Is Bullying a Reality in India?
There I am at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya School- a government school, residential and co-ed.
The children seem very happy, nice and gentle. By seeing their attitudes in class and during lunch, I do believe bullying does not exist there. They all seem to accept each other well. Most of them are children from rural area (70%) and girls and boys are about the same numbers. However, we know, considering India’s diversity there are probably children with different religions, different languages, different cultures.
I believe the fact that the school does teach them every day, during lessons and assemblies, on how to help each other, how to serve and be served, how to do the right thing and be accepting, is a factor that helps the children to get along well.
However, I kept asking myself and others: Is bullying a reality in India?
At first, I talked to the teachers at our host school Jawahar, and they affirmed that bullying was not an issue at their school and it was not prevalent at other Indian schools.
Then we went to a college in Goa: Chowgule. There, a Sociology professor, Andrew, asked the audience, freshman students, this question. Silence. So Andrew told us about his story. He was bullied when he was a little boy. Andrew, son of two Goa natives, was born in Dubai. There he never realized how dark his skin was. Then, when his parents moved back to Goa, he got bullied due to his skin color. He said the teasing and bullying were constant. With this sad story, I was hoping more students would open up and tell their stories. However, two freshman students talked and they both talked on how well accepted they were in every school they went.
My mind was still confused. Is bullying a less serious deal in India? By teaching them values, are they getting prepared to be more accepting?
In the afternoon, we talked to more students, now Communications students. They also all talked about their wonderful time at school and how they were all accepted and well-treated.
Well, maybe bullying occurs very rarely in India, I thought.
Then, we had this meeting with TEA-ILE alumni teachers. The question was asked again. Now, most of them told me: bullying does exist, the problem is that people is still blind to it. Confusion…. What kind of bullying? Why? How?
Then, a teacher came to my rescue and illuminated my path. Sonia Makheeja, a High-School English teacher, told me about the most common cases of bullying in India: hierarchy and anger toward this hierarchy. That is, parents need to be respected at all costs. If a son or daughter expresses his/her different tastes or opinions, in many families, this is considered a disrespect. So this boy or girl will feel anger, because his/her opinions are not valued and they are in a way “bullied” to respect the parents’ opinion. Now, this anger cannot be directed to their parents; their anger will be directed to whoever has less power. Teachers can also bully children. Some teachers are too strict and they may abuse their power to “discipline” the students. Again, students will feel anger, but who will suffer the effects of this anger: somebody younger or with less power.
Also, due to this hierarchy, some older students feel they have more power than the younger ones and they will abuse their power. For example, if an older boy goes to a restroom and a younger boy is there, he may just order him to leave, because he is older, he has a privilege.
According to Makheeja, bullying is more common among boys, even though, another common kind of bullying is called “ragging” in India, which is hazing. (Is Hazing Worse in India?). According to Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education, a non-profit lobby group, “52 hazing incidents [were] reported in India's English-language media between June and September of 2007,” with 6 suicides being blamed on harassment, mostly among boys.
The Indian Supreme Court, in a recent report, declared: "If education... is to serve as the lever to the great surge forward of the Indian nation, the scourge of ragging which corrodes the vitals of our campuses needs to be curbed." (Thanawala). This system is a legacy from British elite schools, which now have eliminated this custom. However, this custom is still very traditional in Indian and Asian colleges. Some people, even see this as something natural and beneficial. The seniors should have the right to control freshmen, according to many college students. However, after seniors feel the taste of power, many of them abuse it, and things can get much more serious. Even though the Indian Supreme Court and other institutions have been trying to curb this custom, there has not been a decline on the same. “Harsh Agarwal, co-founder of the Coalition to Uproot Ragging, says the practice will stop only if there's a cultural shift in colleges.” Agarwal says: "When an entire society believes in this, how is enforcement of the law possible?" (“Is Hazing Worse in India?”)
So this system of a hierarchal bullying, where some parents, teachers and senior students feel that they have the right to bully others, causes a lot of anger. So, most bullies are first a bully victim. According to Magdalene Jeyarathnam, of East West Centre for Counselling … “children who bully others in school are generally victims of bullying at home. "The environment at home tends to carry on to school and the child does not know how to deal with the pent up anger," (Child is bullied in school).
So is bullying as prevalent in India as it is in United States? “ A recent study by research agency IMRB and ParentCircle, has revealed that every third child is bullied in school. The pan-India study covered 2,700 respondents, with parents and children in equal number.” Some principals, such as Hindu Senior Secondary School principal J Srinivasa Raghavan, believe that even though bullying does exist, these numbers are exaggerated. (“Every third child is bullied…”)
However, when reading the newspapers in India, we would find serious cases of bullying, many leading to suicides. For example, in this article from 2015, a 14-year old boy, Shubham, died by being fatally beaten by two classmates. The classmates started bullying him after he was chosen to be the class monitor. Shubham and the father complaint about the bullying. So the principal called the mother of one the bullies at school. The mother went to the school, listened to the teacher and spank the boy in front of all his classmates. The boy was angry due to this public humiliation, so he directed his anger at Shubham. “A few days later he planned the brutal attack with a classmate, and on Sunday the two led Shubham into a trap where he was beaten up fatally.” (“Shubham died at school.”)
