My letter to The Hindu on RTE Act (14-04-2012)

The verdict has come at a time when a bleak picture of the RTE landscape reveals that many schools are not compliant with the complete set of RTE infrastructure indicators. The verdict will enable the government to provide free, quality education to bring about the holistic development of the poor and marginalised children and inculcate values in them to turn them into agents of change for the future with a deep sense of commitment to their communities.

The negative responses from private schools clearly indicate that there is a complete lack of will to ensure that the socially and economically backward students get into mainstream schools. In today's world, the main conduit available for these children to move up the social ladder is education. Post-verdict, there is an urgent need for the government to take a more pro-active role in addressing the effective implementation of the RTE Act.

In response to the news brief in The Hindu, “Court upholds RTE Act.”(13-04-2012)

The Supreme Court on Thursday by a majority of 2:1 upheld the constitutional validity of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, which provides for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and mandates government/aided/and non-minority unaided schools to reserve 25 per cent of the seats for these children.

A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justice Swatanter Kumar while upholding the law, however, held that it would not be applicable to unaided minority schools. Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan, gave a dissenting judgment.

The majority judgment said: “We hold that the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 is constitutionally valid and shall apply to a school established, owned or controlled by the appropriate Government or a local authority; an aided school including aided minority school(s) receiving aid or grants to meet whole or part of its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority; a school belonging to specified category; and an unaided non-minority school not receiving any kind of aid or grants to meet its expenses from the appropriate Government or the local authority.”

The CJI who wrote the judgment said: “It will operate from today. In other words, this will apply from the academic year 2012-13. However, admissions given by unaided minority schools prior to the pronouncement of this judgment shall not be reopened. “By judicial decisions, right to education has been read into right to life in Article 21. A child who is denied right to access education is not only deprived of his right to live with dignity, he is also deprived of his right to freedom of speech and expression enshrined in Article 19(1) (a). The 2009 Act seeks to remove all those barriers including financial and psychological barriers which a child belonging to the weaker section and disadvantaged group has to face while seeking admission.”

The Bench said: “It is true that, as held in the T.M.A. Pai Foundation as well as the P.A. Inamdar judgments, the right to establish and administer an educational institution is a fundamental right, as long as the activity remains charitable under Article 19(1) (g). However, in the said two decisions the correlation between Articles 21 and 21A, on the one hand, and Article 19(1) (g), on the other, was not under consideration.

Further, the content of Article 21A flows from Article 45 (as it then stood). The 2009 Act has been enacted to give effect to Article 21A. For the above reasons, since the Article 19(1) (g) right is not an absolute right as Article 30(1), the 2009 Act cannot be termed as unreasonable.”

The Bench said: “To put an obligation on the unaided non-minority school to admit 25 per cent children in class I under Section 12(1) (c) cannot be termed as an unreasonable restriction. Such a law cannot be said to transgress any constitutional limitation. The object of the 2009 Act is to remove the barriers faced by a child who seeks admission to class I and not to restrict the freedom under Article 19(1) (g). “From the scheme of Article 21A and the 2009 Act, it is clear that the primary obligation is of the State to provide for free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years and, particularly, to children who are likely to be prevented from pursuing and completing the elementary education due to inability to afford fees or charges.” On reserving 25 per cent seats, the Bench said: “Earmarking of seats for children belonging to a specified category who face financial barrier in the matter of accessing education satisfies the test of classification in Article 14. Further, Section 12(1) (c) provides for level playing field in the matter of right to education to children who are prevented from accessing education because they do not have the means or their parents do not have the means to pay for their fees. Such a condition would come within the principle of reasonableness in Article 19(6).

Stop aggressive tactics!! Tolerate voices of dissent!!  

It is a matter of deep anguish and concern that the government which has the duty to protect citizens in a free society manufactures consent by violence and pressure tactics. It is really disturbing that the government adopts aggressive methods to suppress voices of dissent and those being raised against Kudankulam nuclear plant.Governments, both at the State and the Centre, are obviously too jittery to allow even isolated voices of dissent to be heard in public.Convicting anti-nuclear activists of sedition and treason against the country yet again illustrates the disdain of the state towards its citizens and democracy. The real crime of the anti-nuclear activists in the eyes of the government has been their protest against the nuclear power plant, and their efforts to sensitize the public about the ecological problems of a nuclear plant. It is undemocratic that the state attempts to create a fear psychosis among political and social activists which will only lead to the strengthening of resistance against state repression.

The aggressive and intimidation tactics of the Government against anti nuclear can suppress opposing views for some time, but it cannot hope to suppress the social reality forever. What the nuclear establishment and the political elite have been trying painstakingly to hide from the people and the human misery the nuclear authorities have inflicted globally will certainly come to light. Governments at both the State and Centre, justify pushing anti-people projects blaming all the valid questions raised and opposition, by invoking the tactics of intimidation. The intimidation tactics like foisting false cases and threatening the public of dire consequences are truly a national betrayal and a constitutional aberration in letter and spirit. The high handed methods with which the government resists people in large numbers oppose it quite peacefully and democratically and resorts to violence to coerce people into accepting the project against their wish make our suspicions about the ulterior motives of the nuclear lobby stronger.

