University ragging

Dr. Anula Wijesundera had written about university ragging in an article titled “Menace of university violence” giving facts and figures of the death and injury ragging has caused (The Island 18.10.2021). She has also without fear or favour analysed the causes and the political aspect of the problem and not hesitated to name the political parties involved. Prof AW has quite correctly used the word violence for ragging. It is too mild a word to refer to this abominable horrendous behaviour of university students. The word ragging is a gross misnomer, for what is happening, in Prof. Asoka Ekanayake’s words, is human torture. Moreover, one cannot see the need for further investigations as what needs to be known is already known with irrefutable evidence. Several valuable lives have perished at the hands of brutes who desecrate the hallowed precincts.

Very often in serious discussions, at different fora, some organised by universities, ragging is made to appear as a very complex problem which needs to be tackled by the best brains in the country but those who indulge in savage ragging are criminals who should be behind bars. Last year, I attended a meeting in the university which discussed sexual harassment in universities and ragging also came into consideration as sexual harassment occurs during ragging. I was surprised and rather disappointed to see how reluctant the speakers were to accept that ragging was a crime. They spoke about the system that operates to detect, prevent and deal with sexual harassment but there was no mention of the law of the country that must come into operation at such instances. When I asked whether those incidents were reported to the police the answer was that they would be only if there were complaints.

Some time ago, taking part in the Derana Aluth Parlimenthuwa programme, three senior university dons spoke about ragging and according to them it was an intractable, very complex problem. Only the police officer who had the statistics about ragging and its victims appeared to have some common sense; he spoke about the difficulties the police faced in bringing the culprits to justice.

In the late 1990s, Prof. M. P. Ranaweera of the Engineering Faculty and I were appointed to a committee to inquire into ragging at the University of Peradeniya. We interviewed academic, non-academic and minor staff, ragging victims, student union leaders, proctors and security officers. We found that ragging was, in the main, a political phenomenon. A well-organised criminal activity in support of a certain political party. Student leaders were doing politics on the campus and were members of this particular political party. Student union elections were a sham, and the so-called student leaders remained in power through coercive means. Nobody would dare utter a word against them. Their modus operandi was to pick innocent, meek, less privileged students from villages and recruit the latter; those who refused to fall in line were mercilessly tortured on the pretext of ragging.

We found other causes as well: sadism, jealousy, competitive nature of the system, lack of facilities, etc. One regrettable and disturbing factor was the attitude of the academic staff. A majority of them were indifferent and a few were sympathetic to the perpetrators of ragging. Politics, one way or the other, seems to be the biggest obstacle to solving this problem. It is politics that prevents this problem being treated as a criminal offence. The Peradeniya University has a huge extent of land but very rarely would one see a police officer on this land though crime is rampant inside these buildings, in the halls of residence, in the canteens, in the beautiful gardens, under the nose of the university authorities.

Laws have been enacted making ragging a punishable offence, and punishments include imprisonment and loss of studentship. Yet, only a few perpetrators have been punished.

UGC circulars provide for the establishment of committees to control ragging. More stringent laws are needed to contain the scourge of ragging in our universities. The onus is on the government to tackle this problem head on.

N.A.de S. Amaratunga