Ragging - An insane practice in Higher Education
Interview of Harsh Agarwal* by 'An Education Magazine'
1. Do
you think the incidents of ragging have fallen in 2010? If yes, will
you attribute this to presence of a stringent and in a sense a deterrent
law or awareness as a result of intense media focus following some
cruel incidents?
It is very difficult to say whether
incidents of ragging have increased or decreased in any particular year.
We keep a track on cases that are reported in English media across
India and based on that we compile our annual statistics. Total number
depends on how actively media reported incidents of ragging in that
particular year. Nevertheless this is a good indicator to understand how
rampant and widespread ragging is, its severity, and to study various
sociological aspects associated with it. But this doesn’t necessarily
give a good trend of annual rise or fall in incidents. However if we
compare present situation with what it was 10 years ago then certainly
there is a slight decrease in the overall trend. Colleges are a little
scared now or are at least forced to show that they are concerned about
it. Ten years ago ragging was considered a normal phenomenon, nobody
used to talk about it, today it is a social issue.
Yes
stringent laws have definitely played a role in reducing the incidents
and degree of ragging in recent years. But I think that effect has
somewhere reached its saturation as well. Too much focus on deterrence
alone and our failure to punish the offenders (colleges and students
involved in ragging) is setting a bad example and soon this deterrence
would also fade way.
2. Do you feel,
incidents are still under reported and the tradition or malaise of
ragging is so deeply entrenched that it will need more time and effort
to end it from campuses?
Incidents of ragging are highly
underreported. We don’t get to hear even a minute fraction of the actual
number of incidents taking place- which is for obvious reasons. Ragging
is done in an organised manner under extreme secrecy. There is
tremendous fear in the minds of freshers in filing complaint. They know
that the consequences of compalint could put their career and life at
stake and thus prefer to bear the torture. College authorities also try
their best to suppress the incidents to save the reputation of the
institution. Moreover, ragging has a general acceptance on the campus.
People have been seeing this for past several years and thus don’t find
anything wrong about it. This acceptance and psychology behind ragging
is so strong that victim himself becomes a perpetrator in a short span
of twelve months.
Laws have been made and ragging has been
banned but the practice is still rampant because the concept continues
to exist in the minds of the people. We therefore need a comprehensive
awareness and education to change the thinking of the people. We have to
engage our students and faculty in debates and seminars on ragging to
make them think and understand the insanity behind this concept. Only
then we would be able to wipe out ragging. Yes this would be a gradual
process and would take time and effort and I don’t see any short cut
solution to this problem.
3. You have met and
spoken with many heads of institutions in various parts of country,
could you summarize the attitudes, impact of no-ragging campaign and
their knowledge about ragging in their campuses?
In my
interaction with the heads of institutions I have felt that their
general attitude is to avoid any discussion or activity related to
ragging. Because of the strong laws, it is now a taboo to talk about
ragging. On the other hand, college-heads don’t take no-ragging campaign
seriously. This attitude is generally shown by heads of government-run
and established colleges. They find themselves in safer position and are
perhaps not concerned about the Supreme Court guidelines and not
worried about getting into trouble in case they fail to check ragging in
their institution. Also I have come across principals who condemn
ragging in any formal conversation but inside their mind they are ardent
supporter of it. But there are also principals, who are genuinely
worried about ragging in their institution and make all possible efforts
to curb it. I have met some such principals and professors who are
sincerely making efforts to prevent ragging. I think we need to
highlight their efforts and inspire others by this.
4.
Is it true that hostels are places that breed the menace of ragging?
Are there any historic, societal or psychological reasons? Is there any
program that sensitizes wardens?
Yes hostels are places
that mainly breed this menace. In fact worst cases of ragging usually
take place inside hostel premises or in paying guest accommodation
around campus areas. It is so because ragging inside the four walls of a
hostel room provides a general sense of security to seniors. Moreover,
students in hostels have strong bonding and are organised in group,
which ensures that nobody would raise voice against ragging.
Intrestingly freshers are ragged badly in hostels on pretext that this
would help in developing bonding with their hostel mates. Also during my
visit to colleges across India I saw hostels in deplorable condition.
Students don’t get basic amenities in hostels, food served in the mess
is of poor quality, there are no facilities for extra-curricular
activities for the students and now we have so many new colleges which
are situated on highways, far away from main city. I believe all this
somewhere does affect the psyche of the students and they then think of
seeking entertainment from ragging.
Wardens are aware about
ragging in hostels but generally don’t take action because like the
freshers they are also scared of the consequences. Raghavan Committee
has made several recommendations to improve hostel administration and
tackle ragging but those recommendations have not been implemented by
colleges.
5. Discrimination is practiced even in ragging, does it reflect social bias and inequality?
Ragging
is an excellent example that highlights how deep-rooted the practice of
discrimination is even among the educated class of our society. In
majority of professional colleges across India, students are
discriminated and are ragged on the basis of which region or state of
the country they come from or the caste or religion they belong to.
