NEW DELHI — Within the hallowed, echoing halls of HKS Surjeet Bhawan, a somber air of intellectual defiance hung heavy this Saturday. As the calendar turned to January 17, 2026, marking a half-decade since the inception of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) convened an All India Seminar that felt less like a conference and more like a desperate vigil for the soul of Indian inquiry.
Under the haunting banner of "#5YearsOfNEP2020: Destruction of Reason," the assembly sought to dissect what they termed the systematic "dismantling of the scientific temper" and the "surgical distortion" of the nation’s historical tapestry.
The Vanguard of Logic
The dais was graced by figures whose lives have been dedicated to the altar of evidence and equity. Dr. Ram Puniyani, formerly of IIT Bombay, stood as a silver-haired titan of rationality, his voice weaving a tapestry of lament and warning. He spoke not merely of policy, but of a "darkening of the mind," where the bright light of secular education is being dimmed by the encroaching shadows of myth masquerading as history.
Beside him, the venerable Gauhar Raza and Dr. R. Gopinath lent their voices to the chorus, articulating a profound grief for an era where "why" was the most sacred word in a classroom—a word they fear is being silenced by the heavy hand of dogma.
A Canvas of Defiance
The visual landscape of the seminar was a striking tableau of resistance. Tables draped in white, emblazoned with the crimson promise of "Independence, Democracy, Socialism," stood as small islands of hope in what the speakers described as a rising tide of privatization.
The walls bore the portraits of those who dared to dream of a literate, liberated India, their eyes seeming to watch over the young scholars who sat in rapt, mournful silence. To those gathered, the NEP 2020 is not a roadmap for progress, but a "gilded cage" designed to exclude the marginalized while turning the pursuit of knowledge into a high-priced commodity.
The Heart of the Critique
The rhetoric was as ornamental as it was cutting. The policy was described as:
An Erasure of Identity: A calculated effort to bleach the pluralistic colors of India’s past into a monolithic, "saffronized" hue.
A Betrayal of the Future: The sacrifice of the "Scientific Temper"—once the crown jewel of the Republic—at the feet of ancient superstition.
An Architecture of Exclusion: A system that replaces the open door of the public university with the iron gate of the marketplace.
An Unfinished Symphony
As the shadows lengthened over New Delhi, the seminar concluded not with a sense of finality, but with a stirring call to intellectual arms. For the SFI and the gathered luminaries, these five years represent a "winter of the intellect," but their gathering was a testament to the fact that the fire of reason, though flickering, has not yet been extinguished.
In the ornate prose of the speakers, the message was clear: History is not a script to be edited by the powerful, and science is not a belief to be bargained with. It is a light that must be defended, or we risk wandering into a future defined by the "destruction of reason."
