Yet another child has been harassed by Christian school teachers for wearing Hindu sacred symbols. A girl wearing Vibhuti and Kumkum was humiliated and asked to rub it by government aided Christian school teachers in Tenkasi, Tamil Nadu.
A girl student of the Baren Bruck Higher Secondary school in Tenkasi was humiliated by her teachers for wearing Vibhuti (sacred ash) and Kumkum. Kalaivani, the 12th standard student has the habit of wearing the sacred symbols to school everyday. One day the PT teacher and two other teachers reprimanded her for wearing them and asked her to wipe them away.
When she refused to do so they called up another girl, humiliated her infront of her and asked the other girl to wipe the symbols. Depressed by this, the girl told her parents about the incident. Upon coming to know about it Hindu organisations and BJP came forward to help the girl and filed a complaint with the district collector.
The school is allegedly run by the Church of South India and is subsidised by the government. Hindu activists warned the school to not indulge in such anti-Hindu activities saying that they shouldn’t accept Hindu children if they didn’t like to see Hindu symbols. They made it clear that the management cannot run the school if not for the Hindus whose children are in majority and so their religious sentiments should be respected.
Hindu Munnani district secretary posted in FB that based on their complaint to the collector, the teachers have been suspended and the school management assured that students won’t be asked to wipe religious symbols. While Christian and Muslim children freely wear their religious symbols to schools Hindu children are continued to be harassed by abrahamic schools.
Last month in another CSI run government aided school in Kanchipuram, a Christian teacher had abused 2 boys for wearing Vibhuti and Rudraksh. He said “only rowdies and misfits wear them” and humiliated the boys in front of their classmates. Perhaps this unbridled hatred for Vibhuti stems from their hate for gau mata and her worship.
Recently, a Christian anchor working for DMK first family owned tv channel had mocked wearing Vibhuti in front of impressionable young kids. Saying that it is produced by burning cow dung, he mocked a little girl who supposedly eats Vibhuti saying, “We will eat it even after knowing huh? It doesn’t matter which shit it is. Is it that tasty? Maybe we should try licking cow dung once”.
In October, CM MK Stalin had participated in the 75th anniversary of the Church of South India and said “The government in power in Tamil Nadu was “formed” by you”. CSI runs thousands of institutions across the state and most of them are aided by the government.
Christian schools, being minority institutions, are exempted from the Right to Education Act and receive funds from the government to refurbish and expand their institutions under Development of Minority Educational Institutions scheme. Even though they run them using government funds, they have full autonomy in appointing staff, admission process and other administrative works. Despite the fact that they get Hindus’ hard earned money through government subsidy and Hindu children’s fees, they continue to harass Hindu children for wearing their religion on their sleeves.
