The legislation replaces many statutory bodies with a single apex body, raising concerns over federalism, state university autonomy, and executive dominance
The Parliament has passed the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, projecting it as a long-overdue reform that will rationalise regulation and propel India's higher education towards global excellence. At one level, the impulse to streamline a cluttered regulatory landscape is understandable.
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For decades, universities have struggled with overlapping mandates, multiple regulators, and compliance-heavy governance. Reform, however, cannot be judged by intent alone. A closer reading of the Bill, particularly when situated within the broader arc of reforms following the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, reveals deeper structural concerns that risk undermining federalism, institutional autonomy, and academic freedom rather than strengthening them.
The most fundamental concern is the sharp centralisation of authority in a sector that the Constitution places it on the Concurrent List. By replacing multiple statutory bodies with a single apex authority supported by councils, the Bill concentrates regulatory power at the national level.
Simplification at federalism's expense?
This shift is justified in the language of efficiency and coherence. But efficiency cannot serve as a constitutional substitute for balance. The question that inevitably arises is whether simplification is being achieved at the cost of India’s federal framework.
Higher education in India has evolved through a complex and negotiated relationship between the Centre and the states, shaped by regional histories, linguistic traditions, and socio-economic realities. The proposed regulatory architecture risks flattening this diversity into a uniform national template designed in New Delhi.
In doing so, it leaves states with diminished space to shape academic priorities or governance models responsive to local needs. This is particularly troubling for state universities, which educate the overwhelming majority of Indian students and serve as critical instruments of social mobility.
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Of course, the Bill attempts to allay these fears by asserting that national standards and frameworks will be non-binding. However, experience suggests that such assurances rarely hold in practice. Accreditation norms, ranking parameters, and compliance protocols often operate as de facto mandates, reinforced through funding linkages and regulatory pressure.
Narrowing institutional choice
For state universities already constrained by limited resources, this creates a narrowing of institutional choice. Autonomy becomes conditional, exercised only within the boundaries of centrally defined benchmarks that may not reflect local social contexts or developmental missions.
Higher education in India has evolved through a complex and negotiated relationship between the Centre and the states, shaped by regional histories, linguistic traditions, and socio-economic realities. The proposed regulatory architecture risks flattening this diversity into a uniform national template designed in Delhi.
This contradiction between the promise of autonomy and the reality of control runs through the Bill. On paper, institutions are offered greater freedom through accreditation-based regulation and public disclosure. In practice, the Regulatory Council is vested with sweeping enforcement powers, including the imposition of substantial fines, recommending the removal of personnel, suspending degree-awarding authority, or even initiating institutional closure.
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Such powers, exercised without strong and transparent checks, are more likely to foster a culture of fear-driven compliance rather than genuine quality enhancement. The universities may respond by prioritising procedural conformity over intellectual experimentation, innovation, or risk-taking, reducing higher education to a box-ticking exercise rather than a space for critical inquiry.
Executive dominance
Equally disquieting is the degree of executive dominance embedded within the regulatory framework. Provisions allowing the Centre to supersede commissions or councils, even when hedged with procedural safeguards, reinforce the perception that ultimate authority rests with the government of the day.
The decisive role intensifies this concern accorded to the executive in appointing key office-holders across the regulatory structure. When regulators lack credible independence from political power, claims of “arm’s length” governance ring hollow. Academic regulation demands insulation from partisan priorities, not merely formal compliance with procedure.
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Additionally, the Bill’s emphasis on promoting Bharatiya knowledge systems and Indian languages adds another layer of complexity. Engagement with India’s intellectual traditions is both valuable and long overdue in a system shaped by colonial legacies.
However, the legislation offers little clarity on how such engagement will be pursued. Will it be scholarly, open, and voluntary, driven by rigorous academic debate and disciplinary standards? Or will it become prescriptive, shaped by politically inflected interpretations of culture and history?
Risks of 'Indianisation'
In the absence of explicit safeguards, “Indianisation” risks becoming an ideologically flexible label rather than an academically grounded project rooted in plurality and debate.
Funding arrangements further complicate the reform narrative. While separating funding from regulation is conceptually sound, financial control continues to rest firmly with the Union education ministry. This creates the possibility of indirect pressure, where regulatory compliance becomes essential for institutional survival.
Performance-based funding, often celebrated as an instrument of efficiency, can deepen existing inequalities by rewarding already privileged institutions while marginalising resource-poor, rural, or minority-serving universities.
Funding arrangements further complicate the reform narrative. While separating funding from regulation is conceptually sound, financial control continues to rest firmly with the Union education ministry. This creates the possibility of indirect pressure, where regulatory compliance becomes essential for institutional survival.
Without transparent and publicly articulated funding criteria, the rhetoric of merit risks legitimising new forms of exclusion. Interestingly, the transition framework outlined in the Bill also raises concerns. Allowing existing regulatory standards to continue until new ones are notified creates continuity without clarity. Institutions are left to navigate an uncertain terrain where old rules are temporarily in effect, new ones remain unclear, and compliance expectations are fluid.
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Rather than easing the reform process, this ambiguity may heighten institutional anxiety and discourage long-term academic planning, precisely when stability is most needed.
Governance reform means centralisation?
Taken together, these issues point to a deeper conceptual flaw: the tendency to equate governance reform with centralisation, metrics, and enforcement. Structural re-engineering alone cannot resolve the persistent crises of relevance, equity, and creativity that afflict India's higher education.
Genuine reforms must be measured by the expansion of academic freedom, respect for federal diversity, meaningful institutional autonomy, and inclusive access for marginalised communities. These goals obviously require decentralisation of trust, not merely consolidation of authority.
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So, the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill may succeed in simplifying administrative structures. But simplification should not be mistaken for transformation. Without robust safeguards to protect federalism, academic independence, and institutional diversity, the Bill risks becoming a sophisticated exercise in regulatory control rather than a catalyst for educational renewal.
If higher education is to truly serve India’s complex and plural society, reform must empower universities as spaces of critical thought and local innovation, rather than subordinating them to an increasingly centralised bureaucratic logic.
(The Federal seeks to present views and opinions from all sides of the spectrum. The information, ideas or opinions in the articles are of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Federal.)
