At NLSIU Bangalore a ritual dubbed the “scavenger hunt”, which allegedly resembles ragging, still persists nowadays, 10 years after the notification of the nationwide anti-ragging rules, according to a blog submitted anonymously to Youth Ki Awaaz by a student of the law school.
The blogger wrote that she suffers from a mental health condition that easily triggers social anxiety and describes how it is an unnecessary torment to be forced into “positive interaction”, including the scavenger hunt with senior NLSIU students.
The “positive interaction” at NLSIU allegedly involves sexual harassment and force feeding of alcohol as well but is not reported due to fear of public ostracisation, according to the blog.
The blogger writes:
Yes, waiting outside Himalaya to pounce on first years returning from the Academic Block counts as forcing people into a social situation. Banging on their doors at night does as well. Amalgamating into NLS would have been very difficult for me even without [positive interaction], the whole process just made it worse and all the more exhausting.
There is also this instance from the scavenger hunt where the tallest, thinnest girls in our group were chosen to be auctioned off as part of a challenge. Now, that’s a clear case of objectification. Why I can’t choose to ignore this aspect of PI is because patriarchy intersects with my condition. Take, for instance, being asked to pole dance. I wasn’t asked to do it but the prospect of it frightened me more because of my discomfort with my body.
The blog describes that how the very existence of such rituals is problematic due to their often inherent sexism, casteism, patriarchal constructs, objectification and lack of sensitivity to mental health, but also when seniors try to over-compensate for the harsh interaction by consoling the new students and in the process making them feel worse through being “infantilised”.
It concludes with a suggestion for rethinking some of the ideas of socialising or interacting on campus:
A lot of you might still think I am being silly but what I am going through is very real, at least for me. I suggest that you come up with fresher, FRIENDLIER ideas for interaction with the new batch if you really must interact so much. It might be a fun power trip, but you never know how you’re affecting another person. CulComm also needs to ensure that the scavenger hunt doesn’t turn out to be a series of PI sessions. The ‘ice-breaking session’ felt like a token act after the nightmare that was the scavenger hunt.
Comments
administration of NLS,anti ragging cell are they dorks? they're acting to know nothing,but they know very well
This rot practices should be stopped before granting INI Tag
This is not to downplay the damage these interactions had on this girl who has heightened social anxiety. She is right to point out that these practices are wrong, and it is high time we elevated ourselves above the rest of the riff raff in just another way.
Anyone saying that ragging is worse in NLS is lying to themselves.
Concluding that everyone is just like him reflects more on your trollish stupidity.
If you want to troll NLS, why not come up with better logic than that?
Come on.. Try harder.
1. Juniors being made to act like butlers: polish shoes of seniors, bring them coffee and toast to their rooms in the morning etc.
2. Juniors being made to pay bills for seniors for dining out, drinks etc.
3. Juniors who are from conservative/religious backgrounds being mocked and forced to watch porn and answer insulting questions about sexual behaviour.
4. "Positive interaction" during birthdays, known to the rest of the world as assault and battery, for which one normally gets arrested.
5. Being stripped, sexual humiliation.
6. Forced consumption of alcohol and drugs.
People think that ragging happens mainly at IITs. This is no longer true. They are super-strict at IITs now. You will get permanently expelled for any type of ragging. Ragging only happens at small-time engineering colleges, whose culture NLSIU students seem to emulate.
Just because you are anonymous doesn't give you carte blanche to lie.
These guys have political connections and come from backgrounds of money and no values. They have been doing bad things since childhood and their mummy and pappa have been protecting them. They go to college and do the bad things but still mummy pappa somehow help them. Then they get top positions in corporates and law firms through mummy pappa. But eventually they get caught and punished.
You are just speaking out of your a** now.
Stop, you are just making a fool out of yourself.
Hahahahahahahaha
Some of the comments highlighting historical incidents at NLS are fairly accurate, to the best of my knowledge...
That doesn't mean that all that is still ongoing, and there is a fair amount of ridiculous anti-NLS hyperbole/hysteria in the comments section, but that is more amusing than 'filth'.
As for 'historical' incidents, which NCERT book are you referring from exactly? Has there been a single case involving a formal committee that has issued a report highlighting such incidents? Or do you mean to state that you have individually investigated each of the alleged incidents mentioned here in all the comments and ben satisfied about their accuracy? Because, you haven't. So, by all means go ahead and publish those. Since they are obviously 'spicy' enough to attract attention, regardless of accuracy. However, taking the high ground as you often do about intending to improve upon the quality of discussion in comments here, is beyond hypocritical now. If you wish to laugh anything, laugh at that. Every one of your readers is aware of the fact that they can write whatever untruth, plain lies, unverifiable statements about people and institutions in the LI comment section and those will get their due share of supporters too, be it against law firms or law schools. And gossip always sells, after all.
