Commentary/Dilip D'Souza

Two paise's worth about the 83rd Amendment

The 83rd Amendment to the Constitution of India is wending its way through Parliament more or less as you read this. It is now a bill, and will become an act if and when our MPs so decide, possibly during the winter session of Parliament. After which, it will come into force on a date the central government will choose.

And so what? Why am I telling you this, you want to know. I'm telling you because, to my bloodshot eyes, the 83rd Amendment looks like the single most important piece of legislation the country will ever gift itself. And yet, it is going through whatever motions it must with a minimum of attention and fuss. Curious, for a bill that has the potential to utterly transform our country. Just the potential, but that's something to start with.

The 83rd Amendment will make primary education a fundamental right of every citizen of this country.

Something of an anti-climax? But it is momentous for being just that simple. Till now, providing free and compulsory primary education to Indian children has been no more than a guideline, a suggestion, for the state. You see, the men who wrote our Constitution were, no doubt, under the impression that India would find itself more enlightened leadership than it has since 1950. That's why they were content with a Directive Principle of State Policy urging the state to "endeavour to provide, within a period of 10 years from the commencement of the Constitution, for free and compulsory education for children up to 14 years of age." Not binding on the State, be it known. The State was only asked to "endeavour to provide" such education. That gentle urging, our founding fathers must have thought, would be enough for the State to get to work.

Which it never has. "Endeavour" became a convenient fig-leaf to cover the shame of not providing this education. After all, you can always claim to be "endeavouring" to do something, even if you are not endeavouring.

But the 83rd Amendment, if passed, will make it binding on the State to provide this free and compulsory primary education. In fact, the bill will insert a new Article in the Constitution, Article 21A, whose first sentence reads: "The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all citizens of the age six to 14 years."

No more DPSP. No more "endeavouring" when the State is not. Yes, there will be debate over those age limits. But now, if it becomes law, primary education will be looked at as it should always have been: as every Indian's basic, fundamental right (Strictly, the Supreme Court has, in a 1993 decision, already held that it is a fundamental right. But the 83rd Amendment will put it into the Constitution).

If the United Front government has no other achievement to its name when it succumbs to Chacha Kesri's or some other nut's machinations, this one will be enough. That's how significant the 83rd Amendment is.

Now, of course, there are issues to be addressed. Making primary education a fundamental right is one thing: how will it happen? That is, how will central and state governments actually implement the act, translate it into real education for real people? What mechanisms will be available to us to pull them up if they fail? Where is the money for all this free and compulsory education going to come from?

That last is no idle question: the government estimates it will need Rs 400 billion over the next five years to fulfil its new obligation to the Constitution once the bill becomes law. That's no loose change. Then again, that's not so much after all: we are spending nearly Rs 280 billion on the mad waste -- especially when stacked up against the half of our country unable to read these words -- of defence. And that's this year alone. Let me repeat: that's Rs 280 billion. That's this year alone.

Compared to which, Rs 400 billion over the next five years is, indeed, loose change. It is a crime that we have not spent it yet.

But even if we find the money -- to my mind, there's no "if", it must be found -- there are greater obstacles to overcome. They come from the resistance of whole hordes among us to widespread education. As we have heard many times, one of these hordes is made up of politicians. For nearly every one of them, widespread ignorance is the foundation of their success. They will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. They will fight tooth and nail to sidetrack education with other vital issues. Like mosques to be torn down. Like bringing back Shivaji's sword. Like a fast unto death -- I'm not making this up -- to allow Navratri noise to go on until ungodly hours.

And when education does get some attention, it is simply misplaced. There was the book the government of Maharashtra's school education department published last year, called Landmark Decisions on School Education. In its glossy pages, I found this commendable sentiment: "Basic education for all is not merely a social expense, but an economic investment for sustained long term growth."

Fired by that, I read about the government's plans. Twenty five thousand more primary school teacher posts; a free text book scheme for girls; a year of compulsory National Cadet Corps training; free education for all children up to standard 10; many more.

One of those made me frown. You too? The same one, perhaps?

The book explains that the government will spend a total of Rs 1.34 billion on all these programmes. Of that, Rs 0.18 billion will be used to set up more primary school teacher posts: 13 paise of every rupee spent. Free education till standard 10 accounts for another 2 paise. Free textbooks to girls in primary school: 3 paise.

And what, speaking of frowns, does the NCC get? Rs 1 billion, or 75 paise of every rupee to be spent on these "landmark decisions on school education."

The NCC, the book claims, will "enable the students to imbibe values like leadership, nationalism, discipline etc." Fine values, naturally, and which politician can resist their magnetism?

And who's going to ask what leadership and nationalism mean in a climate of ignorance? What are these values to people too illiterate to know, let alone demand, their basic rights? In Maharashtra, that's one-third its people, half its women. That includes the 86 per cent illiteracy of Akrani taluka in Dhule district, where only eight per cent of the women -- eight per cent! -- are literate. How will a year of compulsory NCC training thrust values down otherwise uneducated throats?

Why this overwhelming, but utterly misguided, priority on the NCC?

When you make these comparisons -- 2, 3 and 13 paise vs 75 -- and ask these questions, you'll know. The NCC and its values sound good. But that and glossy books and fancy schemes apart, the government of Maharashtra is really not interested in primary education at all.

In that, it is not alone. Many others are as convinced it is unimportant too. There's the man, I presume educated, who submitted this condescension after the last time I wrote about education: "The common man in India has common sense. He does not need education to understand what is going on, and to make decisions."

How is that we have never heard an uneducated Indian say that?

Fortunately, not all educated Indians are quite as patronising. Pratham, a NGO in Bombay, has the 83rd amendment up on their website (http://www.tulipcom.com/pratham), along with a guestbook for reactions that have already been shown to MPs. They have got over 4,000 responses, nearly all positive. Read some of them. You'll conclude, as I did, with hope. Clearly, many Indians recognise primary education as vital to India's fortunes.

The question is, are there enough to overcome the apathy, even the active opposition, of many other Indians? Are there enough who will ask the questions the government must answer? Who will force the 83rd Amendment Bill into the Constitution, then off its pages and into the daily life of Indians?

Or are they outnumbered, 75 to 2+3+13?

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