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Rooting out ragging

The slew of directions issued by the Supreme Court on ragging in educational institutions supplements and strengthens the May 2007 order to check the menace. In that order, the Supreme Court — acting on the recommendations of the R.K. Raghavan Committee — had adopted the approach that the primary responsibility of curbing ragging rests with the educational institutions themselves. The fresh set of directions — issued while hearing two petitions relating to cases of ragging — is a mix of specific and general measures aimed at compelling State governments and educational institutions to set up and monitor mechanisms to eliminate ragging on campuses. The Court has asked all States to set up two committees on campuses — one on ragging, and the other on alcoholism. The first, comprising mental health specialists and educationists will “assess and quantify the impact of ragging” and “ascertain the reasons [for] and circumstances under which” it takes place. This is in keeping with the Raghavan Committee’s approach that there is an important psychological dimension to the phenomenon of ragging. As for the committees on alcoholism, which are mandated to recommend immediate de-addiction measures, the idea has sprung from the close link between serious cases of ragging and the alcohol consumption. The two-member team that investigated Amann Kachroo’s death in a Himachal Pradesh college had found that the seniors who ragged him and the security guard were intoxicated.

The practical measures ordered by the Court — such as the setting up of anti-ragging committees in educational institutions, monitoring cells at the university level, a toll-free helpline for those in distress, and strengthening mechanisms for reporting cases of ragging — are aimed at seeing, in the words of Justice Arijit Pasayat, that the “ugly scar of ragging is obliterated.” However, a lot more needs to be done to achieve this end. Last year, the Coalition for Uprooting Ragging in Education found that despite the Supreme Court’s intermittent directions since 1999, there were 28 ragging-related deaths and 11 attempted suicides between July 2003 and June 2008. Of these, 11 deaths and five attempted suicides occurred in the corresponding period in 2007-2008. While stamping out ragging requires a coordinated effort by educational institutions, the government, the media and civil society, it also calls for — as President Pratibha Patil said recently — a comprehensive national law against the menace. Such a measure should effectively deter those who commit this human rights abuse in the name of fun and college tradition.

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