Lucknow, Oct 30: In Uttar Pradesh, ‘C’ is for children and ‘C’ is also for caste.
It is school children who bear the brunt of the prevailing caste politics in the state.
There are innumerable cases of children being discriminated against in government schools on the basis of caste. Most of them either go unreported or do not invite any action.
Last year, in Amethi, the principal of a primary school in Gaderi in Sangrampur area was accused of allegedly forming a “separate queue of Dalit children” when they were served the midday meal.
An FIR was registered against the principal Kusum Soni, under sections of the SC/ST Atrocities Prevention Act and she was suspended.
The case was also reported to the district magistrate who ordered a probe by the Basic Shiksha Adhikari.
There was also the case of segregation of utensils used by Dalit students in a government school in Mainpuri district.
“This has now become a way of life, especially in rural areas. The caste feeling is so dominant now that it is the children who refuse to eat food cooked by a Dalit or sit with children belonging to Dalit castes. We try to sort out the matter in the school itself and it is only when a TV channel highlights the incident that action is taken,” says Ram Prakash Srivastava, a retired school teacher in Ballia.
Vinay Kumar, the head of a village in an eastern UP constituency, says, “The caste system has gained strong roots and unless the local MLA or MP belongs to a marginalised caste, Dalit children are victimised in schools. Teachers, while beating them or scolding them, use cuss words and caste shame them. I belong to the Dalit community but there is little I can do to protect the children because the local MLA belongs to the upper caste and so do the local officials.”
Sangita, a class four student who belongs to a Dalit community, says that the school teacher tells her to sit in a separate row and she is also asked to sit away from others when the midday meal is served.
“Big (read upper caste) children do not play with me and they also get the food first,” she says.
Sangita says that the only time she is given ‘VIP aur accha kaam (treatment)’ is when ‘mantri ji’ comes to school. (IANS)
