Need a Movement

Recently, Mumbai's KEM Hospital brought an ancient abominable practice lurking in our education institutes to the forefront. In an appalling incident, 10 first year hostel students of the prestigious KEM Hospital were compelled to strip and enact sexual positions by 18 students from physiotherapy and occupational therapy stream of the hospital. In the name of fun and frolic and some giggles, our future doctors demeaned the dignity of their juniors. After a probe, the perpetrators were expelled from the hostel and made to pay a penalty of Rs 5,000 but were not rusticated— a move that has been condemned by many as lenient.

If this incident in the corridors of a medical institute was shocking, then it's time that you know that as per the Dr Raghavan Committee, which was constructed by the Union Human Resource Development ministry on the orders of the Supreme Court of India, ragging is worst in medical colleges as compared to other educational institutes. A glimpse of the spate of incidents last year, reveals how rampant is the crime. In November, 2009, first year students of Alappuzha Medical College were ragged by second year students by beating them and chopping their hair. In March 2009, a 19-year-old student died after allegedly being subjected to ragging by four seniors at Dr Rajendra Prashad Medical College in Kangra. In October, 2009, junior students of a Government-run polytechnic in Uttar Pradesh were forced to strip, consume alcohol and lick the ground. In the same month, students of dental college in Gorakhpur ragged a junior by singeing him with cigarettes.

Ragging, known as hazing in America, thus continue to be rampant in college, despite guidelines of the Supreme Court that states anti-ragging committee in college can slap a fine of anywhere from Rs 25,000 to Rs 1 lakh on students who are found to be involved in ragging. What is agonising is that not only 20 per cent of ragging is sexual in nature, but the number of deaths due to ragging is substantial— seven ragging deaths was reported in 2007 and 31 in the period 2000-2007.

So is the crime that makes a travesty of human dignity, often leaves life-long emotional scars that need counselling and sometimes results in death, being dealt with it in the sternest possible way? Though the number of ragging cases has reduced after the Supreme Court order and Government's initiative setting up anti-ragging committees in every colleges, punishments/judgements are not that stern in most cases. Even as FIRs are lodged and the anti-ragging committee submits its report, in most cases the offenders are suspended for short span, barred from certain activities, but never expelled or imprisoned. However, in a landmark, first-of-its-kind judgment in Andhra Pradesh, a Vijayawada court sentenced three MBBS students to one-year imprisonment for ragging a junior student.

As colleges need to handle such incidents with utmost sterness, we also need to start an anti-ragging movement in colleges and condemn them in every possible way. Already some NGOs (like SAVE) have been formed, some blogs have been created. Online groups like Coalition to Uproot Ragging from India (CURE), Stopragging, No Ragging Foundation are leading the anti-ragging crusade on the web. We should not let this movement lose its momentum!

Rita Dutta
rita.dutta@expressindia.com