[8] Under University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines, it is advised that 5 per cent of a student's total credits should be in IKS courses at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

[15][18][19] Critics of the IKS division have asserted that its curricula pedal pseudoscience and pseudohistory, do not constitute a genuine scholarly "decolonisation" programme, are a tool of indoctrination by the Hindutva ideology of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and will economically and professionally disadvantage Indian graduates in the workforce.

[28] The textbook in question dismisses as a myth the commonly accepted belief that "aeronautics was developed by Wright Brothers in 1903," asserting instead that 5,000 years before the Wright Brothers, "Maharshi Bhardwajan wrote an epic called Yantra Sarvasva and aeronautics is a part of the epic [...] Yantra Sarvasva is not available now but out of whatever we know about it, we can believe that planes were a reality in Vedic age."

"[30] Jaheer Mukthar, an assistant professor of economics at Kristu Jayanti College in Bangalore, asserted that "the government is clearly using the textbook as a tool for propagating the Hindutva agenda".

[32] Critics have also alleged that it serves to disseminate propaganda to further the political agenda of India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its far-right Hindutva/Hindu nationalist ideology.