Education key to achieving equal society in India, says Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah on Teachers’ Day

“The move to provide education for all began after the Constitution of India came into being. Until then, education was not available to everyone. This is why we have to save the Constitution. This is why we are putting an emphasis on the reading of the preamble of the Constitution in all educational institutions,” the Karnataka CM said.

“The Constitution defines how the government should function… and it aims to humanise everyone. We should all live as humans and we must have an environment of love and trust for one another. One human must not hate another human. Such an environment must not be created,” he further said.

Replying later to media questions on India being identified as the Republic of Bharat in invitations for a G20 dinner, Siddaramaiah said: “In the Constitution, Bharat is identified as India. The name India has been widely accepted. There is no need to change India to Bharat.

“We are making people read the preamble of the Constitution to help them understand what makes a good person and citizen. We are all people belonging to different castes and religions but we have to live in harmony. Everyone must learn to do this and we must educate people to do this,” he said in his address to teachers.

“What we learn in school is what we will carry with us all our lives. In every child, the secular mindset, scientific temperament, and rational thinking must be inculcated. If these qualities are not inherent after you obtain a degree… and you are superstitious, casteist. Can we call it education?” the Karnataka CM said.

The Constitution as framed by Babasaheb Ambedkar envisages the kind of society we must work to create and the kind of individuals we should be, he said.

“The first educator of women in the country was Savitribhai Phule. Not everybody had access to education in the past. Shudras and women were denied access to education. Women of all castes were denied access to education. It is a matter of great joy now that it is girls who are the toppers in school and college exams. This is the change in society,” Siddaramaiah said.

If people have to live with dignity and if they have to live as humans all must be educated and for inequalities to be erased there should be widespread education, he further said.

“The dream of an equal society can be achieved only with education. This is why Babasaheb Ambedkar said that political freedom alone will not suffice and that political freedom must be built on the foundation of an equal society and unless this happens there would be no fulfilment of the goals of the freedom struggle,” the Karnataka CM said.

“When there is upper caste and lower caste, the educated and the uneducated, the rich and the poor then there is no equality. Was this the dream of our freedom fighters? We will do all we can to change things through our government,” he said.