Major General Claude Martin founded the La Martiniere schools to celebrate knowledge, where the poorest of the poor or, for that matter, the richest of the rich would come together and sit at the table of learning so that they would improve their lives and the lot of their countries. That is the value architecture that once governed La Martiniere, Calcutta, too. An architecture which bred competition where valour and courage, and not deceit and immorality, were the birthmarks of progress, where we as students were taught the enduring contributions of truth and correctness, where the mind, in Tagore-speak, was held high without fear or favour. Where the board of governors would contribute meaningfully so that the ultimate object of the school, its students, would benefit manifold and in turn provide succour to the school they belonged to. Our school song, which ‘hailed the founder’, went on to talk about the virtues of compassion and welfare, of giving back to society and being essentially good human beings.

The irony today, however, is that in its 175th year, La Martiniere, Calcutta, has forgotten these very tenets that were part of its glowing history. Today we see schoolteachers and principals shamed, we see a 13-year-old student of the school extinguishing his own life. This is where La Martiniere is today. The rot began, where it normally does, right at the top. Under the principalship of Donald Alney began the steady decline of the boys’ school: we sold playgrounds to create office buildings for wretched new business maharajas, where we could no longer play football in the strictest sense since the goalposts had shrunk and, in a strange twisted way, so had the goals. The school shot into infamy when a popular weekly magazine carried a devastating article on the raids on Principal Alney.

But then we were all to blame. We lacked the courage and the determination to ask questions. The school and all that went with it had dumbed us into silence. A school which was meant to set our spirits free so that we could soar in the real world had actually begun shackling us: this was a school in decline and it has perhaps remained so to this day.

What went wrong? The age-old principle of too much power in too few hands. The then chairman of the board was K.K. Dutt, whose sole business was being the chairman of the board, and school governors can have no business: their business is to be the custodians of the school, its legacy, and the values it stands for. Today, when you ask someone about the values of La Martiniere, Calcutta, most people would stumble to find even one. That is the hallmark of a declining brand.

The silence of the Old Boys is understandable. They had (and still do) vested interests only because some still had their children in the school and, in times like these, when admissions are few and far between, no one in their right mind wants to take a school on. The tragedy is that neither did the Old Boys want to fight nor did the establishment want to question. In today’s age, which politician would want to risk taking the bishop on? But then what have you done in the bargain?

Though the present matter is sub judice, there is a larger system of justice that must be brought into play and that revolves around the manner in which legacy institutions in this country need to be run and preserved. This is the bigger question. No individual or set of individuals can hijack the agenda of education, no matter what the temptation. The State and the Old Boys must work together to protect that. All of us (me included) have failed in this very primary duty of ours and the result is for all to see. The school today stands defeated: a symbol of everything that is wrong with our education system. We cannot hold legacy institutions to ransom only because we are afraid to question the status quo of schools that wear the minority badge on their sleeves only to protect rather than correct their follies. This is the nub of the issue.

No bishop must be allowed to influence education, which has less to do with theology and more with the liberal, commercial world as we all know it. There is a danger, when this is allowed, that we will further polarize the last bastion of secularism in this country, which is education. More than that, there is also the issue of abiding corruption, and when too many people say too many things about money in exchange for admissions, one needs to worry. They said it about La Martiniere when we were in school and we all thought those were rumours, until one day someone asked me why there was never a whiff of a scandal on Don Bosco, Calcutta, or for that matter, St Xavier’s, Calcutta?

But even this can be overlooked as we begin to justify an increasingly immoral world. The real question is how do you get rid of student apprehensions? What lessons in life are you teaching a present Martinian? What values does he imbibe? What is the path that he needs to tread when it is littered with innuendos and immorality to a large part? This is the real question that begs an answer. Today, every Martinian must stand shamed: not because the principal’s name has been sullied or, for that matter, two governors have been thrown out: the shame must arise from mutual culpability stemming out of our own insecurities and unwillingness to question the wrongs not just of today but those of the past. Our silence has been our fatal flaw. Our willingness to tolerate the rot has been our collective failing.

No matter what the outcome of the investigation, it is clear that Rouvanjit Rawla had no business to die. He had no business to feel so humiliated and outraged by his own school. He had no business to fear his teachers. He had no business to walk back home that fateful afternoon feeling dejected and unwanted by the world. He had no business to leave behind grieving friends and a grieving school. I am saddened by the departure of Messrs K.S. David and Neil O’Brien from the school board. But why did it take them so long to raise the flag of protest? Why did they tolerate an errant system for so long? Many questions but few answers, as is typical in situations such as these.

Atonement rests in how quickly we can course correct, in how quickly we can start living the aspirations of Claude Martin, how meaningfully we can follow the words of the school song that we sang every morning with stars in our eyes and a smile on our lips: “All his martial deeds may die;/ Lasting still his charity.../ Firm of hand against the foe/ Soft of heart to succour woe./ This then our song shall be.” Hopefully, this will perhaps be the La Martiniere we can all be proud of. All over again.