A necessary evil

 

 

Professor Arindam Chaudhuri's editorial on physical punishment in schools was quite thought-provoking as well as disturbing (TSI, July 19-25). Teachers are doing a yeoman's service, but a few teachers may be criminal-minded and sadistic. We should object not to physical punishment but to severe or excessive physical punishment. Caning is a necessary evil. Do away with caning and rowdies will be churning out of the schools. What the teachers fail to do would probably have to be done by the police. If the parents watch a session of ragging, they will demand, not caning, but lathi-charge. Here Murphy's law works perfectly. If anything can go wrong, it will. If physical punishment is totally banned in schools, students will behave like criminals and the society will be sorry for it in the long run.

S. Raghunatha Prabhu

Thiruvampady, Alappuzha