Shiv Kumar Padha
The recent incident of shooting of the mother by none other than her own real son, locking her dead body in the home till stinking, slitting the throats mercilessly, chopping the pieces of the girl friends in 35 pieces, burning of the girl by her friend by sprinkling petrol in her own home, throwing girl-friend from third floor, compelling female hotel employ to commit suicide at Rishikesh, hitting the girl and dragging her dead body up to 13 Km. On the highway, acid attacks on the girls in the broad daylight and dozens of such crimes committed being committed in the country shook the entire country from inside which, consequently, prompted me to pen down my ideas regarding this inhuman and barbarous act of the criminals. This is not the only case in India or in other countries of the world. There are many startling e of such crimes committed by the teenagers. According to statics record from the National Crime Records Bureau, out of 43,506 offences perpetrated against children under the Indian Panel Code (IPC), 1880 and the Special Local Law (SLL) by juveniles in 2019, 28830 were committed by individuals of the aforementioned age group. From 1,671 cases in 2014 and 1,981 in 20 15 the figure rose to 2368 in 2016 making Delhi the number one ranked among metropolitan cities with 35.6 per cent of the crimes committed by the minors across the country. It is worth mentioning, who is a juvenile or teenager under juvenile law, A juvenile child who has not completed the age of Juvenile Justice 16 years in the case of boys, or the age of 18 years in the case of girls according to 1960 act is called a juvenile. The juvenile Delinquency problem involves millions of youth It has been estimated that maximum number of the youth have engaged in juvenile Delinquency behavior at one time or the other.
The family, schools and the religious institutions are three agencies which are responsible for the erosion of moral values among the school going children and the entire society. Children are the invaluable gift from God and are the valuable assets of any nation. It is the duty of every individual, parents, guardians and society as a whole to provide them opportunities to grow up in healthy socio cultural environment so that they become responsible citizens, physically fit, mentally alert and morally healthy. Society is anguished to observe abrupt increase in the juvenile crimes such as murder, rapes, snatching, stabbing, theft, burglary during the past few years. The cases of hit and run by teenager, Nirvya Kand of Delhi, Murder of child in Rayan school of Gurugaon, stabbing of a small school-going child by a girl of 12 in the school, pushing of mother by a boy down the fourth floor and killing of mother by juvenile daughter is a small sample of crimes committed by the children during the previous days. The parents of the school going children feel concerned, dissatisfied and disappointed with the quality of education being imparted in schools, their academic achievements and gradual failure of the schools in character building and inculcating moral and disciplinary values among the children. Low educational standard and lack of moral, disciplinary and nationalistic values among the school going children is like a pimple grown on an ulcer. The students studying or who have left the schools exhibit the kind of behavior which is completely reverse of expected behavioral outcome after or during schooling. Home, School and society are the three agencies where the child gets his formal, informal and incidental learning. Failure of any one of these agencies contributes to the falling standards of education and erosion of the moral and disciplinary values in the school going children where nobody can escape from the blame. While home is considered as the cradle of society, the schools get their population from the society. Unless these three agencies identify their roll and consider the education as their joint venture we cannot expect the desired and expected outcome from our schools. Truancy, early aggressiveness, violence, drug addiction, poor school performance, disobedience, irregularity, indiscipline, early drop outs, excessive addiction of the mobile and forbidden apps and involvement of the minors in rape cases and stone pelting are the major crimes committed by the minors. The habitual committing of such criminal acts or offences by a young person especially one below the age at which ordinary criminal persecution is possible comes under the ambit of juvenile delinquency. It is also called juvenile offending, which is a participation of minors in illegal behavior which are punishable under law framed for the adults. It is perhaps the result of wrong parenting, careless schooling or vicious neighborhood that our youngsters are becoming belligerent, violent and aggressive day by day the signs of which can be seen in the violent incidents taking place daily in the society. The spirit of mercifulness, pity, kindness and belongingness is fast disappearing from the society we are living in. There was a time when the avenues of education were few, the economic condition of the parents was deplorable, the distance of schools from their homes was long and there was scarcity of text books and the teachers still the studies in the schools and the moral character of the students, during those days, was up to the desired level of the society and better than as it is now. It is observed that the quality of education during the days of acute shortage of qualified teachers, teaching learning material and the infra structure, the quality of education in schools was of comparatively higher quality than the one being imparted at present times in schools. The students who passed out from the schools during those days were found quite at home in the subjects taught in the schools. The sincerity, dedication of the teachers, the obedient and disciplined behavior of the both resulted into the formation of their moral and exemplary character during the days of acute shortage of resources. Now, the schools are equipped with the adequate infrastructure, teaching learning material by the government. The governments have been spending a lot for updating, upgrading and renewing and enriching the knowledge and content of the in service teachers through periodical orientation courses in child psychology, content, pedagogy and methodology but, as the ill luck would have it the tall claims of the education department prove nothing more than verbosity as nothing solid is visible on ground regarding the betterment in the educational standard and the character building of the students in the schools. The falling standards of teaching and inculcation of vulgar behavior during schooling are the two major threats for the society. The developing vulgarity and aggressiveness on the part of the school going students is not only the cause of worry for the parents but it is becoming a nuisance for the whole society because these juvenile delinquents are easily falling into the trap of criminals for their use in anti social and anti national activities. No agency, home, school or society can escape from the responsibility because the lenient and unmindful behavior of the parents towards their children at home, dereliction of the duties on the part of the teachers and schools and the exploitation of the delinquents by the society is the main root cause of the problem.
