India, March 11 -- The stand-off between the Union ministry of education and the Tamil Nadu government has reached Parliament. It started following the Centre's decision to hold back funding under the Samagra Shiksha scheme to Tamil Nadu, citing the latter's refusal to implement the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. Tamil Nadu has alleged that the three-language formula proposed in the NEP is a ploy to impose Hindi.

However, the controversy, which threatens to engulf all states ruled by parties other than the BJP or its allies, has ceased to be just about the NEP. Questions about federalism, language policy and central allocation of funds have been flagged in this debate which is also happening under the overhand of the delimitation ...