The recent incident of a girl victimized by seven teachers at her school to the extent of tormenting the girl physically and mentally has taken up my attention in so many levels. One is the fact that I was one of the victims to such attacks in my childhood. So, I personally know how the world would reason it as just a matter of “disciplining” and it is natural for the child to complain and child’s embarrassment is going to lead to “better conduct”. Another is, as a person who indirectly knows one of the teachers from the same school through an acquaintance I got to see a totally different perspective on the whole issue. Third as a journalism student I have a totally different outlook towards the issue as the media is being blamed for the chaos and blowing it out of proportion.

Blame Game: It has all ended up as a cheap blame game in a cyclic way. The teachers and the school management is blaming the media for being the puppets of the influential strings of the schools around this school, in order to cut the competition from this school…quiet the marketing technique! To this blame the media houses like Suvarna (Kannada), were probably forced to find “another angle” to the story by emphasizing on the strained relationships between the child’s mother and Step father. Then both the teachers and the media come to another probable conclusion where they label the child a “liar” since she always told her teachers not to give her any negative remarks in the books or her father would yell at her and then she “lied” to her parents that the teachers always yelled at her unreasonably. One has to also understand that this issue is also a bigger issue than it would be because of the other similar stories that has been surfacing in the news, one being: a boy studying in a Residential school in Hyderabad was chained to a pole for three days with the intention of making him less naughty, or rather less childlike. I can even recall many 24 hour news channels like NDTV and CNN IBN doing special reports on this same issue taking statements from not only the teachers, the school, the parents, the children and also child psychologists- discussing the way disciplining is done in schools.

Shame Shame: All the blaming and the allegations against each other and also everyone who is even remotely related to it, is just a matter of shame. The way the police took it light, the way the media over did it (probably), the way teachers are not even ready to put their heads out (if they are innocent as they claim), the way that girl is conveniently labeled a liar so that we as a society can sit back and forget the issue and let this barbarism continue feeding on our irresponsibility and ignorance.

Escapism: This is a classic case of escapism from the social evils that torment the young souls of this country. A filler to snuggly fit into our newspapers, the teachers still not out in the open, all the grey areas in the management and criminal aspects of the case is all ESCAPISM.

It’s a pity! : Now let me make this disclaimer, its not that I am coming to a conclusion that these teachers are wrong, or that the child is an actual liar, my point is why is it that teachers have to retort to such barbaric measures of disciplining. It is a disgrace how teachers especially those dealing with school children are not trained even in the basic in Child Psychology. The teachers’ behavior was child like and immature and proved this by ganging up against this girl, also using the excuse of disciplining for venting out their anger. If the girl is a liar, then why can’t we try to explain why does she lie so much instead of using it as an way out of the problem? If the girl did tell her teachers that she was treated badly at home, then why didn’t the teacher help her, or take her to a counselor? Why can’t we take things like this more seriously instead of seeing it as a media hype? Why can’t we just see to it that the childhood is nourished and kept healthy? I know its not as big as child molesting, child labor, but it is a evil to hurt a child this way, for being a child, for being innocent, or for just asking for attention or for help, or at least for letting a child be!!