India must move beyond rote reading and writing to embrace a richer, arts-integrated, and critically engaged vision of literacy.

The discourse around literacy in India has long been shaped by a reductive understanding that equates literacy merely with the ability to read and write a simple sentence. The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, despite its claims of a comprehensive vision for education, largely inherits and preserves this limited definition. However, it also rightly acknowledges the deep-rooted challenges in foundational literacy. It opens the door to reconsider and broaden what it means to be truly literate in a complex, multilingual, and historically diverse nation. Therefore, any meaningful evaluation of literacy in India must be framed within a larger paradigm that embraces comprehension, reasoning, cultural participation, and personal agency as the fundamental pillars of a well-rounded education.

The consequences of this narrow definition of literacy—far from being unique to India—have been neither invisible nor benign. Around the world, classrooms routinely declare children literate based on their ability to decode printed words, often ignoring their capacity to interpret meaning, form judgments, or articulate ideas. Though significant progress has been made, and the NEP is a welcome policy shift, beneath the surface of both positive and negative statistical indicators lies a fractured educational reality—one that continues to produce citizens who are more likely to passively receive information than to actively produce, question, or reshape it. This fragile foundation, rooted in colonial legacies dating back to the British Raj, jeopardizes India’s aspirations of building an equitable knowledge economy and, in turn, compromises its democratic project.

Within schools, the inadequacy of current practices becomes even more apparent when contrasted with the demands of a contemporary world overflowing with information. Literacy today must extend beyond decoding text; it must include the ability to navigate vast and conflicting sources of information, critically evaluate them, and synthesize insights from them. It must instill in learners the intellectual tools necessary to participate fully in democratic life, imagine alternate futures, and contribute meaningfully to both national and global discourses.

At the heart of any serious reimagining of literacy lies the reintegration of the arts into language education. The prevailing perception of the arts—as mere aesthetic enhancement or optional pedagogy—must give way to a deeper recognition of their central role. Storytelling, drama, poetry, and visual media are not supplementary; they are language’s original and most enduring vehicles. They allow students to experience language as a living, generative force that engages emotion, identity, and collective memory while pushing raw information to the periphery. These forms enable learners to inhabit diverse perspectives, to feel the weight of words, and to wield language as a tool for both imagination and argument. Detaching language learning from the arts transforms literacy into a sterile, mechanical exercise in code-breaking rather than an induction into the shared human enterprise of meaning-making.

While the NEP’s nod toward holistic education opens possibilities for such an approach, the urgency of achieving short-term literacy benchmarks can sometimes eclipse this broader vision. The pressure to demonstrate rapid gains in standardized assessments reinforces reductive methods—phonic drills, rote worksheets, and surface-level comprehension exercises—that favor procedural proficiency over deeper engagement. This, in turn, demands a rethinking of how teachers are trained. India’s teacher education system, shaped by an outdated separation of creativity and competence, must evolve to support more holistic classroom practices. Educators must be empowered to foster curiosity, play, and dialogue as central elements of learning.

Simultaneously, the NEP creates opportunities to preserve and celebrate traditions previously marginalized by the formal education system. Oral histories, folk music, and indigenous visual arts—long excluded from curricula designed to mimic Western models—are now being reimagined as valuable pedagogical tools. These cultural traditions, often dismissed as parochial or irrelevant, are, in fact, vital to restoring a richer, more rooted conception of language and learning.

The importance of redefining literacy is urgent and inescapable. A generation that sees language only as a means to pass exams will be ill-equipped to sustain critical discourse, challenge dominant narratives, or envision inclusive futures. The NEP offers a pathway forward, signaling India’s intent to nurture educational equity, economic innovation, and democratic resilience. Yet this promise can only be realized if Indian society abandons its acceptance of minimal literacy as sufficient. We must begin to see literacy not as a static milestone but as a lifelong, dynamic process that unfolds at the intersection of text and context, reason and imagination, personal voice, and collective story.

Educators must undergo a fundamental shift in their understanding of pedagogy to move in this direction. Literacy must be approached as an active, interpretive, and creative practice beginning in the earliest years of schooling. Teachers must be equipped with the tools to deliver content and the conditions for creative and critical thought. Communities must also be seen as co-educators—drawing on shared histories, arts, poetry, drama, and storytelling to infuse learning with relevance and resonance. Indian schools could learn from international initiatives such as the ARTinED Project in Europe or Indonesia’s use of wayang kulit puppetry, which integrates culture into classroom engagement while preserving tradition.

If pursued with integrity and imagination, India’s literacy campaign has the potential to dismantle longstanding inequities and construct a more inclusive and dynamic educational system. It would be simplistic—and ultimately ineffective—to place the burden of reform solely on executive or legislative action. The real transformation will occur only when society redefines what it means to be literate. Indians must embrace a more expansive vision—one that places arts, culture, and critical consciousness at the center of learning. Only then can India build an education system truly worthy of its democratic aspirations and developmental ambitions.