EPW Study Finds Parents Acting as ‘Hindu Customers’ Push Majoritarian Rules Into Delhi’s Private Schools

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New Delhi. The Hindu’s Text & Context page summarises a paper by Ritika Arora-Kukreja, “Hindutva by Other Means: The Educational Market and the Politics of Demand”, published in the Economic and Political Weekly (Vol. 61, Issue No. 34, August 22, 2026). The summary, by Rebecca Rose Varghese, explains the argument that Hindutva, the political ideology of Hindu nationalism, is spreading through everyday interactions in the education market, not only through government policy or Hindutva organisations. Existing research on “saffronisation” has focused on the state’s use of curriculum and regulation, including under BJP-led governments in 1998-2004 and from 2014. The author calls the other channel “bottom-up Hindutva”: preferences in society shape institutions, instead of institutions shaping society. The study is based on in-depth interviews and focus groups with households with children, and interviews with school leaders, across private schools in Delhi-NCR between April and September 2022. After the 1991 liberalisation, middle and upper-middle class families moved to private schools, where direct state control is limited; in Delhi, private-school enrolment at the primary and middle levels rose from around 30% in 2014-15 to over 46% in 2019-20. Parental preference took the place of the state apparatus. For instance, a school may not appoint a Muslim teacher if parents fear the teacher will promote Islam, or may ban non-vegetarian lunches if most parents are vegetarian. Strong competition between schools, combined with a majority population, creates what the author calls the “Hindu customer”, whose demands must be met: highlighting Hindu festivals, giving holidays for them, not admitting students of certain groups, and trying to ban the hijab. She calls this “hyper-accountability”, since schools satisfy the majority and ignore minority families, whose dissatisfaction has less economic impact. Schools use neutral reasons, such as hygiene to ban non-vegetarian food and security to ban the hijab, while not applying the same standards to other groups’ symbols. The author calls this the “depoliticisation of choices”: political preferences, formed through news media, social media and neighbourhoods, are presented as private consumer choices. The market does not create these preferences, but it provides a space where they are expressed as legitimate demands. The syllabus link is secularism, communalism, and education as an agent of socialisation.

Static syllabus linkage

1. Minority and religious rights in education are written into the Constitution. Article 28(1) bars religious instruction in any educational institution wholly maintained out of State funds, and Article 28(3) says no person attending a State-recognised or State-aided institution can be required to take part in religious instruction or worship without consent. Article 29(2) forbids denial of admission to any State-maintained or State-aided institution on grounds only of religion, race, caste or language. Article 30(1) gives religious and linguistic minorities the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice. Article 15(1) prohibits discrimination by the State on grounds of religion, and Article 15(2) extends this to access to shops and public places.
2. Secularism is part of the basic structure, and Fundamental Duties speak of harmony. The word “secular” was added to the Preamble by the 42nd Amendment, 1976, and in S.R. Bommai v. Union of India (1994), a nine-judge Bench held secularism to be part of the basic structure. Article 51A(e) makes it a fundamental duty to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood transcending religious, linguistic and regional diversities, and Article 51A(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture. In Aruna Roy v. Union of India (2002), the Supreme Court held that teaching about religions as part of value education does not violate secularism.
3. The RTE Act regulates private schools but not their everyday culture. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 gives effect to Article 21A, inserted by the 86th Amendment, 2002, for children aged six to fourteen. Section 12(1)(c) requires private unaided schools to reserve at least 25% of entry-level seats for children from weaker sections and disadvantaged groups. Section 29 requires the curriculum to conform to the values enshrined in the Constitution. The Act says little about staff appointments, food rules or dress codes, which is exactly the space the EPW paper examines.
4. Sociology sees schools as places where society reproduces itself. Emile Durkheim treated education as the means by which society passes on its shared values to the next generation. Louis Althusser called schools an “ideological state apparatus” through which dominant ideas are reproduced, and Pierre Bourdieu showed how schools reward the cultural capital of dominant classes. The EPW paper adds that in a market system, it is not only the state but the paying customer who decides what is reproduced. In the hijab dispute, the Karnataka High Court upheld the State’s order in March 2022, and in October 2022 a two-judge Supreme Court Bench delivered a split verdict and referred the matter to a larger Bench.

Why UPSC loves this

1. GS1 lists communalism, secularism and the effects of globalisation on Indian society. UPSC has asked about the challenges to secularism, the role of education in social change and the effects of globalisation on culture. This paper connects all three: market reform changes schooling, and schooling carries communal preferences.
2. Sociology optional values named concepts and fieldwork. Concepts such as “bottom-up Hindutva”, “hyper-accountability” and “depoliticisation of choices”, backed by fieldwork, are the material a Sociology answer can use to show engagement with current research rather than textbook definitions.

Analysis

1. The market is not neutral when one group holds most of the purchasing power. The standard argument for school choice is that parental power makes schools accountable. The paper shows that accountability goes to whoever holds the most fees, and in a majority neighbourhood that is the majority. A minority family can leave, but if every competing school follows the same logic, exit gives no real choice. This is a textbook case of how markets aggregate preferences, including prejudiced ones, without correcting them.
2. Neutral reasons are the mechanism of exclusion, and that is why it is hard to challenge. A school that bans the hijab “for security” or non-vegetarian food “for hygiene” presents a rule that looks general. The paper’s point is that the rule is applied selectively, which only the minority family notices. Courts and regulators test rules on their face, so discrimination through neutral reasons often escapes legal scrutiny. The remedy lies in asking for evidence that the stated reason applies equally to all, the same standard of proof the Supreme Court used in the methanol case.
3. The counter-view: parents have a right to shape their children’s schooling. Parents choosing vegetarian food or festival celebrations are exercising ordinary preferences, and not every such choice is ideological. Private schools must respond to their community to survive. The paper’s concern is not choice itself but choices that exclude others, such as refusing to appoint a Muslim teacher or admit certain students, which touch Articles 15 and 29 and basic fairness in employment. The line is between a school that adds a festival and one that removes a group.
4. Bottom-up ideology is more durable than state-led ideology. A curriculum can be revised by the next government, but preferences that parents hold and schools accommodate do not change with elections. Once schools normalise excluding minority teachers or symbols, children grow up treating that as ordinary. This means that countering communalism requires work within society, in parent-teacher bodies, school codes and teacher training, not only changes in textbooks. The finding complicates the common belief that the state alone drives saffronisation.
5. Limits of the study should be stated. The fieldwork covers private schools in Delhi-NCR in 2022, a single urban region at a particular political moment. The findings may not hold in States with different majorities or in government schools, where state control is stronger. Qualitative interviews also reveal mechanisms rather than prevalence. A careful answer uses the paper to explain how bias travels through markets, without claiming it describes all Indian schools.

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