Living by the law

Higher Education Minister Lakshman Kiriella has vowed to step up the fight against ragging. The arrest of 10 Kelaniya university undergraduates and the enforcement of the law on students caught ragging is a giant positive leap for a problem that has been growing like a cancer in Sri Lanka’s education system for too many decades. In fact authorities have to bring the matter to a swift conclusion and allow the victim to return to her studies at the earliest to encourage other students to defend their rights.

Ragging seems to have grown to dangerous dimensions. In 2012 newspapers reported an incident where Advanced Level students took part in this reprehensible act. With its entrance into schools, there is more and more reason to worry and get parents involved in making children understand the wrongness of ragging so that they will never condone or engage in it either in school or at any other institution.

In the latest incident, the unidentified female student had been forced to remove her jeans by senior students in public after insisting there was a “law” prohibiting first years from wearing this basic garment. According to the Police complaint, the raggers had then slapped the student. The arrests have sparked a standoff with pro-ragging students taking to the streets to protect this inhumane, pointless, stupid and cruel practice.

Sri Lanka in 1998 passed the Prohibition of Ragging and Other Forms of Violence in Educational Institutions Act, which carries hefty prison sentences, yet the country’s image remains tainted, with several world publications claiming that Sri Lankans practice the worst forms of ragging. It would be impossible for the Government to reform the high education sector unless they tackle the issue of ragging and root it out of the system.

Statistics show 15 students have died, two have committed suicide, 25 have been disabled, six sexually abused and more than 6,000 students have left universities, all because of ragging by seniors and the failure of university and State authorities to take effective countermeasures or implement the law strictly.

Having first rejected ragging the Inter-University Students’ Federation (IUSF) has defended it as a sub-culture, which is a gross and whole inadequate reason to allow its continuance. Union activities, which are at their strongest in hostels, create the environment for ragging victims to suffer in silence. Students are also used to promote political ends and unfairly manipulated to disrupt the functions of universities. If organisations such as the IUSF want to be seen as genuine representatives of students, then they need to ban this horrific practice immediately.

Unions and academics have the responsibility to implement safeguards against the heinous practice. Officials of student unions need to educate their members on the physical and psychological negatives of ragging. Union members can report fellow students engaged in ragging and protect hostellers, who are often the worst affected.

Cooperating with authorities to punish offenders and eventually clean the university system of ragging will gain them significant public approval and even increase the masses’ empathy on other issues that they campaign on such as privatisation of universities. If more students complained to Police and officials implement the law, then Sri Lanka might finally see the end of a practice that has nothing to recommend it.