1946: Constituent assembly began its task

1947: Ways and Means (Kher) Committee set up to explore ways and means of

achieving Universal Elementary Education within ten years at lesser cost.

1947: Constituent Assembly Sub committee on Fundamental rights places free and

compulsory education on list of Fundamental Rights :

“Clause 23- Every citizen is entitled as of… right to free primary education and it

shall be the duty of the State to provide within a period of ten years from the

commencement of this Constitution for free and compulsory primary education for

all children until they complete the age of fourteen years.”

1947 (April): Advisory Committee of the Constituent Assembly rejects free and

compulsory education as a fundamental right (costs being the reason). Sends

clause to list of “non - justiciable fundamental rights” (later termed as ‘Directive

Principles of State Policy).

1949: Debate in Constituent Assembly Removes the First Line of ‘Article 36’…“Every

citizen is entitled as of right to free primary education and it shall be the duty of

the State to..” and replaces it with “The State shall endeavour to..”

Why was the word ‘primary’ education removed? … “ a provision has been made

in article 18 , to forbid any child being employed below the age of 14. Obviously

if the child is not to be employed below the age of 14, the child must be kept

occupied in some educational institution. That is the object of article 36..”

-Sh B. R. Ambedkar, 23rd Nov. 1949

1950: Finally, Article 45 of Directive Principles of State Policy accepted: “The State

shall endeavour to provide, within a period of ten years from the commencement

of this Constitution, for free and compulsory education for all children until they

complete the age of fourteen years”.

This denied a justiciable right. The inadequacy of the final Article 45 was foreseen

by K.T. Shah in his note of dissent in April 1947 thus:

“Once an unambiguous declaration of such a (justiciable) right is made, those

responsible for it would have to find ways and means to give effect to it. If they

had no such obligation placed upon them, they might be inclined to avail

themselves of every excuse to justify their own inactivity in the matter,

indifference or worse”.

These words of K. T. Shah proved prophetic. On the fate of Article 45 after independence, the noted Gandhian economist L.C. Jain has observed that there was no reference to education in any of the budget speeches during the ten year period after the adoption of the Constitution, which was the time target envisaged by Article 45. It should therefore be clear that the plea of lack of resources made even Gandhi think of alternative methods, and Babasaheb Ambedkar to accept dropping the draft Article 36 from the final Constitution. Many shortcomings of the 2009 Act, like excluding the 0-6 and 14-18 age groups stem from the same lack of resources argument, and even the fate of the implementation of the 2009 Act will crucially depend on the availability and proper utilization of adequate finances. In this context, where as it is heartening that the Prime Minister in his unprecedented address to the nation on the Act on April 1, 2010 said that financial availability will not be allowed to hamper the implementation of the Act, one hopes that this promise to the nation will inform state policy in the coming years.