Say & repeat: Hitting children is wrong

Hitting children is wrong. These four words need to be spelt out since not every law-abiding citizen in circa 2023 India seems to think it applies to them, especially if they happen to be adults in positions of power and responsibility over young people. An FIR has been filed against Tripti Tyagi, the Muzaffarnagar teacher who ‘outsourced’ the meting out of corporal punishment of a 7-year-old to his classmates in the form of a barrage of slaps. Tyagi’s explanation for fomenting this proto-lynch mob mentality inside a classroom – that she is differently abled, and so had to direct others to do the needful – is downright macabre.

What is worrying is that taking the adage ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child‘ literally – rather than as a metaphor to maintain discipline – is not confined to small-town, narrow-minded districts in UP. The very day after Tyagi’s ‘crime’, a principal and a teacher of a school in Bani, Jammu, Mohammed Hafiz and Farooq Ahmed, had reportedly confined and physically ‘punished’ a student. An FIR has been registered while the boy has been hospitalised with bruises and internal injuries. Corporal punishment, like ragging, must be recognised as crime, and not tolerated as part of some perverted notion of ‘tough love’.

Section 17(1) of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009 bans subjecting a minor to mental or physical punishment. Cruelty to children is prohibited under Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act 2015. These laws are all there for the taking, holding adults liable for corporal punishment of children. But the (figurative) whip must come down on perpetrators. Adding a communal layer to violence against children makes the offence more grotesque.