Incredible India 31 – Girl No Pay Fees, Girl No Wear Shirt

Folks, here’s your latest fix of Incredible India, those only-in-India stories.

In this edition of Incredible India, we focus on the plight of young girls in Indian schools.

Here are some of the more brutal stories:

* In India, education is believed to be the passport to a good life. So in pursuit of the holy grail of prosperity, even poor folk scrimp and scrounge to send their children to good schools. But when the poor are lax in paying the high school fees, their children have a harrowing time as a recent incident has demonstrated.

Indian newspapers report that a school in Faridabad (on the outskirts of India’s capital city of New Delhi) forced a 3rd-grade girl to remove her shirt for not paying the fees (that should never have been sought in the first place).

Here’s the nine-year-old girl in her own words:

“I was forced to take off my T-shirt. When my teacher caught hold of my skirt, I told her not to do that. When I asked why she was doing it, she said it was the principal’s order. Then I was asked to stand half naked for a long time and when I tried to cover myself, she asked me to stand straight,” the nine-year-old victim said.The victim’s mother said that she has a document to prove that her daughter is exempted from paying fees.

* A few months ago, Shano Ayub, a young girl studying in the 2nd grade at a Delhi school died after being subjected to cruel punishment by her teacher.

* Last year, Rinky Kaushik, a 15-year-old girl assaulted by her Delhi school teacher died after the blows aggravated her pre-existing condition.

* In July, Afsari Parveen, a six-year-old girl at a village school near Ranchi, died after falling into the vessel in which the mid-day meal was being cooked.

* And on Friday evening (i.e. yesterday, August 28, 2009), the principal/owner of a school in Jaipur is alleged to have raped a 6th grade girl.

Hey, what’s that noise we hear?

Ah, must be Indian school girls singing Mera Bharat Mahaan.

5 Responses to "Incredible India 31 – Girl No Pay Fees, Girl No Wear Shirt"

  1. raghavendrav   August 29, 2009 at 11:56 am

    I was reminded of ‘Incredible India’ when I read this news…

    http://publication.samachar.com/pub_article.php?id=5317093&nextids=5318272|5318273|5317092|5317093|5317094&nextIndex=4

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    Added the incident in your link to the above post. Thanks.

  2. Aswin_Kini   August 29, 2009 at 2:20 pm

    Cool, another extraordinary news!!!!!!!!! Ok, now I bet news channels like TIMES NOW and NDTV will go and interview the families and try to bring JUSTICE to their families.

    TV polls will be conducted, few people will start screaming this country will go to the dogs and then after some days, everybody will happily go on without even remembering what happened to those poor children.

    Add this to your point: All Indians (including the Diaspora) are insensible people, they love to hear such news, complain, complain, complain and only complain.

    Leave the rest to the imported SHITTY news channels, TIMES NOW AND NDTV, they will blow this up into an issue and finally nothing else will happen.

    My condolences to the poor children. Now, they will suffer the ignominy of unnecessary media publicity.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    We think (and nay even hope) that greater exposure of such sordid incidents will awaken and sensitize the citizenry of India to the injustices girls and women face every day.

    Things are getting better for the distaff sex in India but as is obvious from the above incidents we still have miles to go.

  3. Vikatan   August 30, 2009 at 5:12 pm

    This reminds me of some articles I read a few months back about child porn and rape in India. Don’t have the link. Reading those made my stomach sick and brought tears to my eyes. When will these sick animals ever learn. It is going to come back to them. If not now, at least in their next birth. Penn Paavam Pollathathu.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    You write above: This reminds me of some articles I read a few months back about child porn and rape in India. Don’t have the link.

    Are Indian Dads Developing a New Hobby – Raping Daughters?

  4. What_if   August 31, 2009 at 5:08 am

    @SI: Things are getting better for the distaff sex in India but as is obvious from the above incidents we still have miles to go.

    Fully agree that we have miles to go. Don’t they say “Little drops of water makes a ocean” the below link is about one such drop of water.
    http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/City/Bangalore/Helping-them-break-artificial-barriers/articleshow/4952225.cms

    Hey ! not all American Desis have permanently said good bye to India, there are still some benevolent souls who think about their Mother Land and return to do something for it.

    What caught my attention was the opening line “Forty years in the US did not make them forget their roots. And they came back to light a thousand lamps of hope.”

    Only if thousand such people come forward and light a thousand lamps of hope each, that will brighten up a Million Kids lives – I suppose it’s a wishful thinking on my part!

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    1. You write: Hey ! not all American Desis have permanently said good bye to India, there are still some benevolent souls who think about their Mother Land and return to do something for it.

    Thanks for the link.

    May their tribe increase (we mean Ramakrishna and his wife Vijayalakshmi).

    2. You write: Only if thousand such people come forward and light a thousand lamps of hope each, that will brighten up a Million Kids lives – I suppose it’s a wishful thinking on my part!

    🙁

  5. sumeshy   August 31, 2009 at 3:26 pm

    This is disturbing.

    As Aswin_Kini said, the news channels will run these as breaking news for 2-3 days, get their ratings up and then move on to the next thing. The teacher, principal, school administration too will not get reprimanded while the poor victim gets to carry this burden unnecessarily all their life.

    SearchIndia.com Responds:

    You write: This is disturbing.

    Just one of the countless injustices in India today.

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