http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1895495,00.html
Beside the article, I copy a personal experience from Reddit, mind the sentences at the end in bold:
"I had a similar reaction to the headline. "This has got to be a story about India..."
I went to a boarding school from age 10 - 15 in India (1990-1995). Since it was actually my decision to go to boarding school and not my parents', I hid nearly everything bad about the school from my parents or else they would just bring me back home. I loved the extracurricular activities I got to take part in at the boarding school; things I would never get a chance to learn in a city school. But I hated the amount of teacher-on-student and student-on-student physical violence that went on. One thing to keep in mind is that all the teachers were ALWAYS united against the students. Same with the senior students against the junior students. Even if a teacher or a senior was doing something obviously wrong, nobody would stop them.
Just off the top of my head, here are a few punishments that my 12-13 year old self went through every now and then:
'Crawl' was a favorite punishment of both teachers and senior students. You fold your pants legs up so that your knees are exposed, get down on your knees, clasp your hands behind your head, and "crawl" on your knees on whatever surface the punishers felt you deserved to crawl on. If I was late for a meal by more than 5 minutes, I had to crawl on asphalt for 30+ minutes and skip the current and next meal. My longest crawl was three hours because I talked to a senior girl during theater practice and she said I was cute. The senior boys didn't like it.
'Everyone-kneel-down' meant a shared punishment was about to be unleashed. If three or more of us were caught breaking a rule, we were made to kneel down in a line next to each other. One or more teachers or seniors would walk down the line, slapping our faces as hard as they could. Then they'd turn around and slap the other side of your face. I always wondered what the optimal strategy here was, be on the sides and get two slaps immediately with a long break or more towards the middle with your slaps equally spaced. Also, if you shared more of the blame than the rest of the group, one teacher would hold your hair back while the teachers took turn slapping your face non-stop.
'Murga' or 'Chicken-Squat' was the punishment of choice by female teachers as it looked very harmless but was tremendously painful. Murga Parade meant get into the squatting position like a chicken, hold your ears with your arms passing under your knees, and walk without stopping. We also got this if we were stopped during a 'College-run' (equivalent of a cross-country run) and especially if we took a shortcut during a long run.
Corporal punishment is so deeply ingrained into the Indian education system that it is assumed that to "learn", one must "suffer" through this kind of treatment. I went through a lot and survived, and in a weird way, ended up a much stronger person. So sometimes I do feel that this kind of army-boot-camp torture treatments worked for me. But at the same time, I know a number of students who quit the boarding school because of such punishments and are to this day tormented by flashbacks and nightmares of crawling in the sun for hours while their knees bleed on the asphalt."
Beside the article, I copy a personal experience from Reddit, mind the sentences at the end in bold:
"I had a similar reaction to the headline. "This has got to be a story about India..."
I went to a boarding school from age 10 - 15 in India (1990-1995). Since it was actually my decision to go to boarding school and not my parents', I hid nearly everything bad about the school from my parents or else they would just bring me back home. I loved the extracurricular activities I got to take part in at the boarding school; things I would never get a chance to learn in a city school. But I hated the amount of teacher-on-student and student-on-student physical violence that went on. One thing to keep in mind is that all the teachers were ALWAYS united against the students. Same with the senior students against the junior students. Even if a teacher or a senior was doing something obviously wrong, nobody would stop them.
Just off the top of my head, here are a few punishments that my 12-13 year old self went through every now and then:
'Crawl' was a favorite punishment of both teachers and senior students. You fold your pants legs up so that your knees are exposed, get down on your knees, clasp your hands behind your head, and "crawl" on your knees on whatever surface the punishers felt you deserved to crawl on. If I was late for a meal by more than 5 minutes, I had to crawl on asphalt for 30+ minutes and skip the current and next meal. My longest crawl was three hours because I talked to a senior girl during theater practice and she said I was cute. The senior boys didn't like it.
'Everyone-kneel-down' meant a shared punishment was about to be unleashed. If three or more of us were caught breaking a rule, we were made to kneel down in a line next to each other. One or more teachers or seniors would walk down the line, slapping our faces as hard as they could. Then they'd turn around and slap the other side of your face. I always wondered what the optimal strategy here was, be on the sides and get two slaps immediately with a long break or more towards the middle with your slaps equally spaced. Also, if you shared more of the blame than the rest of the group, one teacher would hold your hair back while the teachers took turn slapping your face non-stop.
'Murga' or 'Chicken-Squat' was the punishment of choice by female teachers as it looked very harmless but was tremendously painful. Murga Parade meant get into the squatting position like a chicken, hold your ears with your arms passing under your knees, and walk without stopping. We also got this if we were stopped during a 'College-run' (equivalent of a cross-country run) and especially if we took a shortcut during a long run.
Corporal punishment is so deeply ingrained into the Indian education system that it is assumed that to "learn", one must "suffer" through this kind of treatment. I went through a lot and survived, and in a weird way, ended up a much stronger person. So sometimes I do feel that this kind of army-boot-camp torture treatments worked for me. But at the same time, I know a number of students who quit the boarding school because of such punishments and are to this day tormented by flashbacks and nightmares of crawling in the sun for hours while their knees bleed on the asphalt."
