Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram remains one of the so-called finest institutions in the country. This consideration requires high rankings and great results – both of which this school has successfully manufactured over the years. This precedent of popularity attracts students from all over the country into an already overcrowded space to receive the ‘best education’ in India. The student population is arranged into sections from A-K from class 6-8, A-M from 9-10 and A-X from 11-12. Each of these sections average over 40 students. It has two junior schools in East of Kailash and Vasant Vihar which supply students to R. K. Puram after they complete the 5th grade. There are new admissions every year with tons of children joining in after 10th grade to pursue high school. It's a child factory.
Dr. D.R. Saini was the Principal from 2012-2016 and Ms. Vanita Sehgal took over as principal in 2017. These two phases were polar opposites, not only with regard to the administration, but also the environment of growth and development for students’ values and mental health.
Before 2017, this school was a large playground for students to bunk in masses, come and go as they please, and to relish the freedom of having an unorganized administration. The quantity of students increased every year to satisfy the beneficiaries’ greed, and this did nothing to help the already slippery slope the school was tackling. However, students were seen as students, and were somewhat respected as developing human beings. Extra–curriculars were encouraged. Students had the freedom to express their creativity and thrive in fields besides academia. This allowed for an open space wherein children were able to navigate their growth, find themselves, and seek help wherever required.
This changed completely once the former headmistress of class 9 and 10, Vanita Sehgal, became the Principal and Padma became the Vice-Principal. This would be the start of a dark and traumatic period for a large part of the school's population. If only we knew how bad things were going to become. The exchange of power started with some very good decisions and administrative work. Discipline was restored with in the school. Students now did not bunk and would be reprimanded if they did. Teachers were on time and on duty. It became a school after very long. Little did we know that this would soon take a dark turn.
At first there was confidence among the school that something good was happening, that the students shall benefit from this. Unfortunately, this became more about Vanita Sehgal than about the students. The school became her playground to exercise the power of her ego, and brutally shame or squander any who got in her way. The biggest mistake she made, which had the worst impact on the students, was that she made the teachers scared for their jobs. Everything now went through her. She used her stature to establish that she is the authority on everything. School wasn’t democratic anymore, there was no liberality. She would remorselessly raise her voice at students, teachers, and the staff – as if they were nothing but her minions, and had no agency of their own. She pressured the teachers in multiple ways and this created a huge distance between the students and the teachers. This gap became the sole reason for the mass helplessness within the school.
Now, not only did students have immense academic pressure on them and no room for adjustment. They had no one to go to, as the teachers were too busy trying to rush the course just so that they wouldn't get fired or shouted at. The guards in the school were increased exponentially. Worse, the teachers would now be reprimanded by the guards. For now the jobs of the guards was not to guard the school but to tell the teachers how to do their jobs. They were literally assigned the job to keep teachers on time, which would in turn cause teachers to further penalize the students who complained against them. The teachers were helpless and scared themselves and sought to take this out on students. Any teacher who dared to say anything against the authority would be scolded like children, suspended or in some cases fired. There were now tests all the time, even when the course hadn't been effectively taught. Nobody cared if you weren’t doing well, you were straight away given punishment or categorized as someone who was bad at the subject. There was absolutely no consideration for learning disabilities, lack of self-esteem, and other mental health issues. Teachers under pressure, would end up telling students they are failures and do not deserve to be in the school. This exacerbated my anxiety. I got Panic Disorder along with various forms of mental illnesses among other students, whether it be depression, anxiety disorders, eating disorders, etc. All our issues were conveniently slipped under the name of "exam pressure". Till date I am struggling with these mental illnesses.
Along with this gap came many other rules which were unfair and unjust yet no one had any power to stop them. DPS RKP became an environment where there was an actual ‘no-contact policy’. Students would be publicly humiliated for hugging each other. Yes, you read that right – hugging each other, irrespective of gender or age, would elicit an attack from our Vice-Principal Padma. Her main job was to walk around school and tell children how miserable they are. She would repeatedly demean us. Anything we did suddenly threatened the name of the school and that this prestigious institution have a certain image which their students have to portray. It was like we were advertisements for other people to join the school . This image was a collaboration of Vanita Sehgal and Padma's ideology of a perfect student and everyone HAD to be that way. It was very much an Aryan race mentality where only those students who scored well in exams were considered fit. Rest, inevitably, unfit and worthless. This was not a school anymore but a factory where marks were the end product. No one cared about a students feelings, emotions, growth, talents, art or their development. It was only studies that mattered.
