NEW DELHI: Nearly four in every 100 students in India’s institutes of higher education still experience ragging — ranging from “mild” to “very severe” — a decade after the country’s university regulator put a blanket ban on all forms of ragging, following a Supreme Court directive.
A survey carried out by the NGO Aman Movement, that has been responsible for running a national anti-ragging helpline for the University Grants Commission since 2012, shows that till April 5, 4 per cent of over 2.42 lakh students surveyed had been subjected to it — often involving abuse, humiliation or harassment by seniors.
By year-end, when the survey data from a larger number of participants is compiled, this figure could go further up.Raj Kachroo, founder of the helpline, said that while the number and degree of ragging has come down significantly over the last decade, the trend seems to have plateaued in the last few years.
In 2009, when the first such survey was done, a whopping 40 per cent of college and university students confessed to have experienced ragging — in the form of either psychological or physical harassment.
“This number came down to nearly 14 per cent in 2012 when we first started it doing for the UGC and started declining every year. But since 2016, it has remained static between 4-5 per cent,” said Kachroo who had lost his son, Aman to extreme ragging in a medical college in Himachal Pradesh in 2009.
He said many institutions, mainly in smaller cities and remote areas, were still not part of the ragging survey. This meant that crucial data from a significant part of the country was still not reflected in the survey. As per the figures, nearly 6,200 students from various central, state and private universities and colleges have contacted the helpline with ragging complaints since 2012.
In 142 cases, enquiry is still on while in others, either action has been taken or complaints have been withdrawn.While the number of complaints from most other institutions of higher education has been declining, the number of complaints from medical colleges —known for some of the worst ragging incidents — has been going up.
