The Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), an NGO, has defined ragging as an act of aggression committed by a senior individual or a group on a junior individual or a group, where the former by virtue of their seniority acquire the authority and audacity to mentally or physically bully the juniors who are new to the environment and are considered as legitimate victims.

The phenomenon is not traditionally Indian but has been generally adopted from military training establishments in the West, where strict vigilance by the authorities limit the activity to juniors quickly imbibing the heirarchial culture and following commands unquestioningly.

Unfortunately, the practice spread to other learning institutions in India and has over the years emerged as a serious social menace. While in the Indian military institutes ragging has not been aberrated, but in the colleges, especially the professional ones, it has assumed criminal proportions.

The NGO has reported that 62% of cases involve physical ragging where beating is most frequent, and about 33% of the cases are of sexual ragging, of which 13% also includes beating. The rest is verbal ragging which also includes intimidation.

A committee headed the former director of the CBI, Dr RK Raghavan, was set up to suggest remedial measures. The Committee advised putting a stop to any activity that prevents, disrupts or disturbs the regular academic activity of a junior student.

It said, any act of financial extortion or forceful expenditure, physical or sexual abuse, homosexual assaults, stripping, forcing obscene and lewd acts, gestures, spoken abuse, or even emails, snail-mails or public insults by a senior student on a junior student must be construed as ragging. In fact, any act against the will of the junior, including deriving perverted pleasure, vicarious or sadistic thrill, or actively or passively participating in such acts must be considered as ragging.

Very significantly, the CURE report observes that "real-ragging" occurs are not college campuses, but in the hostels, hidden from the eyes of the authorities. The medical and engineering colleges are notorious.

In May 2007, the Supreme Court ordered the implementation of nine of the Raghavan committee’s recommendations, resulting in anti-ragging vigilance committees in colleges and stricter laws.

What needs to be stopped is the sub-culture of bullying in campuses.

 Write back to us at Sakaal Times (Editorial), 27 Narveer Tanaji Wadi, Shivajinagar, Pune 411 005, or email us at  ourvoice@sakaaltimes.com and let us know what you think