EDUCATION: THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO LIVE WITH DIGNITY

Abstract
The importance of the education has been pervasive in our history from almost
the inception of civilization. Early days saw education integrated with religion. In
India, the whole social system has played a great role in imparting education in the
society. In the later stages, it played a significant role as a person’s means to earn
livelihood.

The Indian independence saw the advent of a long uncherished dream to

educate the people and equip the deprived populace to enjoy the fruits of democracy
and independence which additionally could promote the benefit of good and peaceful
governance. The Indian constitution could not make such dream achievable through
the addition of fundamental rights but were inserted in part IV (four), namely, the
Directive Principles of State Policy, though legally unenforceable, was of
fundamental importance to the governance of the Country.

This paper traces the journey of the role played by education in the Indian
society but focuses on the transformation of education, earlier a privilege of a few to
becoming a fundamental right via the right to dignity, a concomitant right to the
right to life under article 21 of the Indian constitution.

Key words: education, dignity, fundamental rights, directive principles, constitution.

EDUCATION: THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT TO LIVE WITH DIGNITY
Dr. TSHEWANG Dorjee Lama1
The importance of the education, more fully touted as quality
education, has been pervasive in our history from the inception of
civilization. Early days saw education integrated with religion. The whole
social system has played a great role in the imparting of education in the
society. In the later stages, it played a significant role as a person’s means
to earn livelihood.

The British period was largely credited with the development of

modern education in the country which was gravely criticized as a colonial
power converting a colonized native population into a large clerical force,
a kind of slavery already rampant, generally.

India was independent on the 15th of August 1947 whereas it took

the Constituent Assembly to draft the constitution for more than two
years2 finally bringing it into effect from the 26th of January 1950. It is
pertinent to mention here that the joy of independence also dragged in the
sorrows of partition and as such the drafting of the constitution was a
cautious exercise.

The grandest addition to the Constitution was the insertion of the

Fundamental rights,3 branded as a mirror image of the U.S. Bill of Rights
(1791) which found its origins in the French Declaration of Rights of Man
and the Citizen (1789)4 and the English Magna Carta (1215).
Theoretically, a mere declaratory Bill of Rights was open to the framers of
the Constitution but the practical compulsion of our fight for independence

1 Vice Principal, Sikkim Government Law College, Gangtok, Sikkim

2 The Constituent Assembly was constituted in 1946, the Draft Constitution
was adopted on 26th November 1949 and it was finally applicable from 26 th
January 1950.
3 Part III of the Constitution consists of around twenty five to thirty articles

extending numerically from Article 12 to 35 and deals with individual

rights against the states, mostly.
4 Declaration of the French Revolution (1789)
made a judicially enforceable bill inevitable.5 Another game changing
constitutional addition, as it reflected later, was the Directive Principles of
State Policy6 which paved way for a meaningful and effective articulation
to the fundamental rights.

The right to education was initially not included as a fundamental

right in the constitution but as a directive principle under article 457 where
the state endeavoured to provide it within 10 years.

Article 218 of the constitution guarantees every person the

protection of life and personal liberty. The Right to life being the most
fundamental cannot be confined only to a guarantee against the taking
away of life; it must have a wider application.9 With reference to a
corresponding provision of the American Constitution,10 which says that
no person shall be deprived of his “life, liberty and property without due
process of law”, in Munn v. Illinois,11 Field J. spoke of right to life in the
following words:

“By the term ‘life’ as here used something more is

meant than mere animal existence. The inhibition against
its deprivation extends to all those limbs and faculties by
which life is enjoyed. The provision equally prohibits the
mutilation of the body by the amputation of an arm or leg,
or the putting out of an eye, or the destruction of any other

5
Seervai, HM, Constitutional Law of India – Vol 2 (4th edn.), Universal Law Publishing
Pvt. Co, Delhi. P. 1925
6
Part IV of the Constitution lays down guidelines for governance and achieving the
goals of a Welfare State. They are not justiciable as the fundamental rights
but are equally important to the governance of the country and it shall be
the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.
7 The State shall endeavour to provide free and compulsory education to

children upto the age of fourteen years.

