The State massively under-funded school education, because the rationally planned, centralised economy was designed to be run only on a thin top soil of managerial and technician class. The concept of a well-funded public schooling system, the bedrock of the process of production of liberal citizenship in postwar Europe, has been consistently regarded by Indian policymakers as an unaffordable luxury on the labouring poor. It is here that the privileged caste interests of India’s ruling class come into startling focus. This merits a fuller discussion; the states where lower caste interests were integrated fairly early in the power structure, such as Kerala and Tamil Nadu, represent today the best models not just of public schooling but also of liberal citizenship.
Asim Ali, ‘Imprisoned minds’, Telegraph India