This view was very openly displayed, as the administration lost all regard for extracurricular activities. The different societies (clubs) like Theatre, Dance, Art, Music, etc were now not allowed to practice during school hours and only right after school when they were exhausted. After which, if they were wouldn't be able to perform well, Vanita Sehgal would scream and shout and threaten to dissolve the respective society or club. So basically, the clubs who were performing in the name of the school would not be given adequate time to practice by the authority and then would be reprimanded for not performing well by the same authority because they were representing that very authority. Do you see the flawed logic here? On top of this, the club posts were cut down majorly, which now created tensions between students who earlier worked together in harmony. They were forced to compete for minimal slots and this caused extensive disruption among the clubs. The principal single handedly chose to break Art & Expression. Her ego was such that she would threaten to kick you out of the school if you even looked her the wrong way. It was about this time that the entire school knew that the power had gone to her head and exploded her already massive ego. Everything was just about how Vanita Sehgal wanted it.
There were daily fines imposed for coming even a second late to school. Yes, actual money was collected by the school, without any proof or information of where it was going. This was on top of the fees they were already taking, which had also been increased. Our RFID cards became a way to stalk our every move, and our school decided to profit from its own students. These were fines of 50-100 rs that were taken by a large crowd of children who came any later than 15 mins before school started. Yes, not even the actual time when school started. I was personally charged for arriving even 2-5 mins before school started.
Along with all this, there was a massive invasion of privacy. The principal began using students social media ID's to access facebook groups made by students. One such example is that of the Facebook Batch group of 2016-17. Vanita Sehgal literally would print out each and every copy of what the students posted, commented and shared. Then she would call them to her office and punish them for expressing their free speech in a platform that she had no right to. We all were pretty sure this was illegal, yet had no way to voice our opinions. We were too scared of being expelled, have our being parents called and shouted at and openly humiliated by the Principal while being taught a parenting lesson by teachers or have our Admit cards for Board Examinations retained. That was their biggest threat. We were literally called into her office for saying things about her or anyone on a social media platform that did not belong to her. That's how big her ego is.
We were caged in an institution where there was no sympathy or empathy. Our Principal and Vice Principals went around the school threatening - "No medical certificate will be issued even if you have Cancer or Tuberculosis." Yes, that is the level of insensitivity that was prevalent within our administration. This statement was not only told to every child who came to them for clarification but was in a way boasted with a sense of pride for being this insensitive. It was almost as if their sadism was the sole source of joy in their lives.
The administration was also homophobic and added to the struggles of students belonging to the LGTBQ+ community. There was no scope for learning about one's sexuality and no help given by the administration. Students had to either struggle within the closet or come out and be publicly shamed, with the administration offering no help and often switching to avoidance like they were accustomed to doing for anything related to sex, feelings, or emotions.
Sexual harassment and slut shaming were perhaps the favourite past time of Principal and teachers. Young girls who were making their way into adulthood were mostly told how sleazy they were for having their skirt even an inch short, or that their lives were revolving around attracting boys. Girls were harassed by authority, publicly and openly shamed for just being themselves and not being the prototype image that the administration had in mind. DPS RKP has sheltered a culture of sexism and slut shaming deeply inculcated within the administration for decades. Girls here have to either be that prototype image of a "sanskari" girl set by the administration or be publicly called a slut in front of anyone and everyone, wherever they would be seen. Measuring of skirts and readjustment of skirts were among the favorite activities of the Vice Principal and her employees, along with telling the girls that they would not impress the boys, like all they did was to impress boys. Male authority within the school have been known for flirting with girls, staring, making sexual remarks which were only either ignored or supported by the female authority. There have been various instances of teachers slapping students and not getting any sort of action taken against them.
This is the reality of Delhi Public School, R.K. Puram. It's a large trap which attracts parents who want the best for their children and enrol them due to its name and fame. They don't know how bad things can possibly be in a school. I have studied in this institution my entire life and have finally come to terms with how horrendous things were and how important it is for schools like these and administrators like Vanita Sehgal to be kept under rigorous check for arbitrary use of power. After my batch graduated, things only got worse. Rules only became more stringent. Hopes and dreams were massively crushed. This place does not foster the environment to have a happy childhood. Whatever person you are by the end of this journey, is only to provide for the advertisement of this school in terms of number of people got above 90%, and not for the growth and development of your own self. It's only your marks that matter here.
