This is an article written by Sujit Saraf with his straightforward comparisons of ragging and hazing , it is the article of an international acclaim that forced IIT to
take the matter more than seriously.The courtesy of the article is disclosed but it is freely available at websites and can be searched at google search
(Sujit Saraf is a film-maker and playwright who lives in California.He has been associated with IIT Delhi both as a student and an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He isa member of the PACE Anti-Ragging Cell.)
Author: Sujit Saraf Institution: IIT Delhi Years: 1989- Written on 1 July 2004I went to IIT Delhi in the fall of nineteen eighty seven. I had beenliving in Delhi for two years but I was still a small-town boy fromBihar, intimidated by tall buildings and a steady stream of traffic.Even now, after television and the internet and all that, I meetpeople in my town who, when told about my college and career, respond- ITI? ek hamaare yahaan bhii hai.When I arrived at my hostel inside the IIT campus, I found a noticeposted in the lobby, saying 'Ragging is banned in the Institute.' Ihad come with horrible stories of ragging in mind, told by friends,relatives and well-wishers. My father, whose knowledge of college lifewas thirty years out of date, wrote me in a letter that I was to 'takecare to avoid rigging in IIT'. I remember he mis-spelt the word, andhe seemed to think my participation was voluntary.I entered the hostel, was given my room, and transferred my luggageinto it. I was on my knees ten minutes later with a leash around myneck, announcing my name at the top of my voice and reciting thehostel pledge, which granted every senior the right to fuck me in thearse, then bust it into eight thousand pieces, mash some pieces into abharta, and feed the rest to the dogs of the hostel warden.It sounds funny now, even to me.We did many things in that one month that now appear harmless andamusing. We stood on benches in the dining hall and recited thenational anthem, we crawled on all fours and barked like dogs, wemarched backwards in unison, we wore our clothes inside out, we ranerrands for our seniors, we brought them cigarettes and Campa Cola, wecleaned their rooms and made their beds, we did push-ups in thestreet, we barked and shouted and whispered and lived our livesaccording to the prescriptions of boys barely a year older than us.Finally, we dropped our trousers so they could look at our penises. Weheld one another's penises and estimated their lengths, we formed longhuman trains – each train car holding the penis of the car in front –and whistled our way through hostel corridors at top speed, turningleft and right in response to semaphores controlled by our seniors. Weformed human pyramids, simulated orgies, stripped naked, then wore ourunderpants over our pants, turning ourselves into 'The Phantom' ofcomic books. After so many years, I can list these 'forms of ragging'dispassionately, but no one should be misled. When an eighteen yearold boy stands naked to be inspected by ten leering animals, heshudders in the bottom of his heart. Brutality and oppression remainjust that, no matter the name chosen for them, no matter thecircumstances in which they are exercised.Who were these seniors, and why did they humiliate us so? They seemedpowerful then, but they were boys like us, older by a year or two orthree. They had endured similar humiliation in their time. Theirseniority in the hostel gave them, for the first time in their lives,power over other human beings – power to command fear, subjugate andhumiliate. They exercised this power with abandon, and they haddeveloped countless theories – from the facetious to the philosophical- to support their sadism. Ragging forces you to stay up late, theysaid, and this is useful when you must prepare for difficultexaminations. Ragging breaks the ice between seniors and juniors.Ragging brings the freshman – or the 'fachchaa' - into intimatecontact with peers and seniors, and this turns the hostel into a home.Ragging helps the freshman break out of his shell and lose hisinhibitions. And finally, said our seniors sententiously, raggingteaches you humility. It prepares you for the 'real' world.Presumably, if you have been insulted a sufficient number of times incollege, you will have acquired the virtue of patience when your bossinsults you in the real world. Like a well trained dog, you will notbark and lose your job. Instead, you will wag your tail, look theother way, and pretend the abuse was meant for someone else. Ourseniors proclaimed - and some actually believed - that they hadacquired this wisdom through age and experience, and they were nowanxious to pass it down to us. Many were genuinely surprised that wewere not grateful for this favour.These arguments did not wash with us, of course. I was supposed tocome closer to my peers after our mutual penis-measuring ceremony.Shared humiliation was supposed to draw us close together. Instead itboxed us into shells. It destroyed our first foray into adulthood. Itrobbed us of valuable moments in our lives. It turned our first monthin college into a nightmare.As our first year passed, so did memories of our humiliation. Life inthe hostel became pleasant once we realized we could walk about