In his 1936 speech titled “Annihilation of Caste”, BR Ambedkar advocated inter-dining, inter-caste marriage and destroying religious scriptures as steps to ending the degrading caste system. Eighty-eight years later, India grapples with the business of annihilating not just caste but also class – a challenge that has become even more urgent in the face of the Maharashtra government’s amendment to the August 2009 Right to Education Act in February.
The Act made education a fundamental right of children between the ages of six and 14 in all government, government-aided and private schools. Crucially, private schools were required to reserve 25% of their seats for children belonging to the economically weaker sections of society and those from the backward castes.
But according to the amendment, private schools located within a kilometre of government or government-aided schools will no longer be required to reserve 25% of their seats for children from the backward classes and castes. Kerala and Karnataka already have similar rules.
One of the most harmful effects of the amendment is that it will lead to segregation of children on the basis of caste and class. It will essentially mean cocooning students from the so-called forward castes and upper classes in affluent private schools, while ghettoising…
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