How My Bullies Shaped Me
The Long Term Impact of Growing Up in a Culture of Bullying
Author: Madhulagna Halder
Bullying may be understood as an overall culture of shaming and exclusion. It can be a single event or a series of events. In my early years in an elite school in Kolkata, I both witnessed and experienced this culture of shaming through the years. We were shamed through every day practices of “discipline”, which could range from a mismatched hairpin to certain “improper” uses of language.
It was primarily about a nexus of students and teachers, who made it their motto to continuously target less “proper” and academically less proficient students.
This culture began with sidelining these kids (including me) from school skits and other co-curricular activities and ended in gossiping about the excluded kids in closed circles.
For example, I never landed a significant role in school productions. I remember in the second standard being initially selected to be a tree and then asked to be a backstage singer instead on the first day of rehearsals. Later on these exclusions became increasingly structured, in the course of who was to be the class prefect. The academically better kids, or the teachers’ pet would generally bag the role. Whereas the sidelined ones would then be at the receiving end of their constant ire! The class monitor, often scored a perfect grade and was somehow cultivated to become an all rounder. She drew, she danced, she was good at sports and finally she was the perfect example we were urged to follow.
Later in life once I began to closely observe these behaviour patterns, it made me realise how the class monitor, albeit she was the favourite, was also a scapegoat to this culture. She was like an experiment or model who was most disliked by her peers.
Moving away from these early experiences, I would like to discuss a specific trope of shaming and exclusion we suffered in middle and high school, this in my understanding emerged from a societal distinction of disciplines of the Sciences (understood as rational and meritorious) and the Humanities (seen as a less fortunate sibling of the sciences, of more frivolous temperament). I, as an ardent student of Humanities, saw how my dislike towards the Sciences (physics, chemistry, maths) was used to cement the perceptions my class teachers and peers had of me throughout. I was deemed as more “notorious”, or “non-serious”. I remember distinctly how a certain physics teacher of mine constantly heckled me in classroom discussions and gave me a rather cold and thoughtless reaction throughout the two years that she was my class teacher. One would feel alienated in every sense, even to the point that my seating arrangement was particularly changed every other day.
I was prevented from sitting with my friends and on one particular occasion, a dear friend of mine was advised against my company as I was a “scatter-brain”.
Thankfully if my school was filled with bullies, it was also a place with a wonderful bunch of friends, some of who still continue to be an integral part of my life. My friends stood up against my bullies and particularly protected me from their harshness. How truly courageous of them to have been so incredibly compassionate and kind when the adults were harsh.
While one cannot definitively ascertain how the mental health of kids in their formative years is affected by instances of systemic bullying, the perils of it are far too many. I, myself, was more nonchalant. It is difficult to say if I was truly registering the everyday practices of shaming and exclusions as and when it was happening to me.
However, later in life I realised that even to function as a kid who “did not care” and was somewhat perceived as “rebellious” was probably a manifestation of deep seated anxieties.
It was in all likelihood a coping mechanism I had developed against systemic bullying. It is only much later in life, through my own reassessment of the past, I realised that these formative experiences were critical in shaping my mental health today such as my routine struggles with anxiety and self conscious behaviour around authority figures. It is perhaps an exaggeration to single out bullying as the sole cause of all my issues though it would remain a significant element in my life story.
About the Author: Madhulagna Halder
Madhulagna is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi). When is she not looking through archives of interesting historical material she likes to strum her ukulele and raise potted plants.
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