Ragging in India

India is badly affected by ragging,in a form of abuse on newcomers to educational institutions (commonly called hazing in other countries). The increasing privatization of higher education has led the academic institutions in India to experience an increasing number of ragging-related incidents.

Present State
A report from 2007 highlights 42 instances of physical injury, and reports on ten deaths purportedly the result of ragging: Ragging has reportedly caused at least 30-31 deaths in the last 7 years. In the 2007 session, approximately 7 ragging deaths have been reported. In addition, a number of freshmen were severely traumatized to the extent that they were admitted to mental institutions. Ragging in India commonly involves serious abuses and clear violations of human rights. Often media reports and others unearth that it goes on, in many institutions, in the infamous Abu Ghraib style and on innocent victims.

In many colleges, like IIT Bombay and IIT Hyderabad, ragging has been strictly banned. However, this ban has not been very effective, as seen by the number of ragging cases still reported by the media. Ragging involves gross violations of basic human rights. The seniors are known to torture juniors and by this those seniors get some kind of sadistic pleasures.

Though ragging has ruined the lives of many, resistance against it has grown up only recently. Several Indian states have made legislatures banning ragging, and the Supreme Court of India has taken a strong stand to curb ragging. Ragging has been declared a criminal offence.

The Indian civil society has also started to mount resistance, only recently.

But in India, ragging is more infamous for its ubiquitous presence in the educational institutions. According to the observations by the Dr. Raghavan Committee, which has been constructed by the Union Human Resource Development ministry on the orders of the Supreme Court of India, the medical colleges are the worst affected in India.

However, India's first and only registered Anti Ragging NGO, Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE) has supported that ragging is also widely and dangerously prevalent in Engineering and other institutions, mainly in the hostels.

Legislation
In 1997, the state of Tamil Nadu first passed laws related to ragging Subsequently, a major boost to anti-ragging efforts was given by a landmark judgement of the Supreme Court of India in May 2001, in response to a Public Interest Litigation filed by the Vishwa Jagriti Mission.

The Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD), following a directive by the Supreme court, appointed a seven member panel headed by ex-CBI director Dr. R. K. Raghavan to recommend anti-ragging measures. The Raghavan Committee report, submitted to the court in May 2007, includes a proposal to include ragging as a special section under the Indian Penal Code. The Supreme Court of India interim order (based on the recommendations) dated May 16, 2007 makes it obligatory for academic institutions to file official First Information Reports with the police in any instance of a complaint of ragging. This would ensure that all cases would be formally investigated under criminal justice system, and not by the academic institutions own ad-hoc bodies.

The Indian Supreme Court has taken a strong stand to prevent ragging. In 2006, the court directed the H.R.D. Ministry of the Govt. of India to form a panel which will suggest guidelines to control ragging.

The panel, headed by the former director of C.B.I. Dr. R.K.Raghavan, met victims, guardians and others across the country. The Raghavan committee has placed its recommendation to the Honbl. Supreme Court, which has given its order on the issue.

Welcoming the Supreme Court's recent judgment on ragging Dr. Raghavan, the former CBI director, who is the chairman, Monitoring Committee for the Prevention of Ragging, said, “there are finally signs that the recommendations to prevent ragging in colleges will be taken seriously.”.

Anti-ragging movement
With the situation of ragging worsening yearly, there is emerging a spontaneous anti-ragging movement in India. Several voluntary organizations have emerged, who conduct drives for public awareness and arrange for support to victims.

Online groups like Coalition to Uproot Ragging from India (CURE), Stopragging, No Ragging Foundation became the major Anti Ragging groups on the Internet. Among them, the No Ragging Foundation has transformed into a complete NGO and got registered as Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE) which is India's first registered Anti Ragging non profit organization (NGO). These groups are working on issues related to ragging. Each of them is running anti ragging websites and online groups.

The Indian media has been playing a crucial role by exposing ragging incidents and the indifference of many concerned institutions towards curbing the act. The Supreme Court of India has directed, in its interim judgement, that action may be taken even against negligent institutions.

2010

 * Nagedra AV, 25, was found dead in Chandigarh's prestigious Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research on 19 April. The doctor had joined this post-graduate institution just two months ago. The police said he jumped to death from the hostel building, his father said he had been pushed. His father said a day ago he had said he was finding it difficult to continue there due to ragging.
 * Sinmoi Debroy, 21, was found hanging from the ceiling fan, dead, in his hostel room in Chennai on 4 April. It was a private hostel shared by students of various colleges. Most of the 42 SMSes in the Assamese engineering student's mobile phone were threats and abuses from seniors, who also demanded money.
 * Ajub Ajith, 19, hanged himself to death from the ceiling fan in his house in Thiruvananathapuram on 31 March. He was a student of at the Sarabhai Institute of Science and Technology. He had told his mother that he was being ragged badly, but prevented her from complaining to the principal as, he said, that would make matters worse for him.
 * Satwinder Kumar, 28, ended his life on 3 March. He was a student of the Advanced Training Institute, Mumbai. In his suicide note he named seven seniors who had ragged him so much that he left for home for Kurukshetra rather than take mid-term exams. Before he could reach home, he committed suicide by throwing himself before a goods train in Rajasthan's Jhalawar district.
 * Premlatha, 22, committed suicide by consuming sulphuric acid in the chemistry lab of the B S Abdur Rahman Crescent Engineering College on 5 February. Her brother singled out one senior, Yogesh, 22, a fourth year student, as the person ragging her the most.
 * Gaurav Sadanand Raut, 22, strangulated himself to death on 9 February in his hostel room in Nashik's Maratha Vidya Prasarak Samaj Medical College. His father named his roommates Mandhar Monde and Anil Kavade as the culprits. Although the police detained four students, the local NCP MLA, Vasant Pawar, also the general secretary of the college body, denied that the student had been ragged.

