83. Over 50 years later, the Parliament revisited the subject. TheParliamentary debate on Article 21A offers a glimpse into the history ofcompulsory education in other countries. The then Minister of Human ResourceDevelopment, Dr. M.M. Joshi, referred to the speech of Shri Gopal KrishnaGokhale on compulsory education. While debating a bill in the imperiallegislative council in 1911, Shri Gokhale said that in most countries:"....elementary education is both compulsory and free, and in a few, thoughthe principle of compulsion is not strictly enforced or has not been introducedit is either wholly or for the most part gratitutious, in India alone it isneither compulsory nor free. Thus in Great Britain and Ireland, France, Germany,Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Italy, Belguim, Norway, Sweden, the United Statesof America, Canada, Australia and Japan it is compulsory and free. .... InSpain, Portugal, Greece, Bulgaria, Servia and Rumania, it is free, and intheory, compulsory, though compulsion is not strictly enforced." [Lok SabhaDebates, 28 November, 2001, Vol.20, page 476].