By - Lakshmi Di.

It’s all over the news.

The Right To Education Act – the all inclusive legal provision to create opportunity for all children.

To have access to quality education without any discrimination.

We have arrived or at least landed after 60 odd years. We have accepted that if we need to grow as nation then we need to educate everyone.  We need literate workers to bring more shine to the Indian Economy, Indian  Society as progressive, equal and democratic.

“Is me hamaari balaai hai”. 

Some States have already implemented it. I hear it from my counterparts that the situation is chaotic. There are no clear guidelines to policy implementation. It is filled with bureaucracy and documentation. The mechanism to implement this is not fully evolved. As usual, good intention will get throttled with complex processes and this too may be another act in the book.  We will celebrate over tokenistic gestures in the near future.

In Maharashtra too, the picture is not much different. The Government is framing rules and mechanisms to make it a reality. There is opposition from the private schools  because of   serious doubt about its economic viabilities.

The good news is  that the act cannot be challenged. It is here to stay, in one form or the other.

How will we embrace this act in our physical and psychological spaces ?

We are used to a stratified, classified system and we are comfortable knowing who belongs to where and to whom. Most of us prefer a status quo because of the position it has granted to us all. Any reform that disturbs this state of stupor is bound to face resistance.  We will communicate this resistance as our concerns and doubts.

These are, in my guess ,  some of our concerns

Will poor children really adjust in our classrooms?

Who will get their home work done?

What if they bring negative influence?  Their language, the accent, the expressions, the violence…..We will get this from the old , out dated researches that says that economically weaker children , sections of society has higher anti-social elements in them.

Will he /she sit next to my child in classroom?

How can they survive this English Medium?

Who will pay for their educational costs?

Why can’t Government schools  be spruced up so they can go to those schools?

How can my child and my domestic  servant’s child be in same class? Sitting next to each other?

How will the teacher handle this variation and still achieve the goals? And many more….

The questions have one common thread.

Serious doubts for this reform. Not realizing that every reform has to first disturb the present so that a new future can be created. It has to take away something from the power holders  in order to empower the marginalized. There has to be some “ gives” for the  “takes” to happen. The beauty is that in the end there are only winners in this phase.  Mahatma Gandhi  along with great leaders paved the way to show that political and social reform has to happen simultaneously if we need true liberation and freedom.

If our homes can become practice space for this inclusive growth, we will do well as a country.  Social equity is no more an option, or a choice to make. It has to be believed in with conviction.  It needs to  become part of our psyche.