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Vol. XXXI No. 4, June 1-16, 2021

Rewriting the ode to my alma mater

by Padmaja Jayaraman

In 2016, I entered the eleventh grade at Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Senior Secondary School, KK Nagar. I chose the science group while some of my friends flocked to commerce because of one dedicated, knowledgeable and creative Accountancy teacher, G. Rajagopalan. The school received many accolades thanks to him; he churned out several commerce toppers in the board examinations. My own friends used to eat my brains praising his ability to simplify complex concepts.

As far as I recall, Rajagopalan was an unconventional teacher who made me squirm in my seat with discomfort on occasion. He had the habit of using live examples to explain concepts in his classes, some of which were problematic. “If he saw a girl and a boy being friendly with each other, he would take their names together while giving examples in class. Sometimes, their names would be paired up in problems during exams,” said a friend of mine who learnt accountancy from the teacher.

Sometimes, Rajagopalan spoke in double entendres with sexual intent in an attempt to make jokes in class. I have heard a few myself when he used to invigilate exams. Most students simply laughed at his sexual innuendos, usually at the cost of other people. We explained away those jokes as him being unorthodox, cool and funny. What else would 16 or 17-year-old children think? We were on the brink of adulthood. We thought that unlike others who still saw us as children, Rajagoplan was treating us like a peer through his 18+ jokes. And so we inadvertently played along with whatever he said or did in class. In retrospect, I feel terrible at the way we all laughed at his inappropriate jokes, bullying and harassment. We were underage children who did not understand the seriousness of the issue at that time.

On May 23, I began questioning my entire school life. Rajagopalan was publicly accused of sexual harassment and his case became a social media storm with various students (current and alumni) sharing their traumatic experiences with him. The harassment case was brought to light on Instagram by an alumna of PSBB. She put up screenshots of students telling her how Rajagopalan harassed the kids. Some students alleged that they approached the dean of PSBB to complain about the teacher. But no action was taken against him. Slowly more and more students, from different schools across Chennai, came out on social media to share the abuse they had faced at the hands of their teachers. It became a movement.

The reports threatened to discredit the very core values that my school taught me. Among other things, Rajagopalan allegedly commented on the physiques of the students with prurient intent, touched them inappropriately, stalked them on social media and messaged them inappropriately at odd hours. A student even claimed that he asked her out for a movie and shared the link to a pornographic website in the class group. I knew he had a loose mouth, but I did not have the slightest inkling that he harassed students to this extent. When I studied in the school, we dismissed his behaviour as one arising from a bad sense of humour. But now the truth looms large before us – he is a sexual predator who attacks the privacy and dignity of students.

I started reaching out to all my friends from PSBB. While I did not have any direct experience with the teacher myself, I wanted to know if anything had happened to them. I just hoped they were okay. “It was during revision exams for the twelfth board examination in March 2017. His phone was on, and there was a porn website on the screen. He had seen me noticing it. Then, he asked me to meet him alone to discuss the question paper. But I didn’t go. A year later, after joining college, I happened to meet him near the school. We had a normal chat, after which he started pairing me up with a guy and this angered me,” shared a PSBB alumnus.

The school suspended Rajagopalan as celebrities and politicians began to amplify this issue across social media platforms. The PSBB management put out a statement: “We would like to assure you that our school has zero tolerance towards any behaviour that adversely affects the physical, emotional and psychological well-being of our students.” Additionally, the school also claimed that previously no such complaints had come to the attention of the management until then. After the cops arrested Rajagopalan, the school principal, Geetha Govindarajan said that they have not received any ‘written’ complaints about the misconduct of the teacher, reported The New Indian Express.

This was after many alumni reiterated that they have approached the management about the teacher multiple times, in vain.

The PSBB case has turned out to be a spark that has started an inferno. There are now personal accounts shared by students from other city schools, accusing their teachers of sexual harassment. Their stories have made me realize the magnitude of the issue – this problem isn’t just about my alma mater alone. Failing to report a crime committed against a child, particularly a sexual one, is in fact a punishable offence under the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences). According to section 19(1) of the Act, even a suspicion of sexual misconduct against children must be reported. Section 21(2) of the Act says that if the head of any institution fails to report such offences, then they “shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year and with fine.”

