I am jealous of Rouvanjit Rawla. Here is why...

For all those busy souls, who think suicides happen every other day and never bother to look deep into such news, let me recap the story of Rouvanjit Rawla. Principal and two teachers cane him, humiliate him, manhandle him and a couple of days later, this class 8th student hangs himself.

That is the story of his death in nutshell. Now, what is school life without a punishment? It is like eating dal without salt. I have myself been caned once, for bad handwriting. We are young, naughty and do tend to move towards notorious ways. Parents understand that too. And they too don't see it as a huge deal that the teacher scolded you. In their heart, they are happy, I think, for the child is being disciplined. But what happened with Rouvan was way too much of scolding. You can speak with him rudely but not manhandle him. This is absolute barbarity. How come La Martineire become such a famous institution I wonder. I, a resident of Punjab has heard a lot of glory of it and its other branch in Lucknow.

If you see pictures of the boy, he is so sweet and innocent looking, that am sure he must have done something naughty to gain punishment. But English dictionary says that their is a lot of difference between word punishment and harassment. People do, support the school and corporal punishment. But you cannot allow students to become punching bags for school teachers and educationalists.

Pinky committed suicide the other day. She was a 9th class student.
Ruchika Girhotra was chucked out of her school for she took a brave stand against a police officer who molested her. Her school was the top most school in the region and it was their right to teach the girl a lesson.

Now point here is, why should have Rouvanjit said anything against his school? Who would have heard his voice if he would have rebelled. His death is not being taken seriously by the society, then why would his voice could have found some ears? One boy already has been allegedly rusticated from the school for speaking up against his death.

The school has maintained that their is nothing wrong in caning the child. No action what so ever has been taken against the principal. School authorities, government and alumni of the school are standing besides him.

Politicians can do nothing for these kids, for you see, Rouvan could not vote still for some years. Then why waste time on him? Or his death? Why not instead focus on honor killings or Bhopal tragedy, something which voters would like. And something that could translate votes. Like terrorism perhaps.

3 years ago, I had written about my views on suicide. And I still stand by them. I feel brave are those who make such strong decisions. But that is not the only reason I am feel that Rouvan did an envious job. He chose to stand up to the society when he was expected to be bogged down by the society like a good boy and suffer torment and humiliation like good people in society should. In his death, he has chosen to slap the face of the hypocritical society in which we all live in. His soul shall see, what his physical self could not see. That, in his death, he has shown mirror to the society, naked to the truth. A truth not only of the sloth of our educational system but also of our Indian mentality. You keep hearing cases about child abuse by teachers, one 3rd class girl was made to strip in front of her class when the teacher was unhappy of the Andhra Pradesh girl who was caught speaking in Telugu instead of English. What did we do? Nothing.

What will we do now? Nothing.

If I have to speak in words of Robert Frost, Rouvan chose the road less taken.

And that is enough to make me jealous.

May his soul rest in peace.

Tushar Mangl


tamanna said...

May his soul rest in peace...

person said...

We've been studying corporal punishment in school extensively, and the horror stories children brought with them made me feel very disgusted with the country's own adults - educated teachers being OKAY with corporal punishment just proves how much the people of India abide by our fundamental rights. This is a severe form of breaching a child's rights.... really makes me disgusted.
Rouvajit's case is shocking.

Hubber said...

The boy committed suicide for problems in his family.

I know some of the teachers personally and have been disciplined by them on several occasions. How come I ain't dead yet?

Suicides happen due to depression and I think the boy's family had to play a major role in this - not the school.

Come on man ... out of 24 hours in a day, we spend FIVE hours in a school. Who do you think REALLY ends up playing the most important role in our lives? Our parents. THINK!

we tend to smell the fish where there are no fish to smell ...

1) Teachers in our school ONLY disciplined us (slapped / caned) if we had done something terribly wrong. (I am talking about La Martiniere). Occasional scoldings etc. were rampant. How come it never killed anyone of us?

2) A class 12 student RAPED a kindergarten girl on our school compounds. According to current proceedings, we sit and counsel the rapist. You're kidding right?

What do you think should be done to such a student? No corporal punishment eh?

We choose to be retards.... so I guess let us remain such ignorant ass-wipes so that a guy like me can really make his fortune living among such asses. Way to go Kolkata!

Dhawal said...

What's the the deal with this Hubber guy I don't know.

Coming to your post, I am pleasantly surprised as to how much insight you have into this issue. Or any such issue. How nobody cares what happens to the kids. Not parents, not teachers, not politicians. Not to mention the ridiculous beliefs that some people have, about ways of "disciplining" and doing it "only" for their own good. You've written a brave article. I salute you.