I suggest, Sir, that many things look impracticable until they are tried, and become practicable if they a retried. Nothing in practice is practicable until it is tried. Take even the elementary right to education which every civilised Government is now undertaking to provide for the children of the nation. Even this right to compulsory primary education has been provided for in such a clumsy, half-hearted and hesitating manner that one wonders whether the framers of this Draft were at all anxious that the curse of ignorance that has rested upon us all these years should be removed at all. The provision made here just permits the State, even within the period of ten years, only to “endeavour” to give effect to this aspiration. Even there it is not compulsory, even such an elementary right as the right to primary education for every child in the nation is not mandatory. As such I feel Sir, that unless some change is made, unless you make these preemptory obligations mandatory duties of the State, the State or the constituent parts of it may not at all attend to these duties of the State. These are most elementary duties in my opinion, duties which are most primary duties, if I may say so, most sacred that no one should try to insult this House by suggesting these are not practicable.
