“Hugging Mana Hai“
According to the Times of India, two schools in Mumbai have banned “public displays of affection and unwarranted touching.” By this they mean holding hands, hugging, or a peck on the cheek. They are also prohibited from spending time together before or after class.
The justification is that they are ‘not acceptable by society at large’ and ‘school at some point has to take a stand and play the role of a guardian of moral values’ and ‘if the brakes aren’t applied now, 15 years later it may lead to an unhealthy campus environment.’
I find this sort of reasoning baffling and appalling. What sorts of “health” problems do they expect to result from rampant hand holding? It seems obviously that these are nothing more or less than prudish overreaction. The role of schools in a modern pluralistic secular society is not to teach moral values, moral values are properly taught by parents and a family’s chosen moral and spiritual teachers. Public schools have no role promulgating repressive sexual attitudes on their captive population.
Is society really so weak that it can be destroyed by children holding hands in school?
Charles,
Its unfortunate that our politicians and administrators are rigid, old fashioned and regressive in their thinking and attitude. They are out of place in a time that calls for progressive, forward thinking that should take India leaps and bounds ahead. India and Indians will forever be repressed culturally and economically as long as these dinosaurs are around. Its time the younger generation spoke out as to what really matters to us and sent these old timers back to medieval times.
Cheers!
Ravi
that is how we are. public display of affection is bad taste asahya. but boys holding hands and arms around their shoulders is ok. ditto for women.
what we call that is maryade. mughals brought in tehzeeb, the brits manners.
i am not being a prude just explaning that there are certain norms in every culture. every society accepts some. some shun eating cow, others dogs still other lizards in turmeric sauce.
says nothing about the society.
It depends…
If I see my daughter holding/hugging a fellow boy student/friend I will definitely be disturbed. I will always welcome schools banning such public display of affection. There needs to be some kind of policing at schools. I feel it is good for the society.
….ah… ha.. I am happy that, the school where my daughter is studying in US, recently banned hugging with in the school campus..
Though I can understand the need for the politicians to “grow up”, it does sometimes look like a fad to oppose anything and everything that is perceived ok by the west and is opposed at home. At a school going age, the students can’t be expected to show self restraint. They probably listen more to their hormones than their brain. Hence going by logic wouldn’t work. If policing and brute force policies help in holding back the otherwise overactive sexual tendencies in school premises, I am all for it.
Our society won’t get corrupt any one thing, but lets not be in a hurry to reform it either. Just like many other things that have eased up over the years, if such acts have to be allowed in school, it will happen in due course.
It seems to me that a fairly straightforward fact based approach to this problem might yield valuable insights.
You say “At a school going age, the students can’t be expected to show self restraint.” Why not? They are expected to show self restraint in many other ways. They don’t steal each other’s food, they don’t physically assault each other, they don’t defecate on the floor. Each of these has an obvious and direct deleterious effect that one can point at and say “this action has this undesirable result.”
There are no such obvious observable undesirable effects from children holding hands. To justify government regulation of private behavior there needs to be some obvious observable unambiguous harm that results from that basis. In this case there is no such result.
Fairfax County middle school student Hal Beaulieu hopped up from his lunch table one day a few months ago, sat next to his girlfriend and slipped his arm around her shoulder. That landed him a trip to the school office.
Among his crimes: hugging.
All touching — not only fighting or inappropriate touching — is against the rules at Kilmer Middle School in Vienna. Hand-holding, handshakes and high-fives? Banned. The rule has been conveyed to students this way: “NO PHYSICAL CONTACT!!!!!”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/17/AR2007061701179_pf.html
They are kids and not adults. Fact based approaches rarely work with adults, let alone kids. :-) Though I understand that a political mandate of this kind could be deemed going over board, a similar regulation by the school should be ok. The rules and regulations in a school are the prerogative of the school management.
“A similar regulation by the school should be ok.”
How do you figure?
If a school’s management believes that girls should not be educated, is it their prerogative to exclude them?
Schools in a pluralistic secular society should not be used as vehicles for universal enforcement of majority moral views. Unless there is an articulable overriding objective reason, minority moral views must not be forcibly supressed.
Mr.Charles,
We dont want to learn from you, We have our own way of handling the public or social issue and not required an outsider suggestions.
Moreover i think you dont have any morality or right to critisize our policts as it is non of our business, U are here to earn your bread and butter and concentrate on that dont try to act smart.
If you are so care about society just to and suggest your people in your country.
We dont tolarate this.
Mr.Ravi,
You have two faces, Few days back your were worried abour Kamasutra hordings in public place & now you are…..
Jai Hind
NOT AMERICAN,
whom are you speakign about ‘WE’, are you sure ‘your’ word counts when the morals are decided by immorals representatives choosend when people like you and me don’t even have funcdamental right to decide which candidate we want ion this lurcy demise of democracy by political parties.
do ‘we’ only want export earning’s in dollars and pounds from developing countries,do we feel pride when ‘H1B’ stamping’s are done on our passports and don’t care about having respect for the fair opinions and statements anyone can make, why this hipocracy? what are we ‘saving’ and for whom?
well said Charles, Is society really so weak that it can be destroyed by children holding hands in school? perhaps few of us do.
Mr. Not,
We dont want to learn from you
It seems clear you don’t like what I said, which is the first step in starting a healthy dialog.
We have our own way of handling the public or social issue and not required an outsider suggestions.
If the social issues in question are actually for the good of society, then it should be easy to point out their justification even to an outsider. If the goal is actual improvement of society an open dialog – even with outsiders – can only strengthen and improve it more. It is only weak or harmful positions that cannot stand up to critical scrutiny.
Moreover i think you dont have any morality or right to critisize our policts as it is non of our business, U are here to earn your bread and butter and concentrate on that dont try to act smart.
Intolerance of dissent and suppression of disagreement are hallmarks of a particular kind of society and government, and if you want to claim the title of “the world’s largest democracy” you have to not only tolerate dissent, you have to encourage healthy disagreement. If your positions cannot stand up to critical examination, perhaps those positions should be allowed to fall.
If you are so care about society just to and suggest your people in your country.
I’m s still trying to parse this, I can’t tell if it’s a simple jingoism “Yankee go home” or if it’s ad hominem tu quoque. In any case, rest assured I don’t hesitate when it comes to pointing out failings of “my” country. I don’t do it in Bangalore Metroblogs though since this is supposed to be a blog about Bangalore.
We dont tolarate this.
What does this intolerance say about you and the things you believe in? That they cannot be supported by reason and understanding, that they cannot stand critical examination, and that they can only survive by silencing disagreement, not by answering it?
Jai Hind
Charming sentiment, but I prefer reasoned argument to sloganeering.
I don’t see the logic in comparing something like
“girls getting education” to “no hugging in school”. When a school decides what should or should not be allowed in its campus, how does that become “universal enforcement” of “majority moral views”? It just indicates the “enforcement” of “rules” decided by the “school management” in “school premises”. Unfortunately we live in a world where rules are very much needed. We live by rules laid down on us by administrators or bureaucracy. We can challenge them, because we probably were part of the process that gave them the power to do so.
A private school is a different ball game. If we have a problem with the school or its policies, we have our choices. Lets ensure our kids get their education in a different school. It would be good to get feedback from the parents of the kids as to whether they have a problem with having such a rule? If the school is not meant to teach moral values, then parents should have no problem with this ruling, as the kids come to the school to study and this ruling does not prevent them from studying in anyway.