*Own-up ragging incident: A request to all Principals of colleges* *Viewpoint*
"Navin has got three supplementaries this time. He has often been warned with rustication from the hostel if he fails to improve his behaviour. He is only trying to divert attention from that. He has no injuries inflicted on him by the seniors as he claims…." This is what the chairman of HR Institute of Technology had to say about Naveen, a ragging victim who sustained ""three scabs of 1X1 cm on the back of his right and left hands" due to cigarette burns forced by seniors. Navin does not represent an isolated case, some days back the principal of St. Stephens insisted that the ragging incident in his college was not ragging but a prank. In Harsh Agarwal's case in 2001, the college authorities faked rustication of the suspect seniors and instead accused Harsh of leaving college due to 'fear psychosis'. Apart from many cases reported in the media, a case reported to CURE tells the story of how two meritorious students were forcibly failed in exams and had their degrees withheld because they lodged an FIR against ragging. I do not know who is speaking the truth, Navin, the honorable chairman or both, but accusing ragging victim of some thing unrelated to the incident (like academic performance) is a consistent trend. Obvious parallels exist with rape cases, where the first argument of the defendant is to prove that the victim is of low character and that the tormentor is actually the victim. Even if the same is not eventually proven, it is a great way to distract everyone from the real issue and put the victim on-spot. Heads of colleges are the first to claim that a ragging victim is untruthful and is misreporting. This way they save the college from getting any disrepute and also vindicates themselves from any responsibility of the crime, because the crime did not ever occur! This simplistic denial leads to serious repercussions such as discouragement to any further reporting of ragging incidents by freshers, instilling a constant fear in the mind of the freshers and boosting the courage of the seniors to rag juniors. At the end of day, nothing but justice and righteousness suffers. "Own up responsibility of ragging incidents in your institute" – is my earnest request to all Heads of College. Not only will this help the greater cause of justice but bring better reputation to you and your institute. Firstly, we all know that crime does take place in every form of civilized society and every institution. Measures should and are taken to prevent them, but there cannot be ubiquitous policing or guaranteed prevention. Crimes do take place. The Head of the University at Virginia Tech was not condemned, disreputed or fired when the shooting spree took place inside the university. Neither is PM Manmohan Singh asked to resign whenever there is a murder in India. The responsibility of the government is to rather find and punishes the guilty. In many cases, occurrence of a crime is unfortunate rather than being a failure. Whether the administratio is to blame depends on the measures to contain the crime. What is necessary is to take the preventive measures and if you have them in place, then recognizing complaints and punishing the guilty is not only the right thing to do but would bring you a lot of honour and respect. If you did not take appropriate preventive measures and there is a ragging incident, then you are in a fix. But, believe me, the people of India do not believe you when you accuse the victim or say there was no ragging. We know it well that you are hiding the reality. Even though your statement may serve some purpose with the Govt. of India or the UGC, it serves no purpose with the parents who take the decision of sending their son/daughter to your institute. And not only you lose face with the society, you fail on the higher calling of truth and justice. We will be very congratulatory, if you own up responsibility now, punish the guilty and promise steps for the future. The best bet for ensuring justice, earning a high reputation and building trust with students and parents lies in the following two-step approach. The first step is to design pre-emptive measures against ragging which are duly followed in the institute. These measures should include sensitization of senior students about ragging through talks and seminars and instilling confidence in freshers about their rights and the willingness of college to act on complaints against ragging. Teachers have a big role to play: they should informally bring up the topic of ragging in class both with juniors and seniors, discuss it and help students open-up rather than sweeping the issue under the carpet. Together with discussion and sensitization, the seniors should be made aware of the policy of zero tolerance to ragging and have a uniform rule for strict punishment on a genuine complaint. In institutes with hostels, surprise inspection is a great way to prevent ragging. The second part of the approach is to own up and take quick action whenever a ragging incident is reported. Rather than trying to bury it, get justice to the victim and treat the senior in a way that punishes him/her in the short term, but rehabilitates him/her in the long term. It is important that the student is punished to set an example rather than being left on a warning. At the same time, it is necessary that the student be able to recover from the punishment and pursue a healthy career. This leads to holistic development for all of us and would help fight ragging in a positive way. By following this humane, but at the same time, strict approach to ragging, the college heads will always be honored, respected and be blessed from the hearts and souls of all well-meaning citizens of this country. -Varun Aggarwal Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education www.noragging.com -- Varun Aggarwal EECS PhD Student, MIT, http://web.mit.edu/~varun_ag/www/ MIT India Reading Group, http://india.mit.edu CURE, India, http://www.noragging.com --The delay in replying is not my indifference, but my incompetence --
