A school principal and his associate in Kakinada district in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh mercilessly beat three blind students — as if they were going to kill them. And someone videotaped it.
And then media got the video, and aired it on TV just a few days later. Then, angry parents raided the school, and beat up the perpetrators. I’m posting the Telugu-language news video. Watch it. Hear the helpless screams of those young, blind children as their teachers cane them — ten, fifteen, twenty times. If you feel uncomfortable and helpless and angry, it’s your problem.
I do not support the angry parents’ beating up of the principal. But I support their anger.
I especially feel the pain of those kids. I know what horror they went through. Because I was there.
I have many reasons to be ashamed of India. I have many reasons to be proud of India too. But right now, I’d like to focus on the reasons I’m ashamed of the country I have so much love for. You find the statement strange? Okay, that’s your problem too.
Merciless beating of school children, by their teachers inside the classroom, is one reason I’m ashamed of India. Because, I was there. I went through it. India has not changed in half a century. Those malls and money machines and MTV are meaningless. India has not changed.
Then of course, gang raping, killing and hanging of young girls would be another recent reason for me to be ashamed of India. A film star politician’s open vitriol threatening rape of girls from opposition families is another reason. A country of one billion people run by corrupt politicians and their musclemen, mafia and crooks is another reason I am ashamed of my motherland.
There are many other reasons.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9uMkKxQdAg]
Here is the video. Watch it. Feel the way the principal’s cane hits the soft, young skin of those kids in the classroom. Hear their begging for mercy. See how they wrap around the teacher’s legs asking for forgiveness. See how the two child molesters use their supreme power to punish their powerless, vulnerable subjects.
And these students are blind. Not that it would matter.
Feel uncomfortable. Feel angry. And then, perhaps, do something about it.
Shame my shameless, cruel, uncivilized India.
Partha
Brooklyn, New York
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So disgusting! But not surprising. I was reading Indian news last night and it was so sad to read a rape story here and there. But then every time I read the news an Indian girl ( mostly minors) are being raped while nothing in terms of proper legal action that denotes a sense of urgency for justice is visible from the Indian government, police, or legal authorities. The priorities of the Indian leaders is clearly visible and they are apparently financial or power gains. The safety or good of the Indian people is definetly not on their to-do-list.
Disgusting stories. Real life stories. One after the other. On and on and on. I connect to them personally. Been there. Seen it. Went through it.
It is a shame how we treat our children calling them ‘future’ citizens when we should call them adults interrupted! Our children like often women and the poor and marginalised have no rights! We believe in power and welfare is charity to further the feeling of being powerful.all the laws in the land do little for children.i work only for child participation to empower children we need children’s move mention I this land of insensitive adults who see children as objects to feed their ways to recover from their own feelings of low self esteem and to recruit them as teachers is pathetic and we do that as well.Goa is seeing the fate of 13 children referred to as HIV orphans being denied admission in schools and we are fighting for them -I feel like you ashamed of my country right now and the Big International AIDS conference is on next door in Melbourne and here discrimination goes on despite many years of work since 1986 of government and NGO’s doing work to stop discrimination! Painful state of affairs but the moral as rights trained people we should not lose heart or give up we have to overcome and empower children all the time.
The most disturbing thing, other than the extreme nature of the classroom violence, is the fact that NOTHING has changed in India. I experienced it forty years ago. Yesterday, a new video surfaced where a woman private tutor is kicking is brutally beating a four year old child in Calcutta.
What has changed is putting an icing now with no cake! Since There is a widening of gaps due to a consumer culture catching up globalisation!!!! Before which at least those who never had much materially still enjoyed family ties and support now each is for him herself and fighting to make more money to lead a craven lifestyle or just for survival! No one cares and the state has abdicated its responsibilities as well farming out its job to mainly NGO’s who become often government stooges or for funds follow alien agendas!! The Indian poor especially children suffer the worst fate ever still which has maybe increased with the closing in of world causing decimation of cultural values often detrimentally ! Human rights remains the hope now.
If you make an investigation into each school — elementary, middle and high — you will see the same pattern all across the country. Only the top 5 to 10 percent are probably exception, when it comes to child beating. Major brutal abuse. Physical. And emotional abuse is rampant everywhere. No exception.