Speak in mother tongue; pay Rs 1,000 fine

A private CBSE school in Kerala’s Thrissur district allegedly expelled as many as 103 students for not paying Rs 1,000 each as fine for speaking in their mother tongue, Malayalam, in the class rooms. The incident occurred at an English medium school under Christian management in Mala, about 35 km away from Thrissur.

The management of the school also sent 83 students out of the campus for the same ‘crime” despite their plea not to send them out before the school hours were over. Among those who had committed the “crime” of speaking Malayalam, only hostel inmates and girls were allowed to stay in the school.

The incident occurred amidst mounting complaints in Kerala about the disciplinary procedures in CBSE and Central schools. On August 2, a Central School teacher had forcefully cut the hair of dozens of students for violating the institution’s stipulations on hair styles for boys. Speaking in Malayalam attracts fine in almost all private CBSE schools in Kerala.

Those who were punished for speaking in Malayalam at the Mala school were students of first year and second year higher secondary classes. These students had been asked four days ago to pay the fine but only two of them had brought the money. On Thursday morning, the management asked the students to go out of the school.

Some of the students protested saying they would get their vehicles to go back only in the evening but the management allegedly refused to listen to them. They were also asked not to wait at the school gates, guardians complained.

When the guardians protested against the action of the school management, they instructed them to pay the fine in 15 installments but there was no agreement on this. At this point, the management pointed out that students were admitted to the school on the condition that those speaking in Malayalam inside the campus would be fined.

The school authorities later claimed that reports about asking for Rs 1,000 as fine were wrong and that they had imposed only a Rs 250 fine. The matter became a controversy with several rights groups intervening in it.

Joseph Chacko, a local merchant in Mala, said the guardians had known that their children could be fined if they spoke Malayalam in the school. “I have seen parents saying proudly about this stipulation in the school. I can’t understand the logic of parents and the school management coming to an agreement on what language the children should communicate in,” he said.

He said it was an irony that such incidents were taking place in a State where the Government itself had decided to make the mother tongue the first language in schools. “I am not surprised. It was only the other day someone filed a petition in the High Court challenging this Government decision and saying that Malayalam has feudal hangover,” Joseph said.

On August 2, a teacher had allegedly cut the hair of over 90 boys to maintain the school code at the Kendriya Vidyalaya at Kanjikkode in Palakkad district. The punishment was meted out to students who did not crop their hair properly despite repeated warnings.

The teacher chose the students who had not cut their hair, lined them up behind the assembly hall of the school before cutting their hair with a pair of scissors he had brought. As the teacher was not an expert in the art of hair-cutting, many of the punished students had to go for a clean shave.

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