The Nirvik Bureau, Bhubaneswar, 11 July 2026
Because Facts Are Optional, Contracts Are Not
Some governments build universities. Others build narratives. And then there are those who outsource both and hope spellcheck doesn’t leak.
The BJP’s relationship with education appears refreshingly uncomplicated: if knowledge cannot be controlled, it can at least be misprinted. Writing requires thought; typing only requires a vendor.
Welcome to the Post-Truth Classroom
In Odisha’s latest textbooks, Sir Isaac Newton is no longer burdened by gravity or intellect – he is now a pilot. Presumably flying over an India where Karnataka houses Odisha’s विधानसभा and Jharkhand casually hosts Niyamgiri.
Children are no longer taught geography; they are trained in territorial imagination. Borders are fluid, facts are negotiable, and accuracy is an outdated colonial hangover.
Even science has been liberated from logic. Equator and equinox have merged in a historic act of national integration. Wheat has bravely rebranded itself as paddy. Temperature, ambitious as ever, has risen to become pressure.
Darwin spoke of evolution. This is devolution with state sponsorship.
Language Reform: Kill the Word, Save the Nation
Spelling, too, has been decolonized. “Greatest” is now “gretest,” because excess vowels are elitist. The Mughals have been reduced to “Gogal,” possibly to make them easier to erase later.
This is not incompetence. It is linguistic minimalism – why use correct words when approximate noises will do?
Cinema as Civilisation
The cultural curriculum has achieved what historians could not: it has canonized Bollywood as folklore. Aishwarya Rai’s “Nimbuda Nimbuda” now stands shoulder to shoulder with traditional Rajasthani heritage.
The message is clear: if it was on screen, it is history. If it trends, it is tradition.
Expect future editions where the Constitution is explained through biopics and economics through box office collections.
Skill Development: Fry First, Think Later
The crowning jewel is the inclusion of Jhal Mudhi preparation in the syllabus. Finally, an education policy aligned with ground reality: degrees may fail you, but puffed rice will not.
One can almost hear the policy meeting:
“Children cannot read.”
“Can they mix mustard oil?”
“Excellent. Skill India achieved.”
Pedagogy of Confusion
Faced with public outrage, the government produced a solution worthy of its textbooks: students will study from incorrect books, while teachers will secretly consult correct ones.
This is not a crisis – it is training. India’s future citizens must learn early that truth is hierarchical. What is printed is one version; what is spoken is another; what is real is irrelevant.
Examinations, one assumes, will reward whichever answer aligns with current political weather.
The Invisible Ink of Accountability
Behind the comedy lies the contract. Allegations of outsourcing, whispers of favored printers, numbers that shrink under questioning – ₹375 crore becomes ₹21 crore with the elegance of a disappearing act.
The state had printing presses. What it lacked, apparently, was the will to use them – when friends elsewhere could benefit.
It is federalism reimagined: knowledge printed in one state, confusion delivered to another.
From Tamil Threat to Gujarati Gravity
Not long ago, Odisha was told to fear the outsider – the Tamil bureaucrat draining its wealth. That story worked. Elections were won.
Now, as contracts allegedly drift westward, the silence is louder than any campaign speech. The villain has changed geography, but the plot remains identical.
Only this time, the textbooks are too busy misspelling reality to notice.
Final Examination
What are Odisha’s children learning?
Not Newton’s laws, clearly. But something far more durable:
That facts can be edited,
Mistakes can be mass-produced,
And responsibility can be indefinitely outsourced.
In the end, the greatest error is not in the textbooks.
It is in believing that a system which cannot spell “education” can still deliver it.
