Aspate of atrocities against school children during the past two months across Tamil Nadu (pop. 62 million) has generated a tidal wave of panic in this southern seaboard state which prides itself for relatively orderly governance and maintenance of law and order.
On October 20, S. Krish Anand was kidnapped by two anti-socials while returning from his tuition class in Chennai. Fortunately, the culprits who demanded Rs.5 lakh as ransom were traced by the police and the boy rescued. Barely a week later, a ten-year-old school girl Muskan and her brother Hrithik (7) were kidnapped by their former driver in Coimbatore. The girl was sexually abused and her brother tortured before the criminal brutally drowned them in a canal, 60 km from the textile city. The prime accused was shot dead by the police in an alleged encounter ten days later. Moreover on October 30, Keerthivasan (13) was kidnapped while returning from school by two armed men who car-jacked him. The boy was released after the family reportedly paid a ransom of Rs.1 crore.
Following blazing headlines in the press and breaking news flashes on local television channels, the education, transport and police departments of the state government have issued detailed safety guidelines for school managements, parents and the public. In Chennai, police vehicles patrol nearly 700 schools in the mornings and after school hours. All private schools in the state have been directed to install closed circuit-television (CCTV) systems at the school gate, employ security guards on campuses and issue identity cards to parents, school bus and private van drivers. Moreover teachers have been instructed to develop safety awareness among students and teach them crisis management skills.
Although these safety measures have been welcomed, child rights activists and counselors express doubts about the effectiveness of these safeguards in the state which hosts 12 million school-going children. Past experience indicates that similar guidelines issued after every major crime or disaster in the state have not been effectively monitored. According to the State Crime Records Bureau, the number of crimes against children has risen from 441 in 2007 to 666 in 2008 — a 51 percent increase.
Social scientists and children’s rights activists attribute the rise in crimes against vulnerable children to the general moral laxity in state politics, the deteriorating law and order situation and disappearance of moral, ethics and citizenship educa-tion from school and college curricu-lums. Moreover the crumbling, corrupt and inept judicial system is too soft on offenders. “The legal system is easy to subvert given that the investigating authorities are mostly corrupt. The law, order and justice system requires good leadership at the top, political will, police reforms and a crackdown on criminals with an iron hand. Moreover there’s urgent need for judicial reforms with corruption in the lower judiciary reaching alarming levels,” says V. Durga Rao, an advocate of the Madras high court.
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At a deeper level, educationists in Tamil Nadu lament the over-emphasis within the state, once renowned for the liberal arts, upon technical and professional education. “Premature segregation of students into commerce and science streams in school deprives them of the benefit of values-based liberal arts education. Values and ethics education should be re-introduced in school and collegiate curriculums. In engineering and medical education, which are highly prized, there’s hardly any teaching of morality, philosophy, ethics and the humanities. The consequence is rising crime and amorality,” says D. Victor, director, Academy for Quality and Excellence in Higher Education, Chennai.
Although the state’s political leadership and regrettably even educationists seem unaware, the rot is spreading from Tamil Nadu’s once vaunted education system into all sectors of society.
Hemalatha Raghupathi (Chennai)