A GREAT TRAGEDY

The reported murder of a teacher by a class IX student at a private school in Chennai today is a great shock and tragedy.

It is a tragedy for both families at once – that of the slain teacher as well as that of the student.  Both are victims – of a system.

Such instances are not new in the web.  In our own lore (purana), there is a reported instance of a student thinking of killing his master.  But on realizing how deeply his master really loved him, the student kills himself by getting into a pit, filled with husk up to his neck and setting fire to it – the slowest death - the penalty he learnt from his own master as ‘the punishment prescribed for a pupil who thinks of killing his guru’.

Whether the student of today’s tragedy has heard of this story or not, his life could be as miserable as that of the boy in the ‘purana’.  That is why it is a tragedy for the victim as well as the assassin and both their families.

Whether a student reacts violently or succumbs into a psychological abyss, due to a variety of pressures related to schooling or otherwise, it is the parents who ultimately suffer – for the child is their life and future for whose sake they stake every thing.

It is the teaching community which is at the cutting edge.  To manage even one teenager is very difficult.  Then to handle several ones, of different hues, of both sexes, consisting of introverts, extroverts and many more varieties, is an immensely daunting job.  And if in this difficult task the atmosphere is not amiable, it could become volatile. 

But unfortunately, the interaction between the different stake holders has been increasingly reduced. The fragile relationship between the student – teacher – parent has been violently shattered by education at the hands of an increasingly mad mechanical and mercantile machinery.

The very elementary requirement of having a democratic PTA has been negated by the educational institutions.  They feel that the parents are there only to pay and take command from the school management.  When the position of the parents are themselves undermined, the position of a student could very well be imagined.  Similarly when the position of a parent who is paying the fees required for running of an institution is not secure and sacred, the position of a salary earning staff could well be fathomed.  In such a scenario atmosphere gets vitiated invariably.  And let us remember, every crime is provoked by the atmosphere.  Only the victim became more susceptible to the provocation.

This episode once again underlines the urgent necessity for the state to step in and take over all educational institutions at least up to the 12^th standard and also have proper control over all institutions handling the volatile youth.

Let us pray that such tragedies do not recur.