Denying the Right to Live

Of late, we have had quite a few instances of teachers losing their lives due to grinding poverty brought on either by the failure of the Assam government to pay their salaries or by its failure to take over venture schools that have run on for years merely on the promise of the State government to take over such schools. The latest tragedy relates to the 45-year-old teacher Bipul Bordoloi of the West Xidhabaari Middle English School of Morigaon district. He had worked in this venture school for 19 years without any salary in the hope that the school would be taken over by the government and that he would eventually get his dues. This is the only way an unthinking, insensitive government can be compelled to start government schools where they are needed. Bordoloi was seriously ill. The government’s statement that his school could not be taken over came as the last straw that brought about his death. Here is a government that has taken the lives of quite a few teachers, by denying them their dues. In doing so, it has denied them the most fundamental of the human rights—the right to live—in a State with great development in persol assets of VVIPs.