Dear Indian parents, Ever since the video of the eight-year-old Muslim child being beaten by his non-Muslim classmates on the instructions of their teacher in Muzaffarnagar, UP, went viral, people have been talking about the incident and the arrest of the teacher. It disturbed me deeply, but I choose to speak here of the other children in the classroom, who were asked to physically assault a child of their own class on the instructions of a powerful authority figure ― their teacher.I draw your attention to these 20-odd children, what they went through and what they learned.These innocent children saw their classmate being hit, they heard him crying, their tender skin must have felt a tsunami of crawling sensations, and their little heads must have been deeply puzzled. Subconscious memories of the incident may be retrieved later in life, in an unpredictable manner.Now, these children have learnt to hit anyone on the instructions of the authorities.The implication could be varied and unpredictable ― later in life, they could visit serious violence on someone on some authority’s instructions, without raising any question or batting an eyelid.You think this is an exaggeration? Do we like being questioned, as parents? Does any authority like being questioned? Does our environment encourage young pupils to question elders or authority figures? The school and the home are on the same page in this matter. And children raised to be unquestioning may kill you, or your other child, or anyone in the vicinity, upon instruction.Now, I would like to steer your attention to an even more basic question: why do parents send their children to school? Because we believe that the education system has credible processes and teachers are trained to develop young minds. Otherwise, homeschooling would be a better option. But parents who can afford to send their children to school place their trust in them. In the early years of schooling, this trust gets transferred to the child, who believes that the teacher knows more than the parents.This incident has endangered this trust. When children are mentored, groomed and raised to hate children of other faiths by bigoted teachers, whom they have learned to trust – can you imagine what is possible?Hate is a more powerful emotion than love, especially when childhood trauma is involved. Today, they may have learned to distance themselves from friendships with Muslim children. In the future, they could struggle to trust people who are different. Adults who cannot trust face huge issues in relationships, in work, in life.Think! Think! Think!The emotional health of your children should worry you as a parent, as a neighbour, as a school teacher, as a citizen! Please worry a lot and do something about it! If you can’t, at least in your heart consider what has happened to be gross, and pray to find the courage to speak up for your child’s future. If you don’t serve as a role model for your child by standing up against something that is so wrong, tomorrow your child will be afraid to speak for herself.Will you do anything about it?Can you do anything about it?The big question today is: are you allowed to do anything about it?Rukhsar Saleem is the founder of Mother’s Digest.This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.
