Draft Proposal as discussed by Exigency Committee &
recommended for consideration at NE Meeting (18-20 July 2014)
ALL INDIA FORUM FOR RIGHT TO EDUCATION
All-India Shiksha Sangharsh Yatra-2014
Modified Draft Proposal for
an All-India Shiksha Sangharsh Yatra-2014 (AISSY-2014)
10th July 2014
As discussed at the last meeting of AIFRTE’s National Executive held at Bangalore in February
2014, AIFRTE proposes to organize an ‘ALL-INDIA SHIKSHA SANGHARSH YATRA–2014’
(henceforth called AISSY-2014 in this document) later this year. In pursuance of this objective,
several rounds of discussions took place with the Extended Exigency Committee (i.e. Exigency
Committee plus three other office bearers and some invited Presidium and Secretariat
members) in a meeting held in Delhi on March 30-31, 2014 as well as through emails. A zeroorder
draft was circulated on 5th June to the Extended Exigency Committee. This was followed
on 12th June by circulation of a more elaborate preliminary draft along with an outline of a
tentative schedule of activities to the Extended Exigency Committee and three special invitees
representing different political orientations. An intense and in-depth exchange of ideas and
debate followed through emails and telephone calls.
In order to have a sense of the general mood with regard to the very idea of AISSY-2014,
telephonic discussions took place with not less than a dozen of other AIFRTE colleagues and
member- and associate organizations in different parts of the country. This was particularly
important from the standpoint of arriving at a broadly acceptable period for undertaking AISSY-
2014 in view of the whole range of festivals, seasons (winter and fog in north India), Vidhan
Sabha elections, semester examinations in colleges and school-related annual examinations and
related pressures on our teachers and students alike. We learned that the rich diversity of India
allows even a broadly acceptable period for AISSY-2014 only with a great deal of patient
negotiation and a feeling of comradeship based on give and take.
The third draft proposal presented below is a result of ‘painstakingly’ internalizing a
constructive critique of the earlier drafts and suggestions on both theoretical and pragmatic
grounds. The time taken and often discomfort caused to each other in the process has only
revealed the ideological solidarity among the colleagues which holds us together in AIFRTE. It
has also reminded us, if such a reminder was indeed needed, that the historic cause of
transformation of India’s education system in consonance with the Constitution we are fighting
for, particularly in view of the neo-liberal capitalist assault combined with religious
fundamentalism and sectarianism, is far bigger and taller than any one of us, individually or
collectively. The draft proposal enriched through such a democratic and enlightening process is
now being placed for further debate and suggestions at the august portals of the National
Executive at its meeting scheduled to be held in Delhi on 18-20 July 2014.
1.0 ‘FLAGGING-OFF’
It is suggested that AISSY-2014, lasting for about five weeks (up to eight weeks in special cases),
may be ‘flagged-off’ in each State/UT by the state convening committee (yet to be constituted)
on Sunday, November 02, 2014 (in honour of Irom Sharmila Chanu of Manipur who started
her historic fast 14 years ago against AFSPA on this date). For ‘flagging-off’ AISSY-2014 in each
State/UT (or even Districts or Blocks, wherever feasible), an appropriate place may be chosen
that people can recall either as a symbol of anti-imperialist struggle, fight against oppression,
advancing the social justice agenda or some historic event connected with education, during or
after the freedom movement. For instance, just to give an idea, it could be the Jaliawalan Bagh,
Amritsar for Punjab; Gandhi-led Dandi March from Sabarmati Ashram, Ahmedabad for Gujarat;
August Kranti Maidan (Bharat Chhodo or Quit India venue of 1942), Mumbai and/or Babasaheb
Ambedkar-led anti-caste movement in Mahad for Maharashtra; Erode as inspiration from
Periyar-led anti-caste anti-inequality rationalist movement for Tamil Nadu; or Netaji Subhash
Chandra Bose-led INA’s ‘Dilli Chalo!’ call from Imphal and Kohima for Manipur and Nagaland
respectively (though both of the state convening committees in Manipur and Nagaland are
likely to prefer their own state-specific unique symbolic venues). This listing is just to give
examples of some possible venues for ‘flagging-off’ AISSY-2014 and to provoke creative thinking
amongst State/UT/district/city/town/village-level convening committees. Indeed, the process
of identification of an appropriate venue for ‘flagging-off’ AISSY-2014 is in itself a matter of
historical significance. Each ‘flagging-off’ event needs to be planned creatively to make a
significant political impact on the State/UT/district/city/town/village.
2.0 TWIN DIMENSIONS OF AISSY-2014
Interweaving State/UT-Level Decentralised and Centrally Sponsored Five Route-based Yatras
The five/eight-week AISSY-2014 shall have two major simultaneous and overlapping dimensions
viz. (a) State/UT-level planning and execution at the initiative of the State-Level Convening
Committees (SLCCs/ DLCCs/BLCCs) in as many Districts/Blocks as possible, with stopovers at
District HQs (may be Block HQs as well, to the extent feasible) and, of course, the State/UT
capital; and (b) well-worked out centrally sponsored routes from five major directions of the
country - north-east, south, north, east and west – moving towards and finally culminating in
Delhi on December 5, 2014 with a view to underline the plural and syncretic character of India.
The culmination date of 5th December has been chosen in honour of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s
anniversary on 6th December. On an average, each of the centrally sponsored routes will cover
about 2,000 kms from the ‘flagging-off’ point to the point of culmination i.e. Delhi, thus
together covering a total of about 10,000 kms! If one adds the distance covered by the
State/UT-level AISSY-2014, the total distance to be covered may be almost twice as much i.e.
20,000 kms, may be more!!
3.0 BROADENING AND DEEPENING MOVEMENT’s SOCIAL BASE
The above formidable exercise will be accomplished by a locally worked out plan by
SLCCs/DLCCs/BLCCs of suitable combination of hired vehicles, trains, buses and, of course, pad
yatra i.e. foot march. The duration of the AISSY-2014 is being deliberately restricted preferably
to five weeks (eight week duration being the outer limit, only if unavoidable) so that it could (a)
make a nation-wide impact on the public mind by its concentration of activities and the
consequent synergy; and (b) receive the top most priority in the lives of all those who feel
committed to build effective public pressure on the prevailing policies of commercialization and
communalization of education by challenging them through engagement with the masses. We
expect so much of the collective synergy to be generated during AISSY-2014 that it should
inspire various sections of society to rise to save India’s education from the neo-liberal and
communal assault. Even for AIFRTE and its member- and associate organisations, things must
not remain the same at the end of AISSY-2014, particularly in the post-Yatra consolidation
phase.
With the decentralized State/UT-level and the centrally sponsored five-directional
route-based plans inter-woven together, AISSY-2014 shall aim at going through all the
States/UTs (except perhaps, hopefully perhaps, Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep Islands)
and covering as many Districts and Blocks as possible, especially wherever AIFRTE has its
member-organisations, associate organizations/ groups and individual members. A consciously
planned endeavour is required to broaden and deepen the social base of our member- and
associate organizations in each and every State/ UT/ District/ Block/ City/ Town/ village by
contacting new organizations/ groups/ movements/ individuals, either through the local-level
convening committees to be set-up specifically for AISSY-2014 or directly though personal
contacts and persuasion by each and every individual or group associated with AIFRTE. All this
interaction and engagement to build new relationships and networks must be viewed as an
organic part of the early preparatory process, beginning latest by the third week of July 2014,
keeping in mind the criticality of consolidating all these fresh contacts in the post-AISSY phase
in order to carry our movement forward.
Admittedly, there will be imperfections in these newly built relationships and networks
but it is better to move forward with imperfections, as long as these are not contrary to our
ideology, than not to move at all. Throughout this process, a conscious effort will be made to
convince everyone getting engaged with AISSY-2014 of our ideology, at least of the criticality of
resisting commercialization and communalization of education and moving towards a statefunded
Common Education system from ‘KG to PG’ that can provide entirely free education
with equality and social justice. After the conclusion of AISSY-2014, let us be prepared to rectify
and consolidate this expected multi-fold expansion and deepening of the social base of our
movement.
4.0 THE CULMINATION
It is proposed that the five/eight-week AISSY-2014 will culminate in Delhi on Friday, 5th
December in observance of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s Anniversary (6th December). The AISSY-
2014 teams from the States/UTs as well as from the five major routes may plan to reach Delhi
either by 3rd December evening or latest by 4th December morning so that they all may join the
Delhi-based teams to undertake intensive one-day campaign in different localities all over Delhi
to inspire the local people to participate in the Culmination on 5th December in a big way. The
Culmination must be envisaged as a major political event capable of drawing public attention
and engaging with the national conscience.
For this purpose, the AISC may constitute a Delhi-based Mobilization & Culmination
Committee (DMCC).
The whole of AISSY-2014 is aimed at awakening people’s consciousness, inspiring
movement-building ideas and seeding new hopes among various sections of society,
especially the oppressed and exploited, that they can still ‘reclaim’ the promise and dreams of
the freedom struggle and ‘reconstruct’ the education system in consonance with the spirit of
the Constitution. The Culmination, along with the entire AISSY-2014, must rise to meet this
challenge. AISSY-2014 will indeed be an acid test of the conscience of AIFRTE itself.
5.0 THE POLITICAL CONTEXT
India’s education system has been facing successive attacks of neo-liberal capitalism since 1991
at the behest of its agencies viz., World Bank, IMF and WTO along with a range of international
funding institutions. To be sure, the seeds of these attacks were sown in the 1986 policy
framework itself. Consequently, the previously existing level of discrimination, inequality and
exclusion within and through the education system from ‘KG to PG’ has been exacerbated
several-fold. Concomitantly, the blatant commoditization of education has entirely disoriented
the very purpose of education and the epistemic character of knowledge. The Constitutional
structures like the legislative, executive and judiciary stand marginalized even as the global
capital and market forces dictate terms. To make the matters worse, the neo-liberal assault has
been increasingly and cynically accompanied by communalization of education.
