Gender-based exclusion remains a vexing problem in the Indian education system. Drawing on feminist and intersectionality perspectives, this article examines the constraints of Indian education policies in addressing issues pertaining to the education of girls from marginalised communities. The article examines the knowledge transfers from developed countries to developing countries based on notions of ideational power and the ‘epistemic imagery’ of modernisation. Focusing on a plethora of conditional cash transfers, programmes that were initiated by the Indian state governments to address gender inequalities in the education system, the article concludes that such knowledge transfers are inevitable in the current mode of epistemic governance and emanate from the power imbalance between rich and poor countries. When juxtaposed against the institutional discrimination widely prevalent in the Indian education system, political rhetoric fails on the dual goals of educational policy, to achieve economic efficiency and social justice.