Ma’am, I want to know you better. Please take off your clothes
“Last year at the height of some very unpleasant ragging at my elite college in Delhi, I met a geriatric woman at an elite club, who began defending ragging. “Freshers and seniors get to know each other,” she said. I wanted to tell her: “Ma’am, I want to know you better. Please take off your clothes.”
-SHIVAM VIJ, editor, www.stopragging.org
So this goes way back to 2003.. a sultry, humid day in Bangalore. My first day in college. To say I had butterflies in my stomach would be an understatement. I felt like I was breeding a colony of them inside. I was 2000 miles away from home, on my own for the first time, unsure of what surprises (pleasant or otherwise) awaited me. Anyone that went to college in India will perhaps identify with me. The one word that had been gnawing at my insides (causing the butterflies to go into a literal frenzy) all morning was ‘ragging’. For the unintiated, ragging is a form of perverse pleasure that the older students in college derive out of harrassing the freshmen. Wikipedia actually calls it a ‘crime’ which is pretty hilarious because it’s still very common in educational institutions in India.
” Ragging is a criminal activity which take place inside educational institutions.
The phenomenon was particularly prevalent in army and police forces, in which new recruits are required to undergo a degree of physical abuse. This practice is to a large degree actively promoted by many military groups. But in India, ragging is more infamous for its ubiquitous presence in the educational institutions. India’s first and only registered Anti Ragging NGO, Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE) has supported that ragging is also widely and dangerously prevalent in Engineering and other institutions, mainly in the hostels.”
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragging
To cut a long story short, ragging is an almost anti-social practice that we are desperately trying to get rid of but is still prevalent in certain educational institutions, and you have no way of knowing its degree of infiltration in the college you choose to attend until you get there and make it through your first month. You can only cross your fingers and hope you picked a school with a decent student culture.
I was lucky. The only ‘ragging’ I had to face involved some silly activities made up by the guys that gave them the best vantage point to lech at the freshmen girls. And of course, the counter-attack by the older girls that was aimed at shrinking the big heads that they believed the lechers were presenting us with. I got off easy. I did fraternise with the rest of the freshmen girls to shed a few tears on the ‘atrocity’ of it all and make vehement declarations of quitting college and going home, informing the cops/media etc..but I think most it was a result of the hype in our heads surrounding ‘ragging’ and how horrible it was supposed to be. It led us to believe we were being treated worse than we actually were. Admittedly, it got annoying at times but was tolerable for the most part. The college had strict rules against ragging and the older students did only as much as they could without getting themselves in trouble.
I was actually told later by one of the seniors that I was the ‘snootiest’ freshman. I am not surprised. I have a very expressive face and it was hard to not let my feelings show on my face when I was doing my umpteenth song and dance routine and thinking in my head ‘What a bunch of morons. How is this fun for you?’
The intent of this post, however, is to bring to light the actual cases of ragging that still happen in certain schools. I agree with Wikipedia (as I always do) in labelling it a ‘crime’. Students have been known to lose their self esteem, desire to remain in the college and in extreme cases, even their lives.
I now live in the USA and the student culture here is very different. There is no apparent ‘hierarchy’ that distinguishes between older students and younger ones. We need a similar culture in India. There are several non government organizations in India that are working to rid educational institutions in the country of this evil but much remains to be done. We need laws. We need plenty of them. But what we need more is social awareness. There will be lots of opportunities in life to prove your worth. Acing an exam, cracking a job interview, getting a raise.. these are the things that will make you feel warm inside. There is no need to humiliate and harass a new student in the college to get a momentary feeling of superiority.
The message has to be delivered in school, at home, by teachers, parents, older siblings, friends..so that by the time a kid is ready to go to college, he is aware of the real purpose of going to college. Getting an education, partying every weekend, making friends, traveling, graduating with a job..anything is a good excuse to go to college. Ragging doesn’t have to be one of them.
