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Court on ragging

The Supreme Court's directive to educational institutions to put down ragging with an iron hand (May 17) is welcome. Over the last several years, the country has witnessed a spate of cases inside and outside campuses that has forced many students to resort to extreme steps such as suicide. The directives to the institutions to lodge first information reports with the police on every incident of ragging in which the victim, his parent or head of the institution is not satisfied with the arrangement for action, form anti-ragging squads, and entrust the overall responsibility to prevent ragging to all will surely help to curb the practice.

J. Anantha Padmanabhan,
Srirangam

Ragging, an invidious practice of harassment of gullible junior students by seniors, exists in almost all colleges. Managements often turn a blind eye to it to avoid restlessness on the campus. With the educational institutions being authorised to register FIRs against delinquent students, there is hope at last that the pernicious practice may end. But it is unlikely that any institution will tarnish its image by filing an FIR against its own students, howsoever notorious their behaviour.

S. Ramakrishnasayee,
Ranipet

Ragging is no longer what it used to be — intellectual quizzing of newcomers. The atmosphere in most educational institutions is so vitiated that those who suffer are apprehensive of lodging a complaint for fear of severe reprisals. Let us now rise in loud and fearless protest to eliminate the menace.

Nanda Kumar Kuri,
Bangalore

In the absence of an effective and elaborate mechanism to control or eliminate the ugly practice, ragging has attained monstrous proportions in recent years. Though senior students have been largely responsible for practising it, the apathy of the police and heads of institutions has also contributed to its unchecked growth. It is now for parents and college authorities to take advantage of the Supreme Court order. New entrants should also gain the confidence to stand up to their seniors who seek to rag them.

Capt. T. Raju (retd.),
Secunderabad

The Court directives have come not a day too soon. Ragging in colleges is acceptable when it is practised in a sporting manner. But when senior students torture newcomers and subject them to acts of vulgarity, sadism, violence and the like, some of them are driven even to suicide. The government and educational authorities should launch awareness programmes on campuses on the apex court's directions. The government can also think of declaring the coming academic year as `ragging-free year.'

S. Nallasivan,
Tirunelveli

The directives come as a great relief to students who are preparing to join college this year. Though ragging takes place in one form or the other in most institutions, it assumes dangerous levels in hostels.

One of the major reasons for the recurrence of ragging-related crimes is the involvement of parents of influential students who ensure that their wards go unpunished. The firm measures initiated by the Supreme Court should hopefully put an end to this abhorrent practice.

K.K. Cherian,
Bangalore

In our college days, we were subjected to compulsory ragging that was just harmless fun meant to break the ice between seniors and freshers. Its purpose was to initiate the fresher into campus life. With proliferation of professional colleges, the harmless tradition has degenerated into a vicious and cruel practice of systematic human rights abuse. Some claim that ragging makes the fresher bold. It does not. In fact, the fresher goes through irreparable stress and trauma. This makes ragging widespread. It maintains its continuity when the victim becomes the perpetrator the very next year.

Col. C.V. Venugopalan (retd.),
Palakkad

There is no denying that ragging has taken an ugly form of late. It has led to loss of lives and more often the sufferer carries emotional scars for life. However, orders by themselves are not enough to stop a crime. Lack of exposure to the advantages of adopting healthy value systems is often the cause of people adopting unhealthy practices.

Just as there is counselling for freshers in colleges, there should be counselling sessions for seniors at the end of every academic year. They should be made to realise the harm they cause to their juniors in the name of ragging.

R. Gopal,
Chennai

Those who have been at the receiving end of ragging will testify to the fact that it can leave indelible emotional scars. That the Supreme Court had to intervene in the issue that could have been handled at the State government level is a sad commentary on the apathy of the system to social evils.

Suresh Manoharan,
Hyderabad

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