2009

 * Anusha Hyderabad November 5
 * Ayan Adak Kolkata 9 October 2009
 * On 7 March, Aman Kachroo, 19, a first year student of Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College, Tanda, Kangra, HP, India, had repeatedly complained to his parents about the brutal ragging that took place on the Medical College campus — often by completely drunk third-year students. On Friday night and Saturday morning (March 6–7, 2009), the boy was beaten so badly that he died of brain haemorrhage.

2008

 * In September-December, 2008, a student of Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad was ragged by 3 of his seniors, namely, Ravi Shankar, a resident of Vadodara; Naveen Tomar, from Hisar; and Ajmer resident P C Gupta . The victim (name withheld) complained that three fellow management students at IMT-Ghaziabad forced him to undress and threw lit matchsticks at his private parts in the campus on September 27. The Ghaziabad police initially refused to register his complaint, but finally lodged a case on Thursday (December 4) after intervention from the Ghaziabad SSP.

2007

 * On 18 September Durgesh Shukla hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room in Pioneer College, Bhopal. He blamed seniors in his suicide note.
 * On 8 August Manjot Singh, an MBBS student, committed suicide by consuming a poisonous substance. He did so at his residence in Chandigarh, due to ragging in his hostel at the Government Medical College, Chandigarh.
 * On 20 September Chetan Raj, 18, committed suicide in Mysore. His body was found hanging from the roof of his lodge room. He had already complained to his parents that he was being ragged in his college.

2006

 * In November S. P. Manoj committed suicide in his hostel room at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology, Hyderabad.
 * On 5 November Azad Nair, 22, a cadet at the Officer's Training Academy(OTA) in Chennai. He had hanged himself from the fan of his room. Prior to his suicide he had told his brother Soumendu over telephone that he was being ragged and humiliated at the OTA and he had pleaded to his father Padmanabhan Nair to rescue him from the OTA.
 * Ashoke Chaudhury

2005

 * On 14 December C Abraham, a first year engineering student, hanged himself to death at his residence in Hyderabad. In his suicide note, he mentioned that he was not interested in studies. His parents suspected that his suicide to be a result of ragging.
 * On 5 December Sridhar, 18, hanged himself to the ceiling fan in his hostel room in Chennai. In the English press, only one newspaper in Mumbai reported the incident.
 * On 11 October Amit Sahai committed suicide by jumping before an approaching train in Jalandhar. He was a student of NIT Jalandhar, Punjab. In his suicide note he blamed nine senior students of the National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar for having mercilessly ragged him:.
 * In July Kamlesh Sarkar, 19, committed suicide in a private hotel management institute in Kalyani, Nadia district, West Bengal. The police filed an unnatural death case and not one of ragging.

2004

 * On 19 December Mohan Karthik Tripathy,19, hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room at the SKR Engineering College in Tambaram, Tamil Nadu. His written complaint about ragging to the college authorities had gone unheeded. He had been forced to bathe in his own urine.
 * In June, Sushil Kumar Pandey, 18, hanged himself to death after the humiliation of being paraded naked by his seniors at the Madan Mohan Malviya Engineering College, Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh.
 * Aakriti Dhar
 * Ehsan Saba

2002

 * In September Anup Kumar, 19, committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan at his residence in Kanpur. In his suicide note, Anup said that he was going through mental agony due to the sexual harassment by second-year students of the Institute of Engineering and Technology, Lucknow, in the name of ragging.

1984

 * On the night of September 13th/14th, 1984, TK Chidambaram Raju Iyer, 22 years old, was killed by his seniors at the Institute of Management Technology, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh. He was ragged by 4 senior students (Ashok Kapadia, Ajay Batra, Sujit Gopal, and Rajnish Jain), who remain scot-free to this day. Also, no action was taken against the Director of IMT, Ghaziabad or the warden of the hostel. Unless strict criminal proceedings are carried out against such people, the menace of ragging will continue to haunt India.

Organizations

 * Stop Ragging Campaign,
 * Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), website
 * Society Against Violence in Education, [http://www.no2ragging.org/ Website