India, July 30 -- As the National Education Policy 2020 enters its sixth year, India faces a defining question: can it move beyond political contestation and build an education system that truly fulfils the Constitution's vision of equitable, high-quality learning for every child?

Independent India, born amidst the trauma of Partition, began its journey with a population of nearly 340 million and a literacy rate of barely 12 per cent. Within two years of Independence, the Constitution placed before the nation an extraordinarily ambitious educational mandate. Article 45 of the Directive Principles of State Policy declared: "The State shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement of this Constitution, free ...