In fact, as UNICEF's 1999 State of the World's Children report points out, the country looks set to celebrate the new millennium by having the largest pool of functional illiterates in the world. But these are the little ironies that characterise human development in this part of the world.

There are other ironies too. While China, with a larger population, is on the threshold of achieving universal literacy, this country has barely brought basic education to half its people. And even while the country struggles to provide basic education, some vested interest or the other subverts the process by introducing extraneous issues.

The pointless controversy over the singing of the Saraswati Vandana in UP schools was a classic instance ofhow politicised education has become in India and how divisive and deleterious such interventions are in the greater cause of promoting education for all.

A revolution in education is what is needed, true. But who will create one? Thus far, the political guardians of this country have abysmally failed to bring it about for all their rhetoric and constitutional obligations. The Vajpayee government has not even made known its interest in presenting before Parliament the 83rd amendment bill that seeks to make education a fundamental right.

Lack of funds and the high opportunity costs of making education-compulsory, are the ostensible reasons for not budging on the issue. How can this country afford to spend an additional Rs 7,200 crore a year on achieving this, the bureaucrats argue, without bothering to calculate the enormous social and economic benefits that generation upon generation of Indians will reap from a fully literate population in the years ahead.

But the times they are a-changing andgovernments are advised to keep up or be left out. One of the reasons why Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Digvijay Singh could beat the anti-incumbency factor in the recent assembly election was the serious attempts his government made in bringing education to more people in his state. Through the Madhya Pradesh Education Guarantee Scheme, started in January 1997, primary school facilities were provided within one kilometer of some 19,289 habitations. Under the scheme, the state government also promised to set up a functioning school within 90 days if a local community, which had thus far been deprived of primary education, demanded it.

Once more people realise that they are being cheated of their fundamental rights by being denied primary education just because the politicians they have voted to power had other priorities and agendas, their wrath will prove to be a decisive factor in elections. Perhaps that is what the netas need. They must be made to pay the price for the missing school, just as theyhave been made to pay the price for the missing onion in the recent elections.