Good evening guys, first of all I would like to thank Srijan Foundation, Rahul Deewan and Shreyas Bhadwaj for inviting me to give this talk on a very important issue of sectarianism in Indian education sector. So before I came here, I did a social experiment of a small one and I asked people in my friend circle and my family, what are the biggest flaws they see in Indian education system. So these are the answers, some of the answers that these guys came up with.

Education is not accessible to all, there is a bookish curriculum which encourages rot learning, pathetic state of government schools, unhealthy competition, commercialization, a very favorite topic of a problem, tuition and coaching culture, lack of good teachers and reservation and so on. These are very, anybody you ask, these are the kinds of answers you get. Even for me, these are first world problems because even if you go to America, they will also say the same things.

Now the problem in our education system is not, you know, pathetic state of government schools or these things, private versus public schools. This is for me, the biggest problem is sectarianism that has been enshrined in our education system in various schemes, through various schemes from the independence to this day. Now on 7th February this year, Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, Minority Affairs Minister, he said that the government, we will first cover the scholarship schemes that the government runs exclusive for minorities.

This is the 9 schemes he listed that the government is running only for minorities. First is pre-matric scholarship for class 1 to 10th, post-matric for class 11th to PhD and so on. There is a free coaching scheme also.

So people who are say preparing for IAS, SSC exams, if they clear prelims, they will get 50,000 cheque from the government. This is only for minorities, by the way. There is a Padau Pradesh scheme, which if you are a minority and want to study in Harvard, Cambridge and all, then you also get a loan subsidy from the government.

And there is a Naivanjal, which started by Prime Minister Modi two years ago. There is another scheme for only exclusive for minority girls. They were not satisfied only with the minorities, they started another one for girls only.

Now if you remember, the first scheme, pre-matric scholarship for class 1 to 10th, this cost around 1100 crores and 75 lakh minority students benefited from this scheme in 2014-15, after the Modi government came in. And every year 200 crores they are adding. So next year it will be 1300 crores, then 1500 and so on.

Now if you remember this pre-matric scholarship scheme, Narendra Modi when he was Chief Minister of Gujarat, fought against this UPA era scheme, calling it communal in Gujarat High Court. He said we are already running a scheme for everybody, irrespective of religion, irrespective of caste, we are already running a secular scheme. So why you are forcing this scheme on us? His government went to Gujarat High Court, they said no no, scheme is okay, 5 judge bench decided 3-2, that scheme is constitutional, you have to implement it.

So see the commitment of Modi government, they refused and they said we will go to Supreme Court. They went to Supreme Court and then they lost again. But in 2014 when they came in power, there was hope that he fought so valiantly against this scheme, he will at least remove it.

But as you can see 200 crores are being added every year. So nothing is happening on that front. Now if you go to Minority Affairs Ministry website, this is the reason they give for running these schemes.

Can you please read everybody? I will read it. The state shall promote with special care the education and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people and in particular of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of social exploitation. Now first of all this reasoning, this article 46 comes under DPSP, Directive Principles of State Policy.

The government is not obligated to follow this. It is not enforceable in courts just like the Uniform Civil Code. So second thing is, it is mentioned weaker sections of the people, not weaker sections of minorities.

Third, it is mentioned in particular of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes. So you would think that maybe the government gives for SC and SC students some scholarship at par with the minorities if not more. But see the data now.

This is by Hariprasad. He runs a blog, Secure Core blog. He has written a data analysis he has done and he reached this conclusion.

He compared all the minority schemes with the scholarship schemes that are run for scheduled caste students. Now read this, minorities get more than double the scholarship than what an SC student will get for almost the exact same parameter. Now a minority student who is a day scholar gets Rs.

6000 per year but an SC student, day scholar gets Rs. 2250, that's almost half, less than half actually. A minority student who is a hosteler gets Rs.

12000 per year but an SC student gets only Rs. 4500. Now for OBC students, he has compared for OBC students also.

This is post-matric scholarship. See Rs. 1261 per student per year for OBC, for minority it is Rs.

6000 per year per student. For pre-matric, it is worse, Rs. 47, can you believe it, Rs.

47 per year per student compared to Rs. 1529 for minority students, that's 30 times more money a minority student is getting. These are the sectarian schemes that these guys are running.

Now we are just warming up. This is just scholarships. Now we will come to the elephant in the room we have to address, Right to Education Act.

First of all, any law that is applicable to only one section of the people will of course be called unconstitutional in any sane democracy but you know, ours is. So what is happening, it is only applicable. It is only applicable to Hindu schools.

