The Students' Federation of India (SFI) has called for a week-long nationwide campaign from Monday, August 28 to Tuesday, September 5, concluding on Teacher’s Day, against the alarming incident that occurred in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh.
An undated video has started making rounds on social media where a teacher at a private school in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar was seen instructing children in a class to slap their Muslim classmate. The viral video goes on to show children taking turns striking the sobbing Class II Muslim student with the teacher looking on. The video has sparked outrage on the internet.
“We decided to conclude the campaign on September 5 as it's Teachers’ Day and we want to reveal the fascist identity of this teacher in Uttar Pradesh. The protest is against this politics of hatred and polarisation all over the country. We demand that strict action be taken against the teacher and school authority as well,” Mayukh Biswas, General Secretary, SFI, told EdexLive.
Moreover, a delegation from the UP wing of SFI will be meeting the victim student and his family tomorrow, Sunday, August 27, informed Biswas.
The student union has demanded immediate dismissal of the teacher, followed by a comprehensive legal pursuit for orchestrating an act of violence against a child under her care. The call to action extends beyond this specific incident to address the “larger objective of eradicating the culture of animosity propagated by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), thereby uniting the democratic, progressive, and secular forces prevalent in India,” a press release by the student group claimed.
FIR filed against teacher
Meanwhile, the Muzaffarnagar Police today, Saturday, August 26, booked the teacher accused of making communal comments and ordering her students to slap a Muslim classmate, PTI reported.
In her defence, the teacher, Tripti Tyagi, has said that the video has been tampered with in order to build tension.
She, however, said though it was wrong on her part to get a student slapped by classmates, she was forced to do it as she is handicapped and was not able to stand up and reach the student who had not done his assignment.
Police booked Tyagi on the basis of the complaint filed by the boy's family, but are yet to reveal the sections she has been charged with.
Another report by ANI revealed that the victim child is being offered counselling sessions, as informed by Muzaffarnagar District Magistrate Arvind Mallappa.
Political leaders react
The viral video has caught the attention of a large number of netizens, including politicians.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took it to social media platform X (previously Twitter), condemning the incident. He said, "sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like school into a marketplace of hatred — nothing worse a teacher can do for the country. This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP which has set every corner of India on fire. Children are the future of India. We all have to teach them love not hatred.”
Earlier in the day, the Samajwadi Party (SP) also alleged that it was the "politics of hate" of BJP and RSS that had brought the country to such a pass where a teacher could ask her students to slap a boy from a minority community over his religion.
SP Chief Akhilesh Yadav too, in a post, demanded that the teacher be sacked immediately, and called her a “blot on teacher society”.
In response, BJP spokesperson Harishchandra Srivastava called the tweets made by opposition leaders “superficial politics and a disgusting political agenda”.
