ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that we must understand longer political trends since independence and the relationship of the school to the family. Most of all, we must emphasize the technology used in our schools and our understanding of modernity in India to be able to deal with the problem of growing privatisation in schooling. The chapter uses ethnographic data to describe our present failure of egalitarianism and democracy in education at several levels. The author looks at municipal schools, small private (so-called) English medium schools, old vernacular schools and elite missionary and public schools. Each of them has a different relationship to the community and to modernity. She interprets modernity in today’s India as development, consumerism, discipline and performance. Through these lenses she shows that our failure in living up to the constitutional policy of equality is due to our very understanding and practices of modernity.
