Hear the Florida gunshots? Secure our schools… NOW!

What, pray, what can stop an expelled or disgruntled student from getting a gun and barging into her/his school, raining bullets on teachers and schoolmates – destroying lives, dreams and families forever? Not in Florida. But in Gurgaon, in South Mumbai, in Noida, downtown Chennai, central Jaipur… at a school near you.

The sound of the gunshots at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida on Wednesday rings across the world… even in our world. In September 2017, at the Ryan International School in Gurgaon, a seven-year-old boy had his throat slit (allegedly) by a knife-wielding 16-year-old fellow student. In December 2007, at Euro International School in Gurgaon, two students sneaked in a gun and fired five bullets at a Class 8 boy following a corridor quarrel. On January 20 this year, in Swami Vivekananda School in Yamunanagar (Haryana), a class 12 student shot down the principal because he was upset at being reprimanded by her.

A few uniformed guards, armed with an entry/exit register and a stick, are all that you have for safety and security at the gates of 90% of India’s urban schools. These hapless souls are the only ones standing between our children and a homegrown Nikolas Cruz - the 19-year-old who entered the Florida school armed with a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle.

Let us wake up to this alarm bell, even if it’s ringing from a distant land. Increased, uncompromising and armed security is an imperative at schools in India. The government protects the nation’s vital installations with a specialised industrial security force. But what of those even-more-vital ‘installations’ where the future of this country is getting built, class by class? The issue of security at educational institutions must immediately be taken up in Parliament, in state assemblies, in South Block, in Mann Ki Baat, in elections, in the media and in the principal’s cabin.

Increased and specialised security does not come cheap. While parents may complain about high tuition and maintenance fees charged by schools (often justifiably so), not one will protest if the school authorities charge an extra amount for heightening the security of students. On the other hand, a part of the increased education cess imposed by the government in Union Budget 2018 must be used to make schools more secure.

We can’t have our children in the crosshairs of a gun as they engage in the noblest of deed - learning. We can’t have a Florida.