The government is now fearful and unsure of the consequences of people's mass movement against nuclear plant and is resorting to strong-arm tactics to suppress people's voice.The police and legal action against anti-nuclear activists who were protesting in a democratic way just exposesthe government’sattitude to silence the voices of reasoning through the use of intimidation.The government shamelessly seeks to create an atmosphere of suspicion which sees anti-nuclear activists as anti-national, anti-scientific and driven by foreign forces.Anti-nuclear activists still argue that the key issues are not technical but rather social, political and economic. Suppression of public and intellectual dissent is a dangerous trend in a democratic nation. In Kudankulam, fundamental dissidence is rare, since activistsare afraid that speaking out would jeopardise their lives. The bogey of foreign hand has been played by post-independent rulers to divert the rising discontent of the masses.It is the need of the hour that the government should re-establish the rule of law and to honour the democratic responsibilities of those who express their dissent in a democratic way.  Activists expressing their democratic dissent against nuclear power are not to be dealt with by police machinery and false cases, but by convincing them with facts and figures about the case for nuclear energy. The State and the Centre should immediately stop the systematic usage of various intimidation laws and charges of sedition against activists to silence all voices of dissent.

My letter to the Editor of The Hindu (07-04-2012)

This refers to the article “Shutting the school doors on the Muslim child” (April 5). It is a national shame that the largest minority in India is denied the fundamental right to just and equal access to school education. A very significant section of Muslims has been marginalised and left out of the development process. The persistence of discriminatory practices in schools is based on many assumptions pertaining to historical prejudices, official apathy and mistaken perceptions of Muslims' learning abilities. Their socio-economic conditions present a dismal picture with the community facing a rising tide of religious discrimination in schools. In ‘secular' India, schools and other educational institutions are systematically Sanskritised to exclude the minorities.

Education should be viewed as a basic human right leading to empowerment and awareness. There is an urgent need for the government to play a proactive role in addressing the concerns of Muslims.

In response to the article in The Hindu titled “Shutting the school doors on the Muslim child” by Hem Borker

That a news report in The Hindu titled “In Delhi's nursery classes, Muslim children are a rarity” (March 19, 2012), found mention in the Rajya Sabha the same day, leading to “heated arguments” and a “verbal duel” in the Upper House, is symptomatic of the polarisation of public discourse on the education of Muslims. Almost any discussion on the subject slides into binaries: religious vs secular, exclusion vs appeasement, rights vs politics, reality vs rhetoric, and conservatism vs systemic discrimination.

A study

In 2009-10, as part of the National CRY Fellowship Programme, I had conducted a series of interviews with 20 Muslim families residing in Zakir Nagar, New Delhi, on the question of what shaped their schooling choices for their children. Unanimously, the parents regarded modern mainstream education as the single most important factor which safeguarded their children's future and clearly articulated a preference for sending their children to reputed private schools. However their narratives echoed the contesting dilemmas many faced on account of “being Muslim”; dilemmas which illustrate the manner in which the increasing communalisation of social space subtly limits choices or renders them non-existent in something as fundamental as education.

“We want schools that do not discriminate against our children.”

This statement highlights the increasing sense of helplessness and exasperation parents feel at the difficulty their children face in gaining admission to private schools. Many talked about their “feeling” that private schools have some sort of a “prefixed quota of just this much and no more Muslims”; some parents cited how the neighbourhood points seemed to have marginal weightage in the case of private schools nearby, while others talked about having to use “ jugaad ” to get their children admitted saying that this was not an option available to the ordinary Muslim.

Respecting minority sentiments

Many talked about consciously opting for Christian schools rather than the Hinduised regular public schools, as, at some level, Christian schools are “good” and respect minority sentiments. They also explained the choice in terms of pragmatism as Christian schools are generally convents, have a better command over the English language, and have a strong emphasis on discipline.

Parents shared experiences of their children being “unnecessarily picked on, classified in front of their peers and harassed by teachers.” In many of the interviews, parents repeatedly made references to derogatory comments made by teachers on the eating and dressing habits (headscarf or extra-long skirts) of Muslim children. This was corroborated by the children when I asked them about things they did not like about school. Many of them talked about how they did not like being singled out (on account of their religion), examples being a teacher adding “ M iyan ” to the child's name while taking attendance (“I don't know why my teacher keeps adding ‘Miyan' to my name ... everyone has started saying that ”) or the cricket coach's insinuating reprimands (“ Isko bouncer mat dena, sar tod dega ... ye sab garam mizaz ke hote hain ”) or as a 10-year-old girl said, “Nobody in school wants to play hide-and-seek with me. Everyone says Muslims cannot be trusted with secrets.”

Parents described themselves as being very “conscious,” “mindful” and “careful” about the choices they were making vis-à-vis their children's education — what the school environment was like, where to send their children to play or for dini talim. The choices available often lay at two ends of the spectrum — “excessively religious” people in the neighbourhood who kept on preaching Islamiyat or the excessively modern who tried to act like “everyone else.”

