India, with the largest population globally, faces structural challenges in catalysing higher education to address increasing economic volatility, socio-economic inequalities and the climate crisis. India's National Education Policy (NEP), introduced in 2020, aims to address the many growing developmental imperatives and proposes a complete overhaul of the higher education system to respond to emerging global challenges. Using Amartya Sen's instrumental freedoms as an analytical lens, this paper examines the NEP's proposed measures for equitable and inclusive higher education. The multi-dimensional nature of instrumental freedoms - social opportunities, political freedoms, economic facilities, transparency guarantees and protective securities - supports a comprehensive analysis of public policy, rooted in socio-political, economic and historical contexts. Aligning each instrumental freedom to the NEP's proposed measures for higher education, the paper highlights the potential barriers and risks to equity and inclusion such as homogenisation of disadvantages, de facto privatisation, centralisation of regulatory powers, undermining of academic freedoms and risks of performance-based funding; and provides actionable recommendations to secure instrumental freedoms in higher education for a more sustainable and just society.
