Lessons never learnt

How can one explain this? How is it that ordinances and ATRs are not resorted to when it comes to engendering something as socially vital as basic education? Is this a mere lack of will or a fundamentally warped sense of priorities? Is this tunnel vision or a blatant disregard for the future?

For years we have recognised thatliteracy is the warp and weft of any development effort.

Take health. Women who have completed primary school have 20 per cent less under-nutrition among their children than illiterate mothers. Take fertility. The 1980 census provided significant evidence of the close correlation between education and family size. Illiterate women had a total fertility of 5.1; for women with primary education, it was 4.5; for women with upper-primary education, 4; for those with secondary education, 3.1; and those with higher education, 2.1.

Today, we also recognise that basic education is the engine for general economic development. In fact, it is the single most important input in the maximisation of human potential. Educationists have pointed out that primary education enhances individual earnings by 20 per cent. The comparison between South and East Asia which the Human Development in South Asia 1997 report highlighted, makes for interesting insights. In 1960, the gap in the annual per capita income of the two regionswas a mere 200. By 1993, it had widened to nearly 10,000. It was the emphasis that Japan and East Asia had placed on primary education that made the crucial difference.

If China today is seen as a potential global leader, it is not because of its nuclear arsenal. It is because long ago it had made the pledge enshrined in Article 19 of its constitution: 8220;The state runs schools of various types, makes education compulsory and universal8230;.8221; our emphasis. What8217;s more, China went on to keep that pledge. Today, it is on the threshold of banishing illiteracy totally, even as India hobbles along with a 52 per cent literacy rate 8212; a figure that conceals the fact that only 38 per cent of its women are literate.

It8217;s not as if we have not made our own share of pledges. As early as 1944, the Post-war Plan of Education Develop-ment had recommended 8220;a speedy introduction of a system of universal, compulsory and free education of all boys and girls between ages six and 148230;8221; Six years later, the same vowsurfaced as a Directive Principle. Article 45 of the Constitution sets down that 8220;the State shall endeavour to provide within a period of 10 years from the commencement of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they completed the age of 148230;8221;

The fault seems to lie in the loophole provided by the words 8220;shall endeavour8221;. In bald terms, this country has paid dearly for the false hopes it placed on the 8220;endeavours8221; to remove illiteracy made by its cynical political leaders and the apathetic bureaucracy that existed to serve them. The ten years stipulated in the Constitution have long passed but the goal seems as unattainable as ever.

The justices who had delivered the J.P.Unni Krishnan vs State of Andhra Pradesh judgment of 1993 clearly realised this when they linked the inalienable right of every child to education to Article 21 of the Constitution, which relates to the fundamental right of every citizen to protection of life and personal liberty.

TheConstitution 83rd Amendment Bill was an attempt to make this into law by inserting the following clause, among others, into Article 21: 8220;The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all citizens of the age six to 14 years8221;. The Bill also recognised the fundamental duty of parents or guardians to ensure that their children got basic education.

So what became of this brave Bill? It promptly went the way of many other well-meaning pieces of proposed legislation and got lost in the labyrinth of legislative politics. This was its trajectory. After being presented in the Rajya Sabha on July 28, 1997, it was referred to a Standing Committee. The report of the Standing Committee which had recommended its passing was presented to both Houses of Parliament on November 24, 1997. That same afternoon the Lok Sabha was adjourned for an indefinite period of time. As hopes receded of the Bill seeing the light of day in the Winter Session, everyone clung on to the belief that the new Lok Sabha, when it isconvened, would certainly rush through with such an important Bill.

The Vajpayee government will soon complete six months in office. So far it has remained silent on the Bill. However, let it not be said that the Prime Minister is indifferent to the issue. Remember his long, grandiloquent references to the importance of education for girls. On the election trail, in Parliament, at the Red Fort, he has reiterated that his government will provide free education to girls, not just up to the primary school level but all the way to college. But in all those speeches, there was not one reference to this Bill. How, one may ask, can you shout about college education when you don8217;t even whisper about the need to make primary education a fundamental right?

True, making every child in this country literate is an awesome and expensive proposition. The Parliamentary Stand-ing Committee that scrutinised the primary education Bill pointed out that it would cost an additional Rs 7,200 crore per year. This is an enormoussum of course, and there were many in political, administrative and media circles who raised their eyebrows when confronted with this figure.

The irony is that these same people seem perfectly reconciled to spending a minimum of Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 over the next 10 years just so that the country can have a credible nuclear weaponisation programme. What8217;s even more ironic is that while the first investment will lead to greater prosperity for the country and its people, the second can only lead to the silence of the grave.