It would seem that every fascist regime is targeting the same things. In the US, Trump has been defunding public schools and trying to dismantle the Department of Education. It would eventually lead to a loss of opportunities for students who are minorities, disabled, marginalised, etc.

In recent months, the BJP?led state governments have embarked on a similar mission. Following its NEP, it is on a mission to merge small, low-enrolment schools into larger institutions.

Ostensibly, this exercise aims to rationalise resources, but in practice, it risks cutting off entire communities from basic education. The Supreme Court will soon hear a plea against Uttar Pradesh's order to merge such primary schools. Such a move violates the Right to Education Act and forces children to travel several kilometres to class.

The human cost is already clear. Villagers in the tribal belts of Rajasthan watched as 17,000 government schools vanished under a similar plan in 2021. A survey by civil society groups found that 10 per cent of students dropped out within weeks of their schools merging. Many were Dalit or minority children who felt out of place in upper?caste dominated classrooms. In Odisha, more than 4,800 schools were shut under a rationalisation drive. Families reported that a mere three-kilometre walk across flooded, unpaved paths was enough to keep eight-year-olds home, idle, and unsafe.

It is tempting to view these mergers as a form of housekeeping. Yet there is something darker behind the scenes. By shuttering schools in the poorest hamlets, the state effectively sidelines the most vulnerable. Girls, Dalits, Adivasis and minorities bear the brunt. They lose daily access to mid?day meals, safe transit and community support. They lose hope. In effect, the policy enacts a virtual Manusmriti—a modern code that assigns worth by birth and terrain, rather than by potential.

There is a sense of a creeping dystopia growing within the nation. Literarily inclined examiners might recall George Orwell's 1984, where the erasure of history and voices serves a totalitarian agenda. Here, the erasure of neighbourhood schools risks an Orwellian cruelty of its own: erasing opportunity.

Few speak of the long shadow these mergers cast over social mobility. When children must walk past fields and factories to reach a distant school, their labour becomes cheaper, their childhood truncated. Early marriage and child labour soon follow. Enrollment statistics plummet.

The BJP claims to champion efficiency and "Good Governance." Yet efficiency without equity is mere expediency. A utopia that excludes more than half its people cannot stand.

If India is to avoid sliding into a caste?lit dystopia, it must reverse the merger tide. It must guarantee a school within a kilometre of every habitation, as mandated by the RTE Act. It must deploy teachers, build safe pathways, and ensure free transportation for those who need to travel.

A nation that abandons its smallest schools soon abandons its most vulnerable learners. We can ill afford to let the next generation vanish into merged registers. For if we do, our grand experiment will yield only exclusion, not excellence.