Norway lets Indian devil parents off easily…..they deserve much worse

At first I thought Norway was being unfair to the Indian techie couple by putting them behind bars for “scolding” their school going child. I momentarily, like many others suffering from a “BJP/Left-like West-phobia”, thought that the Norwegians were being insensitive to differences in cultures; that “a little” scolding was part of Indian upbringing. But today’s TOI opened my eyes to what the parents allegedly did to their child. There is no doubt in my mind now that they have been let off easy. At the same time, I am happy that they got at least some punishment. In India, they would have gotten away scot free.

I want to ask these “techie” (what techie? They are uneducated in reality) parents which part of Indian culture allows parents to burn the tongues of children with a spoon heated in a frying pan? Which mother tells her husband to do such a thing to her child? And who except the devil would hit a 7-year old child with a belt? What is worse is that this abuse has been going on since 2007, which means that the child was all of 2 years old then. These people cannot be called parents at all. They are just perverts pretending to be parents. And to think that they used to do all this just because the child was wetting his pants. These idiots need to be taught some basics of raising kids. Wetting pants is a common problem that many children take a long time to overcome. Makes me shudder to think what they would do if the child made graver mistakes.

What is really pathetic is that the parents have tried to fob off the blame by saying that the child had behavioral issues. Which child doesn’t? What do these parents expect? That children come out of a factory mould and behave “as to a predecided schedule” all the time? Is this the way they themselves grew up; In perpetual fear of violence from the parents? The parents tried to pass off the tongue burning as an accident; and normally I would not have pre-judged them. However experts have ruled that this was impossible. Besides the court has seen the evidence and agreed with the experts. Besides, given the generally high concern for human rights in Norway, I have no doubt this must have been the correct assessment.

I am happy the Norwegian school first detected the crimes against the child. How many Indian schools would have noticed? In their zeal to make “crammers” out of students, many teachers in most Indian schools are happy to use some sort of force on their own. And even if they did complain, how zealously would they have followed it up. Usually, a small note to the parents and that’s the end of it. After that, we think it’s the parents’ concern. And what action would our authorities have taken? The fact is that child abuse is all too common in India – explained away as a cultural factoid – when in reality it is anything but. The Indian legal system should take note of the Norwegian action and work on improving our own system.

I am also happy our foreign ministry refrained from interfering, not that we could have done much. Given the high sensitivity our media and our people seem to have to anything of this sort, it would be entirely reasonable to expect the ministry to make some silly noises. But the fact is that when Indians go abroad – especially to work – they need to follow the rules of that country. What can India do if they misbehave?

In my opinion, TCS should immediately sack this employee. Not only has this family disgraced India, it has also disgraced the company.

The incident should also make us have a debate on how we are raising our children. What kind of orthodox and retrograde beliefs we carry. Do our parents not teach us how to raise kids? It’s shocking to say the least. Apparently, we don’t even have laws to deal with such issues. Shouldn’t we work on those?

The real truth is that this couple has shamed India. I worry what the world will think of us now as a bunch of people. Are we really child abusers? On the one hand, we are hoping to emerge a superpower. On the other, we cannot even behave in a half-decent manner….