Trigger Warning: Mentions of ragging, bullying, violence
The last few weeks in Assam has stirred up media outcry around the incident of ragging in Dibrugarh University. Most of the newspapers and TV channels have been reporting about the incident that took place on the 27th of November in Padmanath Gohain Barua Chatra Nivas, one of the hostels in DU.
I am not going to delve into the details of the incident, as much of it is available in public platforms. I would rather try to navigate how ragging, an unlawful activity is still prevalent in our universities. When I first heard about the incident, although it felt terrible, it was unsurprising to me. Perhaps, many other people who have attended public universities in Assam in any capacity and role share the same feeling. We are familiar with such incidents, which have been happening for many years now. This particular incident just caught the public attention, thanks to the survivor, his mother and the family who reported the incident to police.
Otherwise, the ways in which such incidents of ragging have been normalised under the garb of fun (dhemali), university tradition (porompora), and rites of passage to become full members of the university is just nauseating and extremely shameful. One may ask- if the UGC curbs ragging, declared as an punishable offence under Indian Penal Code and the Supreme Court has made it mandatory for all the universities to get their students sign anti-ragging affidavit the moment he or she or they take admission, then why is it still prevalent?
We have many examples of events, practices and institutions which are abolished and declared unlawful and yet they exist, such as dowry, untouchability, and racism to mention a few. In all these practices, power and hierarchy play a central role in their continuation. This is the same in the case of ragging too. According to laws in India, ragging is defined as–
“(i) Any disorderly conduct either by acts or words spoken, the effect of which is teasing, treating or handling with rudeness any other student.
(ii) Any rowdy or undisciplined activity, which causes annoyance, hardship or psychological harm;
(iii) Raise fear or apprehension thereof in the minds of junior
(iv) Asking the students to do an act or perform something, which such student will not do in ordinary course, which has the effect of causing shame or embarrassment so as to adversely affect the physique or psyche of a junior student”
The hierarchical relationship between senior-year and junior-year students allows the former to exercise excessive power over juniors. This is the power which enables the seniors to continue the abusive, unwritten rules of the hostels. The same power lets them create fear among juniors and use this fear to force juniors to follow unjustified rules. The ones who resist face different kinds of consequences ranging from subtle insults to brutal torture.
Indeed, Anand Sarma’s incident is one of the most horrific forms of harassment. However, there are other nuanced consequences and forms of bullying. Many times, they are passed as unharmful, especially the ones which do not involve physical abuse such as being scolded, humiliated, or ostracized by seniors personally and in front of everyone during the general meetings of the hostel. This is not to suggest that there is no resistance to such abusive and hierarchical practices in the hostels. Many students have resisted and once they become seniors, they have ensured that certain rules are changed or removed. However, the rate and size at which this change happens is slow and small. Besides, the number of students who continue to raise their voice also become less eventually, given the constant targeting, mental harassment, and subtle and direct threats.
However, to argue that ragging is just about students and to relegate it as students’ issue would be inadequate to understand its firm existence. From university administration to the departments, such hierarchical, unequal, and humiliating practices exist at every structure of the universities. It seems as if these practices percolate from the larger bureaucratic and academic structures to the relations between collogues, teachers and students, and among students. Is it because staff – both teaching and non-teaching, exhibit similar behaviour that many senior students in the campuses exhibit – dominating, extremely commanding, treating fellow colleagues who are either temporary, lower in rank or freshly joined as inferiors, that we see a lax on their part to act? Many teachers and administrative staff are also former students and hostellers; who would better understand such situations and be able to take collective actions against these practices than them? However, we hardly see any initiative or even public conversation around the continuing harassments in the hostels. I will not be surprised if someone from the administration or faculty would pass such harassments as innocuous fun and hostel traditions.
There are people who have raised their voices against this harassment. Many teachers and senior staff members have tried to help students and even raise these issues in the higher authoritative bodies and committees. However, without an administrative will, proactive approach of Vice-chancellors and the Ministry of Education of the state, and collective initiative and action involving teachers, wardens, students’ union, prefects, administrative staff and students with a carefully and sensitively designed plan, anticipating any change will yield nothing but only disappointment.
The structures of our much respected and celebrated universities in Assam have become increasingly divided, extremely hierarchical and exploitative. Unless there is a shift at the level of both human relationships and institutional arrangements of hostels, departments and bureaucratic offices in which the narrow binary of superiority-inferiority, junior-senior, permanent-temporary and first-grade-fourth grade are maintained, one cannot be assured if such incidents will not be repeated in the future.