It is said ‘When the old cock crows the young one follow’ approximately, two decades back very few cases pertaining to the juveniles were either heard or reported in the police stations where the police stations either released them after a brief counseling or by considering them minors not fit for conviction. No doubt the whole school plant is responsible for imparting education to the children but the school teacher plays a pivotal role in the entire educational matters. It will not be an exaggeration if we say, but for the sincere, selfless, dedicated and honest efforts of this pivotal organ no favorable, desirable or expected results can be achieved in the schools. There was a time when, not to talk of graduate or post graduate, there was acute scarcity of matriculate teachers in the country, but the little number of such teachers exhibited exemplary character and professionalism. It is disheartening to say that the majority of the so called graduates, post graduates and doctorates working in the schools are found totally misfit, incapable and not worth calling a teacher due to the reasons.
Most of the youth adapt the teaching profession by chance and not by choice, such teachers consider themselves employees like others and do not adjust themselves according to the demand, discipline, dress, culture and ethics of the profession. Majority of such teachers are the products of fake universities which sell the degrees like grocery articles. Owing to lack of control over the concepts and content heir knowledge of school subjects is too small to satisfy the lower primary students. The majority of such teachers can be knocked out by asking them to solve easy problems pertaining to the text books of primary classes. Many teachers, instead of improving professional efficiency, try to become popular among the students and develop friendship with them with the result the inappropriate behavior of the children is overlooked which leads to the formation of such habits in them which prove detrimental for the disciplined and congenial atmosphere of the school and the society. Majority of the heads of the educational institutes lack in administrative as well as academic side because their promotions are based upon their length of service in the department and not upon their knowledge in school subjects. Scared of the weakness in the school subjects the heads of the schools remain glued to their seats and never visit the class rooms. Such type of government schools look more like fish market than any educational institute. The group culture prevalent in the schools have made the schools the political arenas where main emphasis of the teachers remain on making the political affiliations than teaching because the transfers and adjustments depend upon their frowns and favors. The political lobbies of the teachers give long rope to the innocent students in order to use them as a tool either to avenge the regular, punctual and good task masters heads of the schools or to show their colleagues down before the children. Under the patronage of the teachers of their lobbies the school children involved in the anti-school or anti-social activities, within or outside the school premises, escape punishment which contributes towards their delinquent behavior later on. Majority of teachers, who either lack grip over the school subjects or those who do not have study habit often slip the classes or keep the students busy in gossips with the result the whole class behaves like rein less horses and rattle the whole school with noise. The horror, formulae and stunt films also leave a bad impact on the immature minds of the children as a result they apply and imitate whatever they learn in their real life. The unchecked addiction of the drugs and other intoxicants by the youth make them more aggressive and intolerant in the society. Giving long rope to the children by their unmindful parents encourage such criminal behavior of the youth. It is said that even the blind parents can sense and experience where their children are going, who are their friends, If the home school and the society work honestly, in unison and in team spirit and consider shaping the character and education of their children as their joint venture there can be no scope of the juvenile delinquency in the country in future.
(The author is a
Social Activist from Basohli).