It says non-minority, politically correct word is non-minority. So only non-minorities are Hindus but if you consider linguistic, some Hindus will be included but I will come to it later. Now imagine there are two schools in a district.

One is run by a minority, another is run by a non-minority. Now if you put all kinds of restrictions, you have said you will set aside 25% seats for poor students, you build up a playground, you will have this many classrooms, you will have this computer lab and so on, all kinds of restrictions. Now what will happen is, and what is happening is, these 25% students are studying there for free because government was supposed to pay say 10,000 per year for each student.

But for 3-4 years, the government has not paid, no government has paid like that. And what is happening is, cross subsidizing is happening, the fees on the rest of the 75% is increasing every year, as I was talking to you guys. So this is increasing every year, they are increasing because they have to run the school and with teaching 25% students for free, they cannot run it affordably, right.

Now what will happen after 3-4 years, they will keep increasing the fees, parents will get worried, they will see that the minority guy is not increasing the fees, he is maintaining the standards, why these Hindu guys are so commercial and all that. So what they will do, they will tolerate for 2-3 years, let's not change the school and all that. But after 2-3 years they will get frustrated, they will put their kid in minority school.

Now this shift will start happening and it is happening, minority schools are booming. I will put another data here for Bengaluru. Now this is all happening.

Now another minority guy will see a great market, right. Now the Hindu guy who is closing down his school because he cannot afford it anymore, there will be, supply is reduced, right. One school is closed, demand remains the same and increasing every year.

Then this guy will open a school, minority guy. There are two minority schools now. One, the Hindu guy is out of the market.

Now this is actually happening, see this data. This is for Bengaluru, private unaided schools have grown at the rate of 1.35% in Bengaluru and minority schools have grown at the rate of 28%, 1.35 overall, 28% minority schools. Now what is happening in big cities at least, what is happening is that these Hindu schools, they are opting a new method because linguistic minority is also exempt, right.

So they are claiming, so if say I am living in Bengaluru, so I can open a Hindi minority school, right. If a Tamilian is staying in Bengaluru, he can open a Tamil minority school. If a Malayali is there, he can open Malayali minority school and it is happening.

But it is, yeah, NPS. So, but you would think that this is very innovative, this is very easy loophole, but it is really not. Because the linguistic minority certificate is not very easy to get.

Because there are gatekeepers who issue this certificate. Now these gatekeepers, who are these gatekeepers? This is a body called National Commission of Minority Education Institutions. Now let's see how can become a member of this.

See read this section 4 of this act. Qualification for appointment as a chairperson or a member. Appointment as the chairperson unless he is a member of minority community, has been a judge of high court, then a member only if he is a member of minority community and person of eminence, ability and integrity.

So, by law, a Hindu cannot become its member. And to remind you guys, it is only religious minority. There are no defined linguistic minorities in constitution.

Only 6 national minorities have been declared. And these are Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Jains. Jains recently they got in and Parsis.

And this is the kind of, they don't get, NPS was trying to get this certificate. And they are not issuing it. Lot of issues are there.

So, this is the loophole. See how difficult it is. Now, this is, you can say that how can they allow this disastrous act and such a communal act to, you know, legalized.

How, what were the courts doing? Well, the UPA government preempted the courts by 4 years. This act was passed in 2009. The UPA government passed a constitutional amendment in 2005, which is 93rd constitutional amendment, which specifically excluded minorities from any law that it will in future pass.

So, this is another kind of sectarianism they enshrined through this article. We will discuss about 93rd later. But first, now you can say, ok, we can get rid of Right to Education Act.

We can get rid of 93rd. Then we are ok, right? You would think that. Well, another shocker.

You are not ok. We are going back to the pre-RTE era, before 2000. From 1957 to 2000, we will see a history and pattern.

How minority schools have always been, you know, at higher footing than non-minority schools. Article 31, section 1, clause 1, read this. All minorities, whether based on religion or language, shall have the right to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice.

So, some of the people were saying that, ok, why not apply the RTE to everybody. I will show you, you cannot. Now, see, this is the, read this.

Only two kinds of minorities are there, religious, linguistic. They have the right to establish and administer of their choice. Now, over the years, from 1957 Kerala Education Bill case, to St. Stephen's College case versus Delhi University, they, the courts have given these freedoms to minority students, minority education institutions.

So, it doesn't matter if an institution was set up before the constitution came into force, it will enjoy the protection of Article 30. It doesn't matter if it is a set by foreigner, if they took help of local minority. Now, the state, when applying any regulation to minority education institution, must follow these two tests.

