The Hindu : National : Enforce law mercilessly to check ragging: Raghavan

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Enforce law mercilessly to check ragging: Raghavan

Special Correspondent

Adopt psychological approach combining deterrence with rehabilitation

R.K. Raghavan

Hyderabad: Mentoring the juniors, addressing the deviant behaviour of seniors and mercilessly applying the law of land were among some of the suggestions made to check the growing menace of ragging in educational institutions.

Stamping out ragging required the involvement of government authorities, educational institutions and civil society. The matter could no longer be handled with kid gloves, said speakers at a round table on “Beyond Raghavan Committee Report: How to stop ragging.” The round table was organised by The Hindu at the Administrative Staff College of India here on Saturday.

R. K. Raghavan, former director, CBI, who headed the committee against ragging appointed by the Supreme Court, wanted tough action to be taken against those indulging in ragging. Any lenience or misplaced sympathy would only lead to its aggravation. At the same time, he felt a psychological approach combining ‘deterrence with rehabilitation’ was desirable in handling the menace. The offenders should be put through programmes that highlight their deviant behaviour so that they look upon new arrivals in the campus with spirit of camaraderie. Experts in the field of education, management and psychology should devise such programmes, Mr. Raghavan said.

He congratulated The Hindu for organising the programme and said institutions like it should not remain distant from what was happening around.

Many colleges, Mr. Raghavan said, had become “torture chambers” which would put even Hitler and his ilk to shame. It was no longer a gentle process of initiation of a young student into a new environment. In its degenerated form, ragging had become a tool in the hands of the organised hooligan to browbeat a helpless new arrival.

There was nothing like good and bad ragging. “In any form, ragging is a crude manifestation of the sadistic streak in some of us,” he said.Ragging reflected the general permissiveness in society and the growing propensity for violence in public life. He criticised college managements for being guilty of apathy and getting into a state of denial whenever an incident occurred. “This has to be broken swiftly and decisively with the help of state authorities,” he said.

Justice Goda Raghuram, Judge, Andhra Pradesh High Court, said ragging was more than a mere nagging problem. It assumed a criticality and eroded “our ranking in the civilisation index.” Though ragging manifested as a law and order problem, it emanated from a socio-psychological-cultural atrophy.

Referring to the laws against ragging, Mr. Justice Raghuram recalled how the rules were met with executive apathy and discriminatory application.

It was easy to get an award in this country than getting an FIR registered.

He also took a dig at the State government for regularising the illegal buildings and said there might eventually be a ragging regularisation or penalisation scheme or a power to specified authority to exempt any institution from the provisions of anti-ragging regulation.

State Higher Education Minister, D. Sreedhar Babu, said the government would do everything possible to ensure a ragging-free generation.

He felt 90 per cent of the problem would be solved through awareness. The government planned to sensitise students at a tender age so that they never hurt the human dignity, he said. S.S.P. Yadav, Andhra Pradesh DGP; K.C. Reddy, Chairman of A.P. State Council of Higher Education; T. Tirupathi Rao, Osmania University VC; and representatives of students unions, students and a host of academicians participated.

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