Corporal Punishment

I HOLD the view that it is wrong to inflict punishment on the boys in any form whatsoever. It diminishes the love for, and pride in, their students which teachers should have. The old system of punishing students in order to teach them is fast disappearing in modern educational methods. I know that occasions crop up when even the best teachers cannot help punishing the offenders among students. But, fortunately, such occasions are few, and, in any case, it would not be right to justify them. If a teacher feels compelled to resort to punishment, it should be taken as implying a deficiency, to that extent, in his profession. Educationists like Spencer have held as improper every form of punishment, though he could not always stick by his precept.

Art of Disciplining

As a general rule, non-violence and punishment cannot go together. I can certainly imagine cases in which punishment would not be punishment. But such examples would not be useful to teachers. For instance, if a father is very sad over his son's misconduct and, unable to bear the grief, beats him, his beating the boy might well be regarded as the punishment of love. The boy would also not consider it violence. Those who nurse a patient in delirium have, at times, to slap him in order to control him. This would also be not violence, but non-violence. But such examples are worthless to teachers. They must acquire the art of disciplining students and of teaching them without punishing them. There are examples of teachers who have never used punishment. Other forms of punishment, besides corporal punishment, are : to make the students get down from their seat, to make them do the stand-and-sit exercise, to abuse them etc. According to me, the teacher should not punish students at all.

To punish the boys first for improving them and then be sorry for it, is not true penitence. Besides, if the teachers adopt this practice and act on it, it will ultimately become a behavior pattern of people in our society. Punishment has led us to believe in the illusion that improvement can be brought about through the use of violence. I hold the view that a teacher, who deliberately uses punishment, commits a breach of his pledge in regard to non-violence.

— Navajivan : Oct. 21, 1928