A mandatory ritual in many schools and colleges across the world. Although from a few years in India, all the schools & colleges have mandatorily in their websites have been claiming that their campus is a ragging-free campus, but, somewhere in some corner of the campus, there have been incidents of ragging. While there are some students who immediately report, there are many who do not even report for fear of being double bullied or being ragged in another ways. What is ragging actually? It is an act where there are two parties involved in which the either party does something with the other so that the other party is embarrassed or is left in such a position where they are a mercy of the person who embarrassed. Thus, term ‘ragging’ can be applied to any unruly behavior that involves mocking or treating any student offensively so as to cause nuisance, frustration or feelings of fear so as to adversely affect their state of mind. From random dull actions to molesting, torturing, abusing, etc., has become the journey of ragging throughout the years.
Various incidents of suicides, violence, physical injuries, sexual abuses and psychological disorders are the result of constant ragging and bullying either in schools or tuition or in college. Me, being a graduate in the year 2021 would like to share a small real-life story where I had experienced such inhuman treatment. According to me, not everybody but most persons must have faced ragging during their college life. On my part, I was ragged during my school days and the funny part was that the ragging took place in class eleven. Ever since my school classmate ( Divy Singhania) got to know my surname, he used to tease me; I did not mind, my surname was rare and I loved it. But, somehow, he happen to harass me physically & mentally day after day regarding my sense of clothing (we used to go to the same maths tution), my spelling mistakes, my pronouncement of words (in school, the teachers used to make every 1 read aloud), my caste (calling me chinese-cum-Indian) , sticking glue on my pants during prayer. Along with him, he had four more students of which 3 were my classmates & other 1 was his younger sister. sometimes, I used to skip school giving all sorts of excuses to my mother. I was getting depressed day by day and as a result could not even concentrate on studies & failed in all the papers even in literature which was my favourite subject.
One day, I decided to teach all of them a lesson and I took my revenge on them by beating them (my classmates) black& blue when we had two free classes!! Two days after being beaten by me, all of them were suspended and I was given the warning by the school. The chilling incident continues to haunt me sometimes in my sleep even now and I sometimes think that if I ever get hold of a time machine I would travel to the past and stop my past version from being ragged. When I left my school, I had developed a feeling of revenge for ‘unjustified harassment’. Furthermore, talking about bullying, is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate without caring how their action is effect the other person[1]. Most of the ragging is done just to show the superiority in front of other people that how one can rag or cause other person some sort of injury either physically or mentally. The one who is being ragged loses its self confidence and may sometimes go into depression and may attempt to kill oneself. Ragging has also been shown in some Bollywood movies like 3 idiots & Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.
The latter was released in the year 2003 in which there was a scene where a 1st year medical student wanted to change his room as he thought that the roommate he was given was weird. Upon asking his seniors, they took him to a place where there were already some 1st year students dancing on a song in their underwear and were introducing their self. The protagonist being an illiterate person did not know that it was ragging and became excited to participate. The seniors felt that there was no need to rag further were dealt with shock that they were being ragged. The former movie was released in year 2009 in which there was a similar scene where the 1st year Engineering were seen bowing down wearing underwear to their senior and the latter was stamping the ass. Here, the protagonist used the knowledge of physics and punished his senior. The scene of both the movies were dealt in a very funny way. But, that kept me thinking that what if these kind of incidents were really true?
It is now mandatory for a college under the UGC regulations that an F.I.R needs to be registered with the police against the culprits for any kind of violence, physical abuse, sexual harassment. The students & parents are made to submit an undertaking that in case the student was found to be guilty of ragging, they would face consequences. Judging and the passing of a comment is totally wrong. There have been some quotes saying that one should not judge a person unless they become a judge of SC or HC. Following a Supreme Court order, a National Anti-Ragging Helpline was created to help the victims and take action in cases of ragging, by informing the head of the institution and the local police authorities of the ragging complaint from the college[2]. The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), following a directive by the Supreme Court, appointed a seven-member panel headed by former CBI director Dr. R. K. Raghavan recommended anti-ragging measures[3]. Consequently, in the present time, various committee has been established to curb the menace of ragging.
There are provisions in the IPC which can be used by a student to register an FIR namely section 323, 324 which deals with punishment for voluntarily causing hurt and voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapon or means, respectively. If I knew these IPC sections in my ragging days, I would have progressed better in my life. Nonetheless, I think I will file the case against my raggers and send the legal notice to them! In conclusion, I would only like to say that although the Centre and the States have shown deep concern to eradicate the menace of ragging through implementation of various legislations, guidelines and directions but, still there is no central legislation so far in this regard. I know we cannot change the nature of the people who rag but sometimes, the solution is that the person who is being ragged has to stand-up for himself and face the person who is ragging or beat-up that person in such a way that they do not dare to harm anybody in the near future as well.
[1] Aishwarya Samantaray-A MESSAGE FROM A SENIOR TO ALL MY JUNIORS REGARDING BULLYING/RAGGING, A MESSAGE FROM A SENIOR TO ALL MY JUNIORS REGARDING BULLYING/RAGGING – Aishwarya Sandeep, visited on 23-07-2021 at 13:00hrs.
[2] Shubham Chawla- DON’T EVEN DARE TO RAG, Don’t Even Dare to Rag – Aishwarya Sandeep, visited on 23-07-2021 at 15:37hrs.
[3] IBID.
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