Videos of mentally challenged students studying in a Christian school in Tamil Nadu made to clean toilets have gone viral on social media. They were made to do sanitary work by a teacher working at the school. The principal of the school alleged that the teacher did it intentionally as his demands for a position were not fulfilled. Recently another similar incident happened in Pune in which a Catholic priest made ‘Dalit’ students clean his toilet and hurled casteist abuses at them.

After the video of students cleaning toilets went viral on social media, relevant authorities initiated action against the teacher. As per media reports, students appearing in the video are from the CSI School for the Mentally Retarded, a government-aided school for the mentally challenged children in Satchiyapuram, Sivakasi. More than 100 mentally challenged kids study in this school and some of them were made to clean the toilets in the school with brooms and brushes. Following outrage as the video of them doing sanitary work went viral, the concerned teacher was arrested. A news 18 Tamil report says that the Principal put the blame on a teacher saying that he wanted to smear the former’s name.

Joseph Dinakaran, the Principal said that Immanuel, a primary class teacher working at the school made the children clean toilets, filmed it and spread it on social media to bring him disrepute. It is alleged that Immanuel was upset about not getting the Principal post. Officials from the Department of Social Justice visited the school to probe the issue. They said, “Upon investigating teachers and students it is clear that Immanuel made the students clean toilets. He has been taken to the police station for further investigation”.

Media tried to downplay the inhumane act by reporting mainly about Immanuel’s grouse with the principal. The school gets monetary aid from the Tamil Nadu government which could mean that the teachers are paid by the government. Yet there is no question about how the institution is being run. When there were complaints about Hindu run schools, some of them unsubstantiated, both the media mafia and social media influencers went after them viciously.

However, when such crimes happen in Christian or Muslim schools it is touted as an individual crime. Recently there was an incident in which the Director of a prominent Christian education mission hurled caste-slurs at a technical education institution’s director-principal, torturing and making him and his students clean toilets. The Christian priest abused them saying, “You low-caste ‘chamars’, ‘bhangis’, ‘thieves’ and ‘Ambedkar aulaad (progeny)’ have no right to touch or drink this water… You can drink the water from the same toilet which you have cleaned.”