Deadly news from Maharashtra’s Sangli Atpadi tehsil has shaken the entire country. A 17-year-old girl was beaten to death by her own father for scoring low marks in a mock NEET Test. This horrifying event has raised many questions regarding parenting responsibilities, the mounting pressure of exams on students and the toll that academic pressure takes on families.
The Incident
It was a normal night for Sadhana (the 17-year-old victim), who had returned home from her residential NEET coaching in Atpadi. Before returning to Atpadi, she had taken a routine mock test as part of her exam preparedness. However, she didn’t score well in this NEET mock.
Her father, Dhondiram Bhosle (45), a school teacher as well as the principal of a secondary school in the village, was relatively upset with his daughter’s low performance. What followed next was a war of words between the father-daughter duo, with the daughter defiantly asking, “Papa, which collector did you become? You also had low marks.”
Infuriated, he picked the wooden handle of a stone grinder, used for making flour, and repeatedly beat Sadhana, with his wife and elder son as witnesses to this inhuman act. Despite the grave head injuries that the innocent girls sustained, they reportedly waited until the night of June 20 to pass before seeking medical help. Moreover, she was taken to the hospital only after Dhondiram returned after attending the Yoga Day celebrations.
According to the police inspector Vinayak Bahir, Atpadi Police Station, “The teen was rushed to a hospital in Sangli, where she died during treatment. The post-mortem report revealed that she died of multiple injuries.” Sadhana’s mother later filed a police complaint on June 22, after which the police charged Dhondiram Bhosle under Section 103(1) of the Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act.
The Effect of Academic Pressure
While the Sangli incident is one of the rare cases, the academic pressure mounted by the parents on their kids is universal. The pressure to perform, deliver and excel in every sphere of academic has steadily become the new normal.
Highly competitive exams like NEET and JEE not only stress out the students, but also the parents. If you underperform, you are termed “lazy” or “unserious”, and if you achieve average marks, you are told to “perform better the next time”. But in all this, where is the appreciation for trying and improving to get better?
Parents, who are often driven by the fear of failure in society and social shame, unknowingly end up pressuring their children. And the children, in turn, see their parents’ academic validation as the only form of care and affection towards them. Psychologists call this “performance-based love”: a love that is based on a child’s academic standing, and not on who they truly are.
The Consequences of “Performance-based Love”
“I scored only 75% in boards. Am I a failure?”
“My parents don’t care about my depression – only my marks.”
“My daughter cried herself to sleep after getting 87%. How do I make her feel she’s enough?”
You will find thousands of other questions like these on Reddit and Quora. These platforms are filled with questions and discussions from both students and parents, who are trying to find answers from a community of people, to lessen their burden.
Surprisingly, these questions are mostly asked by adolescents, who have just entered their teens. While the consequences of a competitive and burdensome environment may not be visible at first, eventual development of insomnia, anxiety, and depression are sure-shot tell-tale signs. According to the National Crime Records Bureau data, over 13,000 students committed suicide last year, citing academic pressure as a leading factor. Although the Sangli incident – where academic disappointment turned into a violent affair, is too extreme to happen, we cannot wait for an unfortunate incident of this scale to occur again.
Parents need to understand that the mental agony inflicted on kids through humiliation, sarcasm, verbal abuse, and sneering jabs leaves scars on their young minds that are more severe than any other physical pain.
The Reason Behind The Pressure
Now that we have seen how the weight of parents’ expectations falls on children’s shoulders, it is important to understand why parents, especially Indian parents, resort to such extremes. Let’s have a look at some of the commonly known reasons:
- Societal Image
“Log kya kahenge?”
“Sharmaji ki bete ne IIT Delhi crack karli.”
Sounds familiar, right? Comparing their child’s results with the rest of the world is one of the favourite topics of Indian parents. They feel that if their child is unable to cope with their “mere expectations”, they will have to bear societal shame. Their name will be maligned in society, and what not.
However, little do they realise the effect of the toll of their expectations on the lives of the children. When these students don’t perform well, they feel like failures and under duress, they take the wrong step – which often endangers their lives.
- Cultural Legacy
For our parents, education was the only way that could open the doors of opportunities for them, and hence, they wish the same for us. And it’s not completely wrong. After all, they do have our best interests at heart – they want to watch us succeed and prosper in life.
Taking inspiration from what they have seen and learnt over the years, sometimes it’s their pressure, which they exert – knowingly or unknowingly, which can spiral into a never-ending cycle of fear and guilt.
To educate parents and the concerned stakeholders, schools and the government must organise camps and provide counselling sessions to help them understand the importance of open communication and how it can actually prove to be a game-changer for both of them.
- Limited Awareness
The world is changing at an unthinkable pace – and this is the best time to leverage it. Various career choices other than a doctor or engineer exist today. Professions like data analyst, AI tools expert, graphic designer, content creator and much more are in huge demand.
But it seems that these alternative and lucrative career options are ignored, and only the conventional career paths are given importance.
This needs to change. With the easy access to the Internet, our lives have become not only easy but also fast. Information regarding any profession – be it the pros and cons, the best way to start learning it or even the best country to pursue the given profession – everything is available at just one click.
Moreover, career counselling sessions have become very common nowadays. Seeking professional guidance can work wonders not only for the child but also for the parents, as it will bring happiness to all their lives.
Sadhana’s death is more than a horrifying news story – it is a wake-up call for all the concerned stakeholders to understand that academics are not everything. Yes, marks matter, but a child’s life matters even more. Rather than resorting to violence – physical or mental – it is important to show empathy and motivate the students to do better. And this will not just uplift their spirits, but even increase their self–belief