In 2003, my colleague, MN Baig, and I were visiting schools that were part of the Accelerated Learning Program of the Azim Premji Foundation. In a school in Gulbarga (now Kalburgi) district, I asked the headmistress, pointing to a teacher carrying a stick, “Why, in so many schools, do the teachers carry canes?”
Unfazed, she replied, “Sir, the children in rural schools are very thick-skinned. They are not like our urban children. The only language they understand is that of the cane.” I was shocked to hear this philosophy espoused by someone who was the. . .