It is in this background that we have to analyze and assess the recent right-wing turn in
Indian politics and its almost fascist implications as reflected in the rising frequency of attacks
on religious, ethnic, cultural and linguistic minorities, particularly women among them. All
available indicators reveal that the pace of commercialization and communalization of
education is going to rise rapidly in the coming years. The deprived and oppressed sections of
society, constituting more than 80% of our people, are certain to be excluded even further,
with only lollipops being offered for a tiny minority among them in the name of the so-called
‘inclusive’ policies. The increasing market hegemony over political discourse combined with
religious fundamentalism is bound to dismantle India’s rich heritage of plurality of philosophies,
historiographies, religions, races, ethnicities, cultures and languages. The consequent
fragmentation of Indian society is designed to further break and weaken the social movements
aimed at resisting the neo-liberal and the fundamentalist communal and racist forces. What is
ultimately at stake is not just the socio-cultural fabric of the country but also the very Idea of
India as a democratic, socialist, secular, egalitarian, just, pluralistic, enlightened and humane
society.
In these circumstances, the only real option is to rekindle the hope and faith of the
Indian people in their inherent capability to reconstruct the education system as part of the
wider politics of fulfilling the dream of our anti-imperialist freedom movement. For this
purpose, it will be essential to build a mass movement with a view to reverse the rising pace
of attacks during the past two decades by the forces of the global corporate capital as well as
religious fundamentalism and racism. Hence, the call for organizing AISSY-2014!
6.0 AIMS AND OBJECTS
1. To inspire individuals, groups, organisations and masses of people for building a
protracted struggle to resist commercialization and communalization of education and
establish an education system in conformity with the values of the Constitution through
a fully state-funded Common Education System in order to provide entirely free
education from ‘KG to PG’ founded on equality and social justice.
2. To share AIFRTE’s political perspective on neo-liberal capitalism and communalism
widely and intensely with the various sections of society and to explain their impact on
the education system.
3. To establish in the public mind that, historically speaking, there is no option other than
the long-term goal of radical systemic transformation of the education system. It is
pertinent to explain through critical policy review that ‘tinkering’ through schemes like
SSA (Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan), RMSA (Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan) and RUSA
(Rashtriya Ucha Shiksha Abhiyan) or legislations like the RTE Act, 2009 or shifting public
funds to private bodies through PPP or imposing the WTO agenda by bringing in FDI,
foreign universities or instituting an over-arching super-empowered higher education
commission to give single-window clearance to the global capital, would only reinforce
the prevailing elitist, discriminatory and exclusionary system, apart from also further
distorting the purpose of education and character of knowledge. In order to liberate the
education system from corporate profiteering, greed and control, there is no alternative
other than building a nation-wide movement through social mobilization based on an
informed political discourse.1
1In order to move towards this long-term goal of radical systemic transformation, various sections of society – from
village communities, urban slum dwellers and industrial workers to school/ college/ university teachers and
students – will need to be mobilized through their immediate local demands which can be fortified and given
meaningful direction by being placed in the perspective of intermediate substantial demands, as explained later in
this proposal (see Section 8.0, pp. 7-10). This strategy is proposed to be organically incorporated in AISSY-2014 and
envisaged as its most potent pedagogic foundation.
4. To survey, document and recognize the local educational problems, issues and concerns
and reveal their linkages with the neo-liberal policies of commercialization and the
dominant ideology of communalization of education, both being imposed by the ruling
class through the state machinery.
5. To involve the masses, especially those from amongst the deprived and oppressed
sections such as the dalits, tribals, OBCs, minorities and the disabled, with the women in
each of these sections being the most excluded, in our struggle. These sections have a
critical stake in the improvement of the state-funded public education system and,
therefore, engaging with these sections should be viewed as a pre-condition to building
a powerful education movement;
6. To establish links with various sections of professionals and working people engaged in
the education system, including anganwadi and mid-day meal workers and teachers and
non-teaching staff of schools, colleges and universities, and other
organised/unorganised sector workers;
7. To inter-link education movement with various ongoing people’s movements on issues
related to jal-jangal-zameen and jeevika (i.e. water-forest-land and livelihood) and other
democratic rights of the masses;
8. To make an impact on the educational agenda of the political parties as well as the local
bodies and the state and central governments, by building mass pressure on them to
give priority to the state-funded public education system and, at the same time, reverse
commercialization and communalization;
9. To motivate AIFRTE’s member- and associate organisations to undertake mass-based
programmes for enlisting people in the campaign for educational rights, thereby
broadening and deepening their own support base; and
10. To identify persons/groups/organizations, from outside the jurisdiction of AIFRTE’s
member- and associate organizations, who are ready to participate in the struggle for
equitable free education from ‘KG to PG’ and resist all forms of commercialization and
communalization of education and to persuade them to carry forward the struggle as an
organised unit linked to AIFRTE.
7.0 PEDAGOGY
The Pedagogic Mahamantra:
GO TO THE PEOPLE,
WORK WITH THEM,
SHARE YOUR CONCERNS,
PERCEPTIONS AND DREAMS!
LEARN FROM THEM,
RECONSTRUCT YOUR IDEAS,
TRANSLATE INTO KALA JATHA,
TRANSFORM INTO NEW STRUGGLES!
AND RETURN TO THE PEOPLE
WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNT FROM THEM,
CRITICALLY ENRICHED AND NUANCED,
AS YOU MOVE ONWARDS!
NOTE 1: This mahamantra needs to be concretized and elaborated on the basis of our diverse
perceptions and experiences. Some ideas can be taken from the proposal made by AIFRTE in
March 2014 for the Decentralised Shiksha Sangharsh Yatra viz., the Section on ‘Objectives of
the Yatra’, Para Nos. 3, 4 & 7 which refer to certain key demands; the Section on ‘Preparations
for the Yatra’; and the Section on ‘Programmes to be Held During the Yatra’ which has several
powerful pedagogic ideas for the AISSY-2014 and those must be incorporated here.
Note 2: During the period of the proposed AISSY-2014, there are several dates that are of
historical significance (see Annexure II). These can be used during the Yatra to remind our
people of the socio-political role of the people and the events linked with these dates in the
development of our society.
8.0 STRATEGY OF THREE-TIER STRUGGLE
8.1 The Three-Tier Struggle and its Conception: The pedagogic ideas indicated above, when
elaborated, will certainly enable us to open dialogue with various sections of society and share
with them our perception of educational transformation. However, realizing that the long-term
goal of radical systemic transformation of the education system calls for a protracted struggle
for which people have to be mobilized and organized. With this purpose in mind, the following
conception of a three-tier struggle is being proposed to be incorporated organically in AISSY-
2014 and envisaged as its most potent pedagogic foundation:
i) First Tier – Immediate Demands: People are mobilised on the basis of immediate local and
realizable demands such as the lack of a school; vacant teacher posts to be filled up; access to
potable water and functioning toilets; nutritious and hygienically served hot morning tiffin with
milk and mid-day meals; bringing child labour into schools; need to upgrade a primary school
into an upper primary (or middle) and the latter into a secondary or senior secondary school;
opening an undergraduate college or adding a science/ commerce section to an existing one or
upgrading it into a post-graduate college. We can expect the local convening committees to
undertake a survey of the needs or educational aspirations of people at the level of the District/
Block/ city/ town/ village before the arrival of the AISSY-2014 team and the team members can
then build upon the immediate demands emerging from the survey for building a local struggle.
A signature campaign on a Memorandum to the concerned authorities may be started to
engage the people or the kala jatha team can create a skit or a song or prepare a series of
posters to articulate the demands.
ii) Second Tier – Substantial Demands: We must also explain to the people that many of the
deficiencies at the local level are a consequence of larger policy-level issues and may not be
resolved only by fighting at the local level. For instance, the policy of contractualization of
teachers, not filling up all the teachers’ posts due to budget cuts or the RTE Act, 2009 having
provision for assigning non-teaching tasks to the teachers or prescribing inferior infrastructural
norms, has a direct impact on the quality of education at the village level or in an urban basti
and its resolution is well beyond the powers of the local authorities. Similarly, the need to have
adequately powerful policy framework for abolition of child labour and changing the schools to
be ready to provide them an enabling learning environment is a substantial demand requiring
policy-level action. However, raising the issue of inequality in education system as being in
violation of the Constitution and, therefore, calling for upgrading the norms and standards of
the local government schools up to at least the Central Schools, to begin with, as a wider issue
of struggle, may be a more effective strategy to draw public attention to the internal
contradictions of the system than fighting bit by bit for deficiencies resulting from policies.
Similarly, the policy of promoting privatization and commercialization implies that educational
costs will keep rising unless private schools and colleges are placed under effective regulatory
laws. Hence, fighting simultaneously for regulation of private schools/colleges and
strengthening of the government schools/colleges has the potential of bringing together both
the middle class and the poor sections of society under a common umbrella. These are just a
few examples of substantial demands with potential of impacting upon the system as a whole
in the direction of the long-term transformation AIFRTE is aiming at.
iii) Third Tier – Transformative Goals: The transformative goal of establishing a completely
state-funded (without PPP) public education system from ‘KG to PG’, including Common School
System based on Neighbourhood Schools, in order to provide entirely free, equitable and
democratic education in consonance with the Constitution, is a discourse that can inspire many
thinking people and bring them closer to our movement. They may also understand through
informed political dialogue that this radical goal can’t be achieved unless we undertake a
protracted struggle to reverse the policy of commercialization and communalization of
education and, at the same time, resist the onslaught of neo-liberal capitalism and religious
fundamentalism.
8.2 Viewing the Three-Tier Struggle Holistically: While the immediate demands can be an
effective means of mobilizing the masses, the substantial and transformative goals can inspire
the middle class and the intellectual sections of society respectively to join hands with our
movement and even stand by the masses on their immediate demands. This synergy and inter9
linkages of the three-tier struggle are crucial to giving a meaningful direction to AISSY-2014. The
Teams that lead the Yatra, whether at the decentralized State/UT-level or along the five
centrally sponsored routes, must not only appreciate this inter-linkage but also be made aware
of the ways and means to translate this understanding into action locally while engaging with
the people.
