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Journalism of Courage
🔴 The video shows a boy on a cot with his hands and legs tied. A group of other boys is seen jabbing him with a sharp object, laughing while doing so, while the victim is heard crying. This clip is now the focus of a Kerala police investigation into an alleged case of ragging at a government nursing college in Kottayam — the latest reminder of a menace that continues to haunt the hallways of educational institutions across the country.
Supreme Court guidelines to eradicate ragging from 15 years ago that haven’t gone much beyond tokenism on college campuses; government regulations that remain on paper; a regulatory system that, authorities say, is undermined by complaints that are either “frivolous” or difficult to track down — and the challenge of coming up with a widely accepted legal definition of ragging itself.
These are the key reasons behind a sharp spike in ragging complaints logged so far by a dedicated helpline set up in 2009 by the University Grants Commission (UGC), an investigation by The Indian Express has found.
Records accessed by The Indian Express under the Right to Information (RTI) Act show 78 students named under “List of the suicide/ death cases alleged due to ragging” from January 2012 to October 2023. This number, given the 4.14 crore students in higher education, is a tiny fraction — but that’s just one part of the story.
The ragging data is illustrative of a system that, for those who are its victims, is opaque, ad hoc — and largely unaccountable.
The Indian Express spoke to several government officials, college authorities and key NGOs that are focused on addressing ragging. First up, the numbers:
🔴 Over a decade, the UGC helpline logged over 8,000 ragging complaints, with records showing a 208 per cent surge from 2012 to 2022: from 358 in 2012, a peak of 1,115 in 2019 before the pandemic hit, to 1103 in 2022 and 756 till October 2023.
🔴 Most of the 78 deaths attributed to ragging in this period occurred in Maharashtra (10), followed by UP and Tamil Nadu with seven each, Telangana (6), Andhra (5) and MP (4).
🔴 Most ragging complaints in this period were reported from UP (1,202) followed by MP (795), West Bengal (728), Odisha (517), Bihar (476) and Maharashtra (393). The institutions on top of this list were Banaras Hindu University (BHU) with 72, Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology in Bhopal (53) and MKCG Medical College in Odisha’s Berhampur (49).
Read these numbers with the gaps in the regulatory process. For example, Clause 9.4 of the UGC’s own anti-ragging regulations states that it can take action against colleges that do not adequately prevent ragging.
However, responding to an RTI query from Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE), an NGO that works for curbing ragging, the UGC said that it has not invoked this provision against any college since the helpline was set up in 2009, relying mainly on another clause that refers to “other action within its powers as it may deem fit”.
“We received a diverse range of calls, with callers reporting instances of bullying stemming from various sources. These sources included rivalry between college seniors and juniors, conflicts arising from romantic interests, and sexuality. However, in the majority of cases, the motivation behind the bullying appeared to be driven by sadistic pleasure,” Rajendra Kachroo, founder of Aman Movement, the NGO that handled the UGC’s anti-ragging helpline till 2019, said.
It was Kachroo’s plea following the suicide of his son Aman (19), allegedly due to ragging, that led to the Supreme Court issuing a set of guidelines (see chart) in 2009 to curb the menace. The plea, meanwhile, led to a verdict in 2010 to imprison four accused in the case for four years.
“Unfortunately, 15 years have elapsed since the guidelines were issued, and the Government’s inability to diligently implement them has resulted in the torment of thousands, leaving indelible scars and tragic loss of lives,” Kachroo said. The helpline (1800-180-5522) is currently being handled by another NGO, C4Y.
The UGC’s own regulations state that students must submit affidavits every academic year, committing on record that they will not indulge in any act of ragging — a total of three affidavits by a student for a three-year graduation period. But RTI data for the past decade shows that only 4.49 per cent of students submitted these affidavits across their academic course.
The Supreme Court guidelines also state that the head of the institution or an authorised anti-ragging committee member should assess cases promptly and file an FIR with the police and local authorities within 24 hours. However, responding to an RTI query from SAVE in 2022, the UGC stated that it does not maintain a record of such FIRs.
The regulations also mandate the formation of Anti Ragging Squads to conduct surprise raids and inspections. Responding to an RTI query from The Indian Express, the UGC responded that they did not maintain any data regarding action taken by such squads.
Speaking to The Indian Express, UGC chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said, “As per the UGC Regulation, the helpline informs every complaint to the police along with the institutions about the ragging matters, and the police take action on the cases immediately. Most of the cases were resolved at the level of the institutions themselves. The cases that were not resolved were sub-judice.”
According to experts, several urgent measures need to be put in place across campuses, including secure complaint boxes, expanded CCTV coverage and an ID-based dashboard for victims. “Currently, there are over 40,000 colleges, nearly 2,000 universities, and numerous standalone private institutes. This vast landscape is not entirely under the direct control of UGC. Therefore, the solution lies in making the regulations universally applicable,” Sukhadeo Thorat, UGC ex-chairman, said. Anti-ragging regulations are legally binding rules mandated by the Supreme Court and enacted by the Ministry of Education and UGC, Thorat pointed out.
However, authorities in the three colleges that recorded the most complaints say that a lot of these cases are “random complaints or scuffles” between students who “prefer the helpline because it ensures anonymity”.
“Only one percent of the reported cases here are of ragging,” said Prof Royna Singh, who heads the anti-ragging committee at BHU that tops the list of complaints on the helpline. “One complaint turned out to be a fight over room allocation in a hostel. In another case, responses to a suggestion on a class WhatsApp group with monkey emojis was reported as ragging,” Singh said.
At MKCG Medical College in Berhampur, which reported the third highest number of complaints, former dean Prof Santosh Mishra said, “There was no evidence in all complaints, except one. In that instance one student was debarred from college for three months and the police filed a case after investigations and the case is in the court.”
Reiterating that position, the current dean Prof Suchitra Dash said, “The administration is taking all efforts to avoid ragging on campus, including strict action.” She was referring to the expulsion of five senior students last month following a probe into a complaint lodged with the anti-ragging cell of the National Medical Council (NMC) by parents of junior students.
According to the Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology, the institute with the second highest number of complaints, these cases are “a result of infighting among students”. Only about 10 per cent of the complaints were from first-year students, it said.
Aman Foundation’s Kachroo, however, asserted that college authorities “lack sensitivity” in identifying ragging. “The Supreme Court guidelines explicitly state that actions such as bullying, abuse, intimidation to assert dominance or instil fear, and insulting behaviour, even within social media groups, among other criteria, constitute ragging. But many colleges dismiss these incidents as internal disputes,” he said.
