By Tushar Charan - Syndicate Features
Delhi is a shame capital where flouting the rules and going against the law is flaunted without hesitation by the high and mighty as well as the lowly. Corporal punishment was ‘banned’ by the Delhi High Court in 2001. The latest instance of how this court order is being brazenly abused came in the horrible form of the death of an 11-year-old girl, Shanno Khan, who was a Class II student of a school run by the Delhi Municipal Corporation.
That her ‘crime’ was merely her inability to spell some words in English makes it more shameful. Not because it shows a ‘colonial’ mindset of our schools but because the education policy remains deeply flawed, unrelated to the ground realities. It should be common knowledge that the child from a poor family, with parents who are barely literate, cannot be expected to have a natural flair for education, much less a ‘foreign’ language which requires some extra ability to quickly grasp its intricacies.
Most women in Delhi, at least the ‘working’ ones, have long accepted that neither the law of the land nor the people entrusted with law enforcement can give them a sense of reasonable safety and security when they are travelling to and from their place of work. The cynics might add that safety and security for them inside the confines of their homes is equally tenuous!
Crimes such as domestic violence and dowry death are a sad commentary on a society that despite the presence of a ‘lunatic fringe’ claims to respect liberal traditions. Deplorable as they may be it can be argued that it is harder to eradicate these twin crimes since they take place within the ‘safer’ confines of homes, as compared to certain other crimes that take place in the ‘open’ and in front of groups, small or large.
One such is the crime of corporal punishment in schools. It is an infringement of the court’s diktat and duly prescribed laws. It will be naïve to imagine that there is no corporal punishment in the private—the so-called ‘English-medium--schools, but usually it takes place in overcrowded ‘government-run’ schools where the overwhelming number of students come from poorer backgrounds.
Shanoo Khan was a student of one such school. While it will be for a court to decide whether the teacher who is accused of punishing her was actually responsible for her death, it stands to reason that the poor girl had died as a result of some kind of physical ‘torture’ meted out to her in the school. That much was made out by the preliminary report of the autopsy.
There is also reason to suspect that the majority of teachers in ‘government-run’ schools are either ignorant of the law and the court order or have not been sensitised about the gravity of corporal punishment. It may well be that the majority of these teachers had grown up accepting corporal punishment as a troublesome reality of their life in school—and perhaps home too.
Many elderly persons may not be able to recall any day in their school life when corporal punishment was not being awarded to pupils. Parents of yore—maybe, many present ones also--with the reputation of being ‘strict disciplinarian’ were not averse to using harsher methods to keep their wards on the right track.
It is generally believed that corporal punishment is now less frequent in private schools than in the government schools. The reason is simple. The class which sends its children to private schools is associated with power and pelf. They have a voice that cannot be ignored. On the other hand, the parents of children in government schools are not only poor and meek but do not even know that a teacher who beats their ward in school can be booked for crime.
It can be said that as the society strives to be egalitarian more and more people are becoming aware of their ‘rights’. Not every parent who sends his/her child to the government school can be ignorant of the law that prohibits corporal punishment in school. Merely being aware of their ‘rights’ may not be enough for such parents if they are not backed by the enforcement agencies—schools and the police, in this case.
A question can be raised about the law itself. Section 88 of the Indian Penal Code protects parents and others who physically punish children if it is done with the ‘best intention.’ Section 89 gives indemnity for acts committed against children below 12 years. A review of these provisions may be an urgent need. Frankly, that will also prove futile if implementation of the law remains as slack as it is today.
Schools do tend to shield their erring teachers and the police have even lesser time to attend to crimes like corporal punishment. Let us assume for a moment that the teacher who had allegedly punished Shanoo Khan is not guilty. But why she was in the news had become known all over the city. It could be assumed that after the death of Shanoo Khan every teacher in Delhi was aware of what the tragedy was about.
Yet, there was a report a few days later that a teacher in another MCD-run school in Delhi had beaten not one but 10 pupils with a nail-riddled cane! Had the tragedy of Shanoo Khan registered with this teacher? Or, did this teacher think that beating students even with nail-riddled cane is not really a ‘corporal punishment’ as it is unlikely to lead to death unless the injuries are inflicted on certain vital parts of the body?
Clearly, there is need to create awareness about corporal punishment, but it has to be done in a more effective way. Something like the ‘movement’ that was started after the tragic death of 19-year-old Aman Kachroo due to ragging by his seniors in a medical college in Himachal Pradesh. It may seem uncharitable to ask, but is it necessary for the victim to come from an affluent family for a ‘movement’ to start?
- Asian Tribune -
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