As mentioned before, bullying can also be practiced by teachers, sometimes in a non-physical way, such as calling out only their favorites, not helping the ones who need help, being extra-strict and abusing their power by calling names or humiliating the students in front of the classroom. However, in some instances, even physical abuse may happen. For example, in this article “Class VII girl faints after teacher pulls her hair in government school,” a Hindi teacher pulled the hair of a 7th grade girl due to an issue about “subject.” The girl ends up in a hospital and now she does not want to go back to school. If this girl has a supportive family, she may find another way to disperse her anger due to this humiliation. However, if she keeps this anger inside of her, she may end up bullying another girl with less “power” than her, maybe younger, or less smart, or even less pretty.
In conclusion, bullying is a serious issue in India, as it is a serious issue all over the world. The fact that a lot of children live in with a big family structure added to the teaching of righteousness at school and at home, may help a lot of children to become good citizens by respecting and accepting others. However, in some schools and families, where respect means not having your own opinion and accepting being humiliated as a normal consequence of “disrespect,” children may become very angry and this anger will be directed to others, specially the ones with less “power.”
Bibliography:
Article:
Every third child is bullied in school, shows study - Ranjani Ayyar | TNN | Sep 3, 2015, 05.11 AM IST retrieved from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Every-third-child-is-bullied-in-school-shows-study/articleshow/48781789.cms
Article: Shubham died as school didn't rein in bullies, says father
Anvit Srivastava | TNN | Aug 26, 2015, 12.42 AM IST retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Shubham-died-as-school-didnt-rein-in-bullies-says-father/articleshow/48674520.cms
Article:Class VII girl faints after teacher pulls her hair in government school,”
Rashmi Drolia| TNN | Jul 9, 2016, 05.44 AM IST retrieved from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/class-vii-girl-faints-after-teacher-pulls-her-hair-in-government-school/articleshow/53124411.cms
Article: Is Hazing Worse in India?
By Sudhin Thanawala/New Delhi Friday, Nov. 23, 2007- retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1687207,00.htm
There I am at Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya School- a government school, residential and co-ed.
The children seem very happy, nice and gentle. By seeing their attitudes in class and during lunch, I do believe bullying does not exist there. They all seem to accept each other well. Most of them are children from rural area (70%) and girls and boys are about the same numbers. However, we know, considering India’s diversity there are probably children with different religions, different languages, different cultures.
I believe the fact that the school does teach them every day, during lessons and assemblies, on how to help each other, how to serve and be served, how to do the right thing and be accepting, is a factor that helps the children to get along well.
However, I kept asking myself and others: Is bullying a reality in India?
At first, I talked to the teachers at our host school Jawahar, and they affirmed that bullying was not an issue at their school and it was not prevalent at other Indian schools.
Then we went to a college in Goa: Chowgule. There, a Sociology professor, Andrew, asked the audience, freshman students, this question. Silence. So Andrew told us about his story. He was bullied when he was a little boy. Andrew, son of two Goa natives, was born in Dubai. There he never realized how dark his skin was. Then, when his parents moved back to Goa, he got bullied due to his skin color. He said the teasing and bullying were constant. With this sad story, I was hoping more students would open up and tell their stories. However, two freshman students talked and they both talked on how well accepted they were in every school they went.
My mind was still confused. Is bullying a less serious deal in India? By teaching them values, are they getting prepared to be more accepting?
In the afternoon, we talked to more students, now Communications students. They also all talked about their wonderful time at school and how they were all accepted and well-treated.
Well, maybe bullying occurs very rarely in India, I thought.
Then, we had this meeting with TEA-ILE alumni teachers. The question was asked again. Now, most of them told me: bullying does exist, the problem is that people is still blind to it. Confusion…. What kind of bullying? Why? How?
Then, a teacher came to my rescue and illuminated my path. Sonia Makheeja, a High-School English teacher, told me about the most common cases of bullying in India: hierarchy and anger toward this hierarchy. That is, parents need to be respected at all costs. If a son or daughter expresses his/her different tastes or opinions, in many families, this is considered a disrespect. So this boy or girl will feel anger, because his/her opinions are not valued and they are in a way “bullied” to respect the parents’ opinion. Now, this anger cannot be directed to their parents; their anger will be directed to whoever has less power. Teachers can also bully children. Some teachers are too strict and they may abuse their power to “discipline” the students. Again, students will feel anger, but who will suffer the effects of this anger: somebody younger or with less power.
