The introduction of educational qualifications as eligibility criteria for contesting panchayat elections has shocked and angered rural Rajasthan, including supporters of the ruling BJP When the literacy drive was in full force, I happened to visit a village in Ajmer district with a friend who was a civil servant. There was bold graffiti on a prominent school wall, which said: Saksharta ki kya pehchan? Upar chaddi, niche baniyan (How do you recognise literacy? The shorts above and the vest below). My puzzled officer-friend asked the villagers what prompted the graffiti. They replied, “You don’t run schools for our children; teachers are absent because they don’t want to stay in the village. Your transport system does not function. Our eager children remain illiterate. But later when we are tired and worn out, you come to teach us literacy. Please run our schools.” Successive Rajasthan governments did not listen to these voices, perhaps because the children of the ruling elite study in expensive private schools. But the present government topped them all when it decided to shut down 17,000 schools, almost all in remote villages. As people protested and demanded that they be reopened, they were told that those who never got an opportunity to go to school will now be debarred from standing for elections.

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