It is a timeless image. Weighed down by books and rounded up by a colourful tiffin box and sharply spruced-up pencils, a school bag is the quintessential childhood add-on. These days, unfortunately, there is more in that mix. In August, a class VIII student in Ahmedabad hid a knife in his backpack, and, once in school, used it to stab a class X student fatally. The accused, 14, bore a grudge over an altercation on a staircase outside the classrooms. While he will be booked under the Juvenile Justice Act, his chilling confession on a social media chat puts the spotlight once again on trying minors for crimes as heinous and remorseless as those committed by an adult.
While much is being said, and rightly so, about the online world, children are equally vulnerable to real life. A society increasingly intolerant, emitting rage, and prone to flare-ups is leading by example. Teenagers hear a Union Minister openly exhorting people to shoot with the slogan, “Goli Maro”, and hate speeches filter down from the top of the political pyramid. Between June 2024 and June 2025, as many as 947 hate-related incidents have been recorded as per the report “Hate Crime Report: Mapping First Year of Modi’s Third Government”. A society’s target is minorities; a student’s target is at his level: a peer. The India Hate Lab Report 2024 goes one step further and identifies how social media is playing a crucial role in amplifying unchecked hate speech largely devised by the ruling BJP. Experts admit that there is a lot of latent hostility and anger in the teens, but add, “It is not our children who are going about rioting and lynching, it is the adults, and this is the emotional air that the children are breathing.”