The System We Lived In
I did my secondary schooling at Sainik School.
For those who don't know, Sainik Schools were set up as feeder institutions to the National Defence Academy. NDA at Khadakwasla trains future officers for the Indian Armed Forces. Because of that, everything in Sainik School was designed to resemble a defence setup — routine, discipline, hierarchy.
Our authorities were from the armed forces — Principal, Vice Principal and Administrative Officer. The system inside the school was very clear: seniority mattered.
Seniors were not just older students. They had authority. The idea officially was leadership and peer learning — seniors running a lot of internal functioning among cadets. But if you saw it from outside, some parts would look very close to ragging.
A one-year senior was "Brother." Anyone above that was "Sir." That wasn't optional. It was culture.
Seniors could punish juniors for mistakes — sometimes genuine mistakes, sometimes just not meeting expectations. There was an expectation that seniors carried dignity in front of juniors. And juniors had to show visible respect. Even something small — if you saw a senior walking towards you, you would double up or run past.
When you live in that system for years, it starts feeling normal. You don't question it. You just adapt.
I'm explaining this because without understanding this structure, the incident I'm about to narrate won't make full sense.
The Hebbuli Incident
Once you reach Class 11, things change.
You are no longer at the receiving end of seniority. Only Class 12 is above you, and after five years together, they feel more like friends than seniors. And in that small ecosystem, Class 12 is almost supreme.
Our batch — 2011–18 — had already earned a name for itself by then. Not necessarily in the good sense.
One incident from that year really defined us.
A Kannada movie called Hebbuli had just released. Now remember, this was a residential school. You were allowed to step outside only on official out-pass days — once a month. Random movie plans were not part of the system.
But one evening, a group of Class 11 cadets decided to sneak out after dinner for the late-night show of Hebbuli. It wasn't exactly a master plan. Some of them couldn't even wait for dinner to finish and started slipping out in the middle of it. That should tell you the level of planning involved.
The admin staff noticed.
While half the batch was comfortably sitting in a theatre enjoying the movie, the school siren went off for emergency roll call.
When the count was done, nearly half of our batch was missing.
Some heard about the roll call and rushed back midway. Some decided to at least finish the movie and return. The Administrative Officer personally went to the theatre to bring them back. That's when we knew this wasn't going to be small.
The Principal decided to suspend all the cadets involved — which meant suspending almost half the batch.
That evening, during his usual walk, we approached him as a group. What started as a request slowly turned into a confrontation. We surrounded him and made one point clear: either suspend the entire batch or suspend none of us.
Looking back, it was bold. Maybe immature. A group of teenagers surrounding a serving Army officer of Colonel rank is not something you see every day. But at that moment, it felt like unity.
Eventually, the suspensions were withdrawn.
From that day, we became known as the "Hebbuli Batch." Not officially. But reputations don't need paperwork.
And that was probably the beginning of a silent tension between our batch and the Principal.
The Furious March
Next year, we were in Class 12.
I happened to be the School Vice Captain that year. In Sainik School, appointments carry responsibility. A lot of day-to-day functioning is handled by cadets themselves. But when things go wrong, you are still just a student.
We had children of staff members studying with us. They were day scholars. In our batch, the Vice Principal's son was one of them.
In a closed setup like ours, difference becomes visible very quickly. And visible difference often becomes vulnerability. Some cadets bullied him. Not everyone. But enough.
He mostly ignored it. That day, he couldn't.
He complained.
That evening, the Principal went straight to the fourth barrack. The accused cadet was in the bathroom taking a bath. He was brought out, in his underclothes, and taken to the study hall where juniors were sitting for evening prep.
He was punished there, in front of everyone.
Punishment was normal in our school. Public humiliation in front of juniors was not. In a place where hierarchy defines your identity, being stripped of dignity hits differently.
By dinner roll call, something had shifted. On the surface, it was routine. But at the back of the squad, there was silence. And inside that silence, anger was building.
After roll call, Class 12 refused to enter the mess.
At first, it looked like a small act of protest. It wasn't.
I informed the duty master that the batch was refusing dinner. She called the Administrative Officer and said he would come and address the issue.
But the mood had already crossed that stage.
Someone said we should march to the main gate. It caught on fast.
I tried speaking to a few — telling them this could get out of hand, that we should talk first. But once a group reaches a certain point, logic sounds like weakness. I was told, "You're an appointment. You won't understand what OCs go through." OC meant Ordinary Cadet. That one sentence showed the divide.
