CHENNAI, India — The suicide of a 13-year-old schoolboy suggests there is something grossly wrong with a society and its education system. Rouvanjit Rawla, a student of class 8 at one of India's most prestigious schools, La Martiniere, in Kolkata, killed himself after the principal caned him. The tragedy underscores the fast- deteriorating student-teacher relationship in India. The number of cases of teacher brutality has risen alarmingly in recent years.

A 12-year-old boy lost part of his vision when his master threw a duster at him in New Delhi. A class 10 student committed suicide in Chennai after his teacher stripped and thrashed him. In Udaipur, a class 12 boy died after being beaten for sitting with his legs on the table. An 11-year-old student died of sunstroke after being made to stand on the school grounds during a summer day in New Delhi.

On the other end of the spectrum are boys and even girls who harass and disgrace their teachers. For example, a chemistry teacher had a trying time writing on a blackboard while 60 adolescent boys darted paper rockets at him.

Some boys and girls from rich families act terribly arrogant toward teachers for getting their salaries from the fees that students pay. In a country, where school staff is ill-paid, the economic disparity between a teacher and those being taught can make the classroom relationship uncomfortable. Some pampered, well-to-do students never let their teachers forget who's paying them.

Gone are the days, it seems, when teachers could be great friends with their students — outside of class. In a southern Indian town during the 1930s, teachers and students played games together and chased each other on the banks of a river. Come next morning in class, though, teacher-student respect and decorum remained intact. Even during the 1960s and '70s, students tended to hold their teachers in awe and seldom disobeyed or disregarded them.

With the dawn of the Internet age and the phenomenal growth of the new rich, the equation has changed. Boys and girls know that they can pick up lots of information from Internet sites, while ignoring the fact that such information is often incorrect or misleading.

Students in the more elite schools began thinking that the teacher was at best a nuisance, a poor man who could not afford to live in an upmarket locality, wear designer clothes or own fancy cars. Imagine a 20-year-old student going to a Chennai college in a car whose $25,000 price tag equals his professor's annual salary. Imagine a 10-year old coming to school with a mobile phone worth the wages his teacher earns in a month.

Families with only one child or two are unduly protective of their sons and daughters; they can do no wrong. If there's a problem at school, the teacher is to blame. The parents of one fifth grader complained to the principal when a teacher casually commented on the student's strange hairstyle.

Walking habitually late to school and flaunting expensive gadgets are considered a child's right, but parents who encourage this behavior forget that a school or college campus works best as a democratic space. It should be the last place to show off one's affluence.

Still, corporal punishment can never be condoned. It is not the answer to getting children back on track. Apart from the fact that physical and mental abuse is banned by Indian law, the stick tends to push the child into a state of rebelliousness. Anger and frustration build in a child who is ridiculed or beaten, perhaps leading to a sense of low self-esteem, suicidal tendencies or murderous intentions.

The mother, grandmother and sister of a young Ayurvedic physician I knew in Bihar were butchered by a few school students after the physician's schoolteacher father had gotten the assailants suspended for repeated bad behavior.

Teachers have an enormous task on hand, but appear ill-equipped to handle it. Modern boys and girls have many problems: working parents who have little time for them, broken homes, and unreasonable parental expectations.

At social networking sites galore, youngsters chat but no longer talk. Fathers and mothers are too tired at the end of the day to have a conversation with their children.

So, the teacher becomes a very important person in a child's life. He or she is friend, guide and counselor. The very character of a boy or girl may be shaped by the teacher. The man or woman who minds a class full of curious and impatient children must have patience and vision. The teacher must be emotionally strong, kind and understanding, and able to balance discipline with praise and to infuse values with feeling.

Teaching is a good profession today, but without a passion for it, classrooms will continue to be uneasy, frustrating and self-defeating places.

Gautaman Bhaskaran is a Chennai, India-based journalist.