka Mission’s School of Economics and Public Policy, Chennai.