For many parents the biggest worry was how to straddle these two extremes. Their responses constantly brought up the dichotomy of the “Good Muslim” and the “Bad Muslim” and the difficulty they faced in ensuring that their children are brought up in “Muslim ways” without falling into the “conservative trap.” In fact this concern was shared at various points in the interviews. Parents would juxtapose their own education back home (generally where they were a part of larger families in a more “Muslim milieu”) with that of their children's education (in a nuclear set up in Delhi, where, as parents, they consciously tried to familiarise their children with the culture). Many parents mentioned how in their families, “family values” included orienting their children towards religion and conformity with a certain moral discipline. These situations often put the parents in an awkward position limiting their options to Muslim managed schools which respected their culture but did not provide the secular grounding required for the children not to feel alienated in the future.

Educating the girl

Many parents expressed the difficulties they faced in choosing appropriate schools for their girls. For parents, many of whom aspired to remain true to their native roots located in rural or semi-urban Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, it was difficult to locate schools which ensured that their girls could avail the benefits of a modern secular education that provided some degree of certainty of access to respectable marriages and, if need be, appropriate employment but did not corrupt them into western ways; an institution which was not co-educational , had a modest dress code and was located nearby to ensure that the parents could reach them quickly in case of a “threatening” ( danga-fasad ) eventuality. I noted that in the case of girls, unlike boys, in the event of an absence of a combination of these criteria the parents generally made compromises on the quality of schooling and sent the girls to nearby (often unrecognised) schools within Jamia Nagar which promised girls education (not co-education), held classes in Urdu and sometimes imparting dini talim , and had the salwar kameez as the uniform. But the drawback was that these schools were not necessarily recognised by boards such as the CBSE/ICSE or had classes up till class 12.

While these daily struggles are in no way representative of the Muslim experience of education, they do highlight the vicious nature of the problem. On one side the policy discourse refers to educational backwardness as one of the main causes for real and/or perceived alienation of Muslims and acknowledges inclusive education as a panacea; on the other, these real life situations demonstrate the everyday issues Muslims face in accessing these very opportunities, leading to further isolation, exclusion and excessive reliance on “Muslim managed services and networks.”

Hem Borker is pursuing her D.Phil in Education at the University of Oxford.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar!! Keep silence!! Don’t utter non sense!! Please mind your business!!

My letter to The Hindu dated 30-03-2012

This refers to the editorial “The art of schooling” (March 29). Sri Sri Ravishankar's remark that students from government schools become naxalites and take to violence is irrational and unwarranted, particularly at a time when we need to encourage public schools to end the monopoly of private schools which have become educational shops. Privatisation of education would mean denying the fruits of knowledge to the marginalised sections. Many people occupying some of the highest posts in the country are products of government schools. Moreover, naxalism is not the result of a lack of ideals in public schools; it is the result of exploitation by corporates and governments, leading to the displacement and oppression of the marginalised. The government has a moral responsibility to provide the kind of education one could expect from sophisticated private schools.

In response to the Editorial in The Hindu dated 29-03-2012

The art of schooling

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A good public education produces citizens who think freely, show initiative and possess a questioning mind. That progressive idea is increasingly under threat from lobbyists for market dominance. But even these campaigners would be surprised at Sri Sri Ravishankar's bizarre logic for privatisation — that students from government schools become naxalites and take to violence. Foolish though they are, such assertions prop up the falsehood that government-funded education is a ghettoised ruin, while private sector institutions uniformly make the cut. Such a proposition is particularly offensive because it strikes at the heart of the belated effort by the Indian state to make tax-funded elementary education free and accessible to all children as a right. The national goal is to rapidly expand quality education on an unprecedented scale and reach out to the remotest parts. There is a role for private schools in the overall scheme, as laid out in the approach paper of the Planning Commission on the Twelfth Plan, but it can only be to top up a sound education system run by the state. Genuine thought leadership must, therefore, dwell on questions such as improving the skills of 600,000 teachers in public schools who are officially described as untrained.

The logic that public education as a system is below par stems from the neoliberal idea that government works less efficiently compared to private entities and even non-governmental organisations. It is unsurprising that Sri Sri Ravishankar's NGO tried to explain away his controversial remarks on Twitter with the argument that it was running 185 free schools in “naxal-affected” areas, and the comments were not directed at all government institutions. Even if that were true, it is no reason to dismantle the government education system in conflict zones. If anything, weaknesses underscore the need to bolster the education infrastructure in these parts, with the active participation of local communities. Also, contrary to the pernicious logic advanced against public education, the beneficiaries of that system work harder to overcome their social disadvantages, compared with well-to-do counterparts in private institutions. As Noam Chomsky has pointed out, elite education is oriented more towards preserving the status quo, and emphasises the following of orders, control and discipline. This is antithetical to the concepts of freedom of thought, challenge and inquiry that are the core goals of education. India's public education lacks adequate human resources and infrastructure, and it evidently needs supportive policies to achieve its potential. What it does not need is a sermon on things that it is not.