If one is confined only to the immediate demands without articulation of the
substantive and transformative goals, it is quite possible that the local struggle may either get
frustrated when the demands are not fulfilled by the local authorities, lose direction even in
short-term or get co-opted in the electoral politics of the ruling class. Even worse, without a
broader picture and an appreciation of the historical conditions, the movement has the danger
of becoming reactionary. On the other hand, focusing only on the substantive or transformative
goals does not lead to effective mobilization of the masses in the first instance and renders the
whole movement elusive even for the middle class and the intellectual sections of society. The
solution lies in strategically inter-weaving the three-tiers of the struggle proposed here.
8.3 Submission of Three-Level Memoranda of Demands: It is proposed that we should aim at
submitting three separate Memoranda to each District Magistrate/Collector during the Yatra:
a) a District- or Block-Level Memorandum of Demands (mostly, though not necessarily only,
immediate demands), to be drafted by DLCC and/or BLCC, engaging the District-level
authorities and thus laying the basis of continuing a local struggle after the Yatra; b) a Statelevel
Memorandum of Demands addressed to the Chief Minister, to be drafted by SLCC, which
will strategically combine a set of immediate demands with a set of substantive demands; and
c) an all-India Memorandum of Demands addressed to the Prime Minister of India with copy to
the President, to be drafted by the All-India Steering Committee (AISC), raising a combination of
immediate and substantive demands placed in the perspective of long-term transformative
goals. The last two Memoranda may also question, among others, the validity of the emerging
rhetoric of building a ‘skilled India’ or imparting technical skills to the ‘minorities’ as part of the
over-arching neo-liberal ideology of the ruling class of excluding the deprived and oppressed
from both secondary and higher education, if not even upper primary education.
The afore-mentioned three-level Memoranda will be drafted by DLCC and/or BLCC, SLCC
and the All-India Steering Committee (AISC) respectively. Thus, these will not only articulate a
whole range of political issues addressing different sections of society but also build a
framework for mobilizing people all the way from Blocks/Districts to the State/UT-level and
onwards to the all-India level, thereby engaging with the local implementing authorities as well
as the policy-makers of the Indian state. Also, imagine the political significance of the Chief
Minister of each State receiving Memoranda from at least two-third, if not more, of the districts
in the State; and the Prime Minister receiving Memoranda from, let us say, at least 400 out of
671 of the districts of the country!
8.4 Building the Organisational Base: It is in this precise context that the pedagogic
mahamantra, elaborated in Section 7.0, has to be read in harmonious construction (using an
expression of the Supreme Court’s Unnikrishnan Judgment) with this section on the three-tier
strategy of struggle. To be sure, AISSY-2014 must, therefore, be harnessed to both broaden and
deepen the social base of our movement and, at the same time, convert the new synergy thus
generated into local units ready to link oganisationally with AIFRTE and/or its Member- and
Associate organizations. This essential organization-building vision will ensure that the
five/eight-week exercise undertaken by us shall not end as an event, though a memorable
one, on 5th December 2014 but shall continue unabated and evolve into a major nation-wide
movement for transforming India’s education system thereafter through a post-Yatra
consolidation phase (yet to be conceived and planned)!
9.0 ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE AND CO-ORDINATION
For the purpose of organizing AISSY-2014, the following three-tier organizational structure is
proposed.
9.1 First Tier: Five Task Forces (TFs)
All members of the Presidium and Secretariat are included in at least one of the five Task
Forces (TFs). A Task Force (TF) is an interim structure for initiating and carrying forward the
work of AISSY-2014 until the National Executive constitutes the All-India Steering Committee
(AISC), following which the TF shall stand dissolved, reconstituted and renamed as a subcommittee
of AISC, as the latter deems appropriate in its wisdom. One of the members of each
Task Force (TF) has been named in this proposal as its Convenor, of course tentatively. Apart
from the Presidium and Secretariat members, the Task Forces include other members of the
National Executive, some members of the Board of Advisers and some new persons (from
outside AIFRTE but well-wishers/ activists) as well in view of their special interest area or
expertise. This list, too, is tentative, though telephonic discussions have been undertaken with
some of the members who have expressed their enthusiastic commitment to the very idea of
AISSY-2014 along with willingness to devote dedicated time. At least five persons in the lists
below have already committed 3 to 4 months of their time from the preparatory phase to the
point of culmination, one out of whom has committed a period of five months beginning mid-
July 2014!
A. Planning & Coordination
1. Sri P.B. Prince Gajendra Babu, Tamil Nadu (Convenor)
2. Ms. Guddi, Mumbai
3. Dr. Vikas Gupta, Delhi
4. Sri Neeraj Jain, Pune
5. Sri Abhay Taksal, Aurangabad, Maharashtra
6. Sri Prabhakar Arade, Kolhapur, Maharashtra
7. Prof. Wasi Ahmed, Patna
8. Prof. Hiren Gohain, Guwahati
9. Prof. Anil Sadgopal, Bhopal
B. Resource Generation (including Fund Raising)
1. Prof. G. Haragopal, Hyderabad (Convenor)
2. Ms. Simantini Dhuru, Mumbai
3. Ms. Guddi, Mumbai
4. Ms. Dipi Pathak, Delhi
5. Sri J.P. Dubey, Bhopal
6. Dr. Meher Engineer, Kolkata
C. Media & Communication
1. Prof. Madhu Prasad, Delhi (Convenor)
2. Dr. Anand Teltumbde, Karagpur, West Bengal
3. Dr. Vikas Gupta, Delhi
4. Sri Mohit Pandey, Delhi
5. Dr. Amarendra Pandey, Gandhinagar
6. Dr. Shaheen Ansari, Delhi
7. Sh. Niraj Kumar, Delhi
D. Kala Jatha & Publications
1. Dr. Radhika Menon, Delhi (Convenor)
2. Ms. Mallige, Bangalore
3. Sri Thokchom Surjit Singh, Shillong/Imphal
4. Dr. Dhananjai Rai, Ahmedabad
5. Dr. Harjinder S. Laltu, Hyderabad
6. Sri Navendu Mathpal, Ramnagar, Uttarakhand
7. Sri Sandeep, Delhi
8. Sri Anupam, Kolkata
9. Prof. K.M. Shrimali Delhi
10. Dr. Sudarshan Iyengar, Ahmedabad
E. Central Office Coordination (Delhi/Hyderabad/Mumbai)
1. Sri Ramesh Patnaik, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh (Convenor)
2. Dr. Sarwat Ali, Delhi
3. Dr. Vikram Amarawat, Gandhinagar
4. Sri Lokesh Malti Prakash, Bhopal
5. Dr. N. Sachin, Delhi
6. Ms. Ayushi Rawat, Delhi
7. Sri. Niraj Kumar, Delhi
8. Sri Prem Chand, Delhi
9. Dr. Prem Singh, Delhi
10. Sri Budhapriya Kabir, Aurangabad, Maharashtra
9.2 Second Tier: State-level (SLC) & Regional Coordination (RC)
In each State/UT, AIFRTE will take initiative and catalyze a process, with proactive engagement
of the member- and associate organizations from the concerned State/UT, to constitute a
state/UT-level convening committee (SLCC) by bringing together all progressive secular and
democratic forces – organizations, groups, trade unions, primary/ secondary/ higher education
teachers association, student organisations and individuals – on a common platform. The
participants need not necessarily be restricted to AIFRTE’s present membership, though the
present members are expected to take a lead role. In identifying such new contacts, we should
be inclined to pool our life-long relationships. Indeed, we have to go out of our way to identify
new organizations, groups and individuals with a view to broaden and deepen our
organizational base in all sections of society. The members of AIFRTE’s National Executive and
National Council along with those of the Board of Advisers shall also play a pro-active role in
widening, strengthening and enriching this process. The Presidium members and other senior
members of the National Executive should be prepared to undertake extensive tours in the
weeks both preceding and during AISSY-2014. Each of these state/UT-level convening
committees will be encouraged to elect its Chairperson/ Convener and other required office
bearers and plan its own AISSY-2014 in a decentralized framework, apart from spelling out their
expectations from AIFRTE.
State-level Coordination (SLC): Detailed state-wise, district-wise and Block-wise lists, along the
lines indicated above, will be compiled during the preparatory phase, beginning the third week
of July 2014 and concluding latest by the end of the month. AIFRTE’s present member- and
associate organizations and individual members from each State/UT will be urged upon to
contribute their knowledge and contacts to preparation of such a list, preferably drawing upon
their knowledge in each District/Block. Based upon such an exhaustive list, beginning last week
of July, AIFRTE will take initiative in each State/UT along with the member- and associate
organizations of the concerned State/UT to convene a meeting of all progressive organizations/
groups/ individuals and thus catalyze the process of constituting a State-level Convening
Committee (SLCC). The formation of SLCCs should be over not later than August end. Wherever
possible and needed, the SLCC will, in turn, similarly catalyze the formation of District-level
Convening Committees (DLCCs) and Block-level Convening Committees (BLCCs). If a DLCC can’t
be formed in a particular District, the SLCC may decide how to undertake AISSY-2014 in that
District without DLCC. By mid-September, a detailed district-wise and/or Block-wise draft
schedule of activities and route map of AISSY-2014 in each State/UT should be ready which will
be reviewed by SLCC and finalized by September end in consultation with AIFRTE’s Planning and
Coordination Sub-Committee.
SLCC will also plan for their various state-level or district-level teams to catch trains from
different points in the state in order to reach Delhi either by 3rd December evening or latest by
4th December morning. These teams are needed in Delhi for undertaking mobilization on 4th
December for the Culmination on 5th December. While most of the budgetary requirements
will be met with through voluntary contributions in cash and/or kind, the funds needed to be
raised in addition will be estimated head-wise by the SLCC and a concrete plan prepared to
raise the required amount from the public from within the State.
