Stop Ragging

There have been so many ragging incidents coming out in the news, but the media is done with ragging and there’s no hype beyond the singular news report. It would be a mistake to presume that there’s been a spurt in ragging incidents; the spurt has instead been in the reporting of incidents, in punishment and implementation of the law. India is badly affected by ragging, a form of abuse on newcomers to educational institutions. The increasing privatization of higher education has led the academic institutions in India to experience an increasing number of ragging-related incidents. With the situation of ragging worsening yearly, there is emerging a spontaneous anti-ragging movement in India. Several voluntary organizations have emerged, who conduct drives for public awareness and arrange for support to victims. Ragging started in colleges years back for fun sake with senior students making fun of juniors/ new entrants. But it has taken violent turn now with stories of murder, suicide and drop outs of students. It has been rightly said that the end may not always justify the means. Behind the façade of ‘welcoming’ new students to college, ragging, in actuality, is a notorious practice wherein the senior students get an excuse to harass their junior counterparts, and more often than not, make them easy targets to satiate their own perverse sadistic pleasures. Apart from sustaining grievous physical injuries, those unfortunate students who succumb to ragging either develop a fear psychosis that haunts them throughout their lives, or worse, quit their college education even before it begins. For any student who slogs day and night to secure admission into a prestigious college, ragging can be his or her worst nightmare come true. Today, ragging may have become deep rooted in the Indian educational set up, but many would be surprised to know that ragging is originally a western concept. Ragging is supposed to have its creation in certain European Universities where seniors played practical jokes at the time of welcoming freshmen to the institutions. Gradually, the practice of ragging became popular throughout the world. However, with time, ragging assumed obnoxious and harmful connotations and was severely condemned.