withour pants on, and did not need to spring to attention whenever asenior passed us. Six months later, ragging was an amusing episode inour past. Twelve months later, most of us firmly believed it was ourduty to pass on the wisdom we had acquired through age and experience.We ragged the next class of freshmen ferociously and methodically, andwere genuinely surprised that they were not grateful for this favour.Some people in my batch forced a freshman to sit on a corn-cob and hadhim smoke a cigarette with the lit end inside his mouth. That incidentbecame a ragging 'case', drew much attention, lead to the expulsion ofthe raggers, and incited a short-lived signature campaign to defendthe raggers as boys having fun.I began a 'stop ragging' campaign that died quickly when neither mybatch-mates, nor the freshmen I was trying to save, appearedenthusiastic. For my batch-mates, the logic of ragging wasirrefutable. They now had happy memories of their own initiation intohostel life, and could not remember ever having disliked it. Forfreshmen, getting ragged for a month was a rite of passage that wouldensure them free books and the patronage of someone powerful. It waseasier to 'get it over with' than be ostracized (so they were told)for the rest of their stay in the hostel. When they were led onleashes, some had ingratiating smiles on their facesMy seniors were wrong. I never managed to strike a friendship with anyof them, unable to forget the moments of humiliation. When I left IIT,everyone I counted as a friend was someone I had met after the raggingperiod. After travelling the entire world, working at many jobs inmany capacities and passing through many stages in life, I have neverfound any use for the education my seniors so generously imparted tome. I was never called upon to suffer humiliation in silence, barklike a dog to break the ice with my peers, managers or sub-ordinates,or insult my co-workers to gain their confidence. But of course, myseniors had no inkling of the real world themselves. They were newlypubescent boys who fancied themselves to be men. After all thepretentious talk of their responsibility to make men out of us, theirentire exercise of power came down to the scrutiny of a shrivelled-uppenis, of a modest teenager brought up by conservative parentsstanding naked amidst ten soulless boys, trembling in horror, hispants wrapped about his ankles. Ragging is a case study for SigmundFreud, nothing more.I have often wondered why ragging never comes to an end, in spite ofall the noise made about it among professors, politicians and theparents of boys who suffer it. IIT had, in my time, a disciplinarycommittee of professors whose job was to police ragging by makingsurprise visits to hostels. They drove in a tell-tale white Marutivan, whose arrival was announced by a freshman posted at the entrancelong before the professors had time to open the doors, get out of thevan and lumber into the hostel. The wise professors would find a groupof seniors giving an intense tutorial to freshmen on academic life inIIT, and go home to sleep in peace. The disciplinary committee – whosevery name made it ridiculous, because we called it 'disco' – spent itstime discussing cases of ragging, fixing proportionate punishment,deciding what was 'mental ragging' and what was 'physical ragging'over endless cups of chai in somnolent meetings. Like all othercommittees, its function was to manage ragging - not stop it - and toprevent incidents of ragging from ballooning into 'cases'. Like allother committees, it was also inept at its job, so we had one or two'cases' every year which made their way into newspapers, caused muchheartburn, and resulted in the expulsion of those who had 'oversteppedthe bounds', after which everyone was satisfied that something hadbeen done.I do not want to over-simplify the situation. Even if the faculty atcolleges were sincere about stopping ragging, and even if they had thesupport of student representatives, it is unlikely that ragging willcompletely stop. Educational seminars, sensitization classes andinformation dissemination may help but, as the all-forgiving clicheinsists, boys will be boys. I remember how we sniggered at suchlectures, how little respect we had for all attempts to discipline us,and with what ridicule we regarded the notice saying 'Ragging isbanned in the Institute'. Years later, when I went back to teach inIIT, I asked my students – all freshmen – whether they were beingragged in their hostels, and if I could do anything to help them. Wehave no such thing nowadays, I was told. Your time is now gone, theysaid, as are the problems of your time. I knew they were lying, andthere was little I could do about it.Ragging is not an exclusively Indian phenomenon. We have no monopolyon brutality. Hazing rituals are common in the 'Greek societies' onAmerican campuses. My room-mate at Berkeley nearly died at aninitiation ritual in his fraternity, where he was made to drink manyglasses of vodka in a short period of time. There is a very importantdifference between hazing in Greek societies and ragging in Indiancollege hostels. Membership to a Greek society is voluntary. Those whostudy at a university do not have to become members, and most do not.Those who study in IIT must become members of