By the time a school becomes a punchline, something far larger than a scandal has already taken root. The recent controversy surrounding Nalanda College in Colombo has been discussed endlessly across social media, WhatsApp groups, and dinner tables. Videos have circulated. Names have been whispered and sometimes shouted. Memes have been created. Moral judgments have been passed with alarming speed and very little reflection. What has been missing from this conversation is not outrage, there has been plenty of that, but honesty. Honest reckoning with what actually happened, honest acknowledgment of where responsibility truly lies, and honest reflection on the role society itself has played in turning a serious issue into public spectacle. This is not merely a story about alleged misconduct within a school. It is a story about how easily we normalize violation when it arrives packaged as gossip, how quickly we abandon ethics for entertainment, and how institutions and individuals alike retreat into silence or excuses when accountability becomes inconvenient.
WHAT WE KNOW AND
WHAT WE DO NOT
Several video clips allegedly involving a senior student leader and teachers from Nalanda College began circulating widely on social media platforms. Following public outcry, the Ministry of Education requested a report from the school administration and signalled that further inquiry would follow. Beyond these broad facts, much remains unclear. There has been no comprehensive public timeline. No independent disclosure of findings. No transparent explanation of what actions, if any, were taken prior to the videos going viral. In the absence of verified information, speculation rushed in to fill the vacuum. This is a predictable outcome when institutions choose silence over clarity. Silence does not protect truth; it breeds rumour. And rumour, once unleashed online, is impossible to contain.
WHEN MEMES REPLACE CONSCIENCE
The moment the videos turned into memes; the conversation crossed a dangerous threshold. Humour has long been used as a coping mechanism in society. But humour built on humiliation is not relief; it is cruelty. When real people are reduced to punchlines, their dignity becomes expendable. Their pain becomes content. The normalization of meme culture around this incident is deeply troubling because it reveals how desensitized we have become to digital harm. We treat exposure as entertainment, humiliation as satire, and violation as viral currency. The internet did not force this behaviour. We chose it.
MORAL PANIC WITHOUT
MORAL DISCIPLINE
Public reaction to the Nalanda College case has been marked by a striking contradiction. On one hand, there have been loud declarations about eroding values, declining discipline, and cultural decay. On the other, there has been enthusiastic consumption of leaked content and mockery of those involved. One cannot claim moral outrage while participating in violation.
If values matter, then consent matters.
If dignity matters, then privacy matters.
If children matter, then restraint matters.
Yet restraint has been conspicuously absent.
INSTITUTIONS AND THE COST OF
QUIET HANDLING
Schools are not merely educational spaces; they are custodians of trust. When allegations of boundary violations arise, institutions have a duty to act swiftly, transparently, and responsibly. Reports suggest that some internal actions may have been taken before the issue reached public attention. If that is true, the lack of communication surrounding those actions raises serious concerns. Quiet handling may protect institutional reputation in the short term, but it undermines public confidence in the long term. Delayed accountability sends a dangerous message: that consequences depend on visibility, not principle. That problems only warrant action when they become embarrassing. Transparency does not mean public shaming. It means clarity. It means acknowledging gaps. It means explaining processes. Silence, by contrast, allows speculation to become narrative and narrative to become judgment.
POWER, HIERARCHY, AND
THE REFUSAL TO SEE SYSTEMS
Much of the discourse has focused narrowly on individuals: who recorded what, who participated, who should be punished. This focus is convenient because it absolves systems. Schools operate within hierarchies of authority. Students and teachers do not interact on equal footing. Leadership positions, social standing, and institutional cultures all shape behaviour and silence. When boundaries blur, it is rarely because a single individual failed. It is because safeguards were weak, oversight was lax, and protocols were insufficient for the realities of a digital age. Ignoring power dynamics does not make analysis objective. It makes it incomplete.
THE GENDERED NATURE OF
PUBLIC JUDGMENT
Another uncomfortable truth is that the public judgment has not been evenly distributed. Women involved have faced harsher scrutiny, more invasive speculation, and deeper moral condemnation. Their character has been debated in detail, their bodies dissected, their worth questioned. Men, by contrast, are more often discussed through abstract language: youth, immaturity, misguidance. This disparity is not accidental. It reflects deeply ingrained cultural biases that police women’s behaviour more aggressively than men’s, even in cases where responsibility is shared or unclear. A society that claims to value fairness cannot ignore this imbalance.
THE MENTAL HEALTH COST
Lost in the noise is the human cost of this public spectacle. Digital humiliation does not disappear when trends move on. Reputations are not restored by silence. Psychological harm does not resolve itself once the internet finds a new target. We have witnessed, time and again, the devastating consequences of unchecked public shaming. Yet we continue to behave as though exposure is consequence-free, as though people are resilient simply because they are public. They are not. Even when wrongdoing exists, punishment must be proportionate, lawful, and humane. Public degradation satisfies anger, not justice.
LAW, REGULATION, AND
MISPLACED FOCUS
Government responses have included discussions around online safety regulation, framed as necessary to prevent similar incidents in the future. While legal reform is important, it must be precise. The issue at hand is not free expression. It is non-consensual distribution of intimate material. Broad regulatory measures that conflate these issues risk chilling speech without addressing the core harm. What is needed are clear laws that criminalize digital sexual exploitation, robust enforcement mechanisms, and public education on consent and privacy. Regulation without cultural change is cosmetic. Culture without accountability is empty.
WHAT RESPONSIBILITY
ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE
If this moment is to mean anything, responsibility must be redistributed to where it belongs.
Institutions must be transparent and proactive, not reactive.
The law must recognize digital sexual harm for what it is.
Media must resist sensationalism.
And the public must confront its own role in perpetuating harm.
The most difficult form of accountability is self-accountability. It requires asking uncomfortable questions:
Why did I watch?
Why did I laugh?
Why did I forward?
Why did I stay silent when others mocked?
THE REAL SCANDAL
The Nalanda College case is not simply a story about a school. It is a mirror reflecting a society that has become disturbingly comfortable with humiliation, voyeurism, and moral hypocrisy. The real scandal is not that private moments were recorded. The real scandal is how eagerly they were consumed. The real shame lies not in the existence of videos, but in how quickly dignity was traded for entertainment. If we emerge from this episode having learned nothing, if we move on without confronting our complicity, then the next incident is inevitable. And when it happens, we will once again pretend to be shocked.
