Decades of confusion, obfuscation, harassment and corruption aided and abetted by successive governments in the southern state of Karnataka (pop. 57 million) on the issue of Kannada or mother tongue being employed as the mandatory language of instruction in all 60,000 primary schools (classes I-V) — including private schools in the state – has been finally ended by the Supreme Court.
In a landmark judgement pronounced on May 6 in State of Karnataka & Anr. vs. Associated Managements of (Government Recognised Unaided English Medium) Primary & Secondary Schools & Ors. (Civil Appeal Nos. 5166-5190 of 2013), the apex court upheld a 2008 Karnataka high court verdict which quashed a state government order issued way back in 1994 mandating Kannada or mother tongue as the compulsory medium of instruction in all primary schools (classes I-V) statewide.
“We are of the considered opinion that though the experts may be uniform in their opinion that children studying in classes I to V in primary school can learn better if they are taught in their mother tongue, the State cannot stipulate it as a condition for recognition (of schools)… The right to freedom of expression under Article 19 (1) (a) of the Constitution includes the freedom of a child to be educated at the primary stage of school in a language of the choice of the child and the State cannot impose control on such choice just because it thinks that it will be more beneficial for the child if he is taught in the primary stage in his mother tongue,” ruled the five-judge bench in a unanimous judgement.
Unsurprisingly, the promoter-owners of Karnataka’s 11,745 state board-affiliated unaided primary schools (the language policy directive exempted schools affiliated with the pan-India CBSE and CISCE boards) with an aggregate student enrollment of 3.2 million, who have been contesting the state government’s 1994 medium of instruction directive for over two decades, all the while suffering extortion from Karnataka’s notoriously venal education ministry officials to overlook their cardinal sin of teaching children in English, are jubilant.
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“In 2008, the Karnataka high court had upheld parents’ fundamental right to choose the medium of instruction for their children and ruled in our favour. But the state government appealed the judgement in the Supreme Court. Now with a five-judge Supreme Court bench upholding the high court judgement, the state government has no option but to legally recognise English-medium schools which were forced to give undertakings that they would teach only in Kannada. We are pleased that the Supreme Court has protected the rights of parents. The state government must respect this verdict and immediately grant recognition to all English-medium schools in the state,” says V.R.N. Reddy, president of the Karnataka Unaided Schools Management Association (KUSMA), which has a membership of 1,800 schools and prime petitioner in the case.
However despite the unanimous and unambiguous Supreme Court judgement, the Congress government of the state refuses to throw in the towel. On May 20, chief minister Siddaramaiah announced that the government will file a review petition against the verdict in early June. “Besides review and curative petitions, the only other option is an amendment to the Constitution, making mother tongue the compulsory medium of instruction. We will also appeal to the Centre for a constitutional amendment,” he told mediapersons.
Behind the dogged obduracy of state government politicians to sanction English language teaching, is a murky mix of language chauvinism and commercial calculation. Confronted with mass migration of children from middle class households into unaided English medium primary-cum-secondaries, and the possibility of children lower down in the social scale following suit, and with attendance in state government-run Kannada medium schools falling consistently, successive state governments have resorted to forcing private primaries, secondaries and even higher education institutions to adopt Kannada as the medium of instruction.
Although preservation of the Kannada language and culture is the fig leaf, this obstinacy is to serve the business interest of well-connected vernacular textbook publishers and printers who are set to lose captive markets for regional language textbooks of dubious quality and scholarship. Quite obviously, if all subjects from class I-V are taught in Kannada, book publishers will benefit to a much greater extent than if Kannada is merely taught as a second language.
For instance in the academic year 2013-14, the Karnataka government commissioned 13.6 million Kannada language textbooks which had to be purchased by unaided schools even if they didn’t use them. In addition it purchases and distributes Kannada language texts to 48,000 government primary schools. Hence given the big stakes in terms of “cuts and commissions”, state government politicians and educrats are hell-bent on pushing compulsory Kannada-medium instruction for all primary school children.
But with legal experts unanimous that the government’s review and curative petitions will be summarily dismissed, and the Centre unlikely to interfere in the matter (Karnataka is the only state in the Indian Union which doesn’t tolerate English-medium primaries), it’s curtains for the state’s language chauvinists and vernacular textbooks publishers.
Summiya Yasmeen (Bangalore)
