The extent to which inequality is fundamental to Indian society becomes shockingly clear when systemic reforms that are imperative on principle sound practically impossible in the Indian context. The free and compulsory education bill, to be tabled this week, is premised on the idea of education as a fundamental right that implies guaranteed schooling to all children between the ages of 6 and 14. Nobody would dispute the justness of this idea, but the bill that attempts to implement it suggests measures that would require nothing short of a radical revolution in Indian society at the material as well as attitudinal levels. Consider the two main reforms to be enforced by the bill — the abolition of admission tests and neighbourhood schooling. In a society riven by multiple divides — urban/suburban/rural, rich/poor, literate/illiterate, English-speaking/non-English-speaking — both these changes would require a mix of uniformity of standards and provisions for special learning support that would be quite impossible to achieve without causing profound disorder and, paradoxically, resultant injustice. Not only administration and teaching methods and standards in all government and private schools, but also deep-rooted attitudinal changes in people at every level of society would be required before these changes begin to yield fruit.

The central vision of this bill should not be lost sight of, for it still remains the goal India should aspire to. But a carefully thought out graded approach is required for the realization of this vision. This would entail not only educational and pedagogic rethinking, but a major reallocation of resources and rooting out of existing corruption in a whole range of social and bureaucratic systems. What can be enforced straight away, though, is the ban on capitation fee, the obstructive (and often cruel) bureaucracy concerning birth certificates, and improvement in qualities and conditions of ‘parateaching’ (without doing away with parateachers summarily).