Ragging is not fun and games

The email lay unopened in my inbox for a whole day before I picked up the courage to open it. No, not because I thought it was some spam mail,

but because I had an inkling of what it would contain and wasn’t sure I wanted my peace of mind disturbed. So each time I checked my inbox, I’d find some excuse not to click on the mail from CURE, the Coalition to Uproot Ragging in Education.

But this was not the first email from CURE. I’m on their mailing list and keenly track their efforts to tackle ragging. So why the sudden squeamishness on my part? Well, because the mail had a video clip attachment —a song, CURE calls it a ragging anthem, set against images of incidents of ragging, including one involving Amit, a bright first year student at BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar, who threw himself in front of a train, unable to bear the torment meted out by his seniors.

It’s not an easy video to watch (http://www.noragging.com/video). And though its creators, Abhinav and Vaibhav Malhotra and Raghav Tyagi, have not gone into too much gory detail, there is enough to make any right-thinking person, certainly any parent, rage at the sheer wantonness of it all. Last year 11 youngsters ended their lives (against an average of five in the previous years) unable to bear ragging. Countless more have, doubtless, been traumatised for life.

Is there nothing that can be done to end such barbarous conduct once and for all? As colleges re-open all over the country and eager fuchhas (to use the Delhi University term for freshers) crowd into classrooms, we need to think long and hard. Why should a fun-and-games initiation into college life have led the Supreme Court to intervene? And why, even after its intervention saw the Raghavan Committee Report make some excellent suggestions, are we unable to prevent ragging from crossing certain limits?

For answers cast your mind back to what happened last year when the capital’s prestigious St Stephens College found itself in the media glare for an un-savoury instance of ragging (deodorant was sprayed on a boy’s hands and a match lit). The then principal Valson Thampu first tried to brush it away and then defended the incident in an article in The Hindu, saying a ‘gross injustice’ was being done to the four young men involved since the affected student did not complain and only suo motu notice had been taken.

Valson went on to argue that filing an FIR against ‘raggers’, as recommended by the Raghavan Committee (in cases where the victim or his/her parent/guardian is not satisfied with the action taken by the Head of the institution), would amount to an abdication of responsibility on the part of the heads of institutions. Never mind that the act of such ragging is a bigger abdication of responsibility! St Stephens is not alone. Most higher education institutions in India prefer to turn a blind eye to ragging.

Yes, there is an element of subjectivity about where high jinks ends and unacceptable ragging begins; but that is true of all social misdemeanours. It can hardly be anyone’s case that it is only high jinks going awry when it results in burn injuries or leads to 11 students taking their lives.

The report hit the nail on the head when it argued, “there is no reason why enrolment in an institution should immunise perpetrators of heinous crimes which otherwise attract the penal provisions of law if committed by an adult citizen outside the academic precincts.”

Sadly, even simple suggestions of the Raghavan Committee such as ensuring a gap of one to two weeks between the date of joining of ‘freshers’ and seniors, appointing trained wardens rather than making it the responsibility of some faculty member who treats it as a nuisance, giving a higher rating/providing additional grants to universities and colleges that have a blemish-less record on ragging etc have not been implemented.

The committee chairman, CBI former director, R K Raghavan reflects this anguish when he says he would like university/college authorities to be ‘more proactive’, adding that though many institutions have a structure in place, he gets the feeling it is ‘tokenism’ on their part. A view that is not misplaced going by the Ministry of Human Resources Annual Report, 2007-08. In the 347-page report there is not a single mention of ragging or the Raghavan Committee Report. Need I say any more?