8
No person shall be described of his life or personal liberty except according to
procedure established by law
9 V.N. Shukla’s Constitution of India,10th Edition, p.164-165.
10 5th and 14th Amendments.
11 94 U.S. 113.
 organ of the body through which the soul communicates
with the outer world.”

This statement has been repeatedly quoted with approval by the

Supreme Court in many cases12 and has been further expanded in Francis
Coralie v. Union Territory of Delhi13 where Bhagwati, J. held:

“We think that the right to life includes the right to

live with human dignity and all that goes along with it,
namely, the bare necessities of life such as adequate
nutrition, clothing and shelter over head and facilities for
reading writing and expressing oneself in diverse forms,
freely moving about and mixing and commingling with
fellow human beings.”14

The judge, however, cautioned that “the magnitude and the

contents of the components of this right would depend upon the extent of
the economic development of the country.” The bottom line was that it
must include “the bare necessities of life and also to carry on such
functions and activities as constitute the bare minimum expression of the
human self”.15

In Bandhua Mukti Morcha v. Union of India,16 the Supreme Court,

again through Bhagwati, J, held:

“It is the fundamental right of everyone in this

country.... to live with human dignity, free from
exploitation. The right to live with human dignity enshrined
in Article 21 derives its life breath from the Directive

12
Karak Singh v State of U.P., AIR 1963 SC 1295, 1301, 1305; Sunil Batra v Delhi
Administration, (1978) 4 SCC 494; Olga Tellis V Municipal Corporation, AIR 1986
SC 180, 194 seen in V.N. Shukla’s Constitution of India, p.165.
13 AIR 1981 SC 746.
14 Ibid at 753.
15 Ibid.
16 (1984) 3 SCC 161
 Principles of State policy and particularly clauses (e) and
(f) of Article 39 and Articles 41 and 42.............”

In the event of preventing the exploitation of bonded labourers, the

Court emphasised that education was one among the many other
requirements which enable a person to live with human dignity.

The process of extending Article 21 brought to life various rights

that could be enjoyed by a person under the constitutional scheme of
things. More importantly, the apex court in Unni Krishnan, J.P. v. State of
Andhra Pradesh17 recognised for the first time a fundamental right to
education in the right to life under Article 21 by taking help of Articles 41
and 45 both directive principles. It held:

“...every child/citizen of this country has a right to free

education until he completes the age of fourteen years. Thereafter
his right to education is subject to the limits of economic capacity
and development of the state.”18

Similarly, other facets of the right to education were also included in the
fundamental right during this period.19

The significance and importance of this development of including

the right to education in the fundamental right fold can be gauged from the
number of people exiting poverty by availing the benefits of numerous
rights born out of the extension of Article 21 and served by several
welfare measures undertaken by the government. And what better way
other than education can deprived classes be empowered in exercising
those rights.

Thus, the journey which started with the Apex court ruling in
Francis Coralie’s case,20 quoting Munn v. Illinois,21 that the right to life

17 (1993) 1 SCC 645: AIR 1993 SC 2178

18 Ibid (SCC) 765
19 ECI, India v. St. Mary’s School, (2008) 2 SCC 390 (teachers exempted from

election duty), Avinash Mehrotra v. Union of India (2009) 6 SCC 398 (safe
schools)
 under article 21 was not mere animal existence later graduated to the Right
to Education through the ‘dignity’ objective and avidly supplemented by
the directive principles, namely, Article 41 and 45. These judicial
pronouncements finally led to the insertion of the right to education as
Article 21 – A22 of the Constitution, a fundamental right vide the
Constitutional (86th Amendment) Act, 2002. Hence, the Right to
Education was expressly given the status of a fundamental right,
independent of the right to life under Article 21 after more than fifty two
years of the establishment of the Republic of India.
However, Article 21A became fully effective from the 1st of April 2010 with the
enactment of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009 popularly
known as the Right to Education Act.

20 Francis Coralie v. Union Territory of Delhi, AIR 1981 SC 746.

21 94 U.S. 113
22 The State shall provide free and compulsory education to all children of the age of

six to fourteen years in such manner as the State may, by law, determine.