Students belonging to religious and marginalised communities have alleged harassment and discrimination by their teachers in North Delhi’s Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya (SBV) government school.
Their grievances came to light after a complaint was filed by a lawyer and education activist Ashok Agarwal to Delhi chief minister Atishi Marlena on behalf of the students, The Wire reported.
In the letter, Agarwal claimed that Muslim and Dalit students from Class XI and XII were bullied by PGT Political Science teacher Adarsh Sharma and PTI teacher Vikash Kumar who beat them, called them names, stripped their clothes and forced them to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’.
The students alleged that Sharma made derogatory comments and threatened to fail students from Dalit and marginalised castes. The teacher rebuked them saying they were destined to work for the upper caste and “born to serve the Pandits.”
Furthermore, Muslim students were repeatedly subjected to remarks like “Why don’t all the mullas leave our country?.”
Sharma, while teaching in the classroom, also allegedly invoked Tulsidas’ infamous slogan of “dhol, gawar, shudra, pashu, nari… yeh sab taadna ke adhikari (Drums, illiterate persons, lower castes, animals and women… all deserve a beating)”.
The letter does not mention the names of the students who chose to remain anonymous fearing their lives and career prospects.
The students complained that they repeatedly forced them to strip their clothes in the school toilets. The teachers also threatened to film them naked and “make the video viral” so that the students wouldn’t speak out to anyone.
The letter demands the removal of the named teachers or the transfer of students to other schools.
This is not their first time filing a complaint against the teachers. In 2023, the students tried to complain after they were ordered by one of the teachers to greet them with ‘Jai Shri Ram’ instead of ‘Namaste’. Following the complaint, a principal from another government school led a probe only to shut the case down.
The students in the letter appeal to the Delhi CM Atishi to conduct a probe by setting up a high-level inquiry committee headed by the director of education. “I have brought this issue to your knowledge and the issue was brought to the notice of the previous director of education, RN Sharma, but nothing was done and the situation seems to continue,” read the letter.
This is not an isolated incident where students from Muslim and Dalit communities faced large scale discrimination. In Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, a Muslim student was slapped several times by his classmates on the instructions of the teacher after he failed to answer her question, the video of which went viral on social media. A complaint was filed by the boy’s father after which the teacher was booked.
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