The government has advertised against ragging and reports that it’s on the decline.
According to the Indian government, ragging cases are down this year. “We have seen a decrease of about 17.4 per cent in the incidents of ragging in comparison to 2010,” said an HRD ministry official (India Today).Ragging, or hazing, ranges from teasing to torture to rape, assault and murder of students. It seems to be a big problem in Indian universities.
Of course, this decline comes after ragging cases doubled in 2009-2010 (Times Of India), so they could be regressing to a mean mean more than anything.
As a note, when publications cite statistics or reports, why can’t they link them? I’ve been looking for the HRD (Human Resource Development) stats they cite and have gotten lost in 1995.
I somehow emerged in 2007 with an interesting report, though not what the India Times cites. If you dig into the appendix of this Ragging Report (PDF) there are some insane stories.
October 2006: Bijoy K. Maharathi died after being tortured by students of the Indira Gandhi Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences for three weeks
October 2006: Student of the Orissa University of Agriculture Technology suffered serious serious spinal injuries and broke both his legs after being pushed from a hostel terrace in the name of ragging.
September 2006: A college student, caught and detained, for ragging others, has allegedly committed suicide by jumping in front of a train.
July 2006: Their victim is a first-year undergraduate arts student of Sangeet Bhavan. She was allegedly forced into group sex by some of her roommates and an outsider in the hostel. By the time she was released, the girl was in a state of physical and mental trauma. Later she was hospitalised for her treatment and under uncosciousness she kept saying, “I’m not a thief, I’m not a fallen girl,” said the victim’s local guardian, Amita Hazra.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There are suicides, bomb attacks, and riots in response to incidents of rape, torture, assault and more. And that’s just what gets report Sri Lanka has a similar problem in its Unis, but in India, like everything, there’s the matter of scale. The report that the India Times cites is only complaints, but I do hope that ragging in India is truly on the decline.