The regulations must be reasonable, that courts will decide, and conductive to making the institution an effective vehicle of education for minority community or other persons who resort to it. Brilliant two tests, that any regulation can be striked down by court. Now, even medium of instruction, there is full freedom to minority students.

So, if, say tomorrow, in Karnataka, if say Karnataka government decides that, we will, all schools will have Kannada, they will teach Kannada, the medium of instruction will be Kannada, they cannot apply it to minority institutions, they will have to give them exemptions, that ok, you can teach Kannada, but you will also have to teach your own language. In recognition affiliation also, they have given them rights, that you cannot put such conditions for recognition or affiliation, that destroys the very nature of the minority institutions. State cannot take over a minority institution, unless the institution itself offers to surrender unconditionally.

Appointment of staff, service condition, discipline, some regulation is allowed, but very much free to do that. They are aided up to 95%, like St. Stephens, but we will come to that, they will only allow 50% non-minority students, and everybody pays taxes, irrespective of religion. So, these institutions, minority institutions are funded up to 95%.

They do not have to follow teacher's quota for STST, Hindu schools have to. They have no restriction on hiring non-minority faculty. They can determine their own criteria for admitting students like St. Stephens.

Now, these were the freedoms given before RTE was even on the horizon. Now, the courts have to decide who is a minority institution. These two matters that I am discussing now, are of utmost importance, that have really set in the discrimination now.

In Kerala Education Bill, they said that, only sprinkling of non-minorities you can do in a minority institution. So, they did not define what do they mean by sprinkling. It is 10%, it is 20%, it is 30% or 80%, they did not define it.

But, by sprinkling, it is less than 50% generally. Then, in the very historic judgment in St. Stephens College versus University of Delhi, the judges said that they can reserve no more than 50% seats for minorities. So, they can reserve 10%, they can reserve 49%.

They have full freedom to decide, depending on their area and their requirements. Now, the Article 29-2 objection came. What is Article 29-2? No citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution, any, maintained by the state or receiving aid out of the state.

So, they said that, since St. Stephens is getting funded by the government, so, no citizen should be discriminated against. Everybody has the right and you are doing that on the basis of religion. See, what the honourable judge said, the fact that Article 29-2 applies to minorities as well as non-minorities does not mean that it was intended to nullify the special right guaranteed to minorities under Article 31.

So, they have put Article 31 at higher pedestal than Article 29-2. This is the kind of protection they enjoyed. Another issue was, what kind of education a minority institution can impart.

There were two views. One view was that, why any minority will establish their institution, to preserve their culture, their script, their language. That's the main objective.

Otherwise, what's the difference between minority and non-minority. One view was that. Another view was that, no, no, Article 30 says, of their choice.

Article 30 says, of their choice, they can set up any kind of institution, not just for their own people. Now, the second view prevailed in courts. Courts said, I have read more than 10 judgments on this.

Courts have said, no, they have full right to establish, you know, whatever they want to teach, whatever kind of institution they want, they have full right. Now, because of these two, one kind of education they impart and who is a minority. Now, consider two schools again.

One is minority, one is non-minority. A minority institution, let's say, this guy has 10% minority students. He can have from 0 to 49.

He has 10% minority students. The non-minority, let's say, he has 15% minority students. The non-minority guy has more minority students than this minority institution.

And they are teaching the same subjects, because the court said, you can teach anything. So, they are teaching same subjects. Now, who is catering to the minority institutions? Who is serving minorities well? Non-minority, right? But who the courts will apply RTE to? No, non-minority.

This is what is happening. Read another judgment who say that we can apply RTE to minority students. Minority institutions.

K.A. Hamid versus this Polytechnic case came in Bombay High Court. They said, the government had said that these many seats you have to reserve for SC, ST students. Then the court said, no, it will not be applicable to minority institutions, because it violated article 31, 30 clause 1. So, those who say that RTE can be applicable to, you know, should be applicable or can be applicable to all schools, irrespective of religion of the owner, well, this is what is going to happen.

They are going to strike it down. Now, you would ask that if already there was so much freedom to minority institutions, why the government came up with RTE? Why 93rd constitutional amendment specifically saying that these minority institutions are exempt? Why did they do that? Because in 2002, a brilliant thing happened. Some are smiling.

TMA Pi Foundation case judgment came. TMA Pi Foundation, 11 judge bench, constitution bench. It's very rare that 11 judges sit and decide the case.

So, imagine, that's what, these 3 paragraphs, I will show you, what kind of freedoms they give to non-minority. Hindu run schools, they give these kinds of freedom. Fixing of rigid fee structure dictating the formation of composition of government body, compulsory nomination of teachers and staff for appointment or nominating students, this is under RTE, would be unacceptable restrictions.

