Dynamics of Transformation of Right to Education in India from Directive Principle to Fundamental Right: A History of Denial

Abstract

The demand for free and compulsory education in India began more than a century ago. The narration of free and compulsory education during British rule in India was a chequered history of unfulfilled vision. India attained its independence from British rule in 1947. On 26 January 1950 when the Constitution of India came into operation, the constitutional directive for free and compulsory education was under the directive principles as a ‘non-justiciable’ right through Article 45 promising to fulfil within a period of ten years from its commencement. But the state failed to do so for the next 5 decades. Ultimately, the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act (Right to Education Act), 2009, came into effect on 1 April 2010, pursuant to the 86th Amendment to the Constitution of India (2002), which mandates elementary education as a fundamental right. India took more than a half-century in evolving free and compulsory education from the directive principle to fundamental right, from ‘justiciable right’ to ‘non-justiciable right’. However, this article intends to analyse the dynamics of transformation of the right to free and compulsory education in India from directive principle to fundamental right in light of the history of persistent denial in the post-Constitutional era. The article also explores what actually happened at the time of framing the Indian Constitution that the right to education was finally shifted from a ‘justiciable right’ to ‘non-justiciable right’ in the final text of the Constitution of India.