“If you don’t touch his balls, and it gets out that you didn’t listen to a fifth year, no senior will ever help you do research or anything. In fact, I think we might have a word with the student disciplinary committee. You know what they can make you do, right?”
- A scene from NLSIU Bangalore in Satyajit Sarna’s novel The Angel’s Share
The event is not fictional, says Sarna. “There was a bit of a major crackdown [on ragging at NLS] around 2000, 2001,” he explains. “A lot of disciplinary enforcements [occurred]. For us, you were ragged more during the first couple of weeks, people were interested.”
Legally India interviewed students and alumni of six national law schools about fresher-senior “interaction”. The consensus is that the degree of ragging has decreased at law schools in the past years, although everyone continues to defend ragging-like behaviour on campuses.
They say that nowadays if seniors ganged up on freshers, other seniors would generally warn the harassers to back off, but incidents commonly described as “positive interaction” remain. Notably, there is a common tradition of seniors making “good natured” calls for juniors to sing and dance on the campus, and introductions are often tinged with sarcasm and heckling from the seniors.
Sometimes, seniors would ask juniors to perform small-time “hardening” chores, such as fetching of cigarettes or cleaning of football boots, and many similar examples exist of power games seniors play in moot court selections to arbitrary demonstrations of subtle power exerted over junior batches.
But sometimes the line between harmless fun and ragging is hard to draw, depending on circumstances and the subjects.
Relativism
For one, law school’s enforced song and dance routines may ignore that while a confident city-bred private school kid could see them as a fun-packed challenger round, for a child coming from a less privileged background with weaker English skills, the encounter can be positively hostile.
The IDIA diversity initiative aims to change the make-up of law schools, for example, by introducing students from rural Indian districts with local language education to legal education at national law schools.
“When we ask them to sing in front of everyone it is not just to hear them singing but for them to come out of their shell,” justifies one national law school student. “People who have never done these things before, it is their chance to say: Hey I cannot sing but I can, say, tell a joke! So then, it is their turn to be as cool as their city-schooled classmates by showing off their unique talent!”
Then again, you never quite know how these games turn out and some IDIA students do not last until graduation – while ragging has never been blamed so far, it should make you wonder about the challenges of fitting into environments as competitive as law school.
Poppy
One alum narrates how a male fresher a few years ago “earned” the nickname of a female pop star after enthusiastically gyrating to one of the artist’s songs at the insistence of a group of seniors in his first week at college.
The nickname stuck until a senior began endlessly pursuing the fresher to dance, ending in tears. The situation was nevertheless resolved amicably but it does illustrate that what might seem “good natured” to one person, could be anything but for another.
Why should a young adult, often living away from home in the company of total strangers for the first time - possibly strangers whom the fresher has little in common with - have only one of two options when faced with “positive interaction”?
Either you can take the bait and comply with seniors’ demands, step out of your comfort zone and potentially embarrass yourself in front of 200 others, or you confront them and risk being a social outcast for the first year in college or longer.
Rules of the game
Indeed, the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) anti-ragging notification of 2009 defines ragging more broadly in nine points, including, apart from the obvious such as physical violence and intimidation:
“asking any student to do any act which such student will not in the ordinary course do and which has the effect of causing or generating a sense of shame, or torment or embarrassment so as to adversely affect the physique or psyche of such fresher or any other student”
“any act that affects the mental health and self-confidence of a fresher or any other student with or without an intent to derive a sadistic pleasure or showing off power, authority or superiority by a student over any fresher or any other student.”
Quite clearly, even “good natured” activities such as asking first-year students to perform under duress are ragging under the rules.
The excuse that the more subtle manoeuvres weed out ‘juniors with an attitude’, ‘spoilsports’, ‘dorks’ or those ‘lacking team spirit’, can make things worse for the victim. Am I overreacting or being a spoilsport by not automatically subjugating to the seniors and following pointless orders?
Furthermore, the attitude of “what happens in law school, stays in law school” creates the sort of climate where a subtle ragging culture can continue breeding.
Recent forum posts on Legally India, alleging instances of ragging at two top national law schools, are therefore hard to corroborate amid nearly too vociferous denials from students, and even faculty will rarely be aware of all the facts, if any.
Happy, not positive interactions
The non-governmental organisation (NGO) No Ragging suggested alternatives in a research report entitled Humiliation Studies, and wrote of a UN workshop where people from 40 different cultures underwent a familiarisation process where activities included memorising names, adventure sports to build trust, sub-group mentorship, inter-personal communication, games involving physical contact, dramas aimed at team building, informal dinners and dance parties in the evening.
Some people who were not comfortable dancing, were not forced to dance, but they simply gained motivation to dance by watching others dance.
