The Supreme Court (SC) in its recent observation remarked that that a teacher asking students to slap a fellow student from a ‘particular’ community should shock the conscience of the state. However, the apex court’s conscience awakens selectively as it conveniently glosses over cases of abuse of Hindu children in schools. The important question is why this selective hypocrisy? In this article, we shall see incidents of ill-treatment of Hindu students that have failed to shock both the state and the SC.

What did the SC say?

The SC on Monday (September 25) orally remarked that the incident in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar should “shock the conscience of the state” if the viral video of a school teacher instructing students to slap a classmate from a particular community is found to be true.

A bench comprising Justices Abhay S. Oka and Pankaj Mithal pulled up UP (UP) Police for initially filing an NCR report on a complaint lodged by the victim’s father despite the commission of a cognizable offence.

Terming the incident as “serious”, the bench ordered that a senior IPS officer will conduct a probe into the FIR lodged after a delay of two weeks. The SC appeared surprised by the absence of communal allegations or a transcript of the contents of the viral video in the FIR.

Further, it observed that prima facie the state government failed to comply with the mandate of the Right to Education (RTE) Act, where corporal punishment and any kind of discrimination based on religion is strictly prohibited. “There cannot be any quality education if a student is sought to be penalised only on the ground that he belongs to a particular community,” the SC remarked.

It asked the state government to furnish a status report on the implementation of the RTE Act and directed it to provide counselling of the victim and other students by professional counsellors. Also, it repelled the objections raised by the state government on the locus of the PIL petitioner — Tushar Gandhi, a social activist and the great-grandson of Mahatma Gandhi. On September 6, the SC asked the UP Police to file a report regarding the status of the investigation and measures taken to protect the victim and his family.

A video went viral from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar where fellow students were seen slapping a 7-year-old at the behest of the teacher of a private school who referred to his faith absurdly.

The plea filed in the SC sought directions for a time-bound and independent investigation of the incident and the setting up of guidelines for preventing violence against students belonging to religious minorities in schools.

10 incidents of religious discrimination against Hindu students

Here are some incidents of abuse of Hindu students that should shock the SC and the state:

1) A shocking incident of a school headmistress breaking the hand of a Hindu student was reported from Karnataka’s Kolar. 7th-grade student Bhavyashree was severely beaten and abused by headmistress Hemalatha of Allikalli Village Primary School in KGF (Kolar Gold Fields) Taluk for worshipping Sri Ganesh. The girl’s left hand was fractured as a result of the severity of the punishment. The only punishment the headmistress received was a suspension.

2) Farooq Ahmed, a teacher at the Government Higher Secondary School (Bani), thrashed a Hindu student reportedly for writing Jai Shri Ram on the blackboard. The student had to be admitted to the hospital, and his father, Kuldeep Singh, complained to the police on August 25. He said that his son was beaten up by the teacher and the principal.

3) A class 10 student committed suicide after she was slapped, humiliated, and expelled from St. Xavier’s School for sporting a bindi. The incident took place in the Teltulmari neighbourhood in Jharkhand’s Dhanbad city. The girl reportedly went to the convent school, wearing a bindi on her forehead. She was humiliated by a teacher during the school assembly and also slapped twice in full public display. The student’s suicide note clearly holds the teacher and principal responsible for her death.

4) In a case of abuse reported from Jharkhand’s Bokaro Thermal, a class teacher thrashed a class 9 Hindu student for sporting a kalawa (sacred thread) on his wrist. The incident came to the fore from the government-aided Carmel High School which is a Hindi medium missionary school.

5) A class 11 student was mercilessly assaulted by teachers Bhupendra Verma and Shafiq Khan of Ujra Government School in Madhya Pradesh’s Chhatarpur because he wore a kada (sacred bracelet). When the boy cited that it was a religious symbol on being told to remove it, the duo thrashed the victim and forced him to dump the sacred bracelet in the drain. They also allegedly made him stand on the desk as punishment and threatened to fail him in the exams.

6) A Hindu student of a community school was harassed by his class teacher in MP’s (Madhya Pradesh) Ujjain for writing Jai Sri Ram on the blackboard.

7) Teacher Charan Markam of Government Middle School in Kondagaon district thrashed a group of class 7 and 8 students because they had kept Janmashtami fast. He was also accused of denigrating Hindu deities.

8) A case similar to the one in which the apex court made the aforementioned remark was reported from MP’s Raisen district. Nishat Begum, a teacher at Garatganj’s Government New Boys Secondary School, allegedly used some Muslim boys from outside the school to beat up class 8 Hindu student Pawan Sen. His ‘crime’ was that even after objections from the teacher, he used to go to school wearing a tilak. 

9) A Hindu girl student was thrashed by teacher Nisar Ahmed in J&K’s Rajouri turning up at school with a tilak on her forehead, put after Navratri pooja at home.

10) Jomon PT, principal of St. Joseph School, Bhanupratappur in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, expelled Hindu student Ansh Twari for refusing to cut his Shikha (lock of hair on the top or back of the head, kept by male Hindus). In 2016, St. Vincent Pallotti School in Bengaluru expelled a 3-year-old LKG student just because the child had a Shikha as part of his family’s Hindu religious traditions. The principal of the school, Paul D’Souza, dismissed the pleas of the boy’s father, and justified the expulsion saying that the school rules did not allow such ‘superstitious practices’.

These incidents are mere pointers of the numerous instances when Hindu students have been ill-treated in Indian schools across the country. It is futile to expect ‘activist’ Tushar Gandhi to show the same sensitivity in the above cases as he did in the Muzaffarnagar case. However, when everyone is equal before law, why does the apex court turn a blind eye when it comes to Hindus?

(With IANS inputs)