Alongside this process, each SLCC will also nominate its State-wise, District-wise and/ or
Block-wise teams for covering the various districts/Blocks and assign them specific
responsibilities, including those for kala jatha. Beginning the first week of September, each
SLCC will organize a 3 to 5-day orientation-cum-planning programme for its state-level and
district-level team leaders wherein AIFRTE’s Planning and Coordination Sub-Committee will
send appropriate Resource Persons. This series of state-wise decentralized orientation-cumplanning
programmes should be over latest by mid-October.
Regional Coordination (RC): This is required for coordination between SLCCs and the five
centrally sponsored Route-Based Regional Committees (RBRCs) which will be ‘flagging-off’ their
respective Regional Route Teams (RRTs) from the north-eastern, southern, northern, eastern
and western points on 2nd November and move through various States/UTs and finally
culminate in Delhi on 5th December. The coordination between RBRCs and SLCCs will call for
coordinating the dates and points of entry of the RRT (probably a 7 to 10-member team) into a
state, its route through the various selected districts/Blocks and finally its exit therefrom,
followed by its entry into the next bordering State/UT on its way to Delhi. While RRT is passing
through a particular State/UT, a great deal of sharing and undertaking common programmes
can be thought of. This kind of Regional Coordination (RC) is possible only when all the SLCCs
falling on the route of a particular RRT would be in a position to schedule a common meeting to
scrutinize their respective State-/UT-level AISSY-2014 date-wise maps and negotiate entry and
exit points along with the respective dates.
9.3 Third Tier – All-India Steering Committee (AISC)
The National Executive (NE), at its forthcoming meeting in Delhi (18-20 July 2014), shall
constitute an All-India Steering Committee (AISC) for guiding, planning, coordinating and
implementing AISSY-2014. It will comprise all members of AIFRTE’s Presidium and Secretariat,
thereby making it an 18-member committee. The respective Convenors of the five Task Forces
(TFs) listed above shall act as its Co-chairpersons who in turn may elect one from among
themselves as Chairperson. AISC may decide in its wisdom to elect either a Convenor or a threeor
four-member Convening Committee for the entire AISSY-2014. AISC shall be free to lay down
its own procedures of functioning and schedule its meetings accordingly. Its first meeting may
be scheduled along with the forthcoming meeting of NE in Delhi in July 2014.
10.0 PREPARATORY PHASE – 21st JULY TO 2nd NOVEMBER 2014
The Preparatory Phase of AISSY-2014 is undoubtedly the most crucial part of the Yatra. It shall
begin the day after the conclusion of the NE meeting on 20th July 2014 and continue in a wellplanned
manner as per a pre-determined time schedule (draft under preparation) until the
‘flagging off’ takes place on 2nd November 2014, except of course in those cases where the
‘flagging off’ takes place even earlier under the eight-week schedule. If we do not adhere to the
requirements of completing each building block of the Preparatory Phase as per the commonly
agreed upon time schedule, the entire AISSY-2014 will not click the way it is expected to click to
achieve its Aims and Objects (see Section 6.0). A tentative list of the possible building blocks is
given below:
i. Drafting of some of the pending key ideological and programmatic Documents
by AISC to advance AIFRTE’s vision of struggle for educational transformation –
to be completed on priority for guiding the entire AISSY-2014 (see Annexure I)
ii. Collating list of persons, groups, organization for constituting SLCC by State/UTbased
member- and associate organisations
iii. Constituting SLCC – Coordinated initiative of AISC in collaboration with State/UTbased
member- and associate organisations
iv. Coordinated Budget preparation by AISC and SLCCs and raising funds as per
guidelines in Section 12.0
v. Organising State/UT-Level Orientation Programme by SLCC in coordination with
AISC
vi. Constituting DLCCs and BLCCs by SLCC
vii. Route-Mapping and date-wise scheduling of the Yatra Teams by SLCC in
coordination with AISC
viii. Organising State/UT-Level Kala Jatha Preparation/Training by SLCC in
coordination with AISC
ix. Drafting of Memoranda by AISC, SLCCs, DLCCs/BLCCs
x. Co-ordination between SLCCs and the five RBRCs
xi. Production of Publicity Material by AISC and SLCCs in various languages
xii. Media and Communication management in advance
xiii. Envisaging the post-Yatra consolidation and tuning all activities of the
Preparatory Phase accordingly
and so on . . . . . .
We have no option but to succeed in adhering to the commonly agreed upon time schedule of
the crucial Preparatory Phase. For this purpose, the NE must evolve a monitoring and damage
control mechanism which AISC shall execute it in coordination with SLCCs.
11.0 POST-YATRA CONSOLIDATION – BROAD-BASING AND DEEPENING THE MOVEMENT
As already explained, AISSY-2014 is not being organized as a one-time event of either the
‘flagging off’ on 2nd November in different parts of the country or the Culmination at Delhi on
5th December. This must be unambiguously clear to all of us. If this is to be our collective
perception, it becomes imperative that each and every structure created and programmatic
measure planned and executed as part of AISSY-2014 must be designed to fulfill the basic
objective of broad-basing and deepening the social base of each of AIFRTE’s existing member15
and associate organizations, thereby carrying forward the entire AIFRTE movement. The same
principle shall also apply to those new persons, groups and organisarions that become
associated with AIFRTE during the Yatra. This calls for a careful planning of the Post-Yatra
Consolidation Programme. The NE may apply its mind to this question and take decision
accordingly.
12.0 BUDGET & RESOURCE GENERATION
12.1 Guiding Principles:
(i) All required funds shall be generated through donations/ contributions raised by
AIFRTE’s member- and associate organizations and individual members from their
wide base of members, supporters and friends – both for the central budget and the
SLCC budgets. AISC shall also play its due role in fulfilling the budgetary requirement.
(ii) All budget estimates shall be based on the most economic use of resources as per
the spirit of building a people’s movement, while optimizing voluntary participation
in all activities at all levels.
(iii) The central budget will be restricted to centrally organized functions such as coreplanning
and coordination, including central office operation (may be for 6 weeks);
Culmination event in Delhi; and central components respectively of (a) the centrally
sponsored five route-based plans; (b) orientation programmes of state-level or
regional leadership; (c) kala jatha preparations and centrally sponsored publicity and
related campaign material.
(iv) All budgetary requirements for the state-level plans shall be raised by the respective
SLCCs.
(v) The various convening committees shall aim at persuading the local reception
committees – at the level of the state/ district/ block/ city/ town/ village – to make
arrangements for boarding and lodging for the AISSY-2014 teams (including Kala
Jatha Teams) and provide all other required logistic support in kind from ‘Entry to
Exit’ points.
(vi) Neither the government nor any other source of institutional funding (domestic or
foreign) would be either sought or accepted.
12.2 Essential Elements of Budget Provision (Tentative Listing): Based upon the above guiding
principles, a careful and detailed exercise will have to be undertaken urgently at various levels
to arrive at a reasonable Budget Estimate. The following essential elements may be viewed as a
‘back of the palm’ guide to making the estimates:
Centralised Leadership Orientation & Planning Exercise: A 5-day well-scheduled
module-wise Joint SLCC-RBRC Leadership Orientation & Planning Exercise is called for
about 50 fully committed ‘Core AISSY-2014 Leaders’ from various States/UTs, latest by
the first week of August 2014. Among other elements, this will include draft date-wise
16
route-mapping and regional coordination planning between SLCCs and RBRCs. Kala
Jatha orientation will also be integral to this programme. It is proposed to devote three
to four full sessions at the forthcoming July meeting of NE to work out the basic
principles and concerns of (a) state-level planning including local reception committee
operations; (b) route-mapping (both within the State/UT by SLCCs and five route-level
plans by RBRCs); (c) regional coordination; (d) Kala Jatha plan; (e) ‘Flagging-Off’ and
Culmination; (f) Media & Communication plan; and (g) Budgeting and Resource
Generation.
State-Level and Regional Leadership Orientation & Planning Exercise: A 3 to 5-day
well-scheduled module-wise Orientation-cum-Planning Exercise shall be organized in
each State/UT by the concerned SLCC with the required inputs from AIFRTE. This will
also include inter-linking regional orientation-cum-planning with the respective Five
Regional Route-Based Teams (RRTs) responsible for each of the five centrally sponsored
routes viz., north-east, south, north, east and west. The draft date-wise route-mapping
undertaken earlier will be reviewed, fine-tuned and finalized here from all ‘Entry to Exit’
points, including the state-wise plans for ‘flagging-off’ events. Here, too, Kala Jatha
orientation will be integral to the exercise. This entire programme must be concluded
for all the States/UTs and the inter-linking regions latest by Mid-September 2014.
Local Reception Committees (LRCs): All boarding, lodging and logistic support from
‘Entry to Exit’ points to be planned and provided by the local reception committees in
the spirit of voluntarism with local support.
Materials and Activities: All centrally-sponsored campaign materials and activities
(including for Kala Jatha) such as brochures, badges, booklets, handbills, posters, audioand/
or video-clips, DVDs/CDs, and other items to be planned, prepared and provided at
cost to SLCCs, DLCCs, BLCCs and LRCs; Street Play Preparation & Orientation
programmes to be undertaken in collaboration with the SLCCs, DLCCs, BLCCs and LRCs.
Culmination: The Delhi-based Mobilization & Culmination Committee (DMCC) to
envision, plan and execute the ‘CULMINATION’ programme through public meetings,
rallies, cycle yatras, poster exhibitions, street plays and any other activities, including
pre-culmination mobilization within Delhi and the surrounding districts of the
neighbouring states of Haryana, Punjab, Rajasthan and U.P. It would be crucial here to
optimize participation and resource support from the Delhi-based school teachers’
organsations, college and university teachers’ associations, student organizations, trade
unions, basti-level social organizations and other groups fighting for their democratic
rights.
The key to the above-mentioned budget-related operations will be unscrupulous
maintenance of accounts. NE must consider how this requirement will be fulfilled and
issue unambiguous and elaborate guidelines to AISC.