[quote]1. Juniors being made to act like butlers: polish shoes of seniors, bring them coffee and toast to their rooms in the morning etc.
2. Juniors being made to pay bills for seniors for dining out, drinks etc.
3. Juniors who are from conservative/religious backgrounds being mocked and forced to watch porn and answer insulting questions about sexual behaviour.
4. "Positive interaction" during birthdays, known to the rest of the world as assault and battery, for which one normally gets arrested.
5. Being stripped, sexual humiliation.
6. Forced consumption of alcohol and drugs. [/quote]
I know anecdotally that various degrees of some of the more serious ones above have happened at NLS and/or other top NLUs over the years, and I'm not inclined to disbelieve the entire list just because many sound quite harsh or may not have been documented or reported (by their very nature, many more serious alleged historical incidents, particularly of a sexual nature, may have happened behind closed doors and may have never been reported due to the shame and stigma involved).
By requesting pre-censorship of the entire comment because you personally don't know that they have happened, can amount to brushing things like ragging under the carpet, because they can be uncomfortable to talk about.
This isn't really about NLS, but about having an open debate about ragging and the kinds of behaviours that have gone on, and in rare cases still do (though no one is denying that things at NLS and most NLUs are much better than they used to be).
That's not defamatory to an institution, as no one will think worse of NLS or its graduates because ragging used to (and may still) exist there in various forms, but is overall a fairly healthy process.
If I write in a comment that as the Managing Editor and Grand Poobah and Head Honcho of Legally India, under your command, a culture of regular workplace harassment has been actively cultivated within LI workspace, now how would anybody (including you) figure out whether I actually belong to LI, so as to have inside knowledge that makes my claim a believable one, or one who simply wishes to run a smear campaign against you?
I actually do not belong to NLSIU. I have little knowledge what goes on inside that place. My point is, if you publish a report on the ragging problems there and quote students/alumni without revealing their names after carrying out due diligence verification, I have no problem with that. That's good journalism and what's more, you are taking responsibility for what you have published. Publishing anonymous comments does not allow anybody to take responsibility for whatever they are claiming! Your claim about things being better across NLUs at present, for example, is entirely inaccurate. On the contrary, I can vouch that the NLU where I'd studied (considered to be one of the so-called top-tier ones) had almost zero instances of ragging during my time, apart from harmless jokes etc. Whereas as per my sources, things have gone really downhill now, starting from post-CLAT period. I could have named the NLU too, but I am not doing that, because you have no way of verifying whether I actually belong there short of me revealing my name! See what I am driving at? What you call 'healthy', is nothing but unsubstantiated rumour mongering! If you want to have a healthy discussion on that, either make the commentators reveal their own name, or else simply accept anonymous tips like you do, carry out the diligence in verifying them and publish them as report. Currently, what you are doing in the comments section cannot be considered ideal or even acceptable by any logical or rational standard. How can anyone even say that an outsider reading such comments would not form a negative image of the institution, as you proclaimed, is beyond me! Of course they will, because many of them will think it's straight from the horse's mouth, especially young students. Whereas if I want to defame NLSIU, all I have to do here is to pose as a student/alumni and write lies about that place! Surely you're not sufficiently devoid of logic as not to be able to see that?
I think readers also take what happens in the comments section with a pinch of salt (as our disclaimer also makes clear), and no one is suggesting that the alleged historical examples of ragging listed above are or were a regular occurrence. But I know from many accounts that some really messed up stuff as described in that comment has happened at top NLUs, as well as US and UK universities / fraternities / rugby societies (even if much of it has never been formally complained about because it was just accepted to be part of university culture).
In this case, the comment has resulted in many downvotes and several rebuttals from readers who've claimed to be NLS students and who were unaware of those instances, which provides sufficient perspective to the average reader to clarify that it's not as widespread as that comment is perhaps implying.
No individuals are named in that comment and I don't think this does any damage to the overall reputation of an institution such as NLS (particularly since the comment makes clear that the examples are very much historical, rather than current). However, it could act as a useful reminder that no place is necessarily immune from such behaviour.
Finally, requiring names, phone numbers, email addresses or Facebook profiles to comment is no silver bullet that provides veracity either (see the current discussion around fake news, etc, for one).
However, good arguments and debate (such as yours) around such topics, can certainly be valuable and useful to prospective students.