Headlines
Because SERVE stands for the elimination of suffering from the Indian classroom, and because the brouhaha over La Martiniere School for Boys is a situation where there has been and is much suffering in their classrooms, we speak here.
As an NGO we are against both corporal and psychological punishment of school children. In that context we hosted and professionally filmed a panel discussion on April 15th 2010 where the speakers included such experts as Sr Cyril, Ayesha Das, Sudeshna Sinha, Dr Aniruddha Deb, Dr Gauri Kumra and Dr Janaki Rajan, the last of whom we flew down from Delhi. Dr Kumra was a last-minute stand-in for Dr Fuad Halim who was suddenly called to the UK and because of the Iceland volcano could not get back in time. This is just to underline that we in SERVE are thoroughly active on this issue – and surprised that we have not been broached by the interested parties up to now. Perhaps our NGO is too pacific for the fiery proponents currently stoking the fires. We have also written to the newspapers in the same vein.
We know officially no more than the media are telling us. But education is our trade. We think it absurd that violence be used against an institution to demand that it forego violence in its classrooms. We sniff vendetta, smoke-screen tactics and a situation of “shout here because the argument is weak” emerging from the confrontations. We are not lawyers, but simply as educated lay folk we find the thread of the whole story a little difficult to sustain.
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| Sunirmal Chakravarthi at one of our functions |
Let us nail our colours to the mast. On the one hand we in SERVE maintain that the entire school education edifice is farcical in its operations throughout India – as, indeed, Kapil Sibal’s recent gestures have tacitly acknowledged. Given that, however, and within those terms, we think that La Martiniere for Boys is a good school, and that, while the use of the cane is itself contrary to all we believe in, and is therefore reprehensible, Mr Sunirmal Chakravarthi is by and large a good Principal.