JOURNAL OF THE NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION, INDIA VOL. 21, 2022 Likewise, the Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor, Manoj Sinha has said: “Education and health of children are the biggest responsibilities of the administration.”82 However, notwithstanding the affirmative statements of the two constitutional heads of two States regarding the State responsibility to provide free and compulsory education to all children, the ground realities reveal the saga of sad stories. Even after the coming into force of the new National Educational Policy of 2020 formulated under the RTE Act 2009, the students belonging to Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) are still at the receiving end for their basic education. The private schools are blatantly denying admission to them despite their allocation under the rules framed by the State.83 We may now look back in retrospect and ask de novo, why has the State hitherto during the past 75 years of our Independence failed to provide free and compulsory education for all children? And this is happening notwithstanding the operation of new NEPs during the past two years, that is since July 2020, wherein the State has renewed its resolve to provide free and compulsory education to all children by the year 2025?84 We decipher at least two basic flaws. One, hitherto we have failed to comprehend the underlying value of the statement made by the founding fathers of the Constitution when under Article 37 of the Constitution, it is clearly and categorically stated that the provisions contained in Part IV, including the provision relating to education under Article 45, “shall not be enforceable by any court, but the principles therein laid down are nevertheless fundamental in the governance of the country and it shall be the duty of the State to apply these principles in making laws.” If so, we may ask, what about the whole exercise of zealously undertaking in transforming the ‘non-enforceable’ principle relating to education into an ‘enforceable’ one? In our view, it is the “flawed thinking” (to borrow the expression 82 83 84 20 See, The Tribune, February 21, 2022: “Education govt.’s priority, says Lieutenant Governor.” See, The Tribune, December 23, 2021: “Not enrolled by private schools, EWS students at receiving end in Haryana.” The private schools refused to give admission to the students of Economically Weaker Section (EWS), who have been selected under Rule 134A. ONLY one per cent kids enrolled: Only 272 (less than 1%) of 41,860 EWS students, who had been marked for admission to private schools under rule-134A in the state of Haryana were admitted. The new NEP 2020, replacing the National Education Policy of 1986, is an ambitious and far-reaching policy that seeks to transform the Indian education system into the one that is on par with the best in the world. It promises to be implemented in a phased manner beginning with the year 2021 and implemented entirely by the year 2025, to be reviewed in 2030. See also author’s article, “Revisiting Gandhi in Our Contemporaneous World,” Sambhashan, Vol. 1, Issue 07, 2020, 104-126, commenting upon the new NEP as the tool of serving the basic needs of society as was conceived by Gandhi while opposing the British model of education.