DPS Noida ragging shows how a bully gets away and a victim is isolated

We don’t need newspaper headlines of an incident at a Noida school to remind us that bullying can destroy a person’s life forever.

For those who were hiding under a rock for the last few weeks, two children of Class 12 in DPS Noida were hospitalised recently with severe injuries after being ragged and beaten. When a similar incident occurred in a high-profile residential school in central India a couple of years ago, the word used by some was "hazing".

Ragging. Hazing. Bullying. Whatever be the word you choose for it, the very idea is wrong. It is a power equation where the intention is to destroy the victim. Make no mistake, this is a violation of human rights and is not "harmless fun" or "part of childhood" or "the way to grow up". And it is widespread, with some studies showing that every third child is bullied in school. Amnesty International (India) goes a step further, with estimates that 70 per cent of children experience bullying in schools.

No one really can condone such violent incidents, where the immediate effect is so apparent and victims ended up in hospital. But they do. Schools, we are told, don’t speak to anyone. Teachers and counsellors say that it doesn’t happen or the specific incident didn’t. Sometimes, we are told, the victim is actually the one who is blamed.

How many of us remember the bully at school who was the centre of attention? The girl who used the most biting remarks to cut others down to size and was regarded as witty. Or the boy who would taunt and beat younger kids with an indulgent crowd teasing the victims.

These bullies, the loud-mouthed, over-aggressive girls and boys, continued to be popular. The tribe that is the school, with its culture of the herd, turns its back on the victim. No one, not even the victim’s friends, are supportive because they are afraid of being outcasts or targets. And the victim gets further alienated from his/her normal world. Everyone laughs and enjoys the spectacle. Not because the bully is truly popular, for no one likes a bully. But no one likes a victim either.

Bullying is, of course, a power game and the urban myth is that standing up to a bully is all that needs to be done to solve the problem. But bullies are clever. They know that they can’t exist without the victims and they are careful not to pick the people who might stand up to them. Those singled out to be victims usually lack assertiveness and radiate fear long before they ever encounter a bully.

Sometimes, even the victim’s family begins to have doubts. In my recent book, It’s Not About You, Sammy finds a veil of silence that envelopes the school when her son is bullied. The biased investigation ends up blaming her son, Aksh, for what had happened. And she realises that a parent’s job is never done, never quite completed.

“Sammy realised that she, like other parents, had assumed that getting Aksh into a ‘good school’ meant having no problems for fourteen years, from nursery to grade twelve. That she had no real responsibility because the school would take care of the rest; it would keep her son safe and help him grow. That a good school was like Aladdin’s lamp with a genie that would, at the end of grade twelve, deliver a perfect child with perfect marks, extracurricular activities and a football trophy. Sammy brushed her jacket as she struggled with her emotions, pent up anger, guilt and frustration. She had begun to understand that bullying was immoral, that predators followed no rules. That often there was no purpose, no reason, no provocation for picking on a victim. That bullying was horrible, almost like the scourge of cancer.”

We have all seen bullying around us. And we have mostly stood silently watching it happen. Yes, it is difficult for peers to stand up to bullies, so they get their way. But do remember that you have to be that special person who can stand up alone to a bully, when others around are too weak or scared to intervene.

For you must remember that bullying is cruel and has a lifelong impact on the victims. And that alone is reason enough to stand up to the next bully you encounter.