State-wise Ragging scenario in India Ragging: Worst hit states Press Release: Monday, July 20th 2009 CURE has once again come up with an analysis to find out whether the ragging situation in the country has improved or not. The results are no surprise. There is no change! The number of ragging cases reported in the media from (July 08 to June 09) are 88, number of ragging deaths are 12 and number of attempted suicides are 5. Last year, 89 cases were reported out of which 11 resulted in deaths and there were 5 attempted suicides. This clearly indicates that despite the tall claims made by the HRD Ministry, UGC and various regulatory bodies, the situation hasn’t improved a bit. This year, CURE decided to go further and analyze which are the states which are worst affected by the menace of ragging. To find consistent results, we did an analysis of State-wise ragging distribution reported in last 5 years and the last academic year, i.e.2008-2009. Results are tabulated below. Top 10 Worst Hit States July 08- June 09 Top 10 Worst Hit States July 04-June 09 Rank State Number Of Incidents Rank State Number Of Incidents 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Andhra Pradesh West Bengal Uttar Pradesh Punjab Rajasthan Himachal Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Gujarat Maharashtra Tamil Nadu 12 10 10 8 7 6 5 4 4 4 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Andhra Pradesh West Bengal Uttar Pradesh Kerala Punjab Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra Gujarat Karnataka Orissa 33 33 30 21 21 20 16 12 11 10 Table: State-wise distribution of ragging incidents The worst hit states are consistently Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. In the last academic session, Andhra Pradesh reported 12 incidents of ragging, including 4 cases of death and a case of attempted suicide. Punjab, even though a small state and having low number of educational institutions, has consistently reported high number of ragging incidents. It may be noted that Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal, which are among the earliest states to enact anti-ragging law (Andhra Pradesh Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1997 and West Bengal Prohibition of Ragging in Educational Institutions Bill, 2000), still report maximum number of ragging incidents in India, therefore show that anti-ragging law are not the solution to this problem. CURE believes that ragging is not just a law and order problem but also a social and psychological menace that can be eradicated through proper awareness and education. Another striking feature of this analysis is that Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan which did not report any ragging cases in the past have reported very high number of incidents this year (6 and 7 respectively). It may be noted that the high profile killing of Aman Kachroo due to ragging was also in Himachal Pradesh. However, Kerala which has reported high number of incidents in the past, successfully managed to contain ragging in this academic year. Figure: State-wise distribution of ragging incidents from July 04- Jun 09 Figure: State-wise distribution of ragging incidents from July 08 – Jun 09 About CURE Established in 2001, Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (www.noragging.com) is India’s foremost anti-ragging non-profit organization. CURE is a research organization dedicated solely towards the elimination of ragging and promotion of more positive ways of interaction among seniors and freshers in Indian universities. For more details, please contact us at: Email: [email protected],
