Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Reg No- 06
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Wednesday | 15 January 2025 | Epaper
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Why can’t ragging be stopped?  

Published : Thursday, 16 January, 2025 at 12:00 AM  Count : 2
Ashikujaman Syed
According to "A Study of Ragging: Ragging is not stopping due to the authorities concerned of the institutions, especially, for the chairman of the department and hall provosts in Bangladesh," this research paper was published in the International Journal of Humanities Social Science and Management at the beginning of the year. Every university administration has a zero-tolerance policy against ragging. Teachers' associations also speak against this, but it is of no use. One of the most significant causes of ragging in Bangladesh is the responsibility of institutional authorities.

Ragging involves abuse, humiliation, or harassment of new entrants or junior students by senior students. It often takes a malignant form wherein the newcomers may be subjected to psychological or physical torture, as well as mental torture.

In classrooms, senior students come and torture juniors mentally and physically for hours. Each student may be tortured for ten to twenty minutes under the guise of teaching manners to the juniors. These seniors have failed to learn proper manners themselves and instead have become uncivilized and inhuman, forgetting the true purpose of attending higher education institutions.

Department chairmen and other teachers are often aware of the suffering juniors undergo, but they fail to act. Juniors are not allowed to leave after the specified time, and even if a parent waits on campus, they are not allowed to meet their child. Ragging continues in various places on campus, including tea stalls and university buses. It seems that seniors are highly enthusiastic about humiliating and ragging juniors under the pretext of teaching them manners.

During orientation programs, the vice-chancellor (VC) reassures students and their parents that their children will be safe at the university. The VC promises to act as the guardian of the students and assure them of their safety. Parents are reassured, and students feel safe. However, when ragging happens and a student seeks justice from the VC, the scenario changes. The student is made to feel guilty for seeking justice, while the chairman of the department or the hall provost questions the victim, asking why they didn't inform them first. In some cases, the chairman or hall provost makes it clear that ragging is considered fun in the department. The message is simple: if you take it as fun, everything is fine; if you can't, you may inform me. Such remarks undermine the seriousness of ragging and make it difficult for victims to trust authorities for proper justice.



University authorities claim they oppose ragging only in lectures, but they do not monitor the broader situation in the university. They merely state that they will address the matter if a complaint is made. The mental stress, pressure, and depression a victim has to endure just to seek justice for ragging is incomprehensible. It seems as though seeking justice for ragging is a crime, and ragging is no longer seen as a punishable offense. After the incident, the department authorities often attempt conciliation without providing proper justice or even addressing the behavior of the perpetrators. They may encourage the victim to drop the case or accept compensation, but they fail to take any real action. In some cases, the victim is discouraged from reporting the issue to the proctor office or any extended action, and the authorities sympathize with the perpetrators. 

After the trial, the victim faces further isolation. Seniors and batchmates may boycott the victim, blaming them for causing a rift between senior and junior students or for spoiling the batch's results. Even teachers remind the victim that their batch's communication with other batches is poor. Cyberbullying and humiliation continue as the victim faces relentless torment. The mental health of the victim is often ignored, though it is the most significant aspect of the trauma. The focus is solely on providing justice for the ragging incident, without addressing the mental toll on the victim.

As a result of ragging, some students suffer from severe mental health issues, including depression, while others contemplate suicide due to the humiliation they face. The bright dreams they had about studying at university evaporate in an instant. Many students become familiar with depression, and what was supposed to be a place of free expression becomes a mental prison.

The department authorities, especially the chairman and the hall provost, are largely responsible for the lack of justice in ragging cases. Anti-ragging seminars should not only target students but also be conducted for faculty members, as many teachers still subconsciously support ragging. Finally, it is not enough to seek justice for ragging; the university must also arrange psychiatric counseling for the victims to provide necessary mental support. Without this, the trauma may have long-lasting ill effects on the victims.  

The writer is from the Bioinformatics Research Lab, Center for Research Innovation and Development (CRID)


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