INQUILAB ZINDABAD!
Annexure I
A LIST OF PENDING KEY DOCUMENTS OF AIFRTE TO BE FINALISED
IN BOTH ENGLISH AND HINDI ON PRIORITY FOR GUIDING AISSY-20142
1. An Introduction to AIFRTE (a three- pager)
2. AIFRTE Organisational Document (a three- pager)
3. Form for AIFRTE Membership for Organisations (a one-pager)
4. Form for Individual Associates (a one-pager)
5. Save Education, Save India (a three-pager)
6. Essential Elements of Common School System (a two-pager)
7. Why Do We Oppose RTE Act, 2009 (a one-pager)
8. One Comprehensive University in each District (a two-pager)
9. Misconcieved Premises and AIFRTE’s Critique (a two-pager)
10. Resolution of the Peoples’ Parliament, October 2013 (a three/four- pager)
11. Call of AIFRTE for Three-Tier Struggle (a two-pager)
Note: There might be some additional documents to be finalised. All these are now urgently
required to carry forward the AISSY-2014 process with the member- and associate
organisations before constituting SLCCs.
2 Source of List: Organising Secretary, AIFRTE.
Annexure II
A LIST OF SOME HISTORIC DATES WHICH FALL
DURING THE PROPOSED DATES OF AISSY-2014 AND MAY BE CONSIDERED FOR BEING
OBSERVED ON REGIONAL OR ALL-INDIA BASIS3
(2nd November to 5th December 2014)
1. November 02 – Irom Sharmila Chanu of Manipur started her historic fast
14 years ago against AFSPA on this date.
2. November 11 – National Education Day observed in memory of India’s first
Minister of Education, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad’s birth
day.
3. November 14 – Birth Day of India’s first Prime Minister Sri Jawaharlal
Nehru who played a pioneering role in establishing
democratic, secular and scientific culture in the country.
4. November 24 – Guru Teg Bahadur Shaheed Diwas.
5. November 26 – It was on this date in 1949 that India’s Constitution was
passed by the Constituent Assembly.
6. November 28 – Mahatma Jotirao Phule’s death anniversary.
7. December 06 – Babasaheb Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s Death Anniversary to be
observed by us on 5th December, the Culmination date of
AISSY-2014.
--------------
3 There must be several other dates during this period which might be of historic significance to us. Let us all search
for them from various geo-cultural standpoints and remind our people of their historic significance in our present
day struggles.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
ALL INDIA FORUM FOR RIGHT TO EDUCATION1
A Discussion Paper for बिल्डिंग a Movement for Right To Education2
PART I: BACKGROUND AND POLICY PERSPECTIVE
The All India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE) was constituted at the Osmania
University campus in Hyderabad during a seminar on ‘Right to Education and Common
School System’ organized by the A.P. Save Education Committee in collaboration with
the Centre for Human Rights, University of Hyderabad on 21-22 June 2009. Based upon
its Hyderabad Declaration (June 2009), AIF-RTE built up a nation-wide campaign to
resist the ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2009’, then
pending in the Parliament and for an alternative genuine right to education Bill and a
democratic nation-wide debate. However, the flawed anti-Constitutional, anti-education
and anti-child Bill became ‘The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education
Act, 2009’ (henceforth referred to as ‘Right to Education Act, 2009’ or simply the RTE
Act) on 26th August 2009. This is in spite of sustained democratic protest and steadily
emerging public critique for more than a decade.
The Hyderabad Declaration (Annexure I) also implied that the present ill-funded multilayered
school system embedded in inequality and discrimination would not only
expedite the pace of privatization and commercialization but also result in making
education increasingly more expensive. This means that vast sections of Indian society
will continue to be excluded from the education system, thereby being denied equal
opportunity to benefit from development. The Hyderabad Declaration further presented
an alternative vision of moving towards a fully public-funded Common School System
based on Neighborhood Schools from pre-primary stage to senior secondary stage (i.e.
Class XII) which alone can guarantee free education of equitable quality to all children
without any discrimination whatsoever.
1.0 A Brief Overview of the Policies and People’s Response
What is the logical basis of our consistent resistance to the RTE Act, 2009? This
understanding emerges from our analysis of the neo-liberal historical context of the 86th
Constitutional Amendment Act, 2002 in which the RTE Act is embedded. Let us take a
brief overview. The above-named Constitutional amendment (i) deprived more than 17
crore children below six years of age of their existing Fundamental Right to early
1Address: All India Forum for Right to Education (AIF-RTE), 306, Pleasant Apartments, Bazarghat,
Hyderabad 500 004; Tel.: (040) 2330-5266; Mo.: 09440980396 (Sh. Ramesh Patnaik, Hyderabad, A.P.) /
09431102680 (Dr. V.N. Sharma, Ranchi, Jharkhand); E-mail: airfte.secretariat@gmail.com
2 This document (June 2010) is an updated and revised version of the Discussion Paper presented at the
‘All-India Consultation on Building a Movement for Right To Education’ organized by the All India Forum
for Right to Education (AIF-RTE) in collaboration with the Equal Opportunity Cell (EOC), University of
Delhi on 7-8 November, 2009. The decisions taken at the above consultation and the feedback received
since then have been incorporated in this paper.
2
childhood care and pre-primary education; and (ii) further reduced the existing
Fundamental Right of the 6-14 year age group children to what would amount to merely
a Statutory Right, through a conditionality in Article 21A. The latter Article, introduced
by the Constitutional Amendment Act, states that free and compulsory education shall be
provided to the 6-14 year age group “in such manner as the State may, by law,
determine”. No other Fundamental Right in the Constitution is subjected to this
arbitrariness of the State. Seven years later, as was anticipated, the so-called RTE Act,
2009, liquidated the Fundamental Right of the 6-14 year age group to education of
equitable quality at the elementary stage (i.e. Class I-VIII). Indeed, the Act legitimizes
the discriminatory multi-layered school system - a direct consequence of the World
Bank-IMF conditionality of structural adjustment imposed on Indian economy and
implemented through the neo-liberal schemes such as the District Primary Education
Programme (DPEP) of 1990s and the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) of the first decade of
the 21st century. This led to rapid deterioration in the quality of the vast government
school system of about 12 lakh schools, except for certain categories of elite government
schools (i.e. Central, Navodaya and Sainik Schools), thereby preparing the ground for
mushrooming of both low-cost and expensive private schools. Instead of putting a ban on
trade and profiteering in education, the Act facilitates private managements to mint
money by giving them free hand in deciding their own fee structure and underpaying
teachers. It further provided for siphoning of public funds to private agencies (corporate
houses, trusts, religious bodies and NGOs) through the so-called reimbursement scheme
to promote the farce of 25% reservation for ‘free’ education. This means that the Act
legitimizes the neo-liberal guru Milton Friedman’s idea of school vouchers, a significant
form of Public Private Partnership (PPP). Further, the Act fell far short of people’s
expectation of a Fundamental Right to education of equitable quality for all children up to
age of 18 years (i.e. from pre-primary to Class XII) through a Common School System
based on Neighborhood Schools.
The Hyderabad Declaration (June, 2009) summarized the AIF-RTE position as indicated
below:
“The following three cynical objectives of the central government can be identified
in tabling such a misconceived Bill:
First, abdicating its Constitutional obligation for providing free and compulsory
education of equitable quality;
Second, demolishing the government school system, except the schools of
specified categories (Kendriya Vidyalayas, Navodaya Vidyalayas, XI plan’s 6,000 model
schools, and similar elite schools of the States/UT governments); and
Third, increasing the pace of privatization and commercialization of school
education.
We have been for long urging upon the Union Government to,
1. replace the pending Bill with a new Bill drafted in the framework of the ‘Common
School System based on Neighborhood Schools’ in consonance with the basic
spirit and principles enshrined in the Constitution;
3
2. review the 86th constitutional amendment Act (2002) with a view to providing a
Fundamental Right to free and compulsory education of equitable quality to all
children until the age of eighteen years i.e. from pre-primary education to class
XII without any conditionality whatsoever;
3. incorporate a Constitutional guarantee within the Bill for providing adequate
funding for the entire school system. This is precisely the implication of a
fundamental right.
4. include in the Bill a provision to completely ban all forms of privatization and
commercialization of education, especially Public Private Partnership, adoption of
schools by private agencies and voucher schools;
5. hold public hearings in all district headquarters of the country in a democratic
and transparent manner in the process of drafting the new Bill.”
[Also incorporated with appropriate modifications in the AIF-RTE Memorandum dated August 7,
2009 (Annexure II) submitted to the President of India, after the Bill was passed by the Parliament.]
The Parliament passed the RTE Bill on 4th August 2009, despite several amendment
motions being moved but rejected. Within three days of this event, AIF-RTE, with the
All India Students Association (AISA) taking initiative, organized a well-attended Public
Hearing at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi and sent a detailed Memorandum to the President of
India (Annexure II) after holding a rally on the Parliament Street (our repeated requests
for permission to present the Memorandum to the President in person were ignored). The
copies of the Bill were burnt at being stopped at the Parliament Police Station, entirely in
the Gandhian spirit of civil disobedience. We adopted this method of protest as the Bill
was passed without holding a single Public Hearing since its drafting began in CABE’s
Kapil Sibal Committee in November 2004. In the process, the central government
ignored all democratic voices of protest, including intellectual critique, both within and
outside official forums, thereby rejecting repeated appeals for dialogue. The RTE Bill
was eventually signed by the President on 26th August 2009. The RTE Act was published
in the Gazette of India on 27th August 2009.
Later, AIF-RTE responded to the call given by the Lok Rajniti Manch to observe 19th
September 2009 as a national protest day against the Act on a decentralized basis by
holding public meetings, dharnas and rallies at district headquarters. AIF-RTE’s
member-organisations in different states sent a ‘Letter of Disappointment’ to the Prime
Minister. Reportedly, this protest was held in creative and diverse ways in almost 100
district headquarters in various parts of the country.
