Guru bhakti has been discarded. But is this entirely a good thing?

It is important to identify the two predominant teaching philosophies, or pedagogical worldviews, that have shaped our classrooms. The first belongs to the older and culturally deep-rooted tradition of Guru Bhakti (devotion to the teacher), in which the teacher occupies an elevated moral position. This is where the student approaches knowledge through reverential submission to the Guru. The second belongs to the neoliberal university, which speaks the seemingly liberal language of student autonomy, experiential learning, and learner-centred pedagogy.

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The neoliberal reorientation of Indian higher education under the National Education Policy (NEP) popularised the vocabulary of learning outcomes, stakeholder satisfaction, employability, student-centred pedagogy and measurable performance. In this transition, what I have observed is that the student is supposedly liberated from the commanding Guru only to be recast as a stakeholder whose satisfaction could be measured, surveyed and managed.