Edit Page, The Times of India
September 19, 2006
Leave Those Kids Alone
Keep politics out of the classroom
Nina Martyris
As the nation went through the paces of Teachers’ Day this year, the mood in many staffrooms was grim. A section of the academic fraternity even boycotted the celebrations and wore black armbands to protest the brutal murder of a professor by BJP-affiliated student rowdies on an Ujjain campus during college elections. Just two months ago, a senior lecturer at Mumbai’s Wilson College had his face blackened and was dragged through the streets on a distinctly fishy sexual harassment charge by Congress-affiliated student goons.
Even as India strives to become an economic world power, its most fundamental civilisational block, the classroom, is under attack as is its keeper, the teacher.
September 19, 2006
Leave Those Kids Alone
Keep politics out of the classroom
Nina Martyris
As the nation went through the paces of Teachers’ Day this year, the mood in many staffrooms was grim. A section of the academic fraternity even boycotted the celebrations and wore black armbands to protest the brutal murder of a professor by BJP-affiliated student rowdies on an Ujjain campus during college elections. Just two months ago, a senior lecturer at Mumbai’s Wilson College had his face blackened and was dragged through the streets on a distinctly fishy sexual harassment charge by Congress-affiliated student goons.
Even as India strives to become an economic world power, its most fundamental civilisational block, the classroom, is under attack as is its keeper, the teacher.
