Aman Kachroo’s death is a tragedy. No young man should die, much less a medical student who would have become a doctor and could have brought succour to thousands. The decision of the courts is out and it has punished the four young men who ragged him, to four years in prison. My heart goes to their parents and to these young men too. Their body language in the images which appeared on the TV tells me that they would give anything to set the clock back. Let us not make them out to be the devil incarnate; they are not. They are just young men for whom something went wrong terribly. And I do hope they’re contrite.
Should they go to jail? The judge says so. Law demands it and they should abide by the law. Should we send them to jail as an example? Yes, and it would deter others from doing such things. If possible, the four young men should go to an open jail, be allowed to transfer to a medical college nearby, finish their medical education and then be allowed to make amends for the terrible mistake they made after they finish their jail term.
Every day they would be paying the price; imagine not being able to go on the college trip because you have to get back to jail. Not being able to date the girl you met (if any girl would talk to them in the first place) because one cannot get the permission to stay out in the evening. An overshooting internship time because one cannot stay out of the jail in the night to clock enough weeks on duty. Let them become doctors overcoming such problems. It is in the amends they do with their lives that they can atone for the terrible mistake they made. Not just with the four years (or whatever part) they would spend in jail.
I am not at all trying to justify ragging in any way. Ragging with physical violence is terrible and can be demeaning and even force people to the verge of suicide. It should not happen.
But talk to young people who have come out of educational institutions and most, if not all, look at the ragging they went through with some indulgence. Especially when the ragging they have undergone is mild (nothing is mild when they are going through it) and humorous. No one would want a blanket ban on the so called socialization process.
Human rights activists would even call asking someone his/her name as ragging. In all education institution newcomers are teased all the time? Is such teasing such a bad thing? When does teasing become ragging? Or is teasing also ragging?
The problem has always been to determine the thin line between a healthy socialization process and what can be called ragging. In many top and large B schools there is no ragging; they have no time to do it or in most cases most of the juniors know the senior students. They have been together in the engineering colleges where they have already been ragged by the seniors !! The pre-admission socialization through social media possible in the last few years also makes ragging unnecessary or even impossible as the identity of the senior is known.
But in some (do I dare to say most) educational institutions some kind of a socialization process or a semblance of ragging does exist? The problem here is that every time a senior student demands that his “facha” should call him “sir”, should one file an FIR? Would the cops be amused? Would the parents of such a senior student take it lightly? Heads of institutions would get an earful on generation gaps, how they need to be a bit more flexible and understand youngsters and not take such behaviour to heart, that their children are really “well behaved” otherwise and so on. The people who would have more serious objections as a group to such a regimented control by the authorities would be the junior bunch or the possible victims!!
Besides, heads of institution have also to consider the serious social implication to the “victim” in case it becomes known as to who complained to the authorities. In case there is a feeling among the student community that the student could/ should have taken the ragging as it was within the acceptable “norm”, and the head of the institution has gone over the top to report the matter to the police, the particular victim/student may be “silenced” or become a social outcaste. It takes a long time (and sometimes not at all) for someone to outlive that sort of reputation. Then the question becomes which is more of a difficult thing – to suffer the minor forms of ragging or to suffer the “silencing”, especially by the peer group?
Many a time, heads of institutions and other authorities would try to intervene. These interventions are not recorded. Parents are informed to caution their children to desist from such activities and so on, even if their toes just touch the yellow line. The main effort is to take a call on how serious the issue has been. Verbal warnings are given and they make some effort at policing the chain of events through a system of informers among the senior students.
The new set of laws of having to file the FIR for all intransigence has made it even more of a necessity for authorities to hide “minor” events. Earlier, it could have ended in a suspension or some fines. Now that the cops have to be involved and the law demands that even minor overstepping of the line should be punished, heads of institution now get jammed in between the victims and the victimisers. Should any of the issue become serious and a student really gets hurt, the heads of institutions just cannot talk about whatever they did to prevent such events. Because the way the law stands, anything you do (except filing an FIR) is illegal and attempt to hide a criminal act. You become an accessory. You cannot even admit that you know what “ragging” is!
One can argue that the authorities need to take cognisance of even minor intransigences. But then how many times has it happened that the student who was found copying becomes your favourite student later, even though you flunked him in that particular test? How many times you let off a student who jumped the hostel wall with a warning? How many times have you used humour to keep awake the student who has a tendency to nod off, rather than throw him out of the class?
You are always hoping.......... Hoping that you have not misunderstood the thin line between a prank and criminal intent or between the rush of young blood to the head and habitual offence; the occasional nodding off as something he would outgrow and poor behaviour which he would still have when he starts working.
Heads of institutions are teachers first. Is this forgiving nature of a teacher to be re-learnt?
Bala @ Jaipur
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