RIGHT TO EDUCATION - A CITIZEN’S EYE-VIEW

Protests held, slogans shouted, marches walked, bill passed and a law made.
It seems like a problem has been solved.

Right to Education - The Parliament of India has recently passed an act through which education has become fundamental right of all children of age group 6-14 year.

I believe that the problem has not been solved, it has just been tackled. The problem of education should remain a problem for those who have walked the streets of India thronged by poor kids asking for alms, or railway stations where maimed kids wonder if they are humans or just an equivalent to the dirt onto which their innocence is being trampled upon by our ignorance.

I have always been torn between the meaning of literacy and education, and likewise their respective importance in our social set-up. I remember the shock I faced when I learnt that Kerala was termed as the state with 100% literacy in all text books across India, based merely on the fact that the natives could write their names. That is it! That is what the state is so proud of?

Why are we putting up with the pseudo-righteousness of our state hiding behind such paltry acts and bills in the corridors of parliament filled with the privileged breath? This is no rhetorical, but an actual question we must ask ourselves.

Right to Education for me means the power of being who I am. It is the gift of learning and sharing of knowledge given to me by my country which would lead me to my future because my future is but my country’s future.

I have often heard people question – ‘what will a mason’s son do with the knowledge of social science and history; he is after all to become a mason one day?’
Well, to that I say if that is how my grand parents had thought, my father would today be a daily wage worker instead of becoming the chairperson of a national bank. And I would have dutifully followed his footsteps to some construction site instead of writing this blog today!

It pities me to wonder how the la crème section of our society chooses to ignore what is not their personal problem. And I unashamedly choose to point a finger at myself too.
What if it were our pricey freedom of speech, or our right to expression that were to be impeached, instead of the right to education? Would we still remain calm? The journalists in us would take the responsibility of spreading the awareness through the fiery media; the strategists in us would find the legal way to break the chains of this impeachment, and so on. What can justify this upsurge? I hear you say, “How can I live without my right to speak what I wish; by impeaching it the state is taking away my very identity!”

That is where I am coming from! Right to education is no frill business. It is a roaring demand because every child born has the right to be educated, to be given a choice to identify his abilities and inabilities. Education is not merely the ability to scribble our name on a piece of paper; it is the power to acknowledge the essence of life around us. It is the strength the society must empower us with to give us the mighty tool of ‘choice’. Then if I may choose to be a daily wage laborer, so be it.

From where I stand, I can only see people with short-sight. I see them complaining and cribbing against the government but not knowing how to proceed. I want to suggest to all of them that do not try to stand already because you have chosen to be a cripple all your life. You have chosen to cripple your morality against the social atrocities inflicted upon the down-trodden by letting them be deprived of their rights.
I would suggest that let us all try and pull ourselves up with the crutches of advocacy.

Learn what is right. Support what is right. And when the time is ripe and you are strong enough – STAND UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT!!

Right to education is every child’s birth right, the need to fight for it is a shame. But to stay unaffected is a moral crime.