The secret of education lies in respecting the pupil," Ralph Waldo Emerson once said. But sadly, there are some educators who, despite the Supreme Court ban on corporal punishment, derive sadistic pleasure in beating students and humiliating them, often for frivolous reasons. Punishment — both physical and mental — has become an integral part of education in India.
There have been numerous cases from schools across the country in which students have received grievous physical injuries or have been driven to commit suicide on account of being punished in school. Health Ministry documents show 16,000 students have committed suicides between 2004 and 2006.
The case of Sahil Sachdeva once again highlights this point. A Class VI student, Sahil was allegedly slapped and humiliated by his teacher for late attendance. He tried to commit suicide by jumping off the second floor of the school building. A recent study has shown that two out of every three children in India suffer physical abuse at the hands of their teachers. The death of Rouvanjit Rawla, a student of Kolkata's well-known La Martiniere School, who allegedly committed suicide after being caned by the principal, has jolted the national conscience.
Most incidents of teachers brutalising the young often do not receive media attention. A six-year-old girl was thrashed by a teacher, locked up in a steel cupboard and later thrown into a water tank at Tiruchirappalli in 2009. In Lucknow, a five-year-old boy was tied with rope and dragged for 50 metres by his teacher for not attending school regularly. Ten students were beaten with a cane fitted with nails in an MCD school in Delhi last year.
Teachers who resort to such behaviour are no different from criminals and must be treated as such. Others must be counselled against resorting to physical punishment which, in turn, promotes a culture of violence. A show-cause notice or temporary suspension is too feeble a response to counter this menace. Need one wonder why children develop school phobia, dropout rates are on the rise and the poor hesitate to send their offspring to school?
