Biggest Policy Flaw of India, a Flawed Education policy

'Free India, 'Proud India', 'Well earned freedom', 'Freedom at great price', 'Great struggle for freedom', 'United India' 'India Shining'........are they cliche phrases used in India to emotionally fool a nation or have they found substantial expression in our policy and planning? Is India being run by visionaries interested in nation building or opportunist power hungry demons who care a damn for the future of this nation.  India is a free country but are its citizens free in fact? It is high time we review our national circumstances and redefine our freedom. There are hundreds of issues that need SOS attention and action but for this little writing let us focus on the biggest policy flaw of India.

India's biggest Policy Flaw is it's flawed education policy. All our governments since  1947  have done nothing to unite a naturally diverse nation. result is regional powers becomimg stronger and stronger and holding to ransom a nation of billion plus. This could have been avoided by adopting  a well designed educational policy to create a true 'spirit de corps' by uniting India in a strong fiber of one language.  Maharashtra is being claimed by Marathi manush,  Punjab is a Punjabi suba, Assam  by assamese and so on. In this chaos of regional parade encouraged by vested politics a nation called India is lost. No wonder its common place to hear phrases like Hindu nation, Sikh nation, Bodo nation and so on. India today seems more diverse than it was 60 years back. Ironically it is the language of the Englishmen which saves the day by serving as the most common tool of communication across India. Regional languages have been reduced to just but a political agenda by many political parties. This issue is kept alive  to emotionally engage public in issues other than real issues of development, timely justice and human right abuse. If all states of India were to follow a different language policy, will India ever emerge as a truly united country? State level policies with populist motives distance citizens from their true nationality and their nation, that is being Indian and belonging to India. Intentions behind such state level diktats  are motivated by vote bank politics alone in the garb of service to mother tongue. India has one defence policy, one legal system and one foreign policy. When are we going to wake up to the burning need of one educational policy and a standard pattern of education curriculum throughout the country? A national language is the strongest thread to tie any nation in a true union. Now lets look at another reason for this flaw. The Hindi that our government has adopted as its official language is truly speaking not the language of the masses. it is not even spoken the way propagated in the Hindi heart land. No body calls a train a 'Loh Path Gamni" but it is more popularly known as RAIL. No one says 'meri smriti smapat  ho gayi' but would prefer saying 'Mujhe kuch yaad nahi raha'. We must remember that for a language to be popular it has to be the language of the market place or 'Bazar'. So the language of a nation must have a national character. Pop words of punjabi, english, malayalam, bangla etc must be officially included in the hindustani, the language of Hindustan. It is also high time that all state education boards be amalgated with the central board of education and a popular national language, with a standard curriculum and medium of instruction be put in place as soon as possible. If this new language of emerging India has 30% words from english, 30%  from regional languages,  than let it be so.  It is high time that our politicians wake up to this issue and rise above their narrow and selfish agendas of dividing India by dividing its people through encouraging the caste, creed, religion, regional and language divides. At ground level any regional language agenda translates itself in to pure regional politics under the garb of service to 'matri bhasha' or Maa Boli. Today under this policy the government offices in many states issue official letters and documents like birth certificates, ration cards etc in regional language alone. If the citizen wants to use these documents pan India he has to get them translated and attested by notified officials making cumbersome an otherwise simple issue.  Why Cant the documents being issued by any state be bilingual, that is regional as well as national language at least. Its high time that politics takes a back seat viz-a-viz welfare and convenience of a common man.

...Balwant Gurunay...

Right to Elementry Education .... Balwant Gurunay

Mr Kapil Sibal
The decision by parliment to ensure elementry education to all children all across India is a revolutionary move. The true impact of this law will only be felt, after some time. It is a great step forward in nation building. The challange though is the true enforcement of this law. With many stakeholders like the child, his immediate friends and neighbourhood, the teachers, the school management, the parents, the local govermant , the state and the center goverments and the countrymen at large, the legal enforcement is a challange. This decision of the parliament needs to be complimented with very agressive public relation campaigns. These campaigns must be carried out by the goverment's public relation departments and NGO's so as to create awareness about the right to education amongst all classes of society. The P.R. responsibility is to motivate and educate all stakeholders so as to -
1. Prepare all stakeholders to be willing contributors in this Yajna.
2. Make sure that the under privileged are aware of their right to 25 % qouta in all schools , including the so called elite or the ordinary ones.
3. Not sparing school managements for violating this law by meteing out exemplary penalities and punishments.
4. Not spare any goverment official who indulges in corrupt practices and lets this law be abused after having his palms greased by violators.
5. Hold parents, teachers or management criminally accountable if any of them discourage or snub a child and deny him this fundamental right.
.
Honourable Minister Mr Kapil Sibal needs a special mention as he has taken keen interest in this bill and without his and his teams efforts this bill may not have been passed at all . This goes to proove his farsightedness and vision. Congratulations and many thanks to you Sir. A big thanks is also due to both the ruling and opposition parties for making this come true. if our nation can pass a few more of such bills, thereby doing some substantive nation building, the country is bound to progress by leaps and bounds. I only have one contention. Why this bill should be implimented for class one only. It should be mendatory in 2011 not only in the first class but also in the so called kindergarten level. Congratulations Mr Minister Sir. We are proud of you.
.
By Balwant Gurunay