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From being a simple time pass activity of getting to know your juniors, ragging across educational institutions has slowly become a more crude and dangerous form of physical and sexual harassment. Ragging is a bitter negative experience that many students have unfortunately had to face sometime or the other during their long academic career.
Ragging has entrenched itself deeply into the Indian educational set up, but many would be surprised to know that ragging was originally a western concept. Ragging has its origins in certain European Universities, wherein seniors played harmless practical jokes at the time of welcoming freshmen into their institutions. Over the years, the practice of ragging became popular throughout the world and gradually assumed more obnoxious and harmful connotations.
One cannot attempt to gauge the suffering and the pain of its victims, be it some innocent and harmless leg pulling to more harsh forms of physical or mental assault. Only the victim knows how painful and traumatic the experience of ragging can be. Often the perpetrators of the crime cross all limits of civility and humanity.
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Ragging often leaves an indelible and unpleasant mark in people’s lives. It often leaves the victim physically wounded and psychologically shattered. There are cases of many bright students whose careers have been permanently ruined due to ragging. These students were so traumatized by their harrowing experience that they never returned to their studies again. Many bright careers have been extinguished in the process.
Ragging must be condemned from all classes of society unanimously. It is a blot, a slur on the face of our so-called civilized and educated society. It is more disparaging since it originates from the centers of education.
The Indian Judiciary finally intervened to eradicate this nuisance altogether or at least curb it to a considerable extent. Tamil Nadu became the first state to pass an anti-ragging law in 1997. In February the Supreme Court declared ragging a “human-rights abuse in essence” and ordered measures to stamp it out, including stopping funding to universities that have records of frequent ragging occurrences and poor measures to tackle the same.
However, there is a lot that has to be done to eradicate ragging completely, so let’s join hands and spread the message of “No-Ragging”!
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Understanding the psyche of a Ragger:
Ragging is not merely a socio-legal problem. It has certain psychological perspectives too. Just as every crime has a motive, what propels a ‘professional ragger’ to indulge in ragging? Let us scrutinize some possible reasons that initiate ragging:
 Authority : By having the freshmen always at his command, a senior nurtures a sense of authority which automatically boosts his false feelings of superiority.
Retaliation : A senior who has faced such tribulations in the past is likely to project his feelings of frustration through a repeated cycle of similar offences.
Peer Pressure : Not all seniors enjoy ragging the freshmen. Sometimes, probably by seeing most of their peers indulge in ragging, the fear of becoming isolated pushes them to join the herd.
Fashion Statement : Many senior students follow the misconception that ragging makes a ‘style statement’ and indulging in the same will automatically fast track them into becoming a part of the ‘influential crowd’ of their college. |
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