To be sure, the neo-liberal ‘reforms’ are not only confined to school education, they
cover the entire education system – from pre-primary stage to higher education. This was
clear from the successive pronouncements of the Union Ministry of HRD and the
Planning Commission. There was thus an urgent need to review the developments in the
entire education policy.
On 7-8 November 2009, AIF-RTE organized a national consultation of its memberorganizations
in Delhi in collaboration with the Equal Opportunity Cell (EOC) of the
University of Delhi. Apart from reviewing the policy-related developments since the
4
Hyderabad Declaration (June 2009), the national consultation referred to Article 41 of the
Constitution and concluded that the Right to Education extends beyond the age of 14
years to include secondary and higher education as well. Whereas, in the case of
elementary education (i.e. Class I to VIII), the State is under unconditional obligation to
guarantee free education of equitable quality, the State is required by Article 41 to “make
effective provision for securing” Right to Education at secondary and higher education
levels “within the limits of its economic capacity and development.” The consultation
outright rejected the neo-liberal practice of juxtaposing elementary education against
secondary and higher education, in terms of priority in public funding. Indeed, the
organic linkage between school and higher education for curriculum development,
evaluation and assessment, teacher education and policy planning was recognized. This
consensus at the national consultation significantly expanded the scope of the emerging
discourse and struggle relating to Right to Education in the country.
The Delhi consultation further acknowledged that Public Private Partnership (PPP)
constitutes the latest and most potent neo-liberal assault on education and must be
recognized as one of the priority agenda of resistance in the Right to Education
movement. The Delhi Charter issued by the consultation outlined the organizational
structure of AIF-RTE including the criteria for membership (Annexure V), spelt out its
strategic objectives and suggested ways and means of building the movement to engage
various sections of society and to cover all states/ UTs.
As decided at the Delhi consultation, AIF-RTE organized an all-India Parliament March
during the Budget Session on 24th February 2010. About 5,000 people representing 26
member-organizations of AIF-RTE from 11 states and several other associated grassroots
organizations joined the Parliament March. AIF-RTE member-organizations today
include several all-India as well state-level teachers’ and students’ organizations, apart
from groups engaged in securing Right to Education. The Parliament March presented a
comprehensive agenda for the Right to Education movement, giving a nation-wide call
for resisting the government policies to set up Foreign Universities, siphon public funds
to the private sector under the pretext of PPP in education and place education for sale in
the global market through WTO-GATS (Annexure III). The March demanded an all
pervading well-functioning and democratically managed public education system from
“KG to PG” (the concept is elaborated in later pages).
The central government announced 1st April 2010 as the day when the implementation of
the RTE Act shall begin and the 86th Constitutional Amendment be notified. AIF-RTE
gave a call to its member-organizations to observe it as a Black Day in a decentralized
mode in protest against the government’s undemocratic decision to ignore all protests and
move ahead with this retrogressive Act (Annexure IV). The call was observed widely in
many states in decentralized forms.
2.0 Emerging Contours of the Neo-liberal Assault on Education
The national consultation held in November 2009 took note of the following three policyrelated
documents that mark the emerging contours of the neo-liberal agenda being
pursued by the central government with the consent of the state/UT governments:
5
1. Education component of the XI Five Year Plan (2007-12).
2. Yashpal Committee Report on “Renovation and Rejuvenation of Higher Education”.
3. Public Private Partnership in School Education – A Concept Note of the Ministry of
HRD.
As part of his 100-day agenda announced on 25th June 2009, the Union HRD Minister
Kapil Sibal announced that the government would implement the Yash Pal Committee
Report on Higher Education. Admittedly, this much-hyped Report talks of some good
things about the idea of a University. Yet, the Report in the ultimate analysis upheld the
neo-liberal agenda in the field of education. It rationalized and invited private
universities, foreign universities and PPP in the higher and technical education sector. It
recommended differential fee structure which is but only a back door entry for
privatization of public-funded Universities and profiteering in education. It recommended
liquidation (subsuming) of all Apex Bodies like UGC, AICTE, NCTE, MCI and others
and establishment of a single window high empowered National Council for Higher
Education and Research (NCHER) which will draw its resources directly from Ministry
of Finance and thus not be accountable to the Ministry of HRD mandated for this
purpose. The Report fails to explain why this NCHER will not go the same way as the
existing Apex Bodies which it proposes to dissolve or subsume. Given the neo-liberal
stance of the present education policy, NCHER would predictably only facilitate
unquestioned and unbridled trading in the higher and technical education sector and open
the doors for foreign universities, FDI and WTO. The Yash Pal Committee’s NCHER is
profiled as even a more powerful and democratically less accountable version of Sam
Pitroda’s National Knowledge Commission-recommended Independent Regulatory
Authority for Higher Education (IRA for HE) envisaged along the lines of the World
Bank-recommended IRAs for every service sector in every country. These IRAs are
designed to bypass the political process and to facilitate global corporate trade.
Again, a great danger is looming large in the form of Doha Round Negotiations. India has
already submitted its ‘offers’ in Higher Education Sector to GATS Council. If India does
not withdraw its ‘offers’ before the conclusion of the Doha Round, the ‘offers’
automatically become ‘commitments’ on the part of India, allowing all WTO members to
indulge in trade and profiteering in higher and professional education sector in India.
During the past six months (January-June 2010), the UPA Government has felt
emboldened to increase the pace of neo-liberal assault on education. To a great extent,
this became possible due to the combined effect of the ambivalent or submissive stance
of the political parties and media and a high profile but compliant section of the
academia. Accordingly, the following legislations have been introduced in the Parliament
or the decisions taken, almost without any public consultation whatsoever:
An amendment Bill placed in Rajya Sabha in April 2010 to further dilute and
disempower the RTE Act, 2009;
Four Bills placed in Lok Sabha in May 2010 relating to higher education including
the highly controversial ‘The Foreign Educational Institutions (Regulation of Entry
and Operations) Bill, 2010’;
6
Declaration in mid-February 2010 that, after the RTE Act is enforced (which
happened on April 1, 2010), the private schools will be free to hike their fees and
underpay teachers and, more significantly, the existing state laws empowering the
state governments to monitor and regulate the fee structure and functioning of
private schools, shall become infructuous;
Union Budget for the year 2010-11 with negligible or insignificant increase in
allocations, even for the much hyped RTE Act, 2009; the modest increases in
certain specific provisions can be explained in terms of the central government’s
commitment to siphon public funds and other resources (e.g. land) through PPP to
corporate houses and/ or open certain elite categories of institutions in order to
include a handful from the upper classes while excluding the masses or relegating
them to sub-standard education;
Move to establish an Educational Finance Corporation Ltd. that will extend lowinterest
and long-term loans to corporate houses, NGOs and religious bodies to set
up educational institutions covering all stages and dimensions of education;
Widening the scope of PPP steadily and, more often than not, stealthily; and
Refusing to review and withdraw the “offers” made at WTO for making India’s
education a tradable commodity in the world market.
A gestalt (integrated/ holistic) analysis of the above-named documents and policy
stances along with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) scheme, XI Plan, the so-called RTE
Act and the recent Bills to promote foreign universities and seek FDI leads us to infer that
the State is,
i) rapidly abdicating its Constitutional obligation towards the entire education sector -
from pre-primary and elementary education to higher and technical education;
ii) steadily withdrawing public funds (computed as percentage of GDP) from all
sectors of education, even in the case of elementary education for the 6-14 year age
group children covered by the so-called RTE Act;
iii) determined to push Public Private Partnership (PPP) as its main policy instrument
for promoting education which implies that public funds shall be siphoned off and
other resources (land, technical support, credibility) shifted to corporate capital,
NGOs and religious bodies on a fast track mode, as per World Bank policies (in the
case of primary education, this agenda was adopted by the Government of India in
1990 through the Jomtien Declaration, promoted jointly by the World Bank and
UN agencies; this agenda now stands extended to the entire education sector);
iv) promoting, both overtly and covertly, unregulated profiteering in education;
v) increasing the pace of privatization and commercialization by (a) deteriorating the
quality of education of the vast government school system, except certain
categories of elite schools, while withdrawing public funding; (b) pursuing the
same agenda in higher education as well; and (c) not undertaking any credible
programme of improving the quality of the existing 22,000 odd colleges and 500
plus universities even as the political attention is diverted from this priority task by
the rhetoric of setting up a handful of central or innovative universities/ IIMs/ IITs/
IISERs or bringing in foreign universities and FDI;
7
vi) exacerbating inequality and exclusion through a multi-layered education system
with parallel layers of varying quality;
vii) replacing basic science, social science and humanities courses by market-driven
self-financed ‘applied’ courses which amounts to a major epistemological
(‘knowledge-related’) shift with serious socio-political implications, including for
national sovereignty;
viii) enacting new policy provisions and legislation in order to (a) provide market for
second grade (or even worse) foreign universities in India; and (b) distort teaching
and research for the purpose of building a skilled but cheap (employable at low
wages) and slavish workforce for the benefit of the global market;
ix) increasingly outsourcing policy formulation, preparation of curriculum and text
material and all other aspects of educational planning to corporate houses and
NGOs;
x) inviting FDI in all sectors of education; and
xi) offering education for global trade under the GATS/ WTO.
3.0 Misconceived Premises
The above neo-liberal agenda is based on the following misconceived premises:
a) the economic capacity of the State is limited, resulting in resource crunch for
education; there is thus no option but to depend upon private (and foreign) sources
for funding education;
b) private agencies, compared to public agencies, can render better, efficient and cost
effective services;
c) the Constitutional principles of equality and social justice can be replaced by the
neo-liberal principle of inclusion;
d) education is a service rather than being a Right or an Entitlement of every child and
youth and, therefore, equal provision for all need not be ensured;
e) education is a private good and a tradable commodity, making profiteering through
education a legitimate objective, just like in any other trade; therefore, it is valid
that quality education is proportionate to one’s capacity to pay; and
f) instead of being an instrument of social development or transformation, education
has become an instrument for producing human resources for corporate and market
needs; therefore, the character of knowledge should be determined by market,
rather than by the internal requirements of the discipline or the welfare of society.