There is too much that has gone unsaid among innumerable students and teachers that have been a part of this school. I will never forgive this school for driving me to the breaking point of anxiety, and for plunging me into the darkest years of my life. Till date I have nightmares about still being in school. I urge everyone to speak up against the evil and power hungry whether student, teacher, administrator or a parent.. Do not send your children here unless you want them to constantly be drowned in stress and voiceless.
Speak up and let your voice be heard.
These are experiences that have been shared to me voluntarily and in confidence. This is meant to shed light on the environment at school. Below are real life experiences of people who have studied in this institution and the trauma it has put them through. The names of the victims have been kept anonymous along with the name of the teachers accused. -
- There are a number of things than you can talk about in terms of sexual harassment. A) Throughout school I had to tell my male friends to get my food from the canteen because every time I went, I was groped.
B) Not just the students, even the faculty. My teacher measured my skirt with a scale.
C) Some geography teacher slapped me in the 8th grade because she saw me hanging out with a boy, and further shamed me while I was trying my best to hold back my tears in class and failed to.
D) My teacher made open sexual remarks in class. He said stuff like “kissi ki lena matlab peeche se maarna”. He repeatedly ONLY called me to stand in front of the class to read, despite my reading being sub average. These are few of the many shitty things that happened in school.
- I am bi-sexual and due to this, there were rumours spread that I was INTERSEX. What ensued, was me being called a 'hijra', 'gandu' and all the other colourful adjectives man has ever used to describe intersex people. I caught very very awkward stares whenever I used the girls washroom and all the girls started getting really uncomfortable around me. What had me really mad was the fact that I was *clearly* not intersex. I am 100% female. While why we use terms used to refer to intersex people as common insults is a whole another debate, something like this happening to any teenage girl can mess her up. So, it messed me up. I will not go into the whole thing. But I had not come out to my family. So there was practically no one I could go to. A series of events made it very clear that my teachers and administration was homophobic, so I could not go to them. It took me 8-9 months to convince everyone I was a girl. Even after that, there was everyone's homophobia. I came very close to taking my own life. And that is a TERRIBLE place to be. I have seen a lot of women being unhappy with where they are in life, being angry with society and even hating fate for putting them in that place. And I always learned that the future holds good things for everyone. But I came so close to letting go-thanks to the people of RKP. I hope no one is ever put in such a place again.
- Everyone is talking about big stories but somewhere I think we are missing the small (won't exactly call it) and everyday harassment which have now kind of become like usual and acceptable (maybe). I was in 12th and I was always slut shamed with the memes being circulated in the class saying "ganda hai par dhandha hai" and shit like that. And my friend she was constantly being trolled and slut shamed. She wasn't confident enough to go to a teacher and so it could never come into light.
- In 9th class I was bunking with my friend. We were just standing and talking. The rep at that time called up my mom and told her that she saw us kissing on the skyway although this never really happened.
Also during our carnival she told me to wear my jacket back on cause supposedly I took it off to show off my arms. The art teacher we had in school used to flirt with every girl. He told me "my mom must be so pretty". He used to ask us weird questions like if we would like to look at his girlfriend's pictures. We shouldn't deal with all this thinking it's normal and happens with everybody. I'm glad we're all speaking up finally and making it better for our juniors and society as a whole.
- There are a number of things than you can talk about in terms of sexual harassment. A) Throughout school I had to tell my male friends to get my food from the canteen because every time I went, I was groped.
B) Not just the students, even the faculty. My teacher measured my skirt with a scale.
C) Some geography teacher slapped me in the 8th grade because she saw me hanging out with a boy, and further shamed me while I was trying my best to hold back my tears in class and failed to.
D) My teacher made open sexual remarks in class. He said stuff like “kissi ki lena matlab peeche se maarna”. He repeatedly ONLY called me to stand in front of the class to read, despite my reading being sub average. These are few of the many shitty things that happened in school.
