Vrindavan, 2015.09.20 (Swami Balendu, Jaisiyaram blog): You may know Pawan, either because you have been at the Ashram already or because you have read my diary regularly and got to know that he has been living here, at the Ashram, for more than six years already. We love him like our son – and that is the reason that we were hurt, just like parents would be, when we got to know what is happening in his new school.
When the summer holidays came to an end in June, Pawan was excited: with the beginning of July, a new chapter of his life would start. Since he had come to the Ashram, he had gone to the Swami Balendu E.V. Primary School but in the new school year, he would go to another school, the Indian Public School in Vrindavan. We bought a bicycle for him to go there, all the admission fees were paid, his uniforms bought and his school books purchased as well.
It was exciting but we had asked the principal one thing for sure when we admitted him there: do your teachers hit? Do you use corporal punishment at your school? You all know that this was one reason for opening our own school: we wanted to assure that our children don’t get beaten in school. It is also one reason for my plans to build more free-of-cost schools, combined with restaurants, so that unprivileged children can learn for free and without being beaten! Non-violence and a loving environment are the heart values of our school! We were assured that in their school, no such thing took place. Only after this commitment, we admitted our boy.
Little did we know how much these people would go against their own words!
If you have met Pawan, you know that he is a rather quiet boy by nature. After a few weeks at his school, we noticed that something in his behavior was off, he was even quieter than usual. We straight-forward asked him: what is going on? Did something happen in school? That’s when the whole story spilled.
Since the first week that he had gone to this school, teachers had been hitting his classmates and him. With sticks onto their hands but sometimes even on the legs, the back, wherever the teacher could reach. He himself had been hit before and also on that day. He showed us his hands – they were red and hurt him, something that took two days to get better.
The stories he told were horrible: every teacher had a stick and whenever they found someone had not done their homework or did a mistake, they asked one child to get it for them. After that, the one who did the mistake had to stretch out his or her hands. Normally, the strokes would go on the hands but if the teacher was very angry, he or she would hit anywhere else. Often enough, there was not even a reason for this violence.
Had he told this to the principal, we asked, and got to know more: the principal herself did her rounds of the school and wherever she saw it fit, would beat students herself! How would you feel safe to complain to such a principal?
We were heartbroken, sad and angry! The boy whom we had kept safe from this for so many years in our own school had to experience such abuse! I remembered my own childhood and all the anger of that time about such brutal treatment of children.
What should we do?
We tried to find out more about other schools, wondering whether we should just take him out and put him into another one. The problem was that those who ran the schools were lying about physical punishment anyway, how could we trust it wouldn’t be the same there as well? We asked friends whose children go to those schools – and got to know what we already suspected: corporal punishment is happening in all those schools!
There is one more option: homeschooling. We decided that this could be an option for us – but what would that help all the children of that school who are daily being beaten, in every subject, by every teacher? Was it enough for us just to have our school and then home-school our Ashram’s children afterwards?
After a discussion with Pawan, we decided together to make an effort to make a change. We bought and then gave Pawan a hidden camera which he took to school for the next week or ten days. The video clips he brought back were more than enough to prove what he had told. You can watch them below and if you are anything like us, they will agitate you as much as they did us!
Pawan’s class teacher came into class one day and started hitting the complete class, simply because a few other teachers had complained to her about the class! Everybody was beaten. A few boys arrived at exactly that time and she hit them without them having any clue for what! A boy whom she had sent to fetch something arrived back – he wasn’t spared either! Finally, she promised them that she would repeat this daily for a complete week so that they would learn from it and if they didn’t, she would make them stand as a ‘cock’, with the head down, grabbing the ears from behind their legs for the complete day!
The clips go on and show brutal beating of boys and girls alike by many different teachers, without reason, for small offenses, humiliating them, beating them even on the head. ‘Leave your village attitude in your village!’, you can hear in the clip and ‘You daily get beaten but it doesn’t make a difference because you are so used to it! Even if you were kicked with legs, you wouldn’t change!’
We are proud of Pawan that he brought this proof of child abuse even though he was afraid for getting beaten himself. What would they have done had they found the camera on him?
When we had a few clips, we decided to start acting against it. I had a long talk with the President of our state’s Commission for the Protection of Child Rights, Mrs. Juhie Singh, and reported the incidents to her. I was assured of her action.
The next day we went to the principal. At first, she denied everything but when Pawan insisted with our support, she called two of his teachers. They spilled the whole truth and confirmed everything we had already seen on the video. The class teacher told she had hit the whole class because she didn’t know who had been misbehaving. So she simply beat everyone – you can imagine the atmosphere in class when the teacher can just simply tell this without any hint of regret of apology! When the principal started telling them, that they should have sent any misbehaving child to her instead, we confronted her with the truth we knew: that she herself hit children as well!
We told them very clearly that corporal punishment was a criminal offence for which you could even land in jail! And we handed them the ‘Guidelines for the Elimination of Corporal Punishment’ issued by the CBSE, the Central Board of Secondary Education, which this school is affiliated to!
The answer? ‘Oh, but there are so many rules, if we followed all of them, we couldn’t do anything!’ The principal tried to justify their actions in the same way former teachers at our school had when we fired them for landing a hand on a child just once: ‘But what should you do when a child gets out of hand?’ The principal, whose stick was lying just beside her, went on to say, ‘Okay, the stick is wrong but you have to do SOMETHING to control these children!’
They tried to convince us to keep sending Pawan to their school, promising that he would not be hit anymore. It was not all about him, though, it was about all the other children as well! When we demanded a written commitment that no child would be beaten anymore, we were denied.
The principal sent us to the director, her husband, who owns the school together with her. This meeting was very short, as he was very disrespectful and rude. He did not even ask me to sit down, simply denied everything and told us ‘Go and do whatever you want to do.’ Obviously, he didn’t know that we had proof. We simply left. It was of no value to talk further.
When we came back to the Ashram, we received a phone call by a former neighbour whom they also know. He said ‘Why do you get into trouble with them? This director’s brother has once put a pistol on someone’s head!’ Indirectly, this was a clear threat. We answered that he could try to shoot us all but we would do what had to be done.
Our next step was to contact the media. They took their interview and we handed them over our video clips. We created the video below and their program will most probably run tonight, making it all public.
For us, it is about more than just these teachers, this principal or this school. It is about the society and the children of this country! People believe, violence is necessary for children to learn! Children are afraid to raise their voice, parents afraid to complain. Parents think they have no other chance, their child’s year of learning would be wasted if they had to take him out of school.
Violence and a fearful environment don’t help learning. On the contrary, they harm children and keep them from developing in a healthy way! Children learn so much more when surrounded bypositivity and love!
I want to help children who get beaten in school, I want to let them know that this is illegal, that there is a way to report it – and your name will not even become public if you do!
Dear parents, believe me, this is harmful for your child. Whenever you get to know that this is happening to your child, don’t stay quiet! Raise your voice, talk to the teachers, the school administration and other parents, bring it out in public and get active against this abuse!
Dear children, don’t be afraid to speak up! Tell your parents what is happening, get active yourself, report what has happened to you.
I am also here for you, if you need help, please feel free to contact me. I will stand with you and support you in any way I can.
We have to make a change in this country, in this society, for the sake of our children!
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