New Delhi: Students at Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya (SBV) school in Nand Nagri, North Delhi, have alleged repeated harassment, targeting and discrimination on account of their Muslim and marginalised caste backgrounds, according to a complaint filed by Delhi-based lawyer and education activist Ashok Agarwal on behalf of the students.
In a letter dated November 13, Agarwal wrote to Delhi chief minister Atishi Marlena claiming that Muslim students were being beaten up, forced to strip their clothes in the bathroom, coerced into saying “Jai Shree Ram” and were also being provoked to commit suicide.
“PGT Pol Science teacher Mr. Adarsh Sharma and PTI teacher Mr. Vikash Kumar are continuously harassing Muslim community students, forcing them to say Jai Shree Ram, beating them without clothes in bathroom and also provoking them to commit suicide,” Agarwal’s letter stated.
Agarwal’s letter reproduces a detailed complaint by the unnamed students on November 6, which was marked to Delhi’s lieutenant governor, the director of Delhi’s education department and other officials, besides Marlena. It specifically notes that the students declined to disclose their names or identities fearing for their lives — inside as well as outside the school — and their career prospects.
In their complaint, the students name political science teacher Adarsh Sharma and PT teacher Vikash Kumar as key figures in their harassment and communal targeting. The students complained that they repeatedly forced them to strip their clothes in the school toilets. They also threatened to film them naked and “make the video viral,” so that the students wouldn’t speak out to anyone.
Moreover, the students alleged that Muslim and Dalit students from Class XI and XII were singled out and made to sit on the back-benches whereas dominant caste students were seated at the front. The student collective’s letter demanded the removal of Sharma, Kumar and an unnamed Hindi teacher, or to transfer the Muslim students to other schools if the teachers cannot be removed.
The complaint notes that Sharma also challenged the students that their complaints would be of no avail, owing to his clout in the government school teachers’ union. “Neither the school principal nor the Delhi directorate of education can do anything to stop me. No authority can do me any harm,” Sharma allegedly told the students.
In their letter, the collective of students also point out that they had tried to complain in 2023 as well, when Sharma asked all the students to greet the teacher with “Jai Shree Ram” instead of “Namaste.” After their complaint, a principal from another government school came to probe the matter, only to shut their case and coerce the students into silence.
The Wire made multiple attempts to contact the SBV school authorities and principal Ravindra Kumar Gautama, but they remained unreachable. This story will be updated if and when they respond.
Additionally, the students alleged that Sharma threatened to fail 11th and 12th-grade students and made derogatory comments to students from Dalit and marginalised castes, telling them they were destined to be wage labourers and “born to serve the Pandits.”
Muslim students were repeatedly subjected to remarks like “Why don’t all the mullas leave our country?.” Sharma also frequently invoked Tulsidas’ infamous slogan of “dhol, gawar, shudra, pashu, nari… yeh sab taadna ke adhikari (Drums, illiterate persons, lower castes, animals and women… all deserve a beating)” while teaching in the classroom.
The students’ complaint and Agarwal’s subsequent letter also highlights an overall lackadaisical attitude of the school, taking strong objection to the frequent absences of teachers.
“You can check all the CCTV footage, most of the PGT-TGT teachers do not show up to class, and in the 7th and 8th periods after 5 pm in the evening, it doesn’t feel like any teacher ever takes these class-periods in this school,” notes the students’ complaint.
Agarwal appeals to the Delhi chief minister to probe all these grievances by setting up a high-level inquiry committee headed by the director of education. “I have brought this issue to your knowledge and the issue was brought to notice of to the previous director of education, Mr R.N. Sharma, but nothing was done and the situation seems to continue,” said Agarwal in the letter.
Meanwhile, a member of the school’s management committee speaking to The Wire on the condition of anonymity said when the students complained last year as well, an education department official who came to probe the matter eventually pushed the Muslim students and “two Muslim-background teachers” to write a letter attesting that no discrimination has ever taken place.
“That’s why we need an independent enquiry into this matter. The students should at least have their classes changed even if you don’t remove the teachers in question. Why make them suffer at the hands of such a teacher?” he asked.
The committee member also noted that nearly half of an estimated 2,500 students, or “between 1,000 to 1,200” students in the school were from a Muslim background, and that most were poor and working-class children.
“They can’t afford to just transfer to a private school. So something must be done,” he said.
In 2023, another Delhi government school teacher named Hema Gulati was reportedly booked for her comments against Muslim students. “Muslims have no role to play in India’s independence… you cut animals and eat them… you have no mercy,” Gulati is reported to have said.
In western Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district, another incident featuring a teacher, Tripta Tyagi, became viral, as a video emerged showing Tyagi telling one of her students to slap a Muslim student.
Sabah Gurmat is an independent journalist.