- I am bi-sexual and due to this, there were rumours spread that I was INTERSEX. What ensued, was me being called a 'hijra', 'gandu' and all the other colourful adjectives man has ever used to describe intersex people. I caught very very awkward stares whenever I used the girls washroom and all the girls started getting really uncomfortable around me. What had me really mad was the fact that I was *clearly* not intersex. I am 100% female. While why we use terms used to refer to intersex people as common insults is a whole another debate, something like this happening to any teenage girl can mess her up. So, it messed me up. I will not go into the whole thing. But I had not come out to my family. So there was practically no one I could go to. A series of events made it very clear that my teachers and administration was homophobic, so I could not go to them. It took me 8-9 months to convince everyone I was a girl. Even after that, there was everyone's homophobia. I came very close to taking my own life. And that is a TERRIBLE place to be. I have seen a lot of women being unhappy with where they are in life, being angry with society and even hating fate for putting them in that place. And I always learned that the future holds good things for everyone. But I came so close to letting go-thanks to the people of RKP. I hope no one is ever put in such a place again.
- Everyone is talking about big stories but somewhere I think we are missing the small (won't exactly call it) and everyday harassment which have now kind of become like usual and acceptable (maybe). I was in 12th and I was always slut shamed with the memes being circulated in the class saying "ganda hai par dhandha hai" and shit like that. And my friend she was constantly being trolled and slut shamed. She wasn't confident enough to go to a teacher and so it could never come into light.
- In 9th class I was bunking with my friend. We were just standing and talking. The rep at that time called up my mom and told her that she saw us kissing on the skyway although this never really happened.
Also during our carnival she told me to wear my jacket back on cause supposedly I took it off to show off my arms. The art teacher we had in school used to flirt with every girl. He told me "my mom must be so pretty". He used to ask us weird questions like if we would like to look at his girlfriend's pictures. We shouldn't deal with all this thinking it's normal and happens with everybody. I'm glad we're all speaking up finally and making it better for our juniors and society as a whole.
- My teacher thought in 5th that I had a short skirt. And, to be honest, I didn't really care about back then but at the age of 11, she sexualized me and a lot of other girls in the class saying we did it to attract boys and my skirt was cut from the inside by her, in front of the entire class to make in longer.
- Okay, so sometime around in 12th grade, you know club elections happen. I was up to be president of a certain club. The teacher in charge repeatedly promised me that I was one of the two who would be president and that this would not change. Keep in mind I had two other clubs also asking me for the same, yet I politely turned them down because I was passionate about this particular one. And at the very last moment, the teacher in charge demoted me to Vice President, because of the male student who replaced me had his parents "insist" and put him in my place. So I took this to the principal, and after some discussion, they told they would make the changes. That never happened, and people would very vocally say that I "cried my way" into the position I have. This certainly caused me some amount of distress, and while my experience is trivial compared to the much larger problems that the school is plagued with, it's an indication of just how dismissive the staff is and just how wilfully ignorant they are of the things that are happening in front of them. If you want to know if I took the bullying up with the administration further - no, I did not. I just wanted it all to end. I had boards coming up - I had college apps coming up. I didn't want this to cloud the rest of my year.
- I woke up to posts about my high school DPS RK Puram and how it made sure that girls were always a target for character assassination. Despite having stellar grades I was constantly reminded by my teacher that I won't get anywhere in life because I was dating a boy in my class.
It was almost like she had a personal agenda against me. For 1 year, I had to sit in her class and try to be as docile as possible so that I don't catch her attention and get blasted for having male friends or a boyfriend. I had to beg her for a letter of recommendation despite having highest grade in her subject in my class. Moreover, whenever my boyfriend didn't score well somehow I was blamed by all the teachers. It is not my responsibility for anyone performs in their exams.
The vice principal often stood in front of the girls hostel to check the length of the girls' skirts and as if that was not enough, the comments of hostel warden on girls wearing shorts were something like this " isse choti shorts nahi mili thi tumko, or thodi choti pehen leti, mess wale bhaiya ko isme mza nahi ayega". In hostel where girls often tried to pull down their shorts in order to make them look longer while going for attendance or where length of the skirt determined a girl's character or dating someone determined grades, can education really play a role?
- A teacher (head of the department when I was in 8th grade) in the music department was notorious for being inappropriate with students. He sexually harassed a friend of mine when she opened up to him about her family issues. She was in 9th (last few months) and I was in 8th then. However, she shifted to another city right after 9th so I guess they let him stay because of that. However, it was only after he sexually harassed another girl 3 years later that he was fired from his job.
