“Spare the rod and spoil the child” was the old dictum. Now that the print and electronic media have highlighted the suicide of Rouvanjit Rawla, allegedly after having been caned by Sumrinal Chakraborty, the Principal of La Martiniere, Kolkata, we have another trial by the media. It makes for good copy and TRPs. Shobhaa De, in her column “Cane and able: what a terrible idea sirji” (Times of India 13th June), has already passed judgement. She alleges that the “viciousness of combined attacks on him (one report mentioned the cane broke on the child’s back) were obviously enough for him to go in search of the killer rope”.
She then concludes that “no teacher from the school had thought it necessary to alert the Rawlas to their son’s indiscipline”. She then admits that the incident “revived long buried memories of being frequently caned myself as a schoolgirl … by a towering woman representing a Scottish mission”. She remained silent then, but now feels that “it is important to keep up the pressure and punish those responsible for driving Rouvanjit to take his life. The era of adopting the so-called traditional cane and able modus operandi to make errant kids toe the line are over, Mr Chakraborty”. Without ascertaining all the facts and circumstances, has Shobhaa already pronounced the guilty verdict? Yeh shobha nahin dehta.
I usually appreciate Shobhaa’s column, but this time her ogres of the past seemed to have haunted her in the present, and determined her future course of action. I do not fault her. However, other than the trial by media, I feel that the root causes are not being addressed. We are sparring over the merits or demerits of sparing the rod, in this case the cane. The real issue is – why do young people commit suicide? What are the factors that abet suicidal tendencies? Who is to blame – the educational system, the media, parents, societal norms, or religious and community leaders? Is it fair to offer simplistic answers to complex issues?
Like Shobhaa I too will delve into the past. At the tender age of 7 I was packed off to boarding school – St Joseph’s College, Nainital (SJC), run by the Irish Christian Brothers. After 8 years there I spent another 1½ years in boarding at La Martiniere College, Lucknow (LMC), the brother institution of the one in Kolkata. In SJC the “Brothers” walked around with heavy leather straps in their deep pockets. They were convenient for “benders”; bend down and take the whack on your backside. The leather straps gradually disappeared, but the Malacca canes remained. Like cricket bats, they were cured in oil, to make them more effective! Being the youngest in my class I was an “innocent” guy. Yet I got caned twice in those 8 years. I once got 2 shots on the hand because I had not trimmed my fingernails; on another occasion I got 4 benders for going to the toilet during study time! Terrible sirji! (We always called the brothers “Sir”). I was not in need of reform. This cruelty deformed or stunted my growth. I hated the “Brothers”. I did not find anything Christian or brotherly in them. I say this with sadness, not bitterness.
There were several errant boarders who regularly got caned. They padded their posteriors with exercise books to make the benders less lethal. But it did not transform them. They actually basked in the glory of having taken it. The rod was not working. There was a boy called Tommy, who was a kleptomaniac and prone to violence. No amount of caning helped. He was eventually rusticated. Food for thought.
My thoughts now move to LMC. It was another elitist institution like SJC, with one big difference. It had a large presence of foundationers – economically deprived Anglo Indian boys. Many were from broken homes, or a social milieu struggling to come to grips with their loss of privileged status in post-independent India. They harboured resentment, expressed in violent behaviour. It made them good boxers and rugby players. But that was not enough to give vent to their frustration or sense of loss. So they often got six of the best, where it hurt the most.
Here comes the twist in the tale, which was actually straightening the twist in the tail. The thrashings made men of these boys, with many of them pursuing successful careers in later life. I am not trying to justify these thrashings. Nor am I passing judgement. I am only telling the tale like it is. How did these foundationers develop a strong foundation? LMC is not a missionary school. Claude Martin, a French general, founded it, for deprived Eurasians (Anglo Indians).
Here is where I see the contrast between SJC and LMC. The latter had Masters, who often came from similar backgrounds as that of the foundationers. Hence, even though they were strict with the boys, they also loved them. This caused the transformation. In contrast, my Irish Brothers, or Shobhaa’s Scottish ogre, were celibates, who were supposed to live a life of chastity. Unfortunately they misconstrued it. Instead of liberating them to be more loving, it made them restrictive, unable to express emotion or affection, interpreted as a sign of weakness. The understanding of celibacy has changed for the better today, but that is how it was when I, or Shobhaa, went to school.
I would like to make another distinction between boarding and day schools. In SJC we were in “prison’ for nine months at a stretch. We missed parental guidance and support. That is not so for day scholars, for whom school is an outing. Rouvanjit was a day scholar, living with his parents. Had he been a boarder, the onus for his suicide would have been more on the school or the Principal. Since he was living a presumably normal family life, I cannot accept that a single act of caning led him to suicide. There is much more to it than meets the eye. The delayed reaction of 4 months in filing the case also raises eyebrows. Is somebody with an axe to grind (didn’t get admission) prodding the deceased’s father to seek revenge?
I am also reminded of a close family friend who was a senior teacher in a convent school. She migrated to England and took up a teaching assignment. She gave it up in exasperation, as the kids were uncontrollable, in the absence of any form of corporal punishment. Were they sparing the rod and spoiling the child?
What lessons can we learn from these events? The first lesson I learnt was that I was not going to send my children to a boarding school. Nor did I send them to a missionary school, even though I was then the National President of the All India Catholic Union. Nor did I send them to a pressure cooker public school. We sent them to an ordinary Hindi medium school meant for the children of factory workers. They emerged as holistic human beings. They didn’t have cutting edge competitiveness. But they had the spirit of co-operation, which modern society desperately requires.
Rouvanjit, we are saddened at your death. Our love and sympathy to your family. Mr Chakraborty, chuck out the cane, it doesn’t work today.
We need to replace anger with patience, fear with love, and competition with co-operation. Families, educationists, spiritual and community leaders need to discover the transforming and healing power of love, of which the Bible says: “In love there is no room for fear, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear implies punishment, and whoever is afraid has not come to perfection in love” (1 Jn 4:18).
Instead of sparring over the rod, let us spare some more time for loving our children, as also the unloved. That would be a lovely idea sirji!
* The writer has been actively engaged in youth counselling. He will address the specific issue of suicide in his collorary to this piece.
JUNE 2010
No comments:
Post a Comment