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Watch: Bizarre Ways in Which School Teachers Turn Moral Police

In Kerala, a boy and a girl have been suspended from school for a hug. But moral policing is the norm across India.

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NEON
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A Kerala school is in the news for turning a ‘friendly hug’ into a ‘sexual advance’. The school has expelled the girl and indefinitely suspended the boy involved after the incident took place in July. This may be the first time such an incident has got so much media attention. However, this is definitely not the first time that school authorities went all out in moral policing students.

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The Quint spoke to people across cities to get a sense of how prevalent this kind of moral policing is.

I was studying in a Mumbai school. Class 7. A friend was playfully poking me with a pencil and I held his hand to stop him from doing that. The teacher saw that and my parents were called in the next day. I was told, “Boys are like this only. But you should be careful about what you do, because people can think something else.” I remember this line so well.
Pritha Sengupta
The coordinator of our batch when I was in 9th or 10th grade called one of my friends’ mom to school, and told her, “Keep your daughter in check, she’s becoming a lesbian”. All because my friend held hands with her female best friend during the lunch break. A neat package of homophobia and moral policing!
Nainika Agarwal
I was not allowed to participate for school fest after a point of time because a teacher spotted me talking to a guy backstage. And the funny thing is nobody would tell me the reason why until one day a teacher decided to just tell me. These were the words: “You were found doing something with a guy in a school fest”... I was honestly amazed and I gave up.
Abira Banerjee
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I was in a girls’ school in Chennai which was co-ed till 5th. The boys’ wing was diagonally opposite. I had a cousin brother in that school. My grandmother asked me to give something to him one day. I met him after school and gave him the dabba and hugged him. My class teacher caught this and the next day, she dragged me aside and berated me. When I told her that he was my cousin, she said, ‘Yeah, when you get caught, everyone is your cousin.’ She then proceeded to call my mother to complain to her. But then my mom knew what was happening, so it turned out to be quite funny in the end.
Smriti Sanjay Sant
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If you have similar experiences of teachers or school authorities belittling you for bizarre reasons, share them with us.

Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam

(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)

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Topics:  Moral Policing   Kerala Schools   Hugging 

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