Boy Beaten To Death By Principal!

Your parents are unable to pay your school fees of about 4000  rupees. What do you think your principal will do? Suspend you for a month or maybe even throw you out of the school.

A similar incident happened in Bareiley, Uttar Pradesh where a 7-year-old boy’s school fees was due and look what the school principal did. He beat the child to death. The principal killed the boy in rage.

The postmortem report says the boy died of head injury. The principal banged the boy’s head to the wall and killed him. The principal is filed with the case of culpable homicide and yet not arrested.

A small issue which could be solved by a few talks and arrangements ended up with the cost of life.

Reference: NDTV India

This reminds me of a couple of incidents which happened in the recent past.

A boy chained with his legs and hands cuffed for not studying in Telangana school and how can one forget the rape on little girls in Bangalore schools.

School was considered a sense of big relief of working parents and today it’s turning up to become a sense of agony and it is a pain to imagine where it is headed next. I can only sit back with amazement and a slight amount of disgust in the proceedings :(.

If I remember right, there was a huge debate a couple of years ago about banning corporal punishment in India. I am not sure what happened to that later.

• – A lot of people seemed to believe that beating a child up can bring order
• – They feel that it is the only way to bring order to a naughty kid’s life
• – Or is that they do it because it is the easiest thing to do?

Cos, let us face it, trying to reason with someone and explaining it to a kid is a lot of work. Why would someone want to go through all that trouble when a simple answer is in the form of a stick? Isn’t that an easy way out?

Well! It probably is! But at what cost is it being done? And what are the faults for which a kid is being beaten for? For being a Kid???

It is insane to know that we are behaving as cave men even after years and years of evolution. There have been debates about human rights, nobel prizes, humanity and what not – it seems to be lacking at the most important aspect of a person’s life – Childhood.

Now, coming to think of this incident –

Why did the principal do it?

The possible answers we could think of

• – The boy did not pay the fees, the principal got angry – simple isn’t it?
• – Also there is no one who questions a principal in the school right?
• – What are the options of culpability. I agree that this matter crossed the edge, but what if the case ended in a smaller injury to the boy? Would the principal have been treated with a punishment? Is there at all a fear to hold someone back from doing such a feat?
• – What about the local community? The mob and its behavior are always interesting, but a mob usually reacts when situations are out of control. In other words, it is just a little too late for someone.

How can we solve this? 

– An active community?

Is there a way we can ensure that there is a forum where the helpless can go to? If a child faces problems at school – where does he go? Certainly not the police – they are not easily accessible and as a child they would be a little scared of authority.

How about a forum where these kids can talk. Just the parents alone will not do, there has to be an option to vent out at school

– Fearless children? 

Yes! Make the child fearless – And by that – I don’t mean to say that he/she should take a beating. Nor do I mean to say that the child should strike back. But we need to ensure that the child is fearless enough to talk about what is happening at school. We need to ensure that the child feels safe to talk about what happens in school and that the child is assured to be heard with respect and a helping hand.

– The child helpline

Do we have helplines to help children being abused in school? If so, are these helplines accessible to children? Granted that they are children and there might be a few frivolous complaints to start with. But that will just be the start and not the end. If a child helpline is not accessible to the child, then what is it for?

– A social network?

What about a conscious network like a neighborhood watch which meets once a fortnight or a month, which keeps a watch over these schools? For a country like India where the number of schools are huge, what can be a controlling mechanism?

I am sure that if we put our heads together, we can come up with some very interesting solutions. But meanwhile, a boy died just cos a principal got angry over a sum of Rs.4000/-

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