[CC] Watch Tower: Ragging: Break vicious circle

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We must try to discipline our children to recognize reality and in so doing, we enrich our own understanding. Welcome their evolving independence and then only, we will be supported by the strength we have helped them attain.

Sanjay Dutt's movie: Lage Raho Munnabhai has certainly created thrills as well as the great impact in every section of our society of course due to movie's funny caption. The caption carries a different message (meaning) to different people and it is used freely according to the occasion and place.

In university and college campus, the smart, nay naughty- so called -senior students got the best opportunity to use, Lage Raho Munnabhai to their own advantage, just to harasses all freshers. Lage Raho Munnabhai, says one senior, while the other guy says..Jago..Jago..! Munna!! In order to make all freshers fully aware and caution them about their fate on the very first day of college. And thus the worst game of ragging begins with a stern warning along with all kinds of harassment and vulgarity. How he worst cruel joke becomes in nightmare which is well-known to everybody. Well done Munnabhai!.

Naturally looking to the increasing trend towards disorder, indiscipline and misbehaviour in Indian universities has aroused controversy and confusion in the minds of all intellectuals, administrators and parents alike. Indeed what is happening at universities today is not just passing commotion, which can be put down by firmer discipline only. As the causes for the present chaotic situation are many and varied, they are to be studied in right perspective and find out ways and means to improve it, before it goes out of control, instead of blaming the student alone.

No doubt, their misbehaviour on various counts and specially in ragging has not only created a terror in the minds of all innocent boys but it has actually threatened their lives by disrupting normal operations and infringing upon the rights of others.

The worst part is, ragging has now become a regular feature of ugly and crude method of so called entertainment with all sorts of vulgarity. Year after year several boys became the target of this unsocial element and are compelled to end their precious lives sheer out of disgust.

It is simply an irony of fate that instead of taking pity over these incidents, every year some new inventions of ragging are pouring through the ingenious brain of the present day youth and they are being carried out with the least idea of its repercussions in the long run. They totally forget that there is a lot of difference between `fun and ragging'.

The most inhuman way of ragging has come to light when all freshers are asked to be naked in front of all seniors at the point of knife. All these acts clearly go to show the extremity of ragging and the extent of moral degradation how the present day youth uses his perverted intelligence in making `fool of himself'. In fact all seniors do forget that `once upon a time' they were also freshers and had become the target of ragging and naturally they ought to have come to their senses, well in time and stopped ragging but ironically enough when they indulge in the same old game of ragging, with full of vigour, sheer out of revengeful attitude, then probably, ragging will have no end in itself, as it is a vicious circle.

Every fresher becomes senior next year and he is bound to think, that ragging automatically becomes his birthright being senior. In short the present day youth lives under obsession of pleasure and entertainment has become the real business of his life. Discipline is a forgotten word and self-restraint does not exist at all.

However, the question poses, whether can we afford to blame the student alone for the present state of affairs and hold them responsible for the mess: the answer is certainly a big no. But we ourselves, as parents and guardians, who are expected to mould their destiny, are equally responsible for all the crises, we are facing today. Because we are unable to understand their problems in right perspective and do not know the art of bringing them up properly, as no other task in the world is so complicated and challenging, as that of bringing up children.

In short, we must try to discipline our children to recognize reality and in so doing, we enrich our own understanding. Welcome their evolving independence and then only, we will be supported by the strength we have helped them attain.

But oh the whole trouble is that instead of realizing the fact that all parents and guardians are the real custodians of their wards and it is they who are responsible and equally expected to keep them under control, check their day to day activities, build their moral character and thus help them to mould their destiny, they indirectly encourage them to misbehave in all spheres of social life without knowing its repercussions in the long run. In short, we ourselves indulge our children in the delusion that we are being good to them. This is the only and primary reason why we are facing the crisis today.

Not only this but in order to escape the responsibility of bringing up their children in right direction they just go on blaming 1) the general education system prevailing in the country. 2) Administrative set-up of all educational institutions. 3) Loss of control over the student by the teaching staff in general and 4) the government's policies in particular forgetting totally that all educational institutions and government agencies are not run by the super human beings but by the persons amongst themselves only.

KD Kekre