[Reader-list] ragging

[shivam]

Dear Rahul, 

While I agree with all that you say, there is another
problem with teachers and deans and wardens and
principals whose job it is to eliminate ragging. Many
of them have themselves been raggers in their college
days, they've had some good fun by making freshers
into slaves and sodomising them. I have made lecturers
whose private personal views are: "Thdi bahut ragging
to hoti hi hai", "Ragging to hamari bhi hui thi",
(Some ragging does take place, I was also ragged),
"Ragging is a rite of passage to manhood". When I
wanted an explanation of this last sentence, I was
told: "Ragging nahi hogi to aap mard kaisay banengay?"
Unless you're ragged how will you become a man? This
shook me like an earthquake and I decided thereafter
that I have to do something about this.

If Taran was surprised that I compared ragging to Abu
Ghraib, then it's partly because people associate
ragging with the singing and dancing that day scholars
do in and get frontpage photos in our mainstream
dailies, who are happy to project ragging as
light-hearted fun. If someone were to do a sting
operation and publish photographs of five freshers
being paraded nude in a hostel corridor, views may
change. And this is one thing we are trying to
facilitate: sting operations.

But coming back to Abu Ghraib, I now realise that all
leftists who are outraged about Abu Ghraib are
outraged not because it involves human rights abuse,
but because the Americans did it. Good ammunition for
their anti-Americanism. Because if they were really
concerned about human rights abuse, they would first
be sensitive towards it in the very colleges and
universities where they teach and work.

Thanks,
Shivam



--- "Asthana, Rahul" <Rahul.Asthana at CIBC.com> wrote:
> Michiel-
> (and I wonder if, in the end, it just didn't have
> the effect that now the
> ragging/drinking doesn't take place in the open
> anymore)
> I know that this sort of thing happens.Students are
> ragged by
> outsiders(local friends of seniors) or outside of
> the college campus, or in
> their hostel rooms at night to bypass
> observation\rules.
> The reason for that is-
> 
> a)Most of the students, and college authorities
> too,dont really believe that
> ragging is a bad thing.They do hear about the
> barbaric incidents, but they
> feel that they are not as bad as those people,and
> the situation in their
> college is not as bad as the place where such
> incidents happened.I will tell
> you what a faculty member told my class regarding
> ragging when the fresher
> batch came in-
> "Listen guys, about this ragging, please take care
> that it is not
> inadequate,I dont care if it is excessive."  
> They do not realize that the situation goes out of
> hand in what starts as
> seemingly harmless ragging.When they do realize it,
> something terrible has
> happened and it is already too late.So,unless and
> until,the belief that
> ragging is bad is instilled, raggers will find ways
> to break the rules and
> authority will continue to be apathetic to the
> complaints.The only way I see
> this happening is through the media and through
> researchers.
> I dont know if there is some sort of institution in
> India that does this
> kind of research.I saw a movie called "Holi" a long
> time back and in it was
> the closest-to-reality portrayal of ragging that I
> have seen on screen.More
> and more such stories should come out, and the steps
> that Shivam has taken
> in this regard are indeed laudable.
> b)Secondly, some of the students are really
> sadistic;deriving pleasure by
> inflicting pain on people and abusing thereby their
> position of authority
> that probably they haven't had anytime else in their
> lives.Here, the
> authorities may be the only hope,and that too if the
> authorities are already
> sensitized to the dangers of ragging.Moreover,as I
> wrote in my earlier post,
> such raggers are probably more messed up than
> anybody else they will rag,
> and they need counselling to help them resolve their
> issues.
> 
> regards
> Rahul
> -----Original Message-----
> From: reader-list-bounces at sarai.net
> [mailto:reader-list-bounces at sarai.net]On Behalf Of
> Michiel Baas
> Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 4:09 AM
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Subject: RE: [Reader-list] ragging
> 
> 
> 
> In reply to what Rahul wrote: "Adding to what Shivam
> and Anand have said,
> the Abu Gharaib brand of ragging is the rule rather
> than the exception,in
> most of the parts of North India(I cannot talk about
> other parts because I
> dont know)."
> 
> I am not from India and thus have never attended a
> college there but have
> some friends in the South who did. Their stories are
> fairly similar to the
> ones coming from the North.
> 
> I myself live in the Netherlands and although the
> ragging here is somewhat
> of a smaller scale (for instance: the period is
> shorter and is limited to
> certain students who wish to join a student club or
> frat house of some
> 'standing' - these students are hardly ever in
> social sciences for instance)
> ragging does lead to big problems here as well. A
> couple of years ago a
> student died, for instance, because he was forced to
> drink so much gin that
> his body gave up. Another example would be the
> student who had to wear a
> mask with a hose attached to it: the hose was then
> attached to a smoking
> device so that the poor kid was forced to inhale
> smoke. Naturally he died. 
> 
> For years Dutch authorities have been trying to do
> something about ragging
> practices. One solution was to forbid frat houses,
> student clubs etc. to
> serve alcohol around the time when ragging takes
> place. This just solves the
> alcohol problem of course (and I wonder if, in the
> end, it just didn't have
> the effect that now the ragging/drinking doesn't
> take place in the open
> anymore). The silly thing about rules concerning
> ragging is, in my opinion,
> that while it makes certain practices illegal, it
> legalizes certain others.
> Indian law, just as Dutch law, already has rules
> about hurting, 'damaging'
> etc. people. School authorities should play a much
> more active role in
> preventing out of control ragging. 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Michiel Baas
> Amsterdam, the Netherlands
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