Watch and Learn

The row over CCTV cameras in Delhi schools

It seemed like any other day at the Shaheed Hemu Kalani Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya, a government school in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar. The students sat attentively in class. They were wearing their uniforms, white shirts and ties, and the teacher paced through the classroom as he taught. But high in opposite corners of the room, one thing had changed: two newly installed closed-circuit television cameras watched over the class.

The day, 6 July 2019, marked the official launch of the Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Delhi government’s plan to install two CCTV cameras in every government-school classroom. The decision came on the heels of a wider AAP push to surveil the city. In June, after a prolonged tussle with the lieutenant governor’s office, the government officially launched a scheme to fulfill the AAP’s campaign promise to install 2,000 cameras in public places in each of Delhi’s 70 assembly constituencies. A month later, Arvind Kejriwal, the chief minister, directed the public works department to procure another 150,000 cameras, bringing the total number of cameras to be installed close to three hundred thousand. The move was also part of the AAP government’s greater investment in public education. Twenty-six percent of the 2019–20 Delhi budget was dedicated to education; the AAP has more than doubled the previous Delhi government’s education spending.