Thiruvananthapuram: In the dust laden government offices, thousands of files sit quietly, each containing not just paperwork but the broken dreams and silent screams of real people. Teachers in the aided education sector, many of whom have dedicated decades of their lives to service, continue to suffer in silence. Their only crime: depending on a system that refuses to see them.
Behind each file is a life, a teacher waiting for justice, for recognition, for the bare minimum of dignity. For years, many have worked without pay, sustained only by hope and promises that never arrive. Their pleas, backed even by court rulings, have been met with bureaucratic arrogance and political apathy.
How many more need to die before their voices are heard?
The recent tragic suicides of some teachers, those who couldn’t bear the burden any longer, have finally started to stir public conscience. But why must death precede action? Why must a life be lost before a file is opened?
The Education Department, once hailed as the guardian of public wisdom, is now accused of turning a blind eye. The refusal to act on legitimate claims has exposed a cruel indifference, one that disregards not just legal directives but basic humanity. As unpaid teachers age, some die waiting, their files moving no faster than the day they were first submitted.
This heartless inertia raises disturbing questions. Is the state quietly engineering the downfall of the aided education sector? Is inaction a strategy rather than a lapse? The unanswered files suggest a calculated delay, a slow erasure of a community by strangling its spirit and livelihood.
There is still time for a reckoning. Civil society, the media, and the judiciary must rally to protect these forgotten lives before more names are added to the growing list of deaths. Files may be silent, but the lives inside them are not. It is time the government listens before it is too late.