First hand stories

firsthand@stopragging.org

The Stop Ragging Campaign invites you to share your ragging story. Write about how you were ragged, how you ragged, what did you think of ragging then, what do you think of ragging now. Please write the facts first (how, what, when, where) and then follow it with opinion. Don't worry about syntax and spelling. Just be honest. You can ask us not to reveal your name when we publish your story.

Why should I share my ragging story?

If you have happy memories of ragging, and think that ragging indeed has a social function, we urge you to pen your account of how exactly you were ragged and how you ragged the following batches of students, in order to try and convince us about your views.

If you have bad memories of ragging, we understand it would be difficult and painful to revisit your trauma. However, we urge you to do so because by making your story a part of a corpus we are telling the world just how bad ragging is, and why it should be replaced with a more civilised form of 'interaction' and 'socialisation'. We are looking here at a history of human rights abuse that has for long not been met with the amount of outrage it should have been. By sharing a page from your past, you can contribute to our effort to give Indian education a legacy of peaceful campus life.

Regardless of whether one is for or against ragging, it is important to understand this phenomenon. It is impossible to do so unless we have some first-hand narratives that the social scientist can draw upon to analyse.

Mail us your story and we'll get back to you. Take a look at some first hand stories that are already online.

Love, thy art beautiful!

'I finally got up and said this was no way to rag someone and that making him take his underwear off would be stretching things too far. Don't know why but they listened to me and agreed that fine, they wouldn't make him strip completely.'
[Sri Ram College of Commerce, University of Delhi, Delhi]

The Summer of 2001
“You know why I left you?” he asked as we shook hands one last time, and without waiting for my answer said again. “Because we dark skinned people not generally respected by the fair skinned ones, but I felt you had different views… so you were spared.” After that he left.
[St. Stephen's College, University of Delhi, Delhi]

Bare beginnings

"That Baku guy is sick. Though you think they would have done anything?” I said, striving for a cool I did not feel. “Who knows? Maybe not,” Ryan rotated a shoulder, “But you can never tell when guys get into mob mentality. Trust me, I have lived in enough boarding schools.” Excerpts from Chetan Bhagat's novel, Five Point Someone: What Not to do at IIT .
[Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi]

The Masks of '91

'Freshers did not know who had suddenly come in, masked, beating them ruthlessly. A boy from Assam jumped from the second floor and broke his neck. He died after a few days, yet his parents thanked us for helping them out at the hospital by donating blood, etcetera. We did not know how to respond.'
[Motilal Nehru Regional Engineering College / National Institute of Technology, Allahabad]

How I was ragged at IIT Delhi and why it was no joke
After so many years, Sujit Saraf can dispassionately list the 'forms of ragging’, but no one should be misled. When an eighteen year old boy stands naked to be inspected by ten leering animals, he shudders in the bottom of his heart.
[Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi]

The Beauties of Miranda
When Madhu Kishwar got elected as president of the Union in 1970, the two issues they began the year with were: An end to nasty and often obscene ragging of freshers by the seniors. And an end to the beauty contest.
[Miranda House, University of Delhi, Delhi]

All's well that ends well
'These things however got over in about two months and soon these very freshers were being treated in canteens and K Nags food joints by these very seniors. The lack of resentment towards the seniors was surprising.'
[Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, Delhi]

My first day in the hostel was the worst day of my life
I had forgotten my unpleasant experience of ragging even though it lasted till only a few months ago. I thought I would rag my juniors mildly, but won’t make them go through what I have been. But when I heard of this Stop Ragging campaign, I tried to reflect back at the last one year in hostel.
[A privately run girls' hostel in Delhi]

Life of a Bhutru
I am still in touch with the seniors who had ragged us. Many of them are in MNC's like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, L&T, and so on. Does India need such professionals?
[Regional Engineering College / National Institute of Technology, Rourkela]

My first and last day in Delhi University
I still haven’t been able to forget that next half-an-hour or so, when I was trying to hide myself from people on the streets of North Campus. I was so scared and emotionally hurt that I took off the belt only after I had walked a good distance away from Kirori Mal College. And I never went back to KMC after that.
[Kirori Mal College, University of Delhi, Delhi]

How the Indian School of Mines 'takes care' of its students
A complaint-cum-SOS from 'James Bond'.
[Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad, Jharkhand]

We'll keep updating this page as and when we receive new first-hand stories.
firsthand@stopragging.org
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