- A Hindi teacher narrated this inappropriate story about getting a boner to a 6th grade class (this was in 2009, when I was in 6th grade). The girls of the class complained against him to the headmistress as soon as the class was over. In 9th grade (2012), a male friend of mine who had just joined school and was from Dubai used to go this teacher for Hindi lessons. On their first day, this teacher asked my friend if he knew the meaning of certain Hindi words, such as ‘randi’.
- MMS scandals. A girl named in my batch (lets call her X) had her nude pictures leaked in 9th grade and everyone, including most kids from my batch, said vicious things about her behind her back. Girls would slut shame and mock her for posing the way she did, boys would pass lewd comments on her body all the time. This one time when I was in 9th grade, I was traveling home from school in a ‘stay back’ bus which had some 7th or 8th graders in the last seat, and a boy amongst them was shouting the most vicious things about X. His friends were laughing out loud, girls were getting uncomfortable, the ‘bus didis’ were silent, the teacher in charge was silent. One of my regrets from school is not getting up and slapping the shit out of that kid right then. I cannot imagine the mental torture X went through all those years (probably even today), living with paranoia, fear and guilt. I know for a fact that she went on to make some terrible, self-destructive decisions after that which I’m sure have affected her psyche majorly. No one gave a fuck about the guy who leaked those pictures. Even the school authorities only got her and her parents to school for questioning, not the fucking piece of shit boy.
- Several teachers in my school were just plain bullies. One of the biggest bullies of all was the chemistry teacher. He was notorious for being a toxic human being who vented his anger out on students. You could compare him to Severus Snape. One day, when I was in 12th grade, a friend of mine who I knew to be very shy and under confident, came to school wearing kajal. This was early morning right after the first bell and so most students had set off to their classrooms. Even I was on my way but I stopped to watch this incident from the 1st floor. Now I understand that it's against the rules to wear kajal and a teacher needed to reprimand him, but it was that teacher who cornered my friend and began to humiliate him. In no time, three more teachers came (including the Vice Principal at the time), completely surrounded him and continued to taunt him in a condescending, humiliating manner for what seemed like two minutes. He was not saying a word back, but was getting increasingly uncomfortable and tense. It was clear that these frustrated individuals were venting out on this poor kid who couldn’t stand up for himself. I can say this because I’ve stood to the chemistry teacher's bullying right when he started it, and so he’s backed off pretty quickly. This, btw, is just one example of several teachers ganging up on one under-confident kid.
- The teachers would body shame and burden kids with guilt and regret. Here’s one example : I remember playing the role of some God in a play that a senior teacher was in charge of, and during one of the practices, a theatre club senior came to the basement after our practice was over and said “Ma’am mujhe bhi role dedo inke saath” jokingly. The teacher just snapped “Chal be cockroach, bhaag yahaan se!” Now as a man/boy, anyone’s natural instinct is to laugh at that comment. But I know it now and I knew it then, it was out of line and rude. She had no right to make fun of his size. Tbh, she didn’t even ‘make fun’ (not that that’s okay) but she snapped at him in disgust. I remember her fucking expression and tone. She then went on to give a mini speech about how this kid could have been so much better if he had done xyz, how at one time she liked him as a student, and how he’s totally ruined his potential now. She spoke to him as if he was defected and incurable. What started as a mild joke on my friend’s part, turned into an unnecessary shaming session.
- My school teachers picked on vulnerable kids with family issues. Be it a girl with issues in her family or anxiety about not being a good enough singer, or a guy who is depressed and underperforming in class. I’ve been an outstanding student and an overachiever in 6th-9th grade, and the teachers loved me back then. But in higher classes, I was depressed, lost and vulnerable and their attitudes towards me changed drastically. I was hanging out with a childhood friend (who was also one of the best students of my batch) during the ‘break time’ once, and a teacher walked towards us, called him for some work and took him away after sneering at me and saying “You two shouldn’t hang out, you don’t look together”. Again, this is my childhood friend.
I hope this article can shed light on the suffering this institution has caused and also prevent more and more children from making the mistake many of the alumni made.
Speak up and take action.
Written by- Ramit Sharan
Edited by- vasarismuse
