Testimonies - 2

I have two memories of what two of my students had to say about ragging that I feel I should share with you.

The first is of a class test that I set every year for engineering students when they had to write a paragraph on their first day at Jadavpur. The only girl student that year in Computer Science wrote that she had been taken up to the roof of the building by the ragging seniors and was given a garland and asked to perform a 'swayamvar' with them. She found the whole idea infinitely disgusting and ran away after tearing the garland to bits. But she survived the incident and claimed she had good relations with her own classmates and they protected her from any future problems of this kind.

The other incident was much more serious. When I was Head of the Department and running the support cell for disabled students and was also a member of the University Court, I received a call at almost midnight from a disabled English Honours student who had one ear and one eye functional. He said he had somehow run away from the general Men’s hostel after being severely ragged by a group of senior students and was calling from a phone booth. I could not go to his help myself at that point as a member of my family was hospitalized after a surgery earlier that evening and I had to stay on call. He said he had been attacked with lit cigarette stubs and made to go under the six beds in his room and to pretend he was on an underground train. The floor was apparently filthy with dust and cobwebs and he couldn’t see very well.

The lad however got swift redressal. I rang the Dean of Students, Rajat Ray who immediately went across with the Flying Squad to the Men’s Hostel, rescued the boy. Next morning, I spoke about the incident on the telephone with an EC member as I knew there was going to be an EC that day. He had also heard of the incident and asked me to ring and speak to the Vice Chancellor. I did this and the young man who was ring leader of the incident was suspended after a show cause notice. The disabled student was moved to the main campus and given a new room there.

Sajni Mukherji

Retired professor of English, Jadavpur University