Ragging - Scourge in Temples of Learning
The recent tragic death and attempts to suicide due to ragging in different parts of the country continue to traumatize the nation. Unfortunately, this is becoming like an annual ritual: colleges re-open and bright, young students who should have been celebrating their accomplishment of getting into prestigious colleges are meted out brutal treatments in the very institutions that they so deeply aspired to be in. A few people fight it, fewer report it but countless continue to silently suffer it, often being scarred for life. It is only when there are a few gory deaths that some noises are made, but then the whole thing just goes on.
The extreme pain and shock of the family is only natural because, especially in India, it is still so that most parents live their lives only for the sake of their children's future. All the choices in their lives are made solely in the interest of their children's future. There is hardly any socializing or partying or any such interests in their own lives at all. When this dedication is just about to bear fruit, to see it come to a brutal end by the savage practices of a handful of juveniles that the administration and society is unwilling to contain, is really heart rendering. And to think that this was done by medical students who would one day become doctors, who should be saving lives instead of taking them, makes one shudder.
There are no justifications for this practice, which is a relic from the boot-camps of the West. This act of brutally humiliating and tormenting newcomers to a place is against the very ethos of this culture which worships the ideal "Atithi Devo Bhava" or to see the guest as God. It is a sickening distortion of values that instead of being loving mentors, these seniors have become tormentors for the newcomers. Moreover, in this culture, as in every other civilized culture, the child always got the first preference. But the bane of modern humanity is that someone who arrives just one day earlier to a place thinks he is a "senior" and he has to show the "juniors" their place.
There are those who justify ragging as a way of welcoming the newcomers. Welcoming means the person being welcomed should feel he is being welcomed and not harassed and humiliated. Welcoming means that you do not do to the other person that which you yourself do not wish to undergo. There are those who talk about organizing the newcomers into groups that can confront the seniors. This is like when several incidents of students shooting down their teachers occurred in the United States, a senior functionary of the National Rifle Association said the solution is for teachers also to carry guns into the classrooms. Such actions will only cause bloodshed in the educational institutions.
In this culture, places of learning were always held like a temple. If we do not deal with these new trends that are entering our culture and educational institutions, there will be no learning possible in them. Unless we root out this disease of ragging from the academic institutions of the country, instead of being a fountain of well-being for humanity, the process of education will prove itself to be a detriment.
People seem to think that we need new laws to control ragging. But the way we as a nation run helter-skelter, talking about making newer and newer laws when any petty goon or a vandal on the street strikes, is becoming a sad joke. Newer laws can surely make it easy to punish the offenders, but we must not fail to take note that the existing laws are already adequate to prevent cruelty, violence, and forced interactions in academic institutions. These must be diligently implemented at all levels, without which no law is ever going to make a difference. The government and civil societies must compel the academic institutions to take stringent action to prevent such acts of violence.
It is well within our means and capabilities to ensure that not a single incident of ragging takes place in the country at the beginning of the next academic year. It is only our complacency that stands in the way of ensuring this.
