How should a 14-year-old who bullies another of the same age be punished, especially if the bullying results in permanent physical damage? In what way can the victim be compensated?

More than a year after a 14-year-old student was forced to do squats by her dormitory “leader’’, also aged 14, her foot hasn’t recovered. The victim was punished because snacks were found on her bed, which was a violation of dormitory rules. Although the victim claimed the snacks didn’t belong to her, and pleaded that her foot was injured, the “leader’’ ordered her to do 300 squats. She could manage only 150. Watching all this silently was a teacher.

Deep scars

Today, the victim walks on crutches; doctors say her foot will never heal. The teacher has been dismissed and the school has paid the victim’s medical expenses. But her parents say this isn’t enough. Officials say they will resolve this dispute under the existing laws, but what does that mean? Reports of the incident do not mention what happened to the 14-year-old “leader’’. Meanwhile, the victim has gone into depression.

She’s not the only school student to be so afflicted. A 15-year-old who’s faced bullying since Std II told a research team that she ended up feeling she must be “stupid’’, dropped out of school and is now on anti-depressants. Another teenager admitted to having cut her forearms in despair, thanks to having been bullied for years.

The research team, which spoke to middle-school students (ages 12 to 16), found that to some extent jungle law prevailed in schools. Unpopular kids and those at the bottom of the class in academics were most likely to be bullied. Their classmates did not feel making fun of and ostracizing them constituted bullying. Playgrounds, school canteens and dormitories, all places where CCTV cameras were not installed, were “hot spots’’. Perpetrators were mostly older kids, toppers and student “cadres’’, that is, those chosen by teachers for their excellence, which is why teachers did not intervene when they received complaints. Migrant kids were treated with contempt even by teachers. In fact, a 2017 study had found that students disliked by teachers were more likely to be bullied.

So victims kept quiet, unwilling to tell even their parents for fear that the latter would complain to teachers. Some schools hired retired soldiers as dormitory “keepers’’; they were often “vulgar and mean, and handed out corporal punishment’’, students said. Teachers sometimes gave lectures on bullying, but no one bothered to pay attention. Nor did teachers bother to make them listen; for them, it was just a task they had to complete.

In 2016, the government drew up guidelines on preventing school bullying, and some bullies have faced punishments which have gone on their school records. A few have even been forbidden from taking the high school entrance exam. But that doesn’t seem to be the norm.

Creative turn

Now, one victim has chosen to use her painful memories to educate others through a board game where players can choose any of three roles: victim, bully or bystander. The game, which won an award at a children’s art festival, is designed by a 22-year-old psychology graduate who’s been through hell in the last 10 years. Bullied in middle school for being fat, she started feeling inferior, leading to her grades falling, and finally to depression. She hopes her game, aimed at middle-school students, will not only help victims fight back and sensitize perpetrators and teachers, but also provide an understanding of what motivates bullies.