Many say that some beginner-students are very delicate. They hesitate to talk to seniors and especially in new places, so to make them familiar with this new surrounding, an organised fun had started in mild form like asking the fresher’s name, address, marks etc, for juniors to develop friendliness. But now this opening up for new college entrant has turned bad; it has taken the nature of harassment; and some learners do not have psychological capacity to withstand ragging.
Some seniors think that troubling their juniors is a form of entertainment. It shows their evil nature when they take advantage of another individual and enjoy seeing them in pain. The sufferings of a sufferer is pleasure of the persecutor.
Besides that, the victim of ragging can air their grievances about it to the head of the institution; and authorities should take appropriate action. They can quote rule book to the torturer and enforce the rules in letter; because in freethinking democracy the right to swing one’s fist ends where another’s nose begins. But if authorities wear earplugs and neglect their duty to check the wrong, ‘Satan’ starts dancing with glee as tormentors take advantage of mildness to harass juniors. Authorities should know that - ‘to see the wrong and not to correct it is want of courage’.
In India we have: India’s National Anti-Ragging Helpline to help students in distress due to ragging; it can be reached through email and a 24-hour toll-free number. And complaint can be registered to the local police also about ragging. If the remedy is available easily, why fear the bully?
Ragging can be physical, by asking the new entrant to do an act which such student will not, in the ordinary course, be willingly do. Sometimes the seniors force the junior to over drink liquor or get high, by using drugs which could lead the victim to be addicted to it; thus spoiling victim’s life and career. Ragging may also cause hurt by dangerous weapon which might result in either serious injury or death. Secondly, ragging can also be a verbal torture by teasing, humiliating the individual with a demoniac laughter from some seniors who are born with teasing tongues.
If ragging is not terminated at any point, the victims get so scared that they are not able to focus on their studies; so, it affects their career; the sufferer may even quit the college education due to shame; may suffer from depression, isolation, demoralization; and even commit suicide.
Often, the victims do not inform their parents, teachers and do not even lodge police complaints, due to fear of consequences from their seniors. Victim’s parents can tell by the voice or face of their children that something is wrong. They get worried about their child’s emotional or physical condition. Ragging does not just affect the victims and their parents; it also has an effect on the institution when ragging comes in public eye.
Ragging is a disgraceful practice wherein the senior students get easy targets to satiate their own wicked sadistic pleasures. This inhuman practice should be stopped before more and more innocent students become victim of it and more and more educational institutes are degraded by it.