We’ve all had school teachers we thought were mean and I’m sure some of you have some real horror stories to tell, but did you ever have cow’s urine thrown in your face?

Oh… sorry to hear that, Amar. Anyone else?

The upper-caste headteacher at a school in India ordered a colleague to sprinkle cow urine on low-caste students to purify them and drive away evil. The teacher sprayed the cow’s urine in the student’s faces and on the papers they were working on.

Sharad Kaithade, who had taken over the headteacher position from a low-caste predecessor, claimed that spraying the students with cow’s urine was in no way an attempt to humiliate them, but oddly enough, the ritual wasn’t performed on upper-caste students.

The two teachers were arrested, so apparently this cleansing ceremony isn’t widely practiced. Either that or the upper-caste students complained because they had been discriminated against.

India’s constitution bans caste discrimination, but those at the bottom of the caste system are still commonly beaten or killed for using a well or worshiping at a temple reserved for upper castes.

Source: Reuters

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