What is Ragging?

Ragging is a systemised form of human rights abuse in educational institutions in South Asia, the worst forms of which are found in engineering, medical and military colleges. It is committed by ‘senior’ students (those in second year or higher) upon ‘freshers’ or first-year students. The forms and traditions of ragging may vary from one place to another, but the greatest common factor in ragging in any educational institution is the creation of an environment of constant fear and intimidation for freshers, wherein even the air they breathe becomes ‘Kafkaesque’; every bit of matter around them is their enemy. As part of this effort, freshers are used, one, as slaves and two, as objects of torture. The first element involves carrying luggage, cleaning rooms, fetching daily necessities, doing long assignments for seniors. The system is carefully drilled into their minds. They are told the rules of ragging: never ask questions, never smile, always look at the third button of your shirt, address seniors with the title “Sir”, etc. This is the base on which the superstructure of mental, physical and sexual abuse is built, what may in totality be called mental rape. Sexual abuse is one of the most prevalent forms of ragging. This ranges from asking freshers to undress (‘stripping’) to male rape. Even socalled “verbal ragging” is sexual in nature: sing pornographic limericks, describe how one’s parents would copulate. The ragger adopts a bullying, bellowing persona, his language is terse and insulting, with the object of imposing a hierarchy between the abuser and the abused. Ragging is conducted during a fixed period in every institution, which may range from one day to the whole year-the norm being about a month or two, depending upon the tradition of ragging in that institution. Such traditions are not formed by institutions but by students and are thus very fluid within a batch of raggers, and across successive generations of raggers. Once the period is over, enemies suddenly become friends: the beginning of this new relationship is often a fresher’s party. Seniors then go out of the way to help the freshers they ragged. They become their guardians. But before this can happen, innumerable freshers already suffer from stress and trauma, and may thereafter continue to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorders. Many leave the institution and some commit suicide. But most survive ragging, and are taken aback with this transformation of enemy to friend, and are only too happy to forget their trauma and move on. Ragging is thus the fresher’s passport to joining the college/hostel community, and many suffer ragging precisely because they wish to ‘belong’. Those who rebel against it are promptly ostracised; retribution may also take the form of harsher ragging, greater harassment and physical/sexual assault, leading to fatal injuries, in rare cases even murder! But even those who ‘survive’ ragging are victims: they are co-opted into a system of abuse and exploitation. Ragging legitimises violence and promotes violent, oppressive, sadistic instincts in people who had lived cocooned lives under the care of their parents till they arrived in an outstation hostel. Studies have shown that students of medical and engineering colleges are also given to a higher amount of smoking, alcoholism and drug abuse all of which the fresher is initiated to, through ragging. It has also been found that the degree of ragging that is perpetrated is directly proportional to the amount of ragging the perpetrator has himself gone through. This generalisation, however, may not be true in all cases. This may also be a justification that the ragger may use. This also explains why raggers should not be ‘othered’; a ragger is a criminal by law, but raggers are also people like us, they are not juvenile delinquents. The doctor who saves hundreds of lives, the company executive who can move the stock exchange, and the engineer, who builds bridges, may have been terrible raggers in college. He may tell you something clichéd like ‘Ragging can be fun in limits’, trying to forget how he abused a fresher to satisfy his own ego, and how the fresher was traumatised enough to commit suicide or leave the institution. Similar but not the same as the practice of “hazing” in Western countries, ragging is a colonial legacy in the Indian sub-continent. The literal meaning of the word ragging is ‘to tease’, but even the dictionary says this is an archaic meaning. Ragging is conducted ostensibly to ‘break the ice’ between seniors and freshers. In theory, it is said to be a means of interaction of ‘getting to know each other’, but in practice it is anything but that. Ragging, as we know it in India is a “tradition” that gives senior students an unfair opportunity to control, abuse and exploit freshers and derive sadistic pleasure. The law clearly states that ragging is a crime, and this is how the Supreme Court of India defines it; broadly speaking, ragging is: “Any disorderly conduct whether by words spoken, or written, or by an act with the effect of teasing, treating or handling with rudeness any other student; indulging in rowdy or in-disciplined activities which causes or is likely to cause annoyance, hardship or psychological harm or to raise fear or apprehension thereof, in a fresher or a junior student, or asking the students to do any act or perform something which such student will not do in the ordinary course and which has the effect of causing or generating a sense of shame or embarrassment so as to adversely affect the physique or psyche of a fresher or a junior student.” “The cause of indulging in ragging is deriving a sadistic pleasure or showing off power, authority or superiority by the seniors over their juniors or freshers.” Every fresher gets ragged by hundreds of seniors, and even the mildest of ragging can be very unpleasant precisely because so many people do the same thing to you, again and again, day and night. The strength of the raggers is that they are all united in abusing freshers, and they are familiar with the rules, customs and environment of the hostel, and this knowledge becomes a tool of enforcing power equation.

Shivam Vij
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