A Dirty Rag
If you ever needed evidence that the institution of ragging needed strict regulation, then ladies and gents you have it right here before you. A young boy, a year out of school, with dreams and aspirations in his eyes, yet to come of age and discover the cynicisms of this world has paid the price with his life for upholding the grand legacy of this so called annual tradition in our colleges. This sadly is what ragging has come down to in our ‘professional’ institutions; what kind of members such institutions shall contribute to their professions is a question to ponder over. Doctors/ Engineers/ Lawyers who would not think twice before banging someone’s head mercilessly into a concrete wall. People who see nothing wrong in subjecting those junior to them (in age, perhaps not in mind) to the worst of psychological humiliations and physical abuse. People who are able to conjure up strange notions of power within their fiefdoms of college hostels and exercise that power brutally. People who get away every year with the tacit approval and lack of action by the institutions they supposedly claim to study in. Welcome to the grand tradition of college ragging, under the guise of which we have been passing off abuse and harassment – and now murder.
The Supreme Court came out with its anti-ragging guidelines in 2001 – the very year that I entered college. At that time I remember it sparked of a debate in the college circuits. Delhi University students were bristling with self righteousness and proclaiming how ragging was an ice breaking institution that was high on the fun quotient and necessary to initiate their ‘fucchas’ and foster camaraderie between the freshmen and varsity. Of course, they had a point. On the very first day of college that year, Hindustan Times photographed five varsity students of Hindu College making three freshmen to go on haunches, put their hands to their ears and become what our schoolteachers used to say in an age long gone by, ‘murgaas’. That photograph, of five laughing seniors and three bended juniors made the front page of the newspaper the next day and all around my class there was one sentiment – how idiotic! Couldn’t those fools see that they were being photographed? (The seniors in the snap were temporarily suspended)
Every year our colleges put up notices ‘advising’ students against ragging. Every year stories come out. There are the first set of stories – the polite ones, the tellers of which will come up and claim what a wonderful tradition ragging is. Stories of vulgar songs being asked to be sung, stories of sexually driven young boys who have had limited interactions with the other sex asking their juniors to ‘go and propose to that girl’. These are stories whose veil you would never care to lift. You would smile, pass them on as signs of coming of age, ignore the signals and turn a blind eye.
And then there is the other set. The one that flows out of our medical and engineering colleges. Ask any student who has passed out of such an institution and you would know where I am coming from. I have heard tales of people being asked to strip, humiliated because they belonged to a particular caste, being told in the middle of the night to fetch liquor from outside for their seniors, people being slapped, caned, pulled by their hair and beaten up and girls being asked to dance nude. Now I know I sound a bit of an idealist on this blog at times, but please pray tell me in what civilized world does all the above count as steps of ‘initiation and building of espirit de corps’? And if indeed such acts are vital to break down walls of inhibitions that juniors possess when they enter college, then why don’t the same rules apply when our kids enter kindergarten or high school, when recruits enter the army or when we join a job after getting out of our colleges? My question is quite simple - would you accept your workplace tolerating your boss slapping and stripping you and pulling your hair? Would you laugh off lightly if tomorrow your kid’s head is smashed into the school wall when he enters kindergarten?
I can see where the strength and reasoning for ragging is derived. Colleges are places without codified rules of behavior. There are no codes of conduct, no uniforms and no class teacher to make you behave. It is a place for losing your innocence, for venturing into the big bad world after coming out of the protecting environs of your home. Young kids, specially in hostels, come across a diversity that they perhaps have not seen before in their lives. There is a sense of community and belongingness, driven by the feeling of everyone being far away from home. The hostel is your home. Your mates your brothers. A sense of authority prevails over those who enter the premises under you. A culture of patronage and protection – all under the garb of fostering ties and interaction. There is a sense of power hitherto unknown. Combine that power with regional and caste biases, a thrill at the ‘adventure’ on offer, a closeted sexuality demanding exploration and a knowledge that you are ‘one in a mob’, that ‘everyone does it, so why shouldn’t you?’ What do you get? Lifelong friendships – maybe. Camaraderie – maybe. Murder? Ah well, that’s just an unfortunate byproduct. So what if some people are abused and their heads smashed? We must have our dose of the cocktail of power.
The only explanation of ragging that anyone could offer me was – ‘Because I also got ragged’. Every batch claims it was more progressive than its seniors and that they ‘didn’t rag as much as they had suffered’.
The colleges, of course, can only shrug their shoulders every time an incident happens. In the recent case, the principal accused was a repeat offender – yet hadn’t been reprimanded even once. Institutions won’t act due to influence, fear of negative publicity and police scrutiny. The students won’t complain because they have to spend their academic life with those who harass them. They will simply bear the pain and insults and smile on gamely. And this ‘grand tradition’ of crass display of power derived from coercion will continue to roll along unabated.
Well, I am afraid but as the recent incident demonstrates this is a matter where we have exhausted all limits of self regulation. Unfortunately, Indian courts, police and the executive will now be called to enter into our colleges – not to frame educational policies and reform the functioning, not to demand an increase in budgetary allocations, not to call for improvement of infrastructure, but to police the students. And that, if you have passed out of a college in this country, along with the death of Aman Kachru, is a matter of utter collective shame.
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