New Delhi, India – India corporal punishment returned to the spotlight after the death of a six-year-old boy in Andhra Pradesh, following an alleged slap by his kindergarten teacher for not finishing homework, according to officials and family members.
Krishna Prasad said he learned around noon on Thursday that his son, Pranay Teja, had collapsed at school and been taken to a public hospital. By the time Prasad, who works as a cook in private homes, reached King George Hospital in Visakhapatnam, Teja had been declared dead.
Classroom security footage, described by authorities, shows the child appearing distressed while standing in a queue. The teacher pulls him closer and strikes him, after which he collapses against her. Staff attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation and took him to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The family alleges the private school routinely used physical discipline. The Andhra Pradesh School Education Department called the death “extremely unfortunate and painful” and formed a three-member panel to examine the circumstances. The case remains under investigation.
India corporal punishment outlawed, still prevalent
India banned corporal punishment in schools through the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act in 2009, effective 2010, which prohibits physical punishment and mental harassment. The Juvenile Justice Act of 2015 also criminalises cruelty to children by those responsible for their care, and courts have repeatedly affirmed that corporal punishment violates a child’s dignity.
Researchers and child rights advocates say gaps persist between laws and classroom practice, particularly in schools serving low-income, rural and marginalised communities. A 2018 study by the nonprofit Agrasar reported that nearly 80 percent of surveyed low-income students in Gurugram experienced beatings several times a week, and most parents approved of such discipline and used it at home.
New Delhi-based lawyer Kawalpreet Kaur said enforcement is weak. She argued that while the RTE Act prohibits abuse, it does not create a strong standalone criminal offence, so cases are often pushed into general criminal provisions and treated as minor. According to Kaur, school administrations frequently shield staff, deter complaints and pressure families to settle quietly.
Kaur cited court approaches she said reflect reluctance to prosecute teachers. In one Kerala case, a teacher accused of caning a sixth-grader received bail, with observations cautioning against excessive prosecution. A similar matter in Karnataka over alleged stick beatings of a sixth-grader is being heard on a plea to quash proceedings. Such outcomes, she said, can end up justifying corporal punishment under notions of deemed parental consent.
Sanctioned by scriptures
Corporal punishment includes spanking, slapping, hitting with objects, pinching and caning, as well as flogging and whipping in criminal contexts. Historian Ruchika Sharma said the practice in India predates British rule, rooted in the caste hierarchy. She pointed to ancient texts such as the Arthashastra and Manusmriti, which prescribe graded punishments, including harsher penalties for lower castes for the same offences.
Sharma said the British did not originate the practice in India, but normalised and systematised it in governance and education. She noted that the East India Company and later the British crown embedded flogging and caning in regulation, including through the Whipping Acts of 1864 and 1909, and that schools reflected the assumption that caning was a legitimate tool for moral instruction.
Testimonies gathered in recent years have detailed identity-based discrimination in schools. In 2015, sessions held by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and child rights groups heard from dozens of children describing punitive treatment, sometimes over trivial matters. A 2016 report by the International Dalit Solidarity Network compiled accounts of corporal punishment, forced labour and exclusion from midday meals. A 2022 study in the International Journal of Educational Development found more severe cognitive impacts from corporal punishment on children from disadvantaged caste groups than on privileged-caste peers.
‘Dalit child more likely to be punished’
For many Indians now in midlife, slaps, rulers across palms or being made to stand in the sun were once routine and defended as discipline. Yet some of the gravest incidents in recent years have involved children from marginalised communities.
In August 2022, nine-year-old Inder Meghwal, a Dalit student in Rajasthan, died weeks after his teacher allegedly beat him for touching a water pot reserved for the teacher. Sharma said a Dalit child is more likely to face harsher punishment than a non-Dalit child, reflecting persistent caste hierarchies.
Weeks earlier in Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim family alleged their son died after school staff beat him when he and two Hindu classmates were accused of stealing a watch. The family said their child was singled out. In August 2023, a teacher in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, told classmates to slap a seven-year-old Muslim boy, Mohammad Altamash, and used a derogatory term captured on video. The episode drew widespread condemnation. The Supreme Court later ordered that the child be transferred to another school at state expense.
The ruling party in the state rejected claims that its politics encouraged hate. The episode drew widespread condemnation similar to reactions documented in coverage of other charged incidents, such as the spread of misinformation in a fake Daily Express video targeting migrants.
New Delhi nonprofit leader Aasif Mujtaba said Muslim children are vulnerable to being otherised. He described verbal abuse, mocking names and slurs as a “silent killer” that may leave no bruises but inflicts harm. He added that incidents known through CCTV or social media represent only a fraction of cases.
‘Structural nature of discrimination’
Lawyer Ratna Singh, associated with the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party, said abuse in schools reflects a power imbalance and low legal awareness. According to her, teachers often assume broad authority over children, who rarely complain. The group has campaigned for reforms in government schools, particularly in rural areas.
Kaur said legal framing remains too narrow. Dalit and Adivasi students have identity-specific protections under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, she noted, but Muslim students lack an equivalent law. Even under the RTE Act, authorities may focus on the physical act and overlook discriminatory motives.
Discrimination, she said, is rarely a one-off event but is reinforced through repeated insults, stereotypes and selective punishment. Addressing the problem, according to Kaur, requires mandatory reporting, independent complaint mechanisms beyond school authorities and attention to patterns rather than isolated episodes.
She argued that Indian law has yet to fully recognise the structural and ongoing nature of discrimination as it moves from classrooms to administrations and courts. In Visakhapatnam, nearly a week after Teja’s death, the Andhra Pradesh Education Department said its inquiry continues and that teacher sensitisation programmes are being planned to encourage more humane and responsible conduct.
For Prasad’s family, accountability and recognition that the episode was not isolated remain urgent priorities. The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and state authorities face growing pressure to show that existing protections can be enforced.