“Look at this Thadiyan (fat boy). How can he sit in class with the other kids and teachers?”
These words weren’t spoken by a comedian, in what passes for funny in several Indian films.
On Tuesday, two social workers from Kerala Mahila Samakhya Society (KMSS) visited the MPM Higher Secondary School Chungathara in Nilambur of Malappuram district. Aysha and Raseela were taking nine children from the Nilambur tribal colonies to meet the headmaster of the school, Wilson Daniel.
The visit was a part of an ambitious government programme to bring dropouts from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities back to school. KMSS, in association with the SC/ST department of Kerala, has been conducting camps across the state to identify school dropouts, and also those children who have never had access to formal education.
Wilson Daniel starts off by claiming he was genuinely concerned about whether the children would fit into the school, and whether they would be able to cope with the syllabus.
In an audio clip released by Aysha and Raseela, the headmaster begins by asking one of the children, who is supposed to be enrolled in the ninth standard, to write his name.
When the child was a little slow in doing so, Wilson Daniel started berating him.
While that could still pass for ‘genuine concern’ (with a stretch of imagination), Wilson Daniel then goes on to make his intentions clearer. He claims it would be ‘unwise’ to induct the kids with the ‘normal students’.
He then continues to mock the children, and repeatedly says that he was bothered about the ‘welfare’ of the students in his school.
Wilson Daniel humiliates the children so much that some of them walk out in protest.
And in this agitated state, the headmaster then targeted another child.
Pointing to the boy, Wilson Daniel said that since he was obese, it would affect ‘other students and teachers.’
As if the absurdity of that statement wasn’t enough, the headmaster then repeatedly refers to the child as ‘Thadiyan’ – a derogatory term for a fat boy.
Wilson Daniel claims, without a hint of awareness about how much he was affecting the confidence of the child by body shaming him,
While Aysha and Raseela objected to Wilson Daniel’s language, the headmaster flip-flopped between one bizarre excuse to another, just to not admit the children in his school.
When Aysha asked the headmaster whether education is denied for all obese and overweight students, Wilson Daniel changes tack to say, “They can’t even write properly, then how can they sit with others?”
In fact, he repeatedly told the students that they should get counselling. When the social workers tried to convince him that the kids were from tribal colonies and deprived of a formal education; they told him it was imperative to give them an opportunity.
“We can never comprehend their situation and this is unfair,” Aysha can be heard saying.
But the headmaster would have none of it, and got even more abusive.
The agitated social workers objected strongly to his disparaging comments. “It is painful to hear these things about them. Which children don’t get diseases? If someone in your family falls sick, will you throw them out?” the women can he heard asking.
But instead of hanging his head in shame, the headmaster asked whether they had any clothes other than the black ones they were wearing.
If he could have his way, the headmaster would have refused to take the children in. But forced to comply with the government order, Wilson Daniel reluctantly admitted four students in Class 9. The children started school on Wednesday.
But for how long they will be able to survive with such a caustic man as their headmaster is anyone’s guess.
Aysha points out that most of the time, these students drop out of school due to humiliation from teachers.
According to data provided by the central government on the floor of the Rajya Sabha on 20 March 2017, the school dropout rates of SC and ST students is very high across the country. For tribal students especially, the numbers are alarming.
In 2013-14, according to this data, 31.3% of tribal students dropped out before they finish Class 5, 48.2% dropped out before graduating Class 8, and by Class 10, 62.4% tribal children were out of school.
(This article was first published on The News Minute and has been republished with their permission.)
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