Spare the rod

La Martiniere for Boys at Kolkata school has found itself in the news over the suicide of a student, ostensibly because he had been repeatedly humiliated and caned by the school’s teachers and principal. The school seems to have held some sort of an internal inquiry and absolved all the staff of any wrongdoing. The boy’s father has since taken up the matter and the school now finds that it is being questioned.

The progress of the case over the culpability of the school and the pain of the parents of Rouvanjit Rawla is now a matter of investigation. The school’s principal has admitted to the caning and even conceded to newspapers that the incident was regrettable.The West Bengal government has taken note of the case as has Union human resources minister, Kapil Sibal. This unfortunate episode brings up the question about corporal punishment in schools in India — in spite of it being forbidden by law — and how difficult it is for parents and guardians to take action against such schools.

The fear that their child will be thrown out or victimised often stops parents from demanding action against that very victimisation. The concern for a “good education” is so strong that schools all too often find it very easy to get away with illegal behaviour. Very often, schools follow archaic systems and ideas about discipline and operate as closed and insular societies which refuse to allow any external scrutiny. Corporal punishment is rampant across schools in India and this particular Kolkata school was, it can be argued, only following the norm.

However the dictum of “spare the rod and spoil the child” is no longer accepted as the correct way to discipline children. The idea of the rights of the child has developed over the 20th century and bodily harm to ensure discipline is either frowned upon or banned by law in most civilised nations. But schools in India possibly find it very hard to keep up with changing times and laws and find it easy to fall back on old, established patterns of behaviour.

The Right to Education Bill makes its views on corporal punishment very clear. Perhaps, as we have started to take education more seriously in this century, we can find ways to enforcing such laws and augment state education departments with enough manpower and funds to take on erring schools. Parents must also have a greater say in the way schools are run and the manner in which their children are treated.