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The people vs the      government Justice without      justiciability? The laws, in hindsight An irrelevant fury Left, or left out?

The beginnings of informed citizenship

Any meaningful assessment of Parliament's attempts to pass a Fundamental Right to Education Bill must conclude that it was largely a sham, which deflected the government's responsibility to educate the nation's children. Cloaked in the mask of progressive and thoughtful policy, the bill simply creates various classes of children, and arbitrary definitions by which they obtain "education." And yet, most media reports applauded the passage of the bill in the Lok Sabha. Understandable, also, that come election time this piece of legislation, widely condemned by educators around the nation, will be trotted out as an "achievement" of the ruling party.

The bill dilutes childrens' right to education by recognising such a right to be fundamental only to those in the age group 6-14 years; this is clearly a lower standard than the Constitution's exhortation to provide education to all children up to the age of 14. Second, the bill allows education to be provided in "such a manner as the State may determine." Viewed together with previous initiatives from the government, this is easily seen to be shallow -- second class education provided in single teacher schools might nonetheless satisfy the government's duty. If the government may itself decide the manner in which our rights are to be secured, how fundamental are they?

The political strategy behind this move is quickly evident. If the government actually wished to provide the highest quality education to one and all, the decent thing to do would be recognise the rights of all children, make financial planning to meet the cost of their learning, and begin implementing a schedule by which the obligation to educate them is fully met. On the other hand, if the government has no intention whatsoever of addressing the appalling illiteracy of the nation, then proposing a bill to provide education isn't very beneficial -- after all, the issue has remained largely dormant through 50+ years of freedom, its immediate resurrection is hardly a political necessity.

Reality, then, is between the two extremes. The political purpose is to appear to serve a compelling public interest without actually doing so. Make public claims to guarantee the right to education, speeches deploring the state of the nation's children, with the regular references to failed Congress governments of times past. But when it comes time to actually pen into legislation the reform needed to raise an informed citizenry through publicly funded education, all such behaviour is seen to be the political gimmick it is. The irony of an Education Bill worded in such a shallow fashion is shameful -- by the very letter of the laws, we leave the poor and disenfranchised unlettered.

Now to the question -- is the passage of the Fundamental Right to Education Bill (in Parliament, it is actually known as the 93rd Amendment Bill) to be viewed as progress, or is it entirely retrograde?

Clearly, the politicians' role is without merit. Murli Manohar Joshi should consider the fact that when the Constitution of India first urged Parliament to provide education for all our children, he was himself only a little past the age of fourteen -- it is regrettable that in decades of public service leading up to the education ministry, his learning has advanced only sufficiently to dilute that calling! Still, the failing wasn't his alone -- the overwhelming majority of MPs in the Lok Sabha completely favoured passage of this "reform" bill! Why?

Other recent events cast some light. In early May, the Supreme Court passed orders directing that candidates to legislative assemblies must make public declarations of their assets, their criminal antecedents, and their educational qualifications. You would think that sort of transparency would have found its way into the laws decades ago, but you'd be wrong. And somewhat unexpectedly, the Election Commission, under some pressure from voter reform groups, decided that it would in fact implement those orders, and begin seeking affidavits declaring this information from the candidates.

The alacrity with which Parliament has swung to respond is revealing. One has to view this in context -- there are bills in the Lower House introduced in the 1980s, some even earlier, yet to see the light of voting day. There are undertrial citizens -- many innocent ones even -- who have languished in prisons without trial for months and years, and that hasn't merited much response from the lawmakers. Yet, a mere week after they were called upon to demonstrate their own probity, they have declared to introduce [and pass!] legislation relating to electoral reforms in time for the imminent Rajya Sabha elections from Maharashtra. What gives?

Easy enough to understand, actually. The Government of India -- this one as well as any other that may be imagined from the current crop of legislators -- fears the informed voter. The vote-bank politics that marks our democracy, the apathy to the Constitution, the deliberate non-compliance with judicial orders, etc. -- in short, much behaviour that is typical among the governing class today -- is directly threatened by an informed public that may challenge such action. Keeping the majority of voters distant from their voting rights and knowledge of their government's character and conduct, is crucial to the continuance of democracy in India as we know it. The legislators, quite simply, have no wish to reveal to the populace whether they are criminals, whether they have suitable academic training, and whether their assets vastly outplunder their incomes.

Education 'reform' happens in much the same light. The recognition of a fundamental right to education would be suicidal to the political class. This means that the education minister's primary role in passing the Right to Education Bill, has become ensuring that it severely dents the meaning of both words -- "right" as well as "education." A right becomes merely that which can be asked for by a smaller subset of people than originally envisioned, and education is the appointment and salaried maintenance of a few thousand quacks on the government's pay. The bonus is getting a few editors and opinion-makers to applaud this -- after all, when the propagation of political self-preservation passes for government, statesmanship is just public relations by another name.

The first draft of almost everything, whether electoral or education reform -- is only a mild variant on what society has already accepted. With decades of illiteracy behind us, and with the majority of legislators on the criminal records, it can hardly be argued that the nation has suddenly awoken to demand better. The pluses are merely opportune, not wrought by national consensus. In this light, opposition to genuine positive change as well as the political posturing and legal sleight of hand to maintain the status quo, must be seen for what they are -- the unstated fear if the public interest were to be placed on a higher plane by such opportune moments, further reform will certainly follow. And that, our deviant netas cannot afford.

All change encounters resistance at the margins first. We have seen this repeatedly -- with The Women's Representation in Parliament Bill, Mandal, the WTO, the politicisation of faith. To varying degrees these changes represent the initial efforts of an interested class, mightily opposition from others, and over time the establishment of a political process by which questions regarding these issues remain at the forefront. The significance of outcomes, such as actually having a third of Parliament occupied by women -- isn't nearly as important as the arrival of gender as a mainstream political issue. The symptomatic nature of the first step may be manageable to the political class, but placing issues that arise from it within the mainstream of national discourse holds far more uncertainty.

Education and elections -- the primary political beasts of this year so far -- may yet find routine suffocation by the political class, but the developments that have begun to place them before us are not easily defeated. A journey of a thousand miles, runs the old Chinese proverb, begins with the first step. The step itself is no marked deviation from home, nor are many subsequent ones. Yet, with enough steps taken, we begin to imagine a world very different from home, and eventually to inhabit it.

Ashwin Mahesh