Students with characteristics (language, caste, region, religion,
economic background, etc) that are in minority in a particular setting
are worst victims of ragging. They feel extremely suffocated and low and
because of this they are often not able to perform well in studies.
Given
the extent of diversity we have in our country, I think it is
imperative for us to have school education that inculcates feeling of
unity and brotherhood in our youth.
6. What kind of support is offered by your group and how do you plan to take your work forward?
CURE
is primarily a research and advocacy group trying to establish public
opinion against ragging. We regularly publish research reports, produce
audio-visual content and use them to create awareness and educate masses
to change the mindset towards ragging. We also conduct seminars and
workshops in colleges across India. CURE is soon launching a ‘CURE
Ambassador’ programme which would encourage students to take up
awareness programme in their college. We are planning to expand our
reach and activities to more number of colleges in India. We also do
media advocacy and work with the government bodies to bring effective
policy change to address this menace.
7.
Some people are of the opinion that bullying in schools is the early
signs of ragging leadership, have you come across any link?
Bullying
is an act of teasing or humiliating someone mainly based on the
person’s characteristics such as physical features, accent, ethnicity,
religion, ability, gender, economic background, etc. I feel that
bullying is a milder form of ragging and it won’t be wrong to say that
it is like a seed that germinates into ragging. However we don’t need to
go to a school to see bullying. We can experience bullying and find
bullies in our daily life. Bullying can happen at home, school,
college, workplace, or any other public place.
Bullying is a
primitive human behaviour in which you humiliate someone to establish
your supremacy. Advance societies look down on bullies. Several
countries in the west have made bullying a serious punishable offence.
This tendency can be best curbed at young age.
8. Not many people are coming forward to lend support to this campaign, your comment.
There
are several reasons behind this. Firstly, people don’t consider ragging
as a serious issue and have a tendency to compare it with other bigger
problems in the country and find ragging trivial.
Secondly,
there is a strange paradox in ragging. Victims of ragging who are
expected to join anti-ragging campaign and raise voice themselves become
perpetrators and supporters of this menace. I blame the education
system of our country for this anomaly. Our education is based on
rote-learning rather than on reasoning and discussion. This dull method
of education leads to lack of individual thinking and strong thought
process in students, and encourages herd-mentality and makes them
susceptible to brain washing. It is for this reason that students so
easily get influenced by their seniors and never question the illogical
reasoning given to justify ragging. Violence and humiliation are so
contrary to education. It is shocking to see educated youngsters
involved in something which is irrational and gross. Perhaps our model
of education is failing to serve the purpose what education is actually
meant for.
9. Lastly, could you summarize your personal story that led to your initiation into this cause.
In
the year 2000 I qualified 4 All India/State level medical entrance
exams and joined MLN Medical College in Alllahabad. For a month, I was
ragged so badly that I was left with no other option but to leave the
college. Later I pursued government ministries for two years to get
transfer to any other medical college that I had qualified. But this
never happened. My case was even taken up by NHRC but that too was of no
help. It was a rude shock to me as I had never heard of such a
phenomenon (ragging) before it actually happened with me. More shocking
was the casual response of the people whom I came across during those
two years. It was difficult for me to comprehend that something like
this exists in our higher education and that most educated people like
doctors and engineers are involved in it. I started looking for an
organization working on ragging but was disappointed to find nonet. Then
one day in July 2002, while surfing internet I came across two
students, Varun Aggarwal and Mohit Garg who were running a website and a
yahoo group against ragging and we soon joined hands to work for this
cause Today after 10 years of journey with CURE when we see activists
coming forward to take up this issue, media writing about ragging,
movies being made on this issue, court taking serious view of it and
society condemning ragging, we feel happy to see this change but at the
same time we know that a lot still needs to be done to eradicate this
menace from its roots.
_____
*) Harsh Agarwal is a authorised spokespersons for CURE,
Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education, a non-profit organisation dedicated solely towards the elimination of Ragging and promotion of more positive ways of interaction among seniors
and freshers in Indian Universities.
Source: http://themenaceofragging.blogspot.com/2011/07/ragging-insane-practice-in-higher.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheMenaceOfRagging+%28CURE+Ragging+Editorials%29
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Nagpur: Cyberbullying, lo que generalmente significa el acto de acosar a
alguien en línea mediante el envío o publicación de mensajes medias o fotos, es
una amenaza cada vez mayor y ya ha superado a las formas
"tradicionales" de la intimidación en las escuelas, de acuerdo con
los académicos. Ahora la Junta central de Educación Secundaria de la India (CBSE,
por sus siglas en inglés) también ha reconocido la amenaza y envió una carta a
las escuelas el pasado lunes, recomendando varias medidas para hacer frente a
la intimidación cibernética.
