Sonia and the right to education

By V.Krishna Ananth

Ms. Sonia Gandhi, in her capacity as the Leader of Opposition, has shot off a missive to the Prime Minister, Mr. A.B. Vajpayee, insisting that the Government incorporate some changes in the Constitution Amendment Bill that would, if passed, make education for all between six and 14 years of age a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution.

That Ms. Gandhi's attention, at long last, was drawn towards this issue must by itself come as a pleasant surprise; after all, this was among the issues that was thrust upon the agenda of the political class by the judiciary when the Supreme Court in its judgment in the J.P. Unnikrishnan vs. State of Andhra Pradesh case held that children have a fundamental right to education until they are 14 years old.

The ruling groups had to be reminded, in 1993, that successive dispensations had failed in addressing as important an issue as providing necessary infrastructure to make every citizen literate. The judgment, in a sense, was an indictment of all those who had ruled the country until then; and this necessarily included Ms. Sonia Gandhi's Congress, for the party had been at the helm for the longest period since January, 26 1950.

It is in this context that one finds in her missive to the Prime Minister an attempt to distort the issue rather than any serious concern for the disprivileged - as many as 60 million children or one-third of all those between the six-to-14 age group, when the count was taken last in 1992 - who are denied of the right to education. Interestingly, the count was taken about the same time when the then Government, headed by the Congress, had finalised its education policy, based on a review of the 1986 document.

Even after the apex court declared, a year later, that the right to education is a fundamental right, and held that it was no longer possible for the State to take refuge behind the principle that it is only a desirable goal set by the Constitution (a Directive Principle of State Policy, under Article 45), the Congress did nothing to effect the necessary change in the Constitution.

The issue had to wait for a non-Congress dispensation to be taken up; the Bill was introduced by the United Front Government in July 1997. It is another matter that the Government was forced out by the Congress, as its leaders then were bothered by a ``larger'' concern.

Now, Ms. Gandhi has reservations against some portions of the Bill; she has objected to the word ``compulsory'' in the Bill. In her view, this would amount to a ``spirit of enforcement''; this ``does not go with the spirit of a Fundamental Right''. It is strange that the Leader of Opposition refuses to recognise that the very spirit of Article 21 is that the rights, guaranteed so, are enforceable by means of writ jurisdiction.

Ms. Gandhi seems to be unaware that while in the case of the State failing to effect the provisions guaranteed under Article 21 are enforceable (the right to seek judicial remedy), those under the Directive Principles of State Policy, i.e. Article 45, cannot be enforced, and there is no scope for judicial remedy. It is this distinction that was made use of by the political classes all these years to deny the right to education to as many as 48 per cent of the population.

Now, even after the Supreme Court has held education as a Fundamental Right (and the judges interpreted Article 21 of the Constitution to include the right to education, and that denial of this right can be sought to be remedied by resort to writ jurisdiction), Ms. Gandhi wants the word ``compulsory'' deleted from the Bill. So much for her commitment to the Constitution and its provisions. She also adds, ``in the enthusiasm to provide this fundamental right, the quality of education should not be ignored''.

In stressing this point, Ms.Gandhi has only reiterated the philosophy vended by the then Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in 1986, based on treating quality and quantity as antithetical categories.

Ms. Gandhi wants the stress on quality education, the fundamental premise of the 1986 Education Policy, to be the guiding principle; that the successive Governments since then effected cuts in the budgetary allocation to education, only because the concern was no longer universal education but education to a few, is a fact that Ms. Gandhi and her partypersons may not mind.

But there is no way that she can persist with this and yet claim to affirm by the Constitution and its spirit at least after the apex court held that the right to education is integral to Article 21. And where the right is incorporated under Article 21, there is no way it can remain in Article 45 as well. This is another suggestion Ms. Gandhi has come out with in her missive; exposing, in the process, her ignorance of constitutional provisions.

It is important that Ms. Gandhi and her party realise that the right to education will have to be incorporated in Article 21, and when this is done, it cannot but be made enforceable and, hence, compulsory. It is one thing for an ordinary citizen to gloss over the legal aspects and the Constitution; not when it comes from the Leader of Opposition.

The imperative for the Congress and Ms. Sonia Gandhi now is to force the Government to introduce the Bill in the current session and ensure its passage. The role of the State Governments, the business of a certificate of passing at the Class-VIII level and other such issues raised by Ms. Gandhi are matters of detail that must be addressed when the State Governments effect the constitutional provision.

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