Naunidhi Kaur

Violence amongst school going Indian immigrant youth is rising. A decade ago fights were settled using fists; now knives and guns are more common. While most schools are trying to tackle verbal abuse and bullying, the intensity of violence in schools is growing. The reasons for this are numerous; most commonly it is bad parenting.

Parents remain busy in their professional life and do not know what their child is doing in school. In school the effects of joining the wrong group is obvious on their child. There have been many cases in which a high scoring student has ended up with below average grades with a mean temperament and foul language. School response to this rising trend has so far been dismal. The nature and intensity of violence differ from school to school and city to city. In July 2004, The Washington Post published an article on drug related homicides which have become common in Indian immigrant Punjabi youth. In the last 13 years, 76 young men have been killed in Vancouver in gang-related violence. According to the Post most of the dead were young men of Indian descent killed in Bollywood style executions in which the killer walked in the room and shot the victim at point-blank range.

A year later it is common knowledge that marijuana trade in Vancouver is dominated by Indian youth who find this trade very attractive. Huge profits are made in exporting the drug to US where it fetches a high price. Most boys involved in this trade are between 18 to 35 years of age. In Toronto, violence is less sinister but not less alarming. Talk to any high school kid and the details start stumbling out. While the travel brochures continue to congratulate the city for being multicultural, in its schools, ethnic groups divide the corridors between themselves. Chinese students do not walk in the Indian corridor and the Indian youth do not pass by the Black corridor. Fights start from almost nothing and continue for a long time after, in parties and socials outside the schools or within the school premises.

Interestingly, the most common reason for fight between groups belonging to different schools is to declare their supremacy. When two groups in one school fight it is usually about 'who runs the school.' Girls are also involved although the violence they inflict is verbal--snide comments and spreading rumors. The response of schools in tackling violence has been less than credible, and the most common strategy they use is called Zero Tolerance. This is a "get tough" discipline policy, which works on the principle that punishment for violence has to be rapid and in the form of suspension and expulsion. By expelling a student, the school just transfers the problem child to outside its boundaries, and, as a result, the cause for violence is generally not addressed. For the youth, violence becomes a fallback emotion in adult life. Violent youth make violent adults. In the end, violence becomes a way of dealing with pressures in family, work, and social life.


Copyright©2005 Naunidhi Kaur. About the author