Page 21 - EW April 2021

— this brutal rite of passage, refuses fallen sharply from 40 percent in 2009
to die out. to 4 percent, 132 ragging complaints
In an unprecedented judicial ver- were filed in MP in 2019. This is the
dict on February 5, a sessions court in highest number of complaints filed
Bhopal sentenced four women phar- from any state since the Aman Move-
macy students of the RKDF Medical ment started receiving complaints a
College, Bhopal, to five years impris- decade ago.
onment for abetting the suicide of a To curb the incidence of this per-
first-year student following continu- nicious college initiation rite which
ous ragging. Additional sessions court often has serious consequences, edu-
judge Amit Ranjan also imposed a fine cationists and human rights activists
of Rs.8,000 on the convicts. are calling for specific anti-ragging
According to the prosecution, legislation from the state government
the convicted students mentally and on lines of the Maharashtra Prohibi-
physically tortured Ankita Sharma tion of Ragging Act, 1999.
driving her to suicide by hanging on “Andhra Pradesh has its own state
August 7, 2013. In a suicide note, the legislated anti-ragging law, titled
deceased named the four senior stu- Andhra Pradesh Ragging Prohibi-
dents and also indicted the college tion Act, 1997. Consequently, while
management for not paying heed to Andhra had only 29 ragging com-
her complaints and failing and ne- plaints last year, in MP, 132 ragging
glecting to stamp out this humiliating complaints were registered. There is
practice. a need to have a state enacted anti-
hortly after Sharma’s tragic sui- ragging law,” says Deepak Gour, a On the other hand, another study
Scide, a PIL (public interest litiga- Bhopal-based lawyer. conducted by LocalCircles, an online
tion) was filed by a medical student in Clearly, an idea whose time has platform, indicates that 72 percent
Indore, and the Madhya Pradesh high come. of households in Bengaluru and 62
court served notice on the state gov- Aditi Maheswari (Bhopal) percent statewide are unwilling to
ernment to implement the Raghavan send their children to school until a
Committee’s report (2007) and Su- KARNATAKA substantial percentage of the state’s
preme Court directives to curb ragging population is vaccinated and the
in education institutions statewide. Reopening dithering Covid-19 pandemic subsides. The
The PIL petition listed corrupt prac- LocalCircles online survey covered
tices including ragging that are rife in VEN AS SEVERAL PARTS OF THE 9,687 respondent households coun-
23 medical and 15 dental colleges of country are bracing for a sec- trywide including 1,971 in Karnataka.
Madhya Pradesh (pop.73 million). Eond wave following a massive These households have incomes of
Admitting the PIL on September surge in Covid-19 cases, parents of above Rs.3 lakh per annum.
2, 2013, a division bench comprising primary school children in Karna- Dr. V.P. Niranjanaradhya,
acting Chief Justice K.K. Lahoti and taka (pop.63 million) are divided on senior fellow at Universalization of
Justice Subhash Kakade served notic- the issue of sending their children the Equitable Quality Education Pro-
es on Barkatullah University, Bhopal, back to school. gramme of the National Law School
the district collector and RKDF Medi- An online survey conducted last of India University, Bengaluru, and
cal College, where the accused stu- month (March) by the Vidyarthigala prime mover of the VNSK survey,
dents and the deceased were studying. Nade Shaleya Kade (VNSK, ‘Stu- says the two surveys reflect the dif-
However, neither the Congress (Dec dents’ march towards school’), a fering aspirations of low-income and
2018-March 2020) nor the incum- Bengaluru-based NGO comprising high-income households.
bent BJP government has addressed educationists, doctors, teachers, and “The majority of sample re-
the ragging ritual which is practicised parents, indicates that 82.24 percent spondents in our survey comprised
widely across the state. of households are in favour of com- low-income families. Government
According to data compiled by the mencement of on-campus classes for anganwadis and primary schools
Aman Movement, which manages an primary school children in the next provide a safer environment for
anti-ragging helpline for the Delhi- academic year beginning July 2021. children than their cramped homes
based University Grants Commission, Of the 3,165 parents interviewed, a in crowded localities. Moreover,
although ragging cases in higher edu- majority of 2,603 wanted schools children are assured of a free-mid-
cation institutions countrywide have reopened for primary children. day meal in government anganwa-

APRIL 2021 EDUCATIONWORLD 23