Why guilty may go scot-free in Jadavpur University’s ragging death case, again

In the snowballing controversy caused by the death of a 17-year-old first-year student at the prestigious Jadavpur University in Kolkata last week, the details unearthed by the West Bengal Commission for the Protection of Child Rights are even more shocking. As if it was not bad enough that the boy had fallen off, jumped off or had been thrown off the hostel’s second floor balcony stark naked, it emerges that the building’s warden was not allowed on that floor! Following the arrest of one ex-student and two current students over this death and the statements of witnesses, two things have come to light. First, that ragging is a well-entrenched habit on campus and no secret. Second, that the authorities are either powerless or have turned a blind eye to the goings-on inside the hostels, especially during the first crucial weeks after the entry of first year students. Why else has the hostel’s warden not protested about the happenings there? The head of WBCPCR, while calling for the case to be filed under POCSO, has also gone public with the revelation today that the boy, traumatised by sustained ragging, had called his brother in Nadia and tearfully insisted he was “not gay”. Attempts will most certainly be made by vested interests to suppress this homophobic aspect in order to downplay the extent, tenor and virulence of institutionalised ragging in the university, and they may well succeed. How far the WBCPCR will be allowed to proceed with this stance on the case given the murky wheels-within-wheels situation at JU is moot. The two women at the head of this state government body have been spunkily speaking out but the fact that ragging has been allowed to happen with impunity indicates tacit support of “higher ups” somewhere. That puts a question mark on even the Chief Minister’s assurance to the boy’s father that justice will be done. It would be germane to mention here that the state ruling party’s students wing has not been able to dent the Left domination of JU’s three students’ unions in past elections. And polls have not been held since 2020 due to the pandemic, like in other universities around India. In February, Bengal’s education minister had said the elections would be held after the Panchayat polls, in all universities, not just JU. Will this death fortuitously tilt the balance away from the Left? It is easy to shift or at least deflect blame solely on the Leftist unions for the pathetic state of affairs at JU, but the state government cannot be allowed to distance itself. Was WBCPCR allowed to be so vocal because the Left still rules JU? Had the ruling party been able to supplant the Left parties on university campuses as it has conclusively done in the state Assembly, would state-run ‘protection’ bodies have been given such a free hand to investigate? Leftist students have had final say in how JU has been run for years now, with the administration strangely willing to comply. The administration’s complicity becomes apparent in the way that the University Grants Commission (UGC) guidelines on ragging have been ignored after some initial lip-service. Despite strong evidence, no one has ever been rusticated for ragging for fear of a union backlash. Even the few who were expelled had been taken back later! That CCTV cameras have not been allowed to be installed in the JU campus to curb entry of “outsiders” and prevent acts like what happened in the hostel before the boy’s death is curious too. Even after the suicide of Rohith Vemula, Left-leaning students of University of Hyderabad resisted installation CCTV cameras as a preventive measure—calling it instead a surveillance tool. Unsurprisingly JU’s students take the same line, which suits some political interests too. The National Institutional Ranking Framework of the Union Ministry of Education, which ranks universities on five metrics—“Teaching, Learning and Resources”, “Research and Professional Practices”, “Graduation Outcomes”, “Outreach and Inclusivity,” and “Perception”—has placed Jadavpur at 4th out of the top 100 in India. How JU’s well-known ragging and disruptive student politics has not been captured under at least three of those metrics is curious. Short memories, maybe? Well, not many will even recall that in November 2014, Akash Agarwal, 19, a first year student at the Calcutta Institute of Pharmaceutical Technology and Allied Health Sciences in Uluberia was found dead on the railway tracks. Like the boy at JU, it was unclear whether he jumped or was thrown in front of a train. But his friends revealed he had been ragged by seniors who not only beat him up but also did not let him sit for an important test. The college authorities denied the ragging charge but suspended five seniors, four of whom were arrested in the case. Tragically, this is the same institute where another student, Nayan Adak died by suicide in 2009 after being tortured in the name of ragging. He had been tormented so brutally that it was his second attempt to kill himself. Yet clearly, there was no attempt to stop ragging even after Adak’s suicide and that led to the death of Agarwal there just five years later. That same year—2009—JU expelled three senior students after this was recommended by the anti-ragging committee set up as per the then recently announced UGC regulations. But just over a year later the expulsion order was revoked and the same students were readmitted! The reason? Their financial condition and the fact that they had been “punished” for two years. What message did that send out to those who have the perverted urge to rag juniors? The Supreme Court defined ragging in the Vishwa Jagriti case (1999) as, “Any disorderly conduct whether by words spoken or written or by an act which has the effect of teasing, treating or handling with rudeness any other student, indulging in rowdy or undisciplined activities which causes or is likely to cause annoyance, hardship or psychological harm or to raise fear or apprehension thereof in a fresher or a junior student or asking the students to do any act or perform something which such student will not in the ordinary course and which has the effect of causing or generating a sense of shame or embarrassment so as to adversely affect the physique or psyche of a fresher or a junior student.” It is evident that their Lordships did not realise or incorporate the severity of ragging methods and their impact. ‘Disorderly’, ‘rowdy’ and ‘undisciplined’ are hardly accurate adjectives for the behaviour and motivations of those who rag. And ‘shame’ and ‘embarrassment’ cannot begin to express what those being brutally ragged feel, which drives so many to take their own lives. For the sake of justice, a more clear-eyed view of this phenomenon was necessary. Consultants to the Supreme Court-appointed Raghavan Committee in 2006, however, deemed ragging to be “neither a means of familiarisation nor an introduction with freshers, but a form of psychopathic behaviour and a reflection of deviant personalities.” The panel eventually concluded that “ragging” was senior students, including deviants, inflicting physical and mental distress on juniors by aggression and violence. But has that changed anything? The death of the boy in JU demonstrates that it has not. The West Bengal Governor had already raised a red flag about the way universities are run in the state but if he takes a more proactive stance after this, the state government will promptly accuse him of interference. There are protests whenever police enter campuses, including JU. But universities are not sacrosanct: they cannot remain safe havens for subversive elements or perverted activities like ragging. The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views. Read all the Latest News, Trending News, Cricket News, Bollywood News, India News and Entertainment News here. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.