The criminal behaviour of ragging in our universities is causing a serious economic impact in brain drain, poor return on investment in education, poor job performance among graduates, and dumbing down of our brightest students.
Every year, Sri Lanka’s brightest students, being victims themselves in the previous year, turn into a mob of maniacs. Raggers rule in Sri Lankan universities. That’s a well-established fact. Governments do little; university authorities flap their arms impotently; parents fear sending their children for higher education; and freshers live in terror for a whole year of the violent sexual, physical, and mental torture that they undergo at the hands of sadistic torturers.
It is time for a multifaceted solution to build a safe environment that provides inclusivity for students, parents, and staff, while doling out strict punishments for perpetrators and suitable compensation for victims.
- A committee has been appointed to investigate over 2,000 cases of ragging, including serious physical, mental, and sexual abuse
- Between January 2017 to June 2018, the University Grants Commission (UGC) received 434 ragging complaints. Thousands more suffer in silence. The UGC has a separate process for ragging complaints
- This should be seen as a national crime since a large number of suicides, mutilations, and grievous injuries have been committed
- Ragging deaths are one of the controversies in a State education system funded by taxpayers
In 2018, approximately 163,000 students qualified for university, but only 31,000 were given places in taxpayer-funded universities (known as “free education”). But each year, thousands drop out due to ragging. This has become deeply ingrained into the subculture of our state universities. Ragging is as prevalent in the University of Jaffna as it is in the Universities of Ruhuna and Peradeniya.
This is not harmless fun. Freshers have died. Many have committed suicide. What type of graduates are being sent out to become society leaders, who have undergone such violent trauma and then turn around and become abusers themselves? As managers, what would they do to employees under them?
The most extreme type of ragging in a university is physical and sexual torture for the sadistic and sexual gratification of seniors. Students in many instances are stripped in public. YouTube has an enormous number of videos made by perpetrators that further humiliate victims for life. Even the mildest forms of ragging involve students being made to perform horrific acts such as taking cold midnight showers or staying in dirty water ponds throughout the night. The most infamous incidents are given in Table 1 above.
Ragging may have a huge impact on the health of students.
- Stress level: Stress or momentary stress may lead to exhaustion, frustration, difficulties in thinking clearly, self-doubt, anxiety, and in some cases a disturbance of both physical and mental abilities due to the perception of and expectation of massive amounts of pressure. Physiologically, there may be various symptoms from heartbeat to back pain, irritable bowel, respiratory problems, and elevated blood pressure.
- Anxiety: Anxiety can lead to excessive sweating, giddiness, nausea, elevated heart rate, feeling of fear, and trouble sleeping, marked by deep worries. It can be challenging for nervous students to focus. If you cannot finish tasks, then that causes a loss of self-value. Loss of sleep and digestive disorders will make their problems even worse. For these cases, issues of mental health such as phobia, depression, suicide, and panic attacks can occur.
- Depression: A mental condition marked by an intense sadness over a period of time, depression typically affects every part of one’s life, along with feelings of remorse, indignity, and changes in the way one behaves.
Global situation
Ragging is by no means a Sri Lankan invention and is not part of traditional Sri Lankan culture. It is an aping of a ritual in western countries that has spread to many eastern nations. In the west, it is known as “hazing”.
Western nations have strict laws against hazing. For example, 45 US states have specific anti-hazing laws. While there is debate around the effectiveness of such laws, one clear result is that it places both criminal and civil liability firmly on the perpetrators. Another positive result is that victims can sue in civil courts and obtain large sums of compensation from perpetrators, which is intended to serve as a deterrent against ragging. In the US, hazing is widely prevalent for new recruits among fraternities and sororities, which are nationwide student groups that have chapters in hundreds of universities. Several civil lawsuits have established that national chapters are partially liable for the control of actions by their chapters.
Responsibilities of universities
In Sri Lanka, little has been said of the responsibility of university authorities. However, there are several overseas judgements that firmly establish this in other countries. In the US, in the case of Furek v University of Delaware, the Delaware Supreme Court declared that universities have an obligation to promote general campus safety and security.
However in Sri Lanka, university authorities have proven to be impotent in curbing this menace. A key question is why law enforcement authorities do not act more firmly.
Sri Lanka’s anti-ragging law
Nowhere in Sri Lanka is there a special zone where the country’s laws do not apply, or a special group of people that has been deemed to be above the law of the land. Even the President has limited immunity. Foreign diplomats are governed by international conventions and can be expelled by the Government of Sri Lanka. Yet, the raggers have over the decades carved out for themselves a de facto set of separate states in which they can carry out their sadistic activities, not only on campus and hostels, but also in public as well with little fear of justice. These are not pranks by children. They are serious crimes by adults aged 19-25. Many staff and faculty members who attempt to help victims are themselves victimised and threatened.
Sri Lanka does in fact have a very tough and sweeping law in this regard. The Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence in Educational Institutions Act No. 20 of 1998 laid down strict punishments for ragging. Yet, the Police and other authorities have been reluctant to enforce this law.
A key element of this Act is found in Section 8, which empowers a court to dismiss from university any student or member of the staff convicted of an offence. Thus, it has taken the matter of expulsion out of the hands of university authorities.
Another is Section 2, which allows application of the law to acts both on campus or off campus, and also authorises courts to order perpetrators to pay compensation to victims.
Offences under the Act include criminal intimidation, hostage taking, wrongful restraint, unlawful confinement, forcible occupation, or damage to property. It also provides for summary trial by a magistrate, which is intended to expedite the legal proceedings.