hostels - this may havechanged since my days - and suffer the humiliation that comes with it.Aside from the Greek societies, however, there is little or no raggingin the dormitories on American campuses. At my dormitory in Berkeley,we went on an overnight retreat and had coffee-socials to break theice between newcomers and old-timers. We ate together, chatted, playedracquetball and squash, watched football games, and these brought uscloser. The very concept of ragging was unknown. I cannot say thiswith certainty, but this may be because American college students aremuch closer to adulthood. Many are already in their twenties, mosthave to earn their way through college or take loans to pay for theireducation, and almost all are on their own. Their attitude to collegeis very different from that of Indian boys, who have been dispatchedto the campus by loving parents, borne on a cushion of money andsupport that they did not earn.A college campus cannot exist completely outside the system thatenfolds it. The prevention of ragging through draconian rules may beimpossible. You cannot imprison freshmen into a hostel of their own,forbid contact between freshmen and seniors, or electrocute seniorswho humiliate a freshman. Many of the frustrations that a studentexpresses through ragging are really brought by him from the worldoutside the campus. Given a chance to release those feelings, he will.The reason there is little or no ragging on American campuses may justbe that college students are adults, and are treated as such. They donot spring up with a 'Sir' when professors walk in, they areencouraged to argue and protest, they live in relatively freeenvironments where the only restricted activity is that which harmsothers. If Indian students were shown the same respect, they may beginto find ragging juvenile. There remains no reason, in the twenty firstcentury, to segregate voting-age adults into unisex dormitories. Boysand girls should live in the same hostel. They should come to theirhostels and leave them as they please, with no curfew hours. Theyshould be allowed to mix freely, speak freely, and enjoy everyprivilege an adult is entitled to. They are eighteen, they can takecare of themselves. Should they violate rules or break the law, theyshould receive proportionate punishment. These ideas may createconditions that make ragging redundant and allow it to wither away.
(Sujit Saraf is a film-maker and playwright who lives in California.He has been associated with IIT Delhi both as a student and anassistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He isa member of the PACE Anti-Ragging Cell.)
take the matter more than seriously.The courtesy of the article is disclosed but it is freely available at websites and can be searched at google search(Sujit Saraf is a film-maker and playwright who lives in California.He has been associated with IIT Delhi both as a student and an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He isa member of the PACE Anti-Ragging Cell.)
Author: Sujit Saraf Institution: IIT Delhi Years: 1989- Written on 1 July 2004I went to IIT Delhi in the fall of nineteen eighty seven. I had beenliving in Delhi for two years but I was still a small-town boy fromBihar, intimidated by tall buildings and a steady stream of traffic.Even now, after television and the internet and all that, I meetpeople in my town who, when told about my college and career, respond- ITI? ek hamaare yahaan bhii hai.When I arrived at my hostel inside the IIT campus, I found a noticeposted in the lobby, saying 'Ragging is banned in the Institute.' Ihad come with horrible stories of ragging in mind, told by friends,relatives and well-wishers. My father, whose knowledge of college lifewas thirty years out of date, wrote me in a letter that I was to 'takecare to avoid rigging in IIT'. I remember he mis-spelt the word, andhe seemed to think my participation was voluntary.I entered the hostel, was given my room, and transferred my luggageinto it. I was on my knees ten minutes later with a leash around myneck, announcing my name at the top of my voice and reciting thehostel pledge, which granted every senior the right to fuck me in thearse, then bust it into eight thousand pieces, mash some pieces into abharta, and feed the rest to the dogs of the hostel warden.It sounds funny now, even to me.We did many things in that one month that now appear harmless andamusing. We stood on benches in the dining hall and recited thenational anthem, we crawled on all fours and barked like dogs, wemarched backwards in unison, we wore our clothes inside out, we ranerrands for our seniors, we brought them cigarettes and Campa Cola, wecleaned their rooms and made their beds, we did push-ups in thestreet, we barked and shouted and whispered and lived our livesaccording to the prescriptions of boys barely a year older than us.Finally, we dropped our trousers so they could look at our penises. Weheld one another's penises and estimated their lengths, we formed longhuman trains – each train car holding the penis of the car in front –and whistled our way through hostel corridors at top speed, turningleft and right in response to semaphores controlled by our seniors. Weformed human pyramids, simulated orgies, stripped naked, then wore ourunderpants over