The crux of the neo-liberal agenda lies in redefining the aim of education policy for
building an unquestioning and slavish workforce (which includes, apart from the
manually skilled personnel, highly educated elite such as biotechnologists, nuclear
scientists, economists, demographers, teachers, engineers, doctors and legal experts) for
the global market. Ironically, most of this workforce will be prepared by using public
funds in the PPP mode. This is in sharp contrast to the Preamble of the Constitution that
directs the State to build an education system for promoting a democratic, socialist,
secular, egalitarian and just society in the Republic of India!
8
However, the education system must be envisioned such that it can promote pro-people
national development, respond with sensitivity to the people’s aspirations for equitable
distribution of resources, optimization of socio-cultural and knowledge-related diversity
and securing civil liberties and democratic rights, as guaranteed by the Constitution. AIFRTE
stands for such an education system and strives to build a nation-wide mass
movement to achieve it. We would now set out to evolve a strategy that is required to
build such a mass movement involving various sections of society.
PART II: EVOLVING THE FUTURE STRATEGY
The organizations and individuals who founded AIF-RTE as well as those who joined it
later uncompromisingly opposed both the 86th Constitutional Amendment Act 2002 and
the farcical RTE Act 2009 from the day these legislations were mooted in the form of
Draft Bills. We could not, however, prevent the ruling class from pushing these Acts
through the Parliament. Yet, we have succeeded to a large extent in creating a wideranging
debate among several sections of society in different parts of the country. It is
high time that we now take into considerations the recent developments in the education
policy, as discussed above, and consider a strategy shift in our struggle for Right to
Education through systemic transformation in the education system.
The gestalt analysis undertaken in Part I enabled us to identify the misconceived premises
in which the neo-liberal agenda of education is firmly embedded. We know that no
struggle against the neo-liberal assault on education can move forward without
theoretically challenging the validity of each of these premises severally and together and
finally demolishing them. This task must be accompanied by undertaking a political
programme of building public pressure for reversal of the anti-people agenda of the
ruling class and its replacement by a pro-people policy framework rooted in an
alternative set of premises.
With this purpose in mind, we may have to formulate immediate, medium-term and
long-term goals of our struggle. We may also need to formulate an approach of
maintaining a strategic distinction from the compromising forces and unity with
fighting forces. Let us initiate a debate on all such questions.
4.0 Immediate Agenda for Struggle
4.1 Trade and Public Private Partnership (PPP) constitute the latest twin neo-liberal
assaults in all fields of the service sector, including critical social entitlements like
education, health and food. AIF-RTE may have to concentrate its struggles against these
new attacks in the immediate future. In order to mobilize people for this purpose, we may
have to identify relevant issues, local or otherwise, and fight issue-wise also. The many
facets of issues relating to increasing levels of trade and PPP in education are bound to
become evident during implementation of a variety of government programmes, schemes
and legislations. These would include the RTE Act, RMSA, Education Finance
Corporation, setting up of Foreign Universities and colleges (and Indian private
universities and colleges as well), allocation of free or subsidized land, low-interest loans,
income tax exemptions and hidden subsidies to private educational providers and
9
establishing Yash Pal Committee’s NCHER. The mobilization built up though local
struggles will help us to wage wider struggles against the ensuing Private University
Bills, Foreign Educational Institutions Bill and the NCHER Bill. The Forum may also
need to organize a nation-wide campaign demanding the withdrawal of the ‘offers’
submitted to the GATS Council on Higher Education Sector. To put it all briefly, all the
struggles proposed above are struggles against the new attacks on the existing Rights of
the people. which we may ignore only as a result of a historic misjudgment on our part.
Of course, we have to take forward our alternative constructive agenda simultaneously.
4.2 The implementation of the RTE Act since April 1, 2010 has led to a new but
altogether anticipated situation that AIF-RTE will have to learn to deal with. The central
government along with the state/ UT governments have begun to organize a large number
of high profile official functions, seminars and workshops and training programmes to
disseminate its propaganda, misinform and disinform people and to engage corporate
houses, NGOs and religious bodies in the implementation of the Act. Official agencies
both at the centre (e.g. NCPCR) and the state-level (e.g. NGO-like semi-official
structures set up for administering and funding SSA) are leading this campaign. The
corporate-controlled media (both print and electronic) is fully endorsing this propaganda.
International Funding Agencies as well as the inter-governmental agencies (e.g.
UNICEF) are going around the country organizing both public and in-house meetings and
telling their funded partners from the states/UTs to fall in line lest their funding is
jeopardized, particularly that coming under the FCRA umbrella. There are subtle and notso-
subtle structures, processes and directives designed to engage intellectuals in
endorsing the Act. For instance, state-level Commissions have been constituted engaging
intellectuals (including those who opposed the Act until recently) in formulating rules
and regulations for the Act. Shortly, we would hear of state-level advisory boards being
constituted under the provisions of the Act which will further co-opt both the intellectuals
and activists in the neo-liberal agenda under the pretext of ‘kuchh nahin se kuchh to
achha (something is better than nothing)!’.
In this backdrop, AIF-RTE member-organisations are already under pressure to take a
position that would make sense to the masses. Given our logical stand vis-à-vis the Act
(see Part I), we have no option but to evolve an agenda of critical engagement with the
Act both at grassroots and macro-level. This critical engagement may be grounded in the
three-point strategic framework as follows –
First, let us take up local issues emerging from the ongoing official implementation of
the Act with the purpose of exposing State’s hidden agenda of abdication of its
Constitutional obligation (as also evident in reluctant budget allocations leading to
shortages of funds in states/UTs), providing inferior quality education, institutionalizing
inequality and discrimination through a multi-layered school system and increasing the
pace of privatization and commercialization through PPP (concrete examples of this are
already evident in urban bastis and villages and, interestingly, among the middle class
parents as well whose children studying in expensive private unaided schools are already
facing arbitrary and unregulated fee hikes). Let us, for instance, precipitate crisis in
selected urban or rural localities with regard to the sharp contradictions between the
10
curricular goals of the Act and the various provisions that determine quality of education
viz. service-cum-working conditions (including non-educational tasks) and training of
teachers in the prevailing multi-layered system and/or the multi-grade teaching that will
be the norm in almost two-thirds of the government primary schools. By mobilizing
people, particularly the parents, we should be able to politically demonstrate that, given
the constraints of the Act’s provisions, the curricular goals specified in the Act are
unachievable. This will give us a concrete ground for exposing the illusions that the State
is attempting to generate through the Act.
Second, intervene in the ongoing implementation of strategically selected provisions of
the Act for short periods in order to mobilize people as well as the public mind in moving
beyond the Act in the direction of our goal of a public funded Common School System
founded on Neighbourhood Schools (CSS-NS). This may involve, depending upon the
local factors, fighting for the concept of fully free education, including books (not just
textbooks), computers and other learning aids, transport, hostels and opportunity cost;
making an issue out of the Act not providing even one teacher per class in the majority of
the government primary schools and its deleterious impact on the quality of education;
seeking genuine neighbourhood schools as per Kothari Commission’s concept3, as
opposed to the Act’s misleading notion of neighbourhood schools; demanding all schools
to be upgraded, at least in the first phase, to the norms and standards of Central Schools;
exposing the contradiction of the Act’s increasing dependence (and promotion through
PPP) on low cost sub-standard private unaided schools; integration of the disabled in the
mainstream schools by provision of all necessary support systems for equitable
education.
Third, interweave all such local struggles built through the above two modes of critical
engagement in order to create public opinion against the Act such that the nation-wide
democratic movement will be strong enough by the next general election to seek
replacement of the present Act by a new Act rooted in the concept of a public-funded
CSS-NS.
The strength of the afore-mentioned strategic framework with regard to the RTE Act lies
in the inevitability of the consequent mobilization merging with the mobilization against
trade and PPP in secondary and higher education as well. This only reinforces our
analysis that trade and PPP constitute the priority agenda of resistance in the present
stage of the AIF-RTE movement.
5.0 Long-Term Goals
The peoples of India require a well functioning, decentralized, participative and diversitysensitive
public-funded education system at all stages of education in order to strengthen
their democratic and secular polity rooted in equality and social justice. We believe that
this goal of public education system, either at school level or in higher education,
can not be achieved until and unless there is an unconditional ban on trade and PPP
3We must clarify that we endorse the theoretical concept underlying Kothari Commission’s Neighbourhood
Schools but not its contradictory and ambiguous implementation programme that ended up diluting and,
finally destroying, the concept itself.
11
in education in all forms. Also, the public education system can neither sustain itself nor
grow without adequate, meaningful and creative allotment of budgetary resources. Such
allotment should be accorded the kind of political priority by the State that is deserved by
a Right, Fundamental or otherwise, of the people. Let us also underline here that creative
and adequate allocation of public funds is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for
establishing the education system of people’s aspirations. However, we can’t but note
with deep concern the new trend of public funds being siphoned off to private agencies
under different modes of PPP. Therefore, an unconditional ban on trade in education,
adequate and meaningful allotment in budget for education as a political priority and
abandonment of PPP are the essential (yet not sufficient) conditions for a well-founded
public education system that can provide education of equitable quality to all sections of
society. AIF-RTE may require taking up a protracted campaign for such essential
conditions.
