Right to Education: Just another law

The Right to Education was meant to reform society by enabling equal opportunity for everyone. Without social change, it seems to have only enforced the stereotypes and divisions in society rather than enable diversity to be acknowledged and celebrated.

Sixty years ago, just as it is today, parents sent their children to schools they could afford. There were very few elite private schools. Coming from a humble background, I was “lucky” to attend one such school. My classmates were daughters of doctors, engineers, industrialists, business moguls and politicians, mostly from privileged homes. Family background mattered very much in these elite schools.

It all began with how I looked and how I was dressed. Dark skin, oily braided hair, ill-fitting uniform dress, cotton socks and hardy boy's shoes meant that I was visibly different from the other girls.

Invariably after the morning assembly, the house prefects would ask me to step aside. I would be mocked at for my socks, shoes and uniform dress. Cotton socks in those days were of poor quality. After a couple of washes the elastic would not hold up the socks and it would disappear under the heels. My socks were clean and held up with rubber bands but that was not acceptable. Better quality nylon socks were Rs 12 a pair, compared to cotton socks, available for Rs 5. All the girls wore dainty shoes, but I was forced to wear sturdy boy's shoes two sizes larger, aptly named ‘Toughies’, because my father could not afford to buy me shoes every year.

Our uniform dresses were designed and tailored by the famous “Dhanjiboy & Sons” in the Cantonment area and were expensive. My mother, an amateur tailor, stitched my uniform which was a poor copy of the specified design. Satchels were expensive. Again, my ingenious mother cut off the legs of old cotton trousers and made durable ugly looking school bags for her children.

Most of the girls commuted to school by bus or private vehicles. I had to walk four kilometres across a field of black clayey soil. During monsoons, the field turned slushy. Since I did not want to dirty my polished shoes, I carried them in a bag along with a pair of white PT shoes. A heavy bag of books, shoes and brass tiffin carrier made my feet sink into the muck ankle deep.

The elite school prepared the girls to become poised ladies a la Swiss Finishing School. We were taught to speak the "Queen’s English", acquire the customary social graces and be able to knit, sew and paint.

My classmates had good drawing paper, a set of 12 water colour tubes imported from Japan, brushes and palette. All I could manage was some recycled paper crudely stitched together. Cheap toffee-sized clay blocks in green, red and brown were my water colours. When the colours were mixed with a wet brush and painted on the blank side of a typed sheet, it just looked ugly. Obviously, my art teacher had not heard of abstract paintings. Blobs and swathes of cheap paint did not represent anything but ugliness. Thinking back, I was not a bad artist. I just did not have the right stationery.

Every week, an hour was set aside for needlework class. Unlike the rest of the girls, my embroidery cloth was a piece of my father's old white dhoti. Coarse coloured thread used for binding packages instead of ‘Coats’ mercerised skeins served as embroidery thread. When the needle was poked into the cloth, instead of a stitch, the cloth tore. Broomsticks and jute thread were my knitting implements in place of needles and soft wool. Perhaps the humiliation and embarrassment I suffered during my school days made me learn all the needlecrafts which I mastered in later years.

Teachers were from modest homes, but the elite school environment was such that they were partial towards fair-skinned, rich girls. Unable to cope with this prejudice, many bright pupils quit, to study elsewhere.

The school organised an annual picnic, and attendance was compulsory. The other girls came in pretty dresses; I had only my paavaadai (long skirt) and blouse which would look odd, so I wore my uniform, minus the necktie. My picnic hamper consisted of lots of soft idlis that all loved so much that my bus fare was waived. Picnic was fun. I was plied with poori, Choley, cakes, fruits, samosas, potato wafers, etc., for a few idlis. The only day I got some positive attention.

The five years I spent in that school were the most traumatic ones in my life. Oh! how I hated school. I passed my Matriculation with distinction and got admission into Fergusson College.

Not much has changed in 60 years. A neighbour who teaches at a reputed school in Bengaluru told me that the “RTE quota children” came to school in dirty uniforms, incomplete homework and stared at the teacher blankly. They did not speak English. She hated those children.

There is now a statutory right to education, but what good could it possibly do in institutions which do not implement this in spirit? The environment at home, exposure to the internet, television and consumerism makes the class difference obvious. How would children from different backgrounds and homes integrate in private schools if educators do not address this? RTE could turn out to be a curse more than a blessing on the underprivileged, who face hostility early in life. Many kids from underprivileged homes will hate school and this could do more damage than good. We see the signs -- the number of underprivileged children in elite schools has been dwindling.