our pants, turning ourselves into 'The Phantom' ofcomic books. After so many years, I can list these 'forms of ragging'dispassionately, but no one should be misled. When an eighteen yearold boy stands naked to be inspected by ten leering animals, heshudders in the bottom of his heart. Brutality and oppression remainjust that, no matter the name chosen for them, no matter thecircumstances in which they are exercised.Who were these seniors, and why did they humiliate us so? They seemedpowerful then, but they were boys like us, older by a year or two orthree. They had endured similar humiliation in their time. Theirseniority in the hostel gave them, for the first time in their lives,power over other human beings – power to command fear, subjugate andhumiliate. They exercised this power with abandon, and they haddeveloped countless theories – from the facetious to the philosophical- to support their sadism. Ragging forces you to stay up late, theysaid, and this is useful when you must prepare for difficultexaminations. Ragging breaks the ice between seniors and juniors.Ragging brings the freshman – or the 'fachchaa' - into intimatecontact with peers and seniors, and this turns the hostel into a home.Ragging helps the freshman break out of his shell and lose hisinhibitions. And finally, said our seniors sententiously, raggingteaches you humility. It prepares you for the 'real' world.Presumably, if you have been insulted a sufficient number of times incollege, you will have acquired the virtue of patience when your bossinsults you in the real world. Like a well trained dog, you will notbark and lose your job. Instead, you will wag your tail, look theother way, and pretend the abuse was meant for someone else. Ourseniors proclaimed - and some actually believed - that they hadacquired this wisdom through age and experience, and they were nowanxious to pass it down to us. Many were genuinely surprised that wewere not grateful for this favour.These arguments did not wash with us, of course. I was supposed tocome closer to my peers after our mutual penis-measuring ceremony.Shared humiliation was supposed to draw us close together. Instead itboxed us into shells. It destroyed our first foray into adulthood. Itrobbed us of valuable moments in our lives. It turned our first monthin college into a nightmare.As our first year passed, so did memories of our humiliation. Life inthe hostel became pleasant once we realized we could walk about withour pants on, and did not need to spring to attention whenever asenior passed us. Six months later, ragging was an amusing episode inour past. Twelve months later, most of us firmly believed it was ourduty to pass on the wisdom we had acquired through age and experience.We ragged the next class of freshmen ferociously and methodically, andwere genuinely surprised that they were not grateful for this favour.Some people in my batch forced a freshman to sit on a corn-cob and hadhim smoke a cigarette with the lit end inside his mouth. That incidentbecame a ragging 'case', drew much attention, lead to the expulsion ofthe raggers, and incited a short-lived signature campaign to defendthe raggers as boys having fun.I began a 'stop ragging' campaign that died quickly when neither mybatch-mates, nor the freshmen I was trying to save, appearedenthusiastic. For my batch-mates, the logic of ragging wasirrefutable. They now had happy memories of their own initiation intohostel life, and could not remember ever having disliked it. Forfreshmen, getting ragged for a month was a rite of passage that wouldensure them free books and the patronage of someone powerful. It waseasier to 'get it over with' than be ostracized (so they were told)for the rest of their stay in the hostel. When they were led onleashes, some had ingratiating smiles on their facesMy seniors were wrong. I never managed to strike a friendship with anyof them, unable to forget the moments of humiliation. When I left IIT,everyone I counted as a friend was someone I had met after the raggingperiod. After travelling the entire world, working at many jobs inmany capacities and passing through many stages in life, I have neverfound any use for the education my seniors so generously imparted tome. I was never called upon to suffer humiliation in silence, barklike a dog to break the ice with my peers, managers or sub-ordinates,or insult my co-workers to gain their confidence. But of course, myseniors had no inkling of the real world themselves. They were newlypubescent boys who fancied themselves to be men. After all thepretentious talk of their responsibility to make men out of us, theirentire exercise of power came down to the scrutiny of a shrivelled-uppenis, of a modest teenager brought up by conservative parentsstanding naked amidst ten soulless boys, trembling in horror, hispants wrapped about his ankles. Ragging is a case study for SigmundFreud, nothing more.I have often wondered why ragging never comes to an end, in spite ofall the noise made about it among professors, politicians and theparents of boys who suffer it. IIT had, in my time, a disciplinarycommittee of professors whose job was to police ragging by makingsurprise visits to hostels. They drove in a tell-tale white Marutivan, whose arrival was announced by a freshman posted