Reimagining Inclusive Schooling in India: A Critical Policy Analysis of NEP 2020

Inclusive education has emerged as a central pillar of global educational reform; however, substantial disparities persist between policy aspirations and classroom-level practices, particularly within low- and middle-income contexts. In India, the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 represents the most comprehensive reform agenda in recent decades and explicitly foregrounds inclusion for Children with Special Needs (CWSN). This paper presents a critical policy analysis of NEP 2020 to examine whether its provisions represent a substantive shift toward participation-oriented inclusion or primarily constitute rhetorical alignment with global inclusive discourses. Drawing on the social model of disability, participation theory, Universal Design for Learning (UDL), intersectionality theory, and policy enactment theory, the analysis interrogates key reform domains including early identification, curriculum flexibility, teacher education, assistive technologies, governance, and assessment reform. Although NEP 2020 demonstrates conceptual alignment with international rights-based frameworks, significant tensions persist between systemic ambition and implementation realities. The paper argues that inclusive schooling in India requires structural coherence, sustained professional learning, infrastructural equity, intersectional sensitivity, and systemic alignment beyond access-based models.