Letter from the Editor
As contemporary India’s depressing socio-economic development indices testify, a lot went wrong with post-independence India’s economic development effort. But conversely there are some things the establishment did right. One of them is the separation of powers and the creation of an independent judiciary governed by the Supreme Court of India. Mind you, all is far from well with the country’s inconveniently independent judicial system. It’s slow, old-fashioned and the law’s delay is legendary. But India is perhaps the only developing nation with a genuinely independent judiciary which can — and does — stand up to government and protect the rights of citizens fearlessly. This is the subtext of this month’s cover feature. Although the Constitution unequivocally confers a fundamental right to promote and administer institutions of education upon all citizens, during the past 40 years spent in the ideological wilderness of Soviet-inspired socialism, this important fundamental right was whittled away by the executive, i.e Central and state governments. Consequently well-meaning and committed social entrepreneurs and philanthropists who promoted much-needed education institutions for societal benefit were subjected to incremental interference and harassment.
This is particularly true of higher professional (medicine, engineering , business management, pharmacopoeia etc) education much favoured by the country’s expanding middle class. With the passage of time student admissions, faculty recruitment, tuition fees even in privately promoted, financially independent institutions of professional education were dictated by government. But to their credit promoters of capital-intensive private, unaided institutions of professional education didn’t surrender their fundamental right to promote and manage their education institutions as approved by the Constitution, and repeatedly petitioned the courts to win back this right.
In 2002 their persistence paid off when in the landmark TMA Pai Foundation vs. State of Karnataka & Ors, the Supreme Court not only upheld the fundamental right of linguistic and religious minorities to "establish and administer educational institutions of their choice" but also expanded it to all citizens. Socialism and state control of private professional colleges made a brief comeback after the apex court’s ‘clarification’ judgement in the Islamic Academy Case (2003). But following the unanimous August 12 verdict of a seven judge bench of the Supreme Court in P.A Inamdar vs State of Maharashtra, the status quo ante has been restored.
Unfortunately instead of gracefully accepting the apex court’s verdict which balances social equity with citizens’ rights in a just and fair manner, politicians cutting across all party lines in Parliament have opted to enact a law nullifying the Supreme Court’s verdict. The implications of the proposed legislation and a possible via media to avert the imminent clash between Parliament and judiciary is the subject matter of our cover story.
And in our second lead feature assistant editor Summiya Yasmeen investigates the sudden popularity of life skills education in schools, education institutions and corporates.
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