Corporal punishment is forced pain intended to change a person’s behaviour or to punish them. Historically speaking, most punishments, whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings, were corporal in basis.In the modern world, corporal punishment has been largely rejected in favor of other disciplinary methods. Modern judiciaries often favor fines or incarceration, whilst modern school discipline generally avoids physical correction altogether. Although corporal punishment is still used in many domestic settings, it has been banned in over seventeen countries. Corporal Punishment in Canada is restricted to children under the age of 13, and only by parents or guardians, and only such punishment that does not leave marks. There has been much dispute in recent years over where the line should be drawn between corporal punishment and torture, or whether a line should indeed be drawn at all.
Corporal Punishment has faced an unspoken ban from all educational institutes of repute… officially. Practically, it happens. Of course, just because it happens doesn’t make it any more condonable. And ugly as it is, it’s even uglier that I witnessed it today in a college, an institute training us to be “professionals”. Here’s the story:
We had MEFA (Managerial Economics & Financial Analysis) class after lunch today. The class is never really 100% disciplined during these classes. But today, the noise level was nowhere near as high as it goes even in other classes. Even ma’am was smiling at some of the comments the class was making. All of a sudden, she gathers her books and announces - “Ok, I’m going now!” and leaves the classroom in a huff. We didn’t even know she was angry! She was SMILING at us just moments ago, for Pete’s sake! However, she apparently went and complained to our H.O.D, who was sitting in his office with a couple of senior faculty members (one of whom is the overall in-charge of the students). I don’t know what kind of drama she put up there, but they flew into a rage.
Pretty soon, they came up to our class, and confiscated mobile phones and MP3 players (lucky I didn’t take mine today because of my earphones getting spoilt). On a side-note, I must ask… what does class discipline have to do with mobile phones or mp3 players? Anyway, as if that wasn’t enough, they threatened us with 25 days of absent-marking in the registers, and also threatened us with detention (detained for an year). But even that wasn’t enough. I believe the H.O.D was angrier than he should have been. Instead of trying to come up with a constructive way of solving the situation, he picked up other reasons to pick on students. A boy (wearing a round-neck T-shirt, by the way) was sitting quietly in the first bench without his ID-card. H.O.D shouts at him asking him where the ID-card is, and when the student tries to offer an explanation, he gets hit for wearing a round-neck T-shirt and also because he needs a haircut. Do note : He got hit at least 2-3 times.
They then took all the boys’ bags down, apparently for a more thorough search. After a few minutes, we decided we’d go down to apologize. Our Class Representative led the way, and immediately received 2-3 blows from the senior faculty in charge of all the students. I didn’t personally witness this, but everyone else did. We were shouted at, threatened, insulted and apparently, cuss words were used against the students. (For this latter part, I was not a witness as I had gone to speak to our class mentor about the issue). Apparently, another student got hit as well. And when I say “hit”, I’m talking about slaps or other blows to the face.
India signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1992, which states:
- States shall ensure that each child enjoys full rights without discrimination or distinctions of any kind.
- States shall protect children from physical or mental harm and neglect, including [sexual] abuse or exploitation.
Andhra Pradesh has banned corporal punishment in 2002, and amended the Andhra Pradesh (Integrated) Educational Rules, 1966, to delete from it corporal punishment as an accepted standard of punishment. Not surprisingly, nobody cares, as is typical of India.
The problem is not the assumption that the students are always wrong… the problem is the assumption that the staff is always right.
PS: I am really sorry… I forgot to mention the fact that boys are not allowed to carry cell phones to the college. And I believe that iPods and MP3 players are banned as well.
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