The right to education bill was long overdue. While the quality related provisions of the bill leave much to be desired, one of its more interesting provisions is the requirement that private schools take in at least 25 per cent students from marginalised communities within the neighbourhood. Since the state will reimburse the schools based on its average spending per child, some see in this provision of the bill

elements of a voucher system. But this provision could, if implemented correctly, usher in far-reaching social changes. It will force us to confront an unspoken issue in Indian society: how we educate children into a culture of equality and reciprocity in the face of immense inequality. While there is an abstract allegiance to norms of equality and rights in a formal sense, the social mores and interpersonal norms of recognition are marked by all the disfigurements of hierarchy.

In many ways, recent social developments have contributed to the evasion rather than a resolution of this issue. One of the, perhaps unintended, by-products of the reservation discourse was this. On the one hand, it immobilised far more discomforting discussions about discrimination and the norms of social behaviour that would give minimal meaning to recognising the equal moral worth of all citizens; on the other hand, it converted what should have been a discussion about debilitating hierarchy into a political clash over identity.

Second, despite the rhetoric of inclusion, our institutional architectures were de facto creating new forms of segregation. One of the biggest worries about private education is that, despite all its promise, its capacity to segregate by class is immense; fee structures make this an inevitable outcome. Arguably, the top private schools are now even more upper class than old “convent” schools. Within the state structure itself, the state was able to give access but not dismantle social hierarchies. One of the most shocking pieces of research suggests that Dalit children were more likely to be subject to corporal punishment at the hands of government school teachers. One of the reasons for preferring private schools by the poor is the perception that low-end private schools, whatever their quality, are less likely to be degrading experiences for children. And many government institutions have also encouraged a form of segregation. There are other interesting patterns. A few years ago, it was possible for children to “mix” across social classes, at least in play; the streets and parks, forms of play, were at least temporarily open spaces for kids. Those spaces exist even less. To be sure, that form of mixing was still marked by a sense of hierarchy and power, but in an odd sense privileged kids a few years ago were more likely to have a sense of children with deprivation than they do now.

... contd.