Also, due to this hierarchy, some older students feel they have more power than the younger ones and they will abuse their power. For example, if an older boy goes to a restroom and a younger boy is there, he may just order him to leave, because he is older, he has a privilege.
According to Makheeja, bullying is more common among boys, even though, another common kind of bullying is called “ragging” in India, which is hazing. (Is Hazing Worse in India?). According to Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education, a non-profit lobby group, “52 hazing incidents [were] reported in India's English-language media between June and September of 2007,” with 6 suicides being blamed on harassment, mostly among boys.
The Indian Supreme Court, in a recent report, declared: "If education... is to serve as the lever to the great surge forward of the Indian nation, the scourge of ragging which corrodes the vitals of our campuses needs to be curbed." (Thanawala). This system is a legacy from British elite schools, which now have eliminated this custom. However, this custom is still very traditional in Indian and Asian colleges. Some people, even see this as something natural and beneficial. The seniors should have the right to control freshmen, according to many college students. However, after seniors feel the taste of power, many of them abuse it, and things can get much more serious. Even though the Indian Supreme Court and other institutions have been trying to curb this custom, there has not been a decline on the same. “Harsh Agarwal, co-founder of the Coalition to Uproot Ragging, says the practice will stop only if there's a cultural shift in colleges.” Agarwal says: "When an entire society believes in this, how is enforcement of the law possible?" (“Is Hazing Worse in India?”)
So this system of a hierarchal bullying, where some parents, teachers and senior students feel that they have the right to bully others, causes a lot of anger. So, most bullies are first a bully victim. According to Magdalene Jeyarathnam, of East West Centre for Counselling … “children who bully others in school are generally victims of bullying at home. "The environment at home tends to carry on to school and the child does not know how to deal with the pent up anger," (Child is bullied in school).
So is bullying as prevalent in India as it is in United States? “ A recent study by research agency IMRB and ParentCircle, has revealed that every third child is bullied in school. The pan-India study covered 2,700 respondents, with parents and children in equal number.” Some principals, such as Hindu Senior Secondary School principal J Srinivasa Raghavan, believe that even though bullying does exist, these numbers are exaggerated. (“Every third child is bullied…”)
However, when reading the newspapers in India, we would find serious cases of bullying, many leading to suicides. For example, in this article from 2015, a 14-year old boy, Shubham, died by being fatally beaten by two classmates. The classmates started bullying him after he was chosen to be the class monitor. Shubham and the father complaint about the bullying. So the principal called the mother of one the bullies at school. The mother went to the school, listened to the teacher and spank the boy in front of all his classmates. The boy was angry due to this public humiliation, so he directed his anger at Shubham. “A few days later he planned the brutal attack with a classmate, and on Sunday the two led Shubham into a trap where he was beaten up fatally.” (“Shubham died at school.”)
As mentioned before, bullying can also be practiced by teachers, sometimes in a non-physical way, such as calling out only their favorites, not helping the ones who need help, being extra-strict and abusing their power by calling names or humiliating the students in front of the classroom. However, in some instances, even physical abuse may happen. For example, in this article “Class VII girl faints after teacher pulls her hair in government school,” a Hindi teacher pulled the hair of a 7th grade girl due to an issue about “subject.” The girl ends up in a hospital and now she does not want to go back to school. If this girl has a supportive family, she may find another way to disperse her anger due to this humiliation. However, if she keeps this anger inside of her, she may end up bullying another girl with less “power” than her, maybe younger, or less smart, or even less pretty.
In conclusion, bullying is a serious issue in India, as it is a serious issue all over the world. The fact that a lot of children live in with a big family structure added to the teaching of righteousness at school and at home, may help a lot of children to become good citizens by respecting and accepting others. However, in some schools and families, where respect means not having your own opinion and accepting being humiliated as a normal consequence of “disrespect,” children may become very angry and this anger will be directed to others, specially the ones with less “power.”
Bibliography:
Article:
Every third child is bullied in school, shows study - Ranjani Ayyar | TNN | Sep 3, 2015, 05.11 AM IST retrieved from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chennai/Every-third-child-is-bullied-in-school-shows-study/articleshow/48781789.cms
Article: Shubham died as school didn't rein in bullies, says father
Anvit Srivastava | TNN | Aug 26, 2015, 12.42 AM IST retrieved from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/Shubham-died-as-school-didnt-rein-in-bullies-says-father/articleshow/48674520.cms
Article:Class VII girl faints after teacher pulls her hair in government school,”
Rashmi Drolia| TNN | Jul 9, 2016, 05.44 AM IST retrieved from: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/class-vii-girl-faints-after-teacher-pulls-her-hair-in-government-school/articleshow/53124411.cms
Article: Is Hazing Worse in India?
By Sudhin Thanawala/New Delhi Friday, Nov. 23, 2007- retrieved from http://content.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1687207,00.htm