Written By: Nirmalya Dutta | Updated : April 22, 2015 4:35 PM IST
A Bihar minister's son who is a student at the Scindia School in Gwalior is battling for his life after suffering alleged ragging. His families allege that someone tried to throttle their son. Cooperative Minister Jai Kumar Singh was quoted saying that the school authorities informed him that his son, a class 9 student had attempted suicide but he denied it. He told PTI: 'I strongly dispute this. Even doctors attending to him at (Delhi's) Apollo Hospitals said it does not seem to be a case of (attempted) suicide but that of a suspected case of throttling to death,' PTI quoted the minister.
Narendra Kumar Sharma, the boy's local guardian told The Telegraph that he had heard his ward was hanging in his hostel room on Wednesday night and was rushed unconscious to the hospital. School authorities refused to elaborate further on the incident.
Doctors at Gwalior's Global Speciality Hospital thought it too critical a case to be handled there, so the boy was driven 374km in an ambulance to be admitted to Delhi's Apollo Hospitals. The doctors said the boy was suffering from cerebral hypoxia, a condition resulting from inadequate oxygen supply to the brain, which can happen either due to hanging or throttling. Sharma, the local guardian, said: 'One of the cousins of the injured boy studies in the same school. He told me the minister's son was being physically harassed by his seniors for a fortnight. He, however, did not know what led to such serious injuries to the boy. When I visited the institution, the school authorities refused to share any information.'
A PTI report quoted the minister as saying his son had complained to his mother in the past about harassment by seniors. 'But we never thought the matter was so serious. We shall definitely take the matter up with the school.'
Ragging in public schools
The Scindia School is one of the most prestigious schools in the country, and for some parents sending their children to study to a place like that is all they've ever dreamt of. Located on a 110-acre fort in Gwalior, the school was set up in 1897 to teach the sons of Maharajahs. It would soon become a boarding school for boys in the grand old tradition of British public schools (an ironic name considering most of the public can't really afford these schools). Sadly, ragging is a part and parcel of life in a public boarding school, etched into its fabric.
Despite attempts to weed out ragging, there are still incidents from time to time, which suggest that it's not going to go away quickly. Now ragging and bullying are two separate phenomena, even if they are equally worse. Ragging is part of the tradition of initiation into a school or college while bullying is an individual or groups of individuals simply picking on an individual they perceive to be weak.
In my time, juniors were treated little better than servants they're expected to clean their seniors' clothes, polish their shoes and do other menial work. Failure to do so resulted in rounds of punishments which can range from cock-walking, duck-walking or hits with hockey sticks. So ingrained were these practices that they were almost considered a part of life and anyone speaking out against them was unheard of. Even the teachers were aware of this and many considered it a character-building exercise. Complaining to the teachers about such incidents was considered cowardice.
So why do children behave like this? Writing for TOI, former Welham Boys School principal, Dev Lahiri wrote: 'Well, the answer is partly societal. We are quite simply, a nation prone to bullying. Our caste system is perhaps the most sophisticated attempt at legitimizing bullying. Children learn to bully servants from a very early age. If we happen to occupy a position of authority or influence or wealth, we encourage our children to flout rules, and then flaunt our authority when they're caught in the act. We use bullying tactics by approaching friends and relatives in high places to secure admission in institutions, or even jobs for our kith and kin.'
Shocking when you consider parents spend a fortune to send their children to such institutions with the hope that they will receive the best education feasible. While there's no denying the quality of education provided, ragging on the other hand needs to be battled like other menaces lurking in our society sexism, sexual assault, the caste system and other such behaviours which are considered 'part and parcel' of everyday life. We have to get to the point where everyone is aware what ragging is and they know it is illegal. We have to stop defending it as a character-building process.
So how do you weed it out completely? Lahiri has the answer in the same article: 'The biggest challenge for schools is to provide an atmosphere that is free of fear. They must create an ethos and an environment where the persecuted can speak out. A clear message must go out that certain forms of behaviour are just not acceptable. There will be times when harsh decisions will have to be taken. In our country there will inevitably be pressures political, bureaucratic and others but an institution has to stand firm. The other pillar of the crusade is vigilance. No institution can afford to let its guard down in the mistaken belief that it has permanently rooted out the evil, because this pernicious practice has a way of creeping back. Staff must be trained to look out for the first tell-tale signs dropping grades of a hitherto good student, an apathetic attitude, sullenness that indicate a brewing problem. Bullying is not going to be eradicated by a Supreme Court edict or a Presidential decree. It will require the active cooperation and engagement of all segments of civil society, if this evil is to be wiped out.'
Picture Source: www.scindia.edu
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