Primary education of good quality is necessitous to development, democracy and social inclusion. India has subscribed to the goals of education for all by 2015 and has embarked on immense priorities in education to reach the goals. Goals are often measured in terms of outcomes of literacy or school attendance. The main objective of this thesis is to take one step further and explore whether these priorities in primary education has the potential to enable capabilities, enhance equal opportunities and encourage cultural diversity among the children in India. Pragmatism is my starting point and a mixed methods research strategy is used in order to perceive a comprehensive illustration of the social world. The thesis provides a background on the specific Indian context as well as a theoretical framework where central concepts are called into question. The empirical material is collected from various sources as major surveys and reports from institutions, work by researchers from various fields and my own understandings noted in reflective writing exercises. The results are accumulated and discussed in themes in relation to the research questions. The most notable conclusion is that quality is remarkably low in many schools with incompetent pedagogic performances and inadequate learning achievements. This fact works together with the in-built inequalities in the Indian society which instigates that many children will never get the opportunity to reach their fullest potential.