At that moment, I realised the batch had moved beyond persuasion.
The march started.
Hostel superintendents, duty masters — many tried stopping us. Nobody was listening. For the batch, this was about dignity. One of ours had been humiliated in front of juniors. That was enough fuel.
When we reached the main gate, a few cadets jumped out onto the road. That's when it became serious.
Soon, all the officers, including the Principal, arrived. A heated exchange began. Voices were raised. The officers tried to control the situation, tried to reason, tried to assert authority. The batch stood its ground.
Looking back, it was a textbook example of mob psychology. Individually, most of us would not have crossed that line. Together, it felt justified.
Eventually, it was agreed that we would move to the academic block and talk there instead of creating a scene at the gate.
Another long exchange followed inside. Accusations. Defences. Attempts to calm things down. The Vice Principal, to his credit, tried sincerely to reduce the tension.
Late that night, everyone dispersed.
It felt like the storm had passed.
It hadn't.
The next day, CCTV footage identified the cadets who had jumped out of the gate. They were singled out. Parents were informed. Punishments began. Some of them were not even directly involved in the original issue. They were just carried by the momentum of the crowd.
That did not go well with the batch.
This time, the decision was bigger. We called our parents.
The next day, parents gathered outside the school gate. They were not allowed inside initially. Arguments began. Voices were raised. What was an internal issue now stood outside the campus walls.
Soon, the Superintendent of Police, Bijapur, the Block Education Officer, and even media got involved.
We had managed to turn a bullying complaint into a public event.
Eventually, everyone gathered in the auditorium — cadets, parents, officers, police, education officials.
Another round of arguments followed. Cadets accused the administration of excessive humiliation. Officers defended discipline. Parents supported their children. Officials tried to maintain order.
At one point, a cadet stood up, hit the chair in front of him, and shouted at the Principal out of frustration.
From that day, we called him "Mangal Pandey." Every batch has that one revolutionary.
After hours of back and forth, the situation was formally settled.
But something fundamental had shifted.
Aftermath
What followed for the rest of the year was not pleasant.
We had created noise. A lot of it. And whether we admitted it or not, things changed after that.
Our batch carried a label now. Not officially. But it was there.
What I felt most was distance.
Sometimes punishment is direct. Sometimes it is silence. Conversations became shorter. Interactions became formal. Small issues involving our batch were no longer small. If someone from our batch punished a junior and the complaint escalated, action was quick. Suspensions were easier. Appointments were removed without much consideration. The margin for mistake became very thin.
Around the same time, we had the NDA/NA entrance exam.
For any Sainik School, this is the real scoreboard. How many cadets get into NDA — that defines a batch more than anything else.
Only five from our entire batch cleared the written exam. It was one of the lowest numbers in years.
Then came SSB — the second stage. Not even one of the five cleared it.
That was heavy.
For a batch that had made so much noise, we had very little to show where it mattered most.
That result stayed with us more than any punishment did.
We did not get the usual farewell that previous batches had. No big celebration. No emotional send-off.
By the end, I just wanted to finish my board exams and leave. Quietly.
Sometimes you don't leave a place defeated. You just leave… drained.
What I Understand Now
Looking back now, I feel things could have unfolded differently if people had just paused and listened.
The whole incident started with bullying. That is a fact. A line was crossed. Action was necessary.
But how you act also matters. In a place built on hierarchy and seniority, public humiliation hits deeper than punishment itself. Especially in front of juniors. Dignity is currency in such systems.
At the same time, what we did was not right either. Solidarity quickly turned into defiance. Individually, many of us might have chosen to talk. As a group, we chose to march.
That's how crowds work. Emotion grows faster than logic. And once it reaches a certain level, nobody wants to be the one who steps back.
Do I regret how it happened? Yes.
Do I understand why it happened? Also yes.
We were seventeen. We were proud. We believed we were standing for justice. Maybe we were. Maybe we were also just reacting. Maybe we simply did not think far enough about consequences.
The year ended quietly. No big farewell. No celebration. Just exams and departure.
Today, when I think about it, I don't hold anyone accountable for what happened. I see teenagers protecting what they thought was dignity. And I see how ego can turn a correction into a crisis.
In trying to defend dignity, we damaged more than we understood.
Maybe that is the real lesson.