Ragging Issue

The word ragging is synonymous with professional courses,hostels and freshers. The recent incident at Naigaon hostel brings back memories of my 1^st year M.B.B.S days spent at a hostel 500kms away from home. Even after experiencing it myself I cannot exactly define what is ragging even though it is omnipresent in hostels.

Every fresher is asked his introduction and a brief peek into his personal life like number of girlfriends etc. The variety of methods of ragging itself make the situation dicey. While the law recognises ragging as a crime one should understand the psychology and hierarchy of the hostelite who ‘rags’ juniors. The simple reason given is we rag juniors because we were ragged when we were one. Most of the times there is no intention of harming the juniors. ‘Introduction’ is the essence of hostel life. There are even instances of juniors actually enjoying the experience themselves with all the mimicry, enactments and mud slinging on each other. After recounting how many girl friends he had, colour of his undergarments and other unmentionable deeds he did till date, a few enactments like being superman, swearing till the fan is moving and sniffing Glucose which the senior claims to be a narcotic the junior returns to his room and relates in detail the whole incidence to his colleagues happily. Certain adept seniors actually became favorite and juniors vouch for being introduced to him/her as it is more fun. It certainly does build a bond with seniors as most often you wont even know the names of the seniors who did not take your introduction. However what may be perceived as fun by some bold juniors identical questions may be ragging for the weak over protected juniors who have never been away from home for long. I recall a junior crying when asked to sing the national anthem on Independence day. Had he complained it as ragging the careers of those accused would be wrecked for something seemingly harmless. Some may recall a huge list of girlfriends or the adult things they did with ease while others start shaking even when asked if they ever had a crush on someone. Thus the question is when to complain?

A certain discrimination between ‘introduction’ and ‘ragging’ is a must. Vulgarity, nudity and any other forms of ‘physical’ ragging should not be tolerated at all. Even lewd comments and insults to ones family can be traumatic to a fresher’s mind as he is already nervous at the idea of studying away from home for the first time in his life. It is in the hands of the law to set benchmark and proper definitions as well as punishment for ragging. We often see that a committee is appointed retrospectively after the incident rather than pre written measures to deal with ragging. The committee contains members of the institute itself and the authorities which obviously try to cover up the issue and downplay it to hide their own shortcomings. Also the issue is viewed sympathetically as the accused are on the way to become professionals and such a blotch severely dents their aspirations in life. Thus it is often seen that the ragging accused generally get away with a lesser punishment than the severity of the incident.

Formulation of guidelines and appointment of neutral committees is necessary. An accused using the excuse of being inspired by a movie or a book is absurd as ragging was omnipresent even before such projections and it is not a sport to gather ‘inspiration’ from any sources. As I see it introduction is part and parcel of hostel life and certainly cant be eradicated as your question mentions. One can certainly prevent it by building better junior-senior relationship, proper security measures and interactive events leading to co operation amongst the seniors and freshers. Most often we often see only one warden for 2-3 hostels who himself is mostly drunk at night! Thus I would like to end it by saying that rather than putting the onus on the law it will take a combined effort by the , the authorities and more importantly the students themselves to curb this menace known as ‘ragging’.