Section 9 also established that offences under this Act are non-bailable by a magistrate, which would force an accused to move the High Court for bail in a separate proceeding.
Section 14 states that any offence prosecuted under this Act can also be prosecuted under other laws such as the Penal Code; the (Convention Against Torture And Other) Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment Act No. 22 of 1994; or any other relevant law.
Section 15 provides for trials under this Act to be given priority to ensure speedy justice.
Recommended 360-degree solution
The writers recommend a comprehensive 360-degree solution which ranges from criminal prosecution to basic things a university should implement to transform the culture within our universities and ultimately minimise and eliminate ragging.
- Enhanced orientation programme of what academic life in a university entails: Students need to be shown that there is far more to university life than the narrow confines they appear to be in at present. There is more than ragging, exams, and getting a degree certificate.
- Orientation by law enforcement authorities: The Police, Attorney General’s (AG) Department lawyers, judges, psychologists, etc., should be brought in to educate students on the consequences of ragging and being convicted of ragging. They need to be shown in no uncertain terms that those who rag will face the full wrath of the law.
- Student counselling: Proper professional counselling must be implemented for students to open up about their pain, experienced both in childhood and in university. This will also inspire young people and newcomers to be empathetic. Most students are not open to talk about the ordeals they have experienced with their parents which leads to sadistic behaviour.
- Student interactions: Interactions and conversations on issues such as ragging are particularly relevant. The university will schedule collaborative student sessions on different subjects from time to time. During their college years and beyond, they will interact well.
- Senior and fresher students interactions: Encouraging healthy relationships between senior students and new students will create a supportive atmosphere. The university must organise different activities that help students crack the ice.
- Occupy their time: Sri Lanka’s university students appear to have an enormous amount of time on their hands, in contrast to those in the private sector educational institutions and foreign universities. They should be made to utilise their time productively by enhancing graduation requirements to include mandatory publication of academic articles, participation in sports and extracurricular activities, and community service activities. These are our best and brightest, whose most productive years are being wasted. Healthy pursuits such as character building, building self-confidence, and polishing personality would serve students just as much as, if not more than, simply studying and lecturing in universities. Internships and part-time work in the state and private sector from the very first year in university would also be useful.
- Police posts should be set up throughout every campus and manned 24 hours a day.
- Emergency telephones should be in strategic locations. When simply knocked off the phone mount, presumably by a student in danger, the Police should be rushed to the scene.
- CCTV camera use: In order to control violent activity on campus, every corner of every campus must be monitored. CCTV cameras should be placed at entrances to washrooms, corridors, halls, canteens, hostels, and playgrounds. It’s hard to rag a junior when seniors know that they are being watched.
- Anti-ragging squads: They should set up a team that battles ragging in the university premises. The team will be made up of students from different classes, ages, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Punishments/expulsion: 180,000 students qualified to enter and only 30,000 received places. If any of them are involved in ragging, which means committing violent crimes, they should be expelled. There are tens of thousands more waiting to take their place. Ragging happens when the guilty person knows the authorities are lenient, but the guilty persons would find it difficult if the penalties were to be stricter.
- Leave law enforcement to law enforcement authorities: Academics are not trained in law enforcement, which is a practical profession and not an academic one. The responsibility for law enforcement on and off campus must be clearly placed upon the Police and the AG’s Department. Academics should not intervene once a crime is committed.
- Public shaming: A public register should be compiled of names of those convicted of ragging.
- Ban on government jobs: Eliminate opportunities for raggers, since they would clearly be unfit to become good civil servants.
- Punish aiding and abetting: Those who aid or abet ragging should also face penalties such as suspension.
- Political parties: Any political party whose affiliated student unions are found to have promoted ragging should face criminal and civil proceedings, in the same manner that the head chapters of fraternities in the US do so.
- Legal aid: At orientation, lawyers and judges should brief freshers on their legal options in the event they are ragged. These include making police complaints as well as obtaining injunctions that would prevent the raggers from coming into contact with the victims.
- Hotlines: Numbers should be prominently displayed for hotlines for victims to call, including suicide prevention and legal aid.
The role of parents
This may be the most important initiative of all. Sri Lankan parents are usually highly protective of their children, and youngsters of any age are actually handed from one authority to another – parents, relatives, or teachers. In the case of university freshers, parents are handing over their children to university authorities, which may explain parents’ reluctance to act when their children are ragged.
However, it is our opinion that parents of seniors can be used as a positive force to persuade their children to refrain from ragging. This requires active engagement with parents by both university authorities and law enforcement.
Conclusion
In the past, efforts to curb ragging have failed due to their limited scope. We believe that this multidimensional approach would have a far greater opportunity for success, protect university students, and help nurture young men and women who would be of far greater use as leaders in society as they have the potential to be.
[Dr. Nicholas Ruwan Dias is a Digital Architect at Aegon Asia, based in Kuala Lumpur. He holds a BSC in Computing from the University of Greenwich, Masters in Computer Software Engineering from Staffordshire University and PhD from the University of Malaya. He is completing a second doctorate (DBA) from Universiti Utara Malaysia.]
[Niresh Eliatamby is Chairman of Chaos Theory Ltd., a research based consultancy in Colombo, is an author, and a lecturer in HR/tourism/marketing. He holds an MBA from London Metropolitan University and LL.M. in International Business from Cardiff Metropolitan University.]
(Copyright Nicholas Ruwan Dias and Niresh Eliatamby.)