At the dawn of independence, the 1951 Census recorded 783 mother tongues, reflecting a vast cultural diversity — each with its own distinct body of folklore, craft and ritual handed down through generations, together forming one of the richest reservoirs of living traditions ever preserved within a single country. Today the census formally lists just 121 languages, and UNESCO's Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger lists 197 Indian languages as endangered, more than any other country. 

For generations, cultural education in India needed no classroom. A child absorbed language, food, festivals and faith at home, and grandparents' stories about kings, gods and harvests carried an entire heritage without ever being labelled "culture." That chain is now thinning — joint families have scattered into nuclear ones, work has pulled parents into urban cities, and the days spent listening to an elder have given way to the glow of a screen. What once passed effortlessly from one generation to the next now risks skipping a generation altogether. 

Dr D Shobhana, Principal (Retd), Sarojini Naidu Vanita Maha Vidyalaya, says that this is precisely why the school must now deliberately do what the home once did  — introduce children to their culture that may no longer reach them on its own. "In today's multicultural, pluralistic society, with multiple global influences, there is a need to introduce children to their native society, culture, traditions and history, so they can understand their nation and appreciate the richness of the country," she says. “Schools can begin by observing festivals, traditional attire and festive food, and then introducing the stories behind these celebrations and their significance.”

Schools, however, are not simply replacing the family as custodians of culture. They take on the responsibility of teaching children about culture while creating opportunities for them to encounter and participate in it. “A language is better understood when it is spoken, a craft when it is practised, and a tradition when children encounter the people and stories that have kept it alive. Otherwise, we risk teaching them the outward form of a tradition without helping them understand its deeper meaning,” says Indrani Ganguly, History teacher, Apeejay School.

This evolving responsibility is also visible in school education policies and practices, with cultural education taking on a more visible role in what and how children learn. The NEP 2020 calls for a system rooted in Indian ethos, with Indian Knowledge Systems, local traditions, arts and languages part of learning. CBSE, meanwhile, runs a heritage-education programme with cultural encyclopedia Sahapedia, built around the idea of parampara - tradition handed down, added to and passed on. Under the programme, students visit and “adopt” local monuments, document them, and take part in heritage walks and clubs, going beyond simple textbook reading. 

But teaching culture also means deciding how much room religion should occupy in the classroom, a boundary that becomes difficult to draw when much of India’s cultural heritage is rooted in religious traditions. “We have to be careful that cultural education does not become limited to rituals and celebrations. The curriculum should be unbiased and scientific, and rise above any particular cultural or religious domain. It must be broad enough to respect India’s cultural, linguistic and religious diversity, rather than presenting any one tradition as the culture,” added Ganguly. 

In the time of artificial intelligence, cultural knowledge has never been easier to access. But even the most powerful information repository cannot pass on a tradition a child has never encountered. If a language, story, craft or custom has disappeared from the child’s world, there may be no reason for the child to search for it, let alone recognise what has been lost. Technology has changed the problem of cultural access without solving the problem of cultural loss. 

The loss is reflected in the fate of many of India's languages and traditions. The People’s Linguistic Survey of India estimated that 220 to 250 of the roughly 780 languages it documented had disappeared over five decades, with another 400 at risk, while the Ministry of Textiles has identified 35 endangered crafts and the Ministry of Culture has documented 42 vanishing folk and oral traditions. If cultural knowledge is to remain more than information stored in archives and algorithms, schools will have to help keep it alive, making the classroom one of the last places where many children may encounter traditions passed down through generations before they slip beyond reach.