Limping towards Columbine?

The incident in Gurgaon, where two teenage boys shot dead a third, has set everyone on edge. Here we've been talking about how wonderful our way of life is compared to the US or the UK--no illegitimate teenage pregnancy waves, no violence, very little sex (evidently someone is NOT looking at the Indian birthrate!) and all due to the influence of the Hindu Undivided Family (HUF) as the saas-bahu serials would have us believe. And yet, two schoolboys shoot dead a third who was boarding the bus to go home. All three protagonists--the victim as well as the perpetrators--belonged to upwardly mobile families who wanted them to do well in the world. Evidently, the victim was a bully and the perpetrators were avenging themselves on him. And it appears, from newspaper reports, that the father of one of the perpetrators showed the boy how to use the gun. Justice, Amitabh Bacchan style, in real life?

Bullying and ragging appear to be two faces of the same coin. I've often heard from my father that a bully is really a coward, who cannot face the world without forcing it to accept things the way he or she would have them. The only way to stand up to a bully is to stand firm and not give in. However, that's easier said than done when the bully and the bullied are schoolkids.

For some reason, schoolchildren prefer a cookie-cutter world, in which they, their homes and their families are just like everyone else's. It's very difficult to explain to a child that it is OK to be different, that being just like everyone else is stultifying. Only an adult can appreciate this reasoning--a child, never. Because the child's aim is to fit in, to belong.

People get bullied or ragged because they stand out from the crowd. A boy is closer to the girl students in his class than to the boys. A girl would rather play football than play with dolls. It doesn't matter that the bully or the ragger probably has the same tendencies lurking in his or her unconscious--he or she has to stand up for the cookie-cutter conformist world, come what may.

This insistence on having a conformist society, where everyone is like everyone else, reminds me very much of the fundamentalist mindset, whether Islamic, Hindu, Christian, Jewish or communist. Each of these fundamentalisms would differ in their details, but they would want a certain dull sameness in their lives.

Teachers will have their work cut out for them, with attempts to curb bullying, and to make children work together as a group by accepting and celebrating their differences. For it is only when we accept the fact that we are all different (thank whichever God you worship for that) and each of us is unique that we appreciate what life is really all about.

An Alternative to Ragging

While I was researching the article on ragging that I published yesterday, I came across this website dedicated to end ragging. Some of the first-hand accounts included are truly appalling--several authors have refused to reveal their names. And no wonder--after the invasion of personal space and the humiliation that they had to go through as a part of "good, clean fun," anyone would shy away from revealing their names.

What is apparent immediately from the accounts of ragging furnished by victims is that a lot of it is sexual in nature--there are stories of LSR hostellers being asked to make love to a pillow, pretending it is their boyfriend or freshers in mens'-only hostels being asked to enact homosexual love scenes, playing the passive partner. I've also heard of the son of a family friend suffering a nervous breakdown after one such session. Of course, we Indians have a troubled relationship with sexuality--we've been brought up on Victorian hypocrisy and cannot talk openly and honestly about many things. So sexuality becomes another weapon with which to beat someone weaker or younger.

Instead of relating in such adverserial and harmful ways to ones' juniors, why don't students' unions set up orientation committees, to enable freshers new to the city and the campus to fit in with student life in a college or university? This will enable the union and senior students to play a positive role in the lives of their juniors. This is a policy that should be followed in hostels also.

Over the Top Ragging

Everyone's either done it or been a victim of it--ragging, that is. When done and taken in the right spirit, it can enable freshers and their seniors to bond over bouts of verbal sparring. When taken too far, it can lead to hospitalization and suspension or rustication.

In this case, eight girls who were students of the Institute of Hotel Management, Bhopal, chose to rag 17 juniors, two of whom were made to stand for hours while being abused and asked embarrasing questions. All eight were arrested by the police but released on bail.

There are other incidents that have taken place in the last few days--the ragging incident at St. Stephen's, euphemistically named a prank--comes to mind. Evidently, four senior students of the college sprayed a junior with deodorant and lit a match. The junior ended up with burns on his hands and knees.

In worst case scenarios, ragging can even lead to physical or sexual abuse and exploitation, sending the traumatised victim to years in a hospital or mental asylum, if not to the morgue as a suicide.

There are many people in our midst who think that acts of sadistic cruelty against their juniors or their inferiors proves their superiority. Such acts merely show the depths to which they're prepared to descend to feed their warped need to be seen as bigger, stronger, superior.