Safety Mirage

It has been a year since Badlapur was convulsed by the Akshay Shinde case, a chilling reminder of how vulnerable children remain even in supposedly safe educational spaces. Shinde, accused of sexually assaulting two schoolgirls, was killed in a murky police encounter while being taken for questioning. The sordid episode forced the state government to promise sweeping reforms. A year on, those promises look less like systemic safeguards and more like theatre.

State government authorities have been quick to trumpet new measures like Police Clearance Certificates for school staff, surprise inspections and CCTV cameras in classrooms and on paper. While the system resembles an airtight fortress of vigilance, the fortifications are hollow in practice as shocking misdemeanours continue unchecked in schools and varsities across Maharashtra.

The Sangli rape case in May exposed just how little has changed in the culture of safety. A 22-year-old medical student was drugged and assaulted by her classmates. If universities, which ought to nurture mature professionals, cannot protect their own students, what hope is there for schoolchildren?

In Nashik, the rot is even starker. A school inspection this April revealed knives, chains, condoms and playing cards in the bags of pupils as young as 12. The discovery shocked even jaded inspectors, but instead of grappling with the underlying breakdown in supervision and discipline, officials offered another round of pious statements about ‘safety awareness.’

Nashik was rocked again earlier this month when a 15-year-old boy was beaten to death by his classmates over a dispute about seating in a tuition class. A trivial quarrel escalated into a fatal assault in full view of a teacher and other students.

These incidents puncture the government’s carefully cultivated narrative of reform. Rather than a serious re-engineering of student safety, what Maharashtra has delivered is cosmetic compliance. CCTV cameras, often installed haphazardly, are as effective as scarecrows in deterring predators. Awareness workshops only amount to tick-box exercises when predators lurk within institutions or when teachers themselves prove incapable of handling conflict among students.

After Badlapur, the state could have instituted transparent audits of schools, mandatory reporting of safety breaches and legal liability for institutions that fail to protect students. Instead, responsibility has been dispersed so widely that no one is to blame when the next outrage erupts. A state that fails to protect its students is one that has normalised neglect. The casual brutality of Nashik’s classroom killing is a symptom of the erosion of values within schools. Maharashtra’s rulers are fond of announcing grand schemes, but the gap between promise and reality has rarely been so stark.

The anniversary of Badlapur ought to have been an occasion for redoubled commitment. Instead, it reveals a state content to confuse surveillance with safety and tokenism with reform. The mirage of protection may satisfy bureaucrats. It will not bring back the children whose lives were shattered because those tasked with protecting them preferred optics to action.