:: Nitish Sengupta

Stop thinking of ragging as fun

Nitish Sengupta

March.26: The gruesome events that led to the death of 19-year-old Aman Kachru, a student of Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College in Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district, is a national tragedy which should be mourned by all. It brings into focus a deep sociological malaise that has bedevilled our nation for several years. Some questions naturally arise: Why is ragging widespread in engineering, medical and other professional colleges? Is it because hostels of such institutions are not subject to day-to-day supervision? Why is ragging so rampant among hostellers and not among day scholars? Why is it that Aman Kachru repeatedly complained to his parents about the brutal ragging that he was being subjected to on campus but did not go to his college principal, the hostel superintendent or any of his teachers? Did his parents forward the complaint to any college official or did they keep quiet, accepting ragging as a fact of life? If so, why? Did it not occur to anyone, even the ward attendant, that drunk senior students would regularly loiter in the hostel on Friday and Saturday nights creating a lot of noise and causing disturbance? Do hostel rules permit people getting drunk? If not, then why was disciplinary action not taken? Why did the college authorities not call the police for almost 24 hours after the boy’s death on Saturday?

This is a typical scenario people are familiar with all over the country. A 20-year-old girl, student of the Government Agriculture Engineering College, in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district, attempted suicide on March 12 after she was stripped during ragging. Every year around the time institutions start their new session such incidents occur. When will our nation rid itself of this social evil? Some people look, as is typical in India, for a law against ragging. This is as preposterous as the much abused law against defection. The first anti-ragging law in Himachal Pradesh was framed by the Shanta Kumar government in 1992, but the ordinance lapsed as it was neither renewed nor converted into an Act after the government was dismissed in December 1992.

Following this incident in Himachal Pradesh, the state government is contemplating a new law that will ban ragging within and outside the premises of educational institutions. It will also put the responsibility of enforcing this law on the head of the institution. The ordinance proposes that a student found guilty of ragging will not be eligible for admission in any other educational institution and could be punished with imprisonment for a period of three years or fine up to Rs 50,000 or both. The ordinance also proposes punishment for the institute for negligence or delay in lodging the First Information Report (FIR).

Clearly, these punishments are not adequate for grave cases such as that of Aman Kachru. What is more important than any proposed law is creating a social climate where such offences are frowned upon and the entire academic community assumes responsibility. There are clear provisions in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) against offences like threat and intimidation causing simple or grievous hurt, apart from local police regulations such as the Police Regulations of Bengal (PRB), which can be made use of in ragging cases. The real safeguard, however, will be to make the school, college or hostel authority stand up against this evil practice and take deterrent action against all those found guilty. Above all, efforts should be made to create public opinion against such practices.

Institutions which are notorious for ragging are already known. They are mostly engineering or medical colleges. One does not know what the principal, the faculty and other administrative officials are doing to ensure that these institutions do every thing possible to get out of their bad names. Students, at the time of admission, should be made to sign an undertaking that they will not take part in ragging and that if found guilty they should be rusticated and not be allowed to seek admission in any other institution for a period of two-three years. Hostel superintendents have a very special role to play in checking ragging. One remembers how, in the olden days, the hostel superintendent was a much-feared official, and how a complaint from the headmaster of a school or principal of a college to the guardians of students would be viewed as a severe stigma to be avoided by the student concerned.

A combination of vigilance on the part of the school or the college authorities, strong public opinion, vigilant students and deterrent punishment, perhaps even invoking penal provisions, would suffice in getting rid of this pernicious social evil. We have to fight hard against a general tendency where ragging is considered a tradition in many institutions and an engineering and medical institution is not considered respectable enough unless there is ragging of freshers by their seniors.

According to media reports, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has decided to replace its two-decade-old guidelines on ragging with stringent legally-enforceable regulations. Expected to be in place in the next academic session, these include punishing institutions for failing to check ragging and awarding incentives to those who create a "positive environment" for freshers. The question arises as to why the old UGC guidelines, imposed from 1999 onwards, failed miserably to change the prevailing atmosphere in well-known institutions? Let us hope that the martyrdom of Aman Kachru will help create an anti-ragging mindset. Some are fortunate that Aman Kachru did not leave a suicide note. And thankfully no one has accused Aman Kachru of not doing well in examinations or being dejected in love. These are some of the standard excuses which help the authorities to brush such cases under the carpet and not take any action that can may upheaval. Let us hope that the tragic story of Aman Kachru will be the last such case in our country and the public opinion that has been generated around it, as never before, will deal a crippling blow to those responsible for such atrocities.

Long live Aman Kachru!

Nitish Sengupta, an academic and author, is a former Member of Parliament and a former secretary to the Government of India