A month after a student’s death, Jadavpur University Still Demands Sesnitization On Ragging And Gender

Just three days after getting there, Arpan Majhi vacated his room at the main dormitory at Jadavpur University. After what happened on the evening of August 9, he was disturbed. Although he experienced certain amounts of dissatisfaction during his first night at the hostel, he said he had no idea what it may have resulted in.

The first-year student from the Geology Department wrote on social media about his terrible experience at the hostel, “Asked to get a specific kind of haircut, a 6 pm curfew, running errands for the seniors, and staying up all night for ‘intro’.”

Arpan, a terrified man from Asansol, West Bengal, trying to find secure lodging in a strange city more than 200 kilometers from home. He comes from an underprivileged background, so deciding to reside in a paying guest house was challenging for him.

Majhi claims in an interview with Outlook that he could never have imagined such a terrible event would occur and that it still gives him the willies. After the event from last month, his parents urged him to return if he so desired, but he choose to remain.

Since a 17-year-old student died after jumping over the balcony of the main dormitory, a lot has occurred and, more importantly, a lot has been spoken about Kolkata’s famous university. He was a Bengali first-year student.

13 people, including past and present students, have been detained thus far in connection with the investigation. The police claimed that the victim had been sexually harassed before his death, thus all of the apprehended suspects were charged under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, more than a month after the occurrence.

Jadavpur University’s internal committee has named six “unauthorized boarders” and 35 older students as being “involved in ragging” the victim in the varsity’s main dormitory. After speaking with hundreds of pupils, it also determined that six previous students and four senior students were the “main raggers”.

But what really transpired on the evening of August 9 is still a mystery. That’s not for us to answer, I suppose. Numerous issues surfaced when Outlook spoke with a few university students to learn more about the situation one month after the incident. These include social issues such as ragging, bullying, shaming, and others that have become deeply ingrained over time.

An problem in society is teasing.
The majority of students, according to those Outlook talked with, have the same views on ragging. “Ragging is a social issue,” they respond as a group.

Aditya Dolui, a first-year student in the Department of Philosophy, states, “I, along with a significant number of my peers, believe in the prevention of ragging as a social issue from its roots than only prosecution of the culprits as prosecution will ensure punishment of the culprits but will not stop the phenomena of ragging.”

We should see ragging as a societal problem, adds Rupanjana Das, a first-year student, in reference to how other media narratives have gained control of the situation. Political parties are now using the circumstance to set one another against one another. None of this, in my opinion, will be helpful. What we should be doing is uniting as a group to combat the societal problem that ragging is and how it is claiming lives.

Another undergrad from the English Department, Sainik Bhattacharjee, responds, “We want a dialogue with the higher officials,” when asked what the university administration should have done better to safeguard the students. It’s a societal problem. Instead than only concentrating on ‘punishing’ the offenders, we need to understand why ragging occurs.

On his social media page, Arpan Majhi talked about his own three-day experience in the main hostel as well as the special challenges a fresher has while following elder students’ instructions.

addressing homophobia
Initial reports indicated that before his passing, the dead student repeatedly said, “I am not gay,” to other students in the dormitory.

Rupanjana Das, a first-year LGBT student in the English department, said that the first discovery of the case shocked her a lot since it exposed the heteronormative thinking.

Das claims that when the new class initially met the teachers on her first day, they reportedly warned the students not to engage in any type of discrimination on the basis of “gender or sexual identity” on campus. She advises that the management of the university first institutionalize the discussion they had with the faculty about not bullying anybody because of their pronouns, gender identities, or the background from which they are sprung.

The older students residing in the dormitory did not seem to share the faculty’s desire for a sensitive experience for the students.

Will installing CCTV resolve the problems?
Regarding the installation of CCTV cameras on campus, university students and the general public were split into two groups. Sainik Bhattacharjee said he doesn’t feel secure knowing someone is always watching him and refers to this as a “Big Brother” attitude. He continues, “The current quo doesn’t care about ragging prevention. It fears poets and rebels who have grown up in this free milieu.

In response to the issues brought up in the discussions, Sagnik Saha, a former student of the institution, says, “It seems their only solution is to install CCTV cameras and deploy ex-army security.” “Ragging cannot be stopped by monitoring people,” he adds.

Has the government given the issue significant consideration?
Following the incident, the first-year students who reside in the university hostel were moved to a different dormitory, and CCTV cameras are now being installed at the institution’s entrances.

According to Rupanjana Das, a mentor-mentee program has begun in which five students are paired with one university professor so they may discuss and work out any questions they may have not just about their academics but also about other issues that may be troubling them on campus. According to Das, this stage is essential for students to be open and for teachers to pay attention to problems that may have previously gone unnoticed.

The institution needs a wake-up call every semester as if to realize what are the problems they need to tackle, says former student Dipsuvra Ali, who felt that the management had not taken the matter properly. To demand one’s rights, one must march to Aurobindo Bhavan, but in reality, action is taken only after protests, marches, etc. I believe the management has to be properly sensitized to the difficulties new students experience nowadays and the wide range of prejudice that may occur to one.

As for the administration, Sagnik Saha feels that not enough has been done. He claims, “They viewed it as a real chance to curb students’ rights, impose monitoring, and generally achieve everything that they could not due to our culture of resistance. The government hasn’t taken any meaningful action to solve the problems.

Is the environment at JU ‘toxic’?
The atmosphere on the campus of Jadavpur University has long been a source of controversy. The most recent episode just fueled the flames. In response to this query, ex-student Dipsuvra Ali says that “toxicity” is “a term that can be interpreted in many ways.”

“JU is not an isolated island, as many people believe, thus poison must exist everywhere in the globe. I don’t believe it is to that amount that is being depicted in the media, if we’re talking about toxicity in the context of ragging, bullying, and discrimination