Is illiteracy cause or consequence?
An informed citizenry, active citizenship and collective assertion are critical civil society functions in a mature democracy. However the very low levels of literacy prevalent even today despite decades of rhetoric have made ordinary citizen very tiny and weak in the face of the might of the state. Many people secretly believe that universal adult franchise in a largely illiterate society is not desirable. However the reality is that the verdict of the poor and illiterate people is roughly the same as that of the literate and informed population in society. Human beings are endowed with the same amount of dignity and they have the same democratic right and freedom of choice irrespective of their origins, level of literacy, wealth, talent and accomplishments. In fact it can be argued that illiteracy is not a cause of mis-governance in society but is actually perpetuated by failure of governance. The literacy levels of many countries which had comparable human development indices some f
