There is something hollow at the heart of education in India. It has been a long time, almost 10 years in fact, since the Supreme Court outlawed corporal punishment in schools. That was the first step, after a series of complaints about the injury and even death of children caused by punishment in schools made such a declaration inevitable. No remarkable change was noticed in the following years, except perhaps in the district of Idukki in Kerala which organized its institutions in 2008 with the aim of wiping out corporal punishment in schools within one year. Most other states, among them West Bengal, made a few noises and slacked off, even neglecting to notify schools of the Supreme Court's statement. A report indicated that 85 per cent of children who got beaten up or physically punished in some other way went to government schools in the state. Now the Calcutta High Court has ruled that if a child dies as a result of physical punishment, the teacher responsible should be charged with murder, and not with negligence or culpable homicide not amounting to murder, as is the convention.
The logic behind the court's ruling is clear: no teacher who causes the death of a child can be let off with just two years' imprisonment. The ruling is also a way of emphasizing the gravity of the crime — apparently even that is needed — and of creating a deterrent. What is astounding, however, is that the courts alone seem bothered about how teachers treat children in schools. Is this the courts' job? Yet the most disturbing questions can be raised about the level of education of the educators: who are these teachers who continue with their violence unashamed? The system that produces and assesses them and lets them pass needs to be examined first. Something has gone terribly wrong in the concept of teaching; otherwise state governments, child welfare boards, local administrations and school management committees would not have remained so apathetic about ensuring the limits of punishment. A country in which a court actually has to announce that teachers who kill children should be charged with nothing less than murder cannot be said to have emerged from barbaric darkness. The recent talk of children's rights is nothing more than a fashionable tic. Rights have to do with civilization and humanity. Adults who casually hurt the small and the powerless can have no inkling of either.