To be fair, even ‘song and dance’ appear to be on the way out at many law schools. According to one GNLU student this year’s ice-breaking sessions consisted of only one session where seniors asked for fresher introductions, and then picked out the ones displaying “no attitude” and took them under their wings on excursions to town – around 20 out of a batch of 180 were part of those chosen few.
But India continues to have undeniable tensions because of demographic, religious and socioeconomic factors. Law students, as future servants and defenders of the constitution, should actively strive not to reinforce any differences but to eliminate them.
And any practising lawyer who has ever been shouted at or humiliated to tears by a senior partner or lawyer in a law firm or in court – and such stories are not rare - should consider this: could such behaviour not too have had some of its roots in student days?
If you have any ragging stories and your views, please do share them anonymously in the comments.
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"Recent forum posts on Legally India, alleging instances of ragging at two top national law schools, are therefore hard to corroborate amid nearly too vociferous denials from students, and even faculty will rarely be aware of all the facts, if any."
I get that its hard to corroborate. I understand that you have to put this in your article, even though it doesn't exist, because an allegation was made.
But how do you know that the problem of not being able to corroborate comes from a 'what happens here stays here' attitude. Where is that even coming from? There is absolutely no way you can conclude the fact that these incidents are hard to corroborate because of that reason. Also, 'nearly too vociferous' opposition?
Lets assume someone makes a forum post alleging that legal poet paid legally india last year to win the blogging competition and shared the prize.
Here's how I can put it:
Corporates are slave to the profit motive, and therefore these allegations of the blogging competition being rigged are hard to corroborate since the only guys with real knowledge of what could've happened are the guys at legally india, and they were making profit, so they shut up. What followed was a little too vociferous denial by kian.
Doesn't seem fair to me.
Anything for the story, eh?
The 'what happens here stays here' attitude we have come across many many times, not just in this story.
Generally, almost all law students (particularly at national law schools) are unhealthily paranoid when talking about their own institution. They are worried that if something negative is written about the college, and somehow they are identified (which of course we make very clear will NEVER happen if we speak off-the-record), they will face the wrath of the rest of the school (which they probably would).
Then, there's the general 'patriotism' most national law school students have for their college, fearing that any 'negative' issue which is published outside will negatively affect everyone at the college, jobs, etc.
Therefore, on something such as ragging, if a purported student says on the forum or on the phone that they categorically know that NOTHING of the sort is happening, I'll take that with a huge pinch of salt. After all, how can a student definitely know that not a single instance of ragging is happening, even in dark corners or late nights or faraway dorm rooms?
From speaking to people, the basic culture of ragging is still there in its mildest form (singing, dancing, etc), though the overt ragging has clearly moved underground.
I believe Gyancentral did an article a little while ago about the ragging allegations and they didn't turn up anything of interest apart from some vague anonymous denials and confirmation, which were impossible to evaluate from our perspective.
In summary, yes, it is often frustrating trying to do serious journalism and investigation about law schools, and most of the time the students are as frustrating in this process as the administration.
If more students came out and ditched the 'what happens here stays here' attitude, law schools would be a lot more transparent and legal education - and the profession as a whole - would benefit.
Of course, there are always brave exceptions and 'whistleblowers', and them we thank wholeheartedly. As should you.
My 2 cents of rant, as a journalist having talked to a lot of students.
Best wishes
Kian
Just saying.
Also take a chill pill, Kian!
@ law aspirants: most law schools have very little “hard ragging”. But “soft ragging” remains. One thing you must understand when you land in lawschool is that one must learn to be humble (and I say this at the risk of appearing to be in support of ragging, which I am NOT). If a senior asks you to fetch water or do a pole dance, do it with a smile. It will only continue for 2-3 weeks and then those seniors would possibly be your best friends. However, there are some crude seniors who may overstep the line. If you feel pushed too hard or if you feel the seniors wishes are in bad taste, complain to the college authorities (possibly first discuss with the friendly seniors who you’ll hopefully be able to spot). But pushed “too hard” has to be judged sensibly, or some of the other seniors may take you to be a crazy fellow.
@ lawschoolites: the ones who rag juniors are the scum. Realise that you have to “command” respect. You can’t “demand” it.
Most of the people who positively interact with you, help you survive the madness that is law school.
If you're a girl, they expressly and repeatedly ask you if you are uncomfortable. If you are, you are free to leave and no senior will stop you. While I'm aware the same does not apply to guys, they can also leave. Contrary to belief many seniors don't care about ragging and will be willing to help you, even if you walked away from a positive interaction session with someone else. (Just don't be an ass while doing so. Being polite goes a long way)
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