[ToI] The 'R' Word

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Let's start with a confession. “When I joined a boarding school, I was thrown into a completely different world, one that existed far beyond the realms of my confined existence. I was exposed to the perils and wonders of being in an all boy boarding school. In the first week, the seniors confronted the first-year students in the common rooms and as was the custom, one by one we were supposed to come to the center of the gathering, stand upon the trusted wood table that had withstood the weight of generations of schoolboys and speak to the rest. This was 'Intro', a ritual that inducted all first-years into the school, albeit of course from the prying eyes of the authorities.

I nervously awaited my turn as I saw my classmates go up one by one, where they were asked questions ranging from 'What is your name and where do you come from to how old is your sister? All were asked to sing. On my turn, I was able to answer all questions well, and was even spared the usual slaughter owing to that fact that I had a brother instead of a sister. When it came to singing, I was a nervous wreck because I had never sung before, not even in the bathroom. But when I began, I even surprised myself. I realised I could sing just as well as any other. I held the audience captive, discovered a new talent and made myself known amongst the seniors. I even finished off a fine performance with a joke that had my audience in splits. Not only did it help me become a recognised face and won me many friends amongst the seniors, but six years later I went on to become the school music captain,” confesses Agrim Joshi, whose first brush with the term ragging turned out to be a pleasant one.

World over, freshers or first-years at colleges and boarding schools are subjected to some form of ragging, ranging from asking simple questions, to dancing and singing for an audience, professing love to an unsuspecting victim to downright 'servantry' of their seniors. While there are many colleges that deny the existence of this dreaded practice on their campuses, fact remains that most of us do face it in some form or the other during our formative years. Why do students indulge in this practice and what good could possibly come of it?

“It is a good way to get to know your juniors better. Since you will be spending the better part of your school life with them, and sometime, it may involve working together as a group, it is for the best if the ice is broken between both parties. Besides, in a close knit environment such as a boarding school or a hostel, you can't expect people to be mere acquaintances at a superficial level,” says boarding school student, Pranav Kapur. Raghav Puri mirrors this view when talking about a college environment, “Seniors are your best guide to survival in college. They know all about the course, teachers, things that could get you into trouble etc. It helps to have cordial relations with them, and if that involves a little bit of singing and dancing for harmless fun, then so be it.”
While those of us who study in high-end colleges may agree with this view, by no means do we have the right to judge the dilemma of an engineering or medical student. Here, the term ragging is practiced in its worst form.
Often there are reports of students beaten up by seniors, abused over long periods of time, made to carry out menial errands, all under the pretext of ragging.

One could argue that this stems from the high amount of stress that these students go through in the daily course of their academia, and ragging juniors is a way to vent some of that frustration.

“Being a first-year student in a medical college is hell. We are made to do all sorts of things. You are treated like sub-humans, and it's almost as if the only purpose of your existence is to serve your seniors,” says Arpit Verma, a first-year student at a reputed medical college.

Colleges have begun to take the issue of ragging seriously and have implemented certain counter measures such as severe punishments for those found indulging in the practice, counseling sessions and anti-ragging squads. But in many cases this is not enough.

The solution lies in going into the roots of the problem. It is human tendency to want to dominate over those we consider inferior, and in a college mindset, the senior-junior difference is more distinct, leading the seniors into believing that juniors are there to be ordered around.

The ridiculous practice of calling your seniors 'Sir' is a good example of the dominating mindset of these students. Efforts should be made to eradicate this mentality and re-enforce the point that age difference is no reason to subvert those younger than you. If this is not done, ragging, ideally a harmless way to get to know each other better, may spiral into something much worse than what it already is.