6.0 Substantive Elements of Transformative Goals
6.1 The apologists of the neo-liberal agenda chose to operate only within the scope
defined by the State. They tend to uncritically accept and even get readily involved in
implementation of policy measures that are designed as ‘lollipops’. The apologists prefer
to ignore the State’s hidden agenda of diverting socio-political attention from people’s
long-standing core aspirations for equitable share in development. However, we also
have a constraint that we have to formulate our immediate demands of struggle on
the basis of the level of awareness and organizational strength of the people, both of
which need to be urgently raised and enriched. Of course, we also must ensure that our
immediate demands of struggle are formulated in conformity with the long-term goals of
transformation to a public-funded Common School System based in Neighbourhood
Schools (CSS-NS) and also a public-funded higher education system guaranteeing equal
opportunity to all sections of society for acquiring as well as contributing to advanced
knowledge. As part of the advanced sections of the democratic forces, it is our bounden
duty that we should keep on raising the banner of transformative goals even as we are
engaged in building a democratic movement on the basis of our immediate or mediumterm
demands. This means that AIF-RTE may have to formulate such substantive
demands which, on the one hand, are the elements of the transformative goals like
CSS-NS and, on the other, can draw masses of the people into the vortex of a
democratic movement eventually leading to transformative goals.
6.2 Let us try to identify such substantive elements of the Rights of the child that are
essential for building the Common School System (CSS-NS). We can list below the
Rights of the child to:
a) balanced nutrition, health support and socio-economic and cultural security during
early childhood;
b) pre-primary, elementary and secondary (including senior secondary) education;
c) education of equitable quality through all stages from pre-primary to Class XII;
d) education without discrimination irrespective of child’s class, caste, cultural,
religious, linguistic, gender or disability (physical or mental) background;
12
e) comprehensive affirmative action i.e. all necessary material, pedagogic and moral
support to be guaranteed in order to enable the child to complete her school
education as per curricular expectations;
f) study in genuine Neighborhood School (not the misconceived ‘neighbourhood
school’ of the RTE ACT);
g) schools managed through decentralized and democratic participation of the
parents, community and local body representatives;
h) study in her own language(s) and through it to learn from the global body of
knowledge interlinked critically and organically with her own socio-cultural
milieu such that diversity is optimised;
i) athletics and sports as well as fine arts and performing arts (including music, dance
and theatre), embedded in the child’s own traditions but also encompassing
contemporary forms, from pre-primary onwards through all stages of school
education; and
j) study in regular schools/ classrooms irrespective of the type of her disability,
physical or mental, with the exception of extreme cases where special schools
would become inevitable.
Yet, parts do not make the whole, but we know that the whole can not be made without
parts. On the other hand, CSS-NS also significantly implies –
i) legislative binding on the central and state/ UT governments to spend
not less than a specified minimum percentage of GDP on education;
ii) abolition of trade and PPP in all forms in education at all stages;
iii) amendment of Article 19 (1) (g) of the Constitution to exclude
education, health, and social welfare from its purview in order to
prevent trade in social entitlements (should this list not include food
and water too?); in the meantime, however, demanding from the State
a creative and pro-people use of Article 19 (6), at least in education
and health;
iv) exclusion of inequalities and inclusion of diversities; and
v) space for creativity and charting new paths in education without
violating or diluting any of the afore-mentioned conditions.
To put it all in a popular language, some of the immediate demands to which people
would respond and also which can form the essential elements of transformative goals
may be as follows:
1) The Right of the child must include Right to holistic early childhood care, preprimary
education, elementary education and secondary education up to the age of
18 years;
2) All government schools should be upgraded at least to the norms and standards of
the Central Schools as a medium-term goal;
[Note: In the process of the struggle for this demand, people would also begin to perceive
that a school striving to catalyse transformative education through critical pedagogy
shall have the potential of surpassing the best of the present day status-quoist schools
steeped in elitist framework and market hegemony.]
13
3) All material, curricular and moral support required by the child, such as books
(not merely textbooks), food, clothing, secure residence, transport and such other
elements must be guaranteed to the child (including the disabled child) in order to
enable her to study in regular schools as a full time student up to Class XII and
fulfill the required curricular goals; the universally acknowledged need for
providing Opportunity Cost for children of families surviving on minimum or
even lower wages may also be included as an immediate demand at an
appropriate stage of the movement;
4) All necessary support must be guaranteed for the disabled children within the
Common School System while having provision for special schools in cases of
only extreme disability; and
5) Trade in education should be abolished and all forms of Public Private Partnership
be scrapped.
The goal of achieving Common School System based on Neighborhood School (CSSNS)
as the universal system in India must critically inform the formulation and content
of all immediate demands (including those relating to higher and professional
education) as well as the pedagogy of our struggle.
6.3 Substantive Demands in higher and professional education may be:
i) There shall be at least one Comprehensive (i.e. multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary)
Public-funded University with provision for advanced studies in all
areas of knowledge in each and every district throughout the country. It shall also
be required to undertake district-specific (or geo-cultural region-specific) studies
and root itself in the district’s socio-cultural, environmental and developmental
context.
ii) All institutions of higher and technical education in the district should be
affiliated to the aforesaid district university which should be enriched to creatively
respond to the intellectual and professional challenges of the district. It should be
able to cater to the comprehensive educational needs and aspirations of the youth
of the district while also having a provision for admitting a definite percentage of
students from outside the district.
iii) In spite of being entirely publicly funded, the University shall have complete
autonomy from the State (as also religion) and be accountable to the world of
knowledge, on the one hand, and to the people of the district where it is located, on
the other. It should be completely financed by the central and state governments,
with the centre taking comparatively a larger share of responsibility.
iv) Market-oriented courses like fashion technology and obscurantist courses like
astrology are to be replaced by socially orientated secular and scientific courses;
self-financed courses will have no place in the aforesaid university system.
v) All institutions of higher and professional education are to be attached with
hostels with entirely free boarding and lodging facilities in order to enable poor
and rural students to pursue and complete their education.
14
vi) A minimum of thirty percent of the relevant age group (i.e. 18-24 years) should
have equal opportunity for higher and professional education by the end of the XII
Five Year Plan (2012-2017).
vii) No fee or charges in any form or under any pretext shall be collected from the
students either by public or by private institutions.
6.4 Demand for a Ban on Trade in Education: A well conceived Public Education
System including the Common School System (CSS-NS) can not be in place until and
unless there is a ban on trade and profiteering in education. There are provisions in the
Constitution [Article 19(6)] that can be used to ban trade in education in all forms but the
option is left to the State whether to ban or not to ban such a trade. We may have to fight
for a Constitutional amendment to Article 19 (1)(g) to ensure that the Constitution clearly
provides against trade, business and privatized (i.e. profit-oriented) occupation in
education, health and such other critical social entitlements (food and water may also be
considered in this category). The best safeguard may be that the collection of fee in
public or private institutions at all stages of education is treated as trade and such trade is
banned.
6. 5 In brief, our strategy may be to,
a) mobilize public opinion against every new attack of the State on hard won
educational Rights of the people;
b) constantly propagate transformative goals in the field of education; and
c) mobilize the masses on certain substantive demands as envisaged above and to
build pressure on the State to achieve them.
It may be that such mass movements for substantial demands can help build a political
atmosphere where the State will become apprehensive to make newer attacks, not just on
education but also on other democratic rights and civil liberties as well. If we are
successful on certain substantive demands, we can raise still many more substantive
demands and mobilize more people behind the movement and, along with this, we can
popularize the transformative goals until we achieve them. A critical objective, in this
context, should be to learn to establish organic linkages with the fighting people and the
uncompromising forces in different areas of life, such as the social movements engaged
with the issues of jal-jangal-zameen and jeevika [i.e. water-forest-land and livelihoods],
especially the emerging resistance movements against corporate-led appropriation of
natural resources by SEZs, mines and industries in different parts of the country. This is
because we envisage education movement as an all pervading movement with multidimensional
linkages!
7.0 Spread of Organization and Unity Move
The spread of organization is an urgent requirement. Our all-India forum does not have
units in all states. Even in those states where we have our member-organizations, they do
not have district units in all districts. Hence, it may be our urgent task to identify likeminded
organizations in every state/ UT to join hands with. The member-organizations in
15
different states/ UTs should also strive to build organizations and explore alliances to
unite the forces of mass movement. Everywhere, the district units should develop contact
with the people in villages, urban bastis and Block and District Headquarters. However,
we have to spell out what category of organizations can be contacted for wider unity. The
following criteria may be viewed for the purpose:
a) The organizations should oppose trade in education and demand abolition of all forms
of Public Private Partnership and this should be the acid test;
b) It should stand for all pervading public-funded education system including the
Common School System founded on Neighborhood Schools (CSS-NS); and
c) It should fight for a minimum of one of the substantial demands listed above relating to
its interested area in pursuit of achieving all pervading Pubic Education System built on
the principles of democracy, socialism, secularism and egalitarianism.
There are organizations which fight for only early childhood care and pre-primary
education; there are some other organizations which fight for the Rights of the disabled
children; there are some which are interested in promoting plurality of textbooks; there
are some which are seeking free and equal access to information technology (IT) in
schools; there are others which strive to explore and chart new paths in education, so on
and so forth. Such organizations may be thinking that their limited resources should be
concentrated on the limited area of their expertise or interest in order to reach out to the
people and pressurize the State. The main question is how do we differentiate genuine
people’s organizations with a limited agenda from the so-called civil society
organizations (CSOs) floated and supported by the ruling class and international funding
agencies, also with a limited but a hidden undeclared agenda. It may be that those
organization which fight against trade and all forms of PPP and also stand for a Public
Education System in specific areas in which they may focus (e.g. pre-primary, disability,
textbooks, IT and such others), can be considered genuine for forming an alliance. Once a
common point of initiating an alliance is located, we can proceed from here onwards to
steadily forge an alliance on an increasingly wider set of issues. It should be clear to us
that the path ahead of us is of all pervading and ever widening unity with the progressive
forces committed to building a democratic, socialist, egalitarian, just and secular society
and uncompromising on the question of India’s sovereignty.
24 June 2010
Annexures
i) The Hyderabad Declaration, June 2009.
ii) Memorandum dated 7th August 2009 to the President of India.
iii) Leaflet distributed at the Parliament March of 24th February 2010.
iv) Leaflet for observing 1st April 2010 (the day implementation of RTE Act began) as the
Black Day.
v) Organisational Document approved at the national consultation on Right to Education
held in November 2009 and modified at the meeting of the AIF-RTE National Council
held at New Delhi on 25th February 2010.