at the entrancelong before the professors had time to open the doors, get out of thevan and lumber into the hostel. The wise professors would find a groupof seniors giving an intense tutorial to freshmen on academic life inIIT, and go home to sleep in peace. The disciplinary committee – whosevery name made it ridiculous, because we called it 'disco' – spent itstime discussing cases of ragging, fixing proportionate punishment,deciding what was 'mental ragging' and what was 'physical ragging'over endless cups of chai in somnolent meetings. Like all othercommittees, its function was to manage ragging - not stop it - and toprevent incidents of ragging from ballooning into 'cases'. Like allother committees, it was also inept at its job, so we had one or two'cases' every year which made their way into newspapers, caused muchheartburn, and resulted in the expulsion of those who had 'oversteppedthe bounds', after which everyone was satisfied that something hadbeen done.I do not want to over-simplify the situation. Even if the faculty atcolleges were sincere about stopping ragging, and even if they had thesupport of student representatives, it is unlikely that ragging willcompletely stop. Educational seminars, sensitization classes andinformation dissemination may help but, as the all-forgiving clicheinsists, boys will be boys. I remember how we sniggered at suchlectures, how little respect we had for all attempts to discipline us,and with what ridicule we regarded the notice saying 'Ragging isbanned in the Institute'. Years later, when I went back to teach inIIT, I asked my students – all freshmen – whether they were beingragged in their hostels, and if I could do anything to help them. Wehave no such thing nowadays, I was told. Your time is now gone, theysaid, as are the problems of your time. I knew they were lying, andthere was little I could do about it.Ragging is not an exclusively Indian phenomenon. We have no monopolyon brutality. Hazing rituals are common in the 'Greek societies' onAmerican campuses. My room-mate at Berkeley nearly died at aninitiation ritual in his fraternity, where he was made to drink manyglasses of vodka in a short period of time. There is a very importantdifference between hazing in Greek societies and ragging in Indiancollege hostels. Membership to a Greek society is voluntary. Those whostudy at a university do not have to become members, and most do not.Those who study in IIT must become members of hostels - this may havechanged since my days - and suffer the humiliation that comes with it.Aside from the Greek societies, however, there is little or no raggingin the dormitories on American campuses. At my dormitory in Berkeley,we went on an overnight retreat and had coffee-socials to break theice between newcomers and old-timers. We ate together, chatted, playedracquetball and squash, watched football games, and these brought uscloser. The very concept of ragging was unknown. I cannot say thiswith certainty, but this may be because American college students aremuch closer to adulthood. Many are already in their twenties, mosthave to earn their way through college or take loans to pay for theireducation, and almost all are on their own. Their attitude to collegeis very different from that of Indian boys, who have been dispatchedto the campus by loving parents, borne on a cushion of money andsupport that they did not earn.A college campus cannot exist completely outside the system thatenfolds it. The prevention of ragging through draconian rules may beimpossible. You cannot imprison freshmen into a hostel of their own,forbid contact between freshmen and seniors, or electrocute seniorswho humiliate a freshman. Many of the frustrations that a studentexpresses through ragging are really brought by him from the worldoutside the campus. Given a chance to release those feelings, he will.The reason there is little or no ragging on American campuses may justbe that college students are adults, and are treated as such. They donot spring up with a 'Sir' when professors walk in, they areencouraged to argue and protest, they live in relatively freeenvironments where the only restricted activity is that which harmsothers. If Indian students were shown the same respect, they may beginto find ragging juvenile. There remains no reason, in the twenty firstcentury, to segregate voting-age adults into unisex dormitories. Boysand girls should live in the same hostel. They should come to theirhostels and leave them as they please, with no curfew hours. Theyshould be allowed to mix freely, speak freely, and enjoy everyprivilege an adult is entitled to. They are eighteen, they can takecare of themselves. Should they violate rules or break the law, theyshould receive proportionate punishment. These ideas may createconditions that make ragging redundant and allow it to wither away.
(Sujit Saraf is a film-maker and playwright who lives in California.He has been associated with IIT Delhi both as a student and anassistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. He isa member of the PACE Anti-Ragging Cell.)
1 comment:
"it is the article of an international acclaim that forced IIT to take the matter more than seriously."
On what basis are you saying?
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