The government cannot implement these kinds of restrictions on unaided private institutions. Now, they said maximum autonomy has to be with the management. Now, under RTE, it is not with the management.

They said, like any other private unaided institutions, similar unaided educational institution administered by linguistic or religious minority assured maximum autonomy. This should have been reversed, actually. But, that's okay.

They said, like any other private institution. This is the kind of freedom they give. And, addressing a very important question, this was the question before the bench.

Whether the non-minorities have the right to establish and administer educational institutions in the same manner and to the same extent as minority institutions. Basically, the question was whether the non-minorities have the same rights as minorities. The judges said, yes, the right to establish and administer educational institutions is guaranteed under the constitutions to all citizens under articles 29, 1G and article 26, to minorities specifically under article 30.

What is article 19, 1G? It is any occupation. They can start any business they can run. So, the judges said, education is not a business, but it can be called an occupation.

So, only reasonable restrictions can be applied, like law and order and all that. Very reasonable restrictions can only be applied. This was historic.

This put the non-minority institutions almost at par, not exactly at par, but almost at par with minority institutions. Well, then the UPA government came in 2005-04 and they changed the constitution. They added a clause in article 15.

Please read this. They specifically target sub-clause G of clause 1 of article 19, which the TMI-5 foundation had given right to non-minority schools. They specifically targeted this and exempted aided or unaided by the state other than the minority educational institutions.

They exempted minority institutions. Now, on reading this feels so revolting. Such a discrimination that is embedded in the constitution and it was passed in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha with flying colours.

Now, of course, the constitutional validity had to be upheld in courts. So, the court said, we will not decide whether this is constitutional or not unless the government passes a law. Well, it passed a law.

Four years later, Right to Education Act came into force exactly based on this article. Then, again the matter went to courts. There was one big issue.

In RTE Act, it was not mentioned whether it will be applicable to minorities and non-minorities because there was no need. They had already done that four years before that. So, the court said, See, in unaided private schools of Rajasthan versus Union of India, they said, we hold that the 2019 Act is constitutionally valid for aided minority schools.

So, those schools, those minority schools who are funded by the government, Right to Education Act will be applicable to them. Well, the UPA government could not even tolerate this kind of parity. They changed the Right to Education Act.

They brought in Section 1.4, Clause 4. And, this is the speech given by Kapil Sibal. He said this, that we have said that aided institutions will not be covered by this amendment. And, so in a sense, we have moved two steps further to protect the interests of the minority institutions.

So, he is saying to his fellow parliamentarian, Adib G., I would request you that please be assured that we are extremely sensitive to the concerns of the minority community. If you walk two steps, we will walk ten steps in order to make sure that their interests are fully protected. So, even those institutions which were funded by the government, even these institutions, they exempted from it.

Then, the final word on the Right to Education Act, whether it is constitutional or not, came in Pramati's judgment, a very disastrous judgment. It said, they are right under Article 19.1G to start an occupation. It is damaging it to a very limited extent.

Now, can any sane person say that preserving 25% seats for free is reasonable to a very limited extent? And, consider this, this 25% is totally random. They can tomorrow make it 49% and you can do nothing about it. It is very random.

Now, this is the, this was, this judgment came ten days before 2014 election results came, 6th May. 16th May, the results came. There was hope that some things will change when the so-called Hindutva government will come and change, some bring some parity to these institutions.

But, we know in last three years, nothing has happened. They have not moved an inch on these things. Forget about these, they are not even changing the syllabus and all the Marxist bias that is there in the text books and all.

So, it is just like, we are just in the, as far as education sector is concerned. What is happening is, these guys are very efficient. So, in scholarships, they are giving directly in the bank accounts to minority students.

They are very efficiently closing down schools. They are very efficient in that area. So, it is a very efficient government which is pushing these Hindu run schools into oblivion very fast.

Now, what we can do about it? Certainly, it is very clear that first we have to repeal RTE even when it doesn't solve the problem at all, like clearly. We have to repeal the 93rd constitutional amendment, which I don't see happening, but let's say for the sake of argument, we have to do that. Then, to protect, to bring the, then still, as I have shown you, the still there is no parity.

You have to change either article 30, which gives these protections to minority schools, which I am guaranteeing you, nobody can, even with 450 seats, you cannot do it. What else can you do is, you can add, say, a new section in article 19, saying that education is a special occupation and it is very important, national interest or something like that, flowery, loyal language. They can do that and say that no government will have regulation on this sector for only very reasonable restrictions.

So, I hope I have convinced you that, to my point of view. Thank you.