A Dalit girl made to sit outside during exams because she was menstruating; Dalit students forced to clean toilets; a teacher brutally beats up a student from a lowered caste; a student bullied ruthlessly to death; fingers of a Dalit boy severed off just before his exams — these are a few headlines that prove that educational institutions in the state are becoming seedbeds for heinous activities, not sparing even the children.
Caste, class, and all sorts of discrimination have seeped into the crevices of classroom walls, and their stubborn roots could not be pulled out completely even after decades of attempts. Dr BR Ambedkar’s words, “I like the religion that teaches liberty, equality, and fraternity”, is now buried under dominance and hierarchy. The core idea of education has often been reduced to just scoring marks, be it at the cost of becoming intolerant and complacent. The teachers are quiet, students ignorant, authorities imprudently brushing aside the cases of violence, painting the buildings clean, and the facades of schools boasting their progressive ideas.
This Dalit History Month, as we celebrated the Father of the Constitution’s 135th birth anniversary, teachers and followers of Ambedkar’s ideologies talk about the discrimination they have witnessed and raise a clarion call.
When teachers are silenced
Christyana Rose, an independent research scholar, draws on her dreadful experiences. As a neurodivergent person and someone who has been subjected to bullying, then and even now, she says, “The increase in violence in schools is mostly because of not teaching empathy at a very young age, and shielding them from the idea of social justice. Violence was rampant then, and even now, the only difference is that now these cases are coming out.”
Christyana, who had taught in various places in Chennai, observes that discrimination sprawls in many ways, one is by conveniently ignoring the existence of this darker side. “I don’t want to teach these things to children, I don’t want to spoil their childhood”, these words echo the mindset of the majority of the parents.
The perpetrators aren’t the only ones to be blamed; the deafening silence from school authorities and discreet impositions have an equal share in the rising abuses in schools. She shares an incident, which she calls censorship. As an English teacher, Christyana had the freedom to give questions of her choice. She had given the topic ‘religious tolerance’ for an essay, expecting the students to weigh in their opinions of the country’s socio-political situation. However, the assessment committee for examination had asked her to take down the word ‘religious’ from question because it was “inappropriate”.
She also recalls some grim memories in a private school. A campus where she had taught in Ponneri had five schools perched inside the premises, where students from middle class, lower economic background, and affluent background were segregated systematically. When one of the schools for rich kids was undergoing renovation, they put them together with kids of lower economic background.
While the “rich kids” would get away with mischief, the less affluent kids were targeted. What was appalling was that there were uniforms for students from different backgrounds.“There were a bunch of PT teachers who would monitor my classes,” she says, and recalls them barging into her classroom, picking up a random student, and hitting them. These were kids from the lower economic strata, but she was powerless to raise her voice as a fresher.
Caste markers of the past
While schools avert their eyes to the existence of caste-based biases in urban areas, Muththamizh Kalai Vizhi, state project lead, Holistic Development and Progressive Education, Tamil Nadu Government Model Schools, says, in rural and semi-urban areas, social biases “unconsciously play out in school culture, reinforcing social hierarchies.” The road to progress has been “uneven” and “fragile”.
Vignesh Shiva Subramaniam M, a member of the Ambedkar Reading Circle, who hails from Tirunelveli, says that the district has seen a startling rise in brutalities among youngsters, especially in schools. Caste is tangled into both physical spaces and the minds of the people like a malignant disease. He says, one’s identity is determined by the streets they live in, by the paint slathered on the electric posts, by the place one comes from. This identity doesn’t get camouflaged with school uniforms. The past is not forgotten even after waves of new reforms take over; the identities bestowed during birth are never erased. Even if caste-based violence is checked in schools, it is still an omnipresent worm corroding the young minds in various ways.
Meanwhile, Muththamizh says that in many government schools, especially those with inclusive programmes, overt caste-based discrimination has reduced. “Students eat together, participate in group work, and share hostels, often regardless of caste identity. There is more mixing than what we saw a decade ago. But covert discrimination, in the form of name-calling, exclusion from leadership roles, differential treatment by teachers, or assumptions about academic ability still exists, especially in schools where awareness and sensitisation haven’t taken root deeply.”
Scars that remain
G Sarathkumar, founder of Vyasai Thozhargal (a non-profit organisation), that conducts classes on Dr Ambedkar’s teachings for children (a majority of them are Dalits) in Vyasarpadi, says his own experiences nudged him to start this initiative for kids who are not educated about caste atrocities in schools.
Sharing the experiences of students, who come for the tuition, he recalls a teacher’s brutal comment a girl from Class 10 had to face: “Did your parents give birth only for pleasure? Now, they won’t pay for your education? Look at your audacity to sit under the fan.” They have also had instances where students who struggle to pay fees were made to sit on the floor the entire day. Remarks like, “You can ask your parents to come and clean the toilets and get the amount for your fee”, are not just disdainful, but he says, these traumatizing experiences can lead to suicides, too. No complaints or interventions made the school authorities guilty of the inhuman deed. He says many students are unaware of why they are being ill-treated.
There are also initiatives like Tamil Nadu’s Model Schools, a scheme by the Department of School Education, led by Sudhan R, member secretary, which works on an alternative. Aligning to the teachings of Dr Ambedkar, Muththamizh, who is part of the initiative, says, the programme includes reading the Preamble daily, observing Social Justice Day through events, curating conversations with powerful voices, learning Dalit literature, screening films, teaching photography, teaching the nuances of various art forms, etc. She explains, “A girl who plays Paraiyattam (a traditional Tamil drum art associated with the Dalit community) alongside boys and children from all castes doesn’t just learn an art form — she learns to challenge an inherited bias. A boy who photographs a street sweeper and interviews them starts seeing dignity in work rather than shame.”
Circling back to the main issue, she says, “While model schools and certain proactive districts have implemented parts of the recommendations meaningfully, many schools still treat caste violence as a PR issue, not a pedagogical one. Unless caste education is woven into teacher training, school governance, textbooks, and everyday teaching, change will remain slow.”