I can’t help but wonder – what if the school management had done better? What if they had taken the effort to weed out the problem in the nascent stage? The “what-ifs” I started asking myself became endless. To make sense of everything, I contacted Vidya Dinakaran, a psychotherapist from Pallavaram. I asked her, “Where does the notion of harassing students even come to teachers?”

“We need to look at teachers as individuals, and ask what understanding they have regarding respect for other people, consent, and what kind of sexual relationships they have developed over the years. Their experiences and family backgrounds also contribute to such behaviours,” answered Vidya.

But their past experiences are not justifications for them to harass children. “Ignorance cannot be an excuse anymore. Harassment by teachers cannot be pardoned just because they did not know something. They [teachers] have to unlearn toxic and unhealthy things and must start relearning new behaviours,” explained the psychotherapist. This may also be a reason why adolescents are sexualised and opposite genders are segregated in educational institutions.

I was trying to wrap my head around the expert’s insights. The sexual harassment of an adult who understands what is going on is a gruesome act. But that of a child who may not even be equipped with the vocabulary to voice what he or she is undergoing, makes me shudder.

School-going children are in their developing stage. They are still forming their ideas about sexuality and their sexual identity. They cannot have a concrete understanding of matters and may not even recognize abuse when faced with it. “Teachers are older people with more maturity, who have the understanding of the acts they are committing. They very well know the authority they hold. The two individuals involved in this are not two equal individuals,” pointed out Vidya.

If something this grave were to happen to my child, I would want my kid to confide in me; I would fight the entire world tooth and nail for my child. But as far as I can see, from social media reports and from the alumni I spoke to, there was no significant parental involvement or push back. The children had to carry the burden of the harassment on their shoulders, single-handedly. I asked the psychotherapist why most of the parents just left the children to handle this by themselves. She said, “Sometimes the parents do not address the children’s traumas because it may remind them of their own unprocessed traumas, which may be too painful to recollect at that point. This can be one of the reasons why some parents brush it off. The parents need to resolve those traumas and heal themselves.”

If parents need to rectify themselves, so must schools. I finally asked her about what steps educational institutions should take to prevent such issues from happening. She proposed a three-pronged strategy.

Firstly, school counsellors need to be appointed for primary school, middle school and high school separately. This will help them to understand the developmental needs of children at that particular age. Also, the schools need to trust the counsellors to have an in-person conversation with students who do not seem okay. Apart from this, teachers must also undergo mental health screening before engaging with the students. “Here the teachers can evaluate themselves, and rebuild if they have to. Dismissing teachers for misconduct is a solution for the moment, but that alone cannot prevent it [harassment] from happening again. This is why unlearning toxic behaviour, reflecting on it and relearning healthy behaviour is important,” said Vidya.

Secondly, a more inclusive redress committee must be set up, apart from the anti-sexual harassment committee that already exists. This new committee must consist of a senior teaching faculty; a non-teaching staff; parent representatives from primary school, middle school and high school; and a student representative. The committee must be directly reachable to children and the committee proceedings must be made transparent and known to everyone in the school.

Finally, sex education must start from an early age. Age-appropriate content must be created for junior classes. From my own personal experience, I can say that the things I knew at 16 are quite well known by children as young as eight, today. Exposure increases as generations pass. There is no point in postpoining sex education until high school. Teachers must focus on teaching children the importance of consent and mutual respect. Perhaps more importantly, teachers must also practise consent with the students.

I ended the call with the psychotherapist after a while. My heart, which was heavy, had become relatively lighter after our conversation. The solutions Vidya spoke of need to reach the ears of the policymakers. Recent news reports say that Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has mandated the recording of all online classes. Though a step forward, the move is simply a narrow preventive mechanism, not a holistic correctional measure. Our students deserve better. It is high time that robust policies are defined and enforced to weed out child abusers at the early stages.

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