Elevating a right

THE 93RD AMENDMENT to the Constitution to accord the right to education the status of a fundamental right, to be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, is indeed a welcome step, though long overdue. The Bill has all the trappings of the noble intentions and pious pronouncements contained in its precursor - the 83rd Amendment Bill - introduced by the United Front Government in 1997. The proposal in that Amendment to include Article 21(A), elevating basic education to the status of a fundamental right, is retained in the new Bill. But then, any overenthusiasm on this score may be unwarranted, for it is the failure to realise the commitment in the Directive Principles of State Policy (Article 45) of the Constitution to universalise basic education within a ten-year period which in the first instance occasioned the 83rd Amendment. An equally sobering influence must also be the Supreme Court judgment in the Unnikrishnan case of 1993, where basic education was declared a fundamental right flowing from other fundamental rights. It should be stressed here that while the Judiciary has consistently expanded the notion of the ``right to life'' by incorporating new ingredients, Parliament has failed to enact corresponding legislation; in this case, to enforce free and compulsory education even nearly a decade after that landmark judgment.

Shortage of funds has been the familiar alibi of Governments for not allocating admittedly scarce resources to boost primary education. If the exigencies of the nascent Indian nation-state dictated a particular set of priorities as a result of which primary education did not perhaps receive its legitimate share of resources in the early decades after Independence, it is a lack of conviction to summon up the political will on the part of more recent Governments that has led to the failure to commit the requisite resources for primary education by a reallocation of priorities. Small wonder then that the Government developed cold feet in the past to enact the relevant Amendment. But ironically, the proposed Amendment also aims to cast a duty on parents and guardians under a new proviso J to Article 51A to provide education for children.

Whatever the apparent justification underlying such a provision, it is hard to resist the conclusion that it assumes indifference and apathy on the part of parents/guardians and betrays a lack of appreciation of the deep nexus between poverty, child labour and mass illiteracy. Any number of studies and public hearings in recent years have highlighted the appalling state of affairs in the education system, the callousness and apathy that characterise its administration and conversely, the inclination among the underprivileged towards learning. At the conceptual level, it must be pointed out that some rights, as opposed to others, are entrenched as fundamental precisely because modern societies have come to affirm their inviolability. That is to say, these rights do not admit of any kind of trade-offs, let alone encroachment by any law. Therefore, if there is a fundamental right to education, such a right cannot be linked to a duty on the part of parents and guardians, or enforced by imposing penalties on some people, supposedly for failing in the duty to provide education. The proposed Amendment is silent on the role of the private sector in the scheme of free and compulsory education. In today's growing climate of a decline in the proportion of state spending in this domain, the responsibility of the private sector towards realising the goal of universalising education cannot be overemphasised.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : Ms. Jayalalithaa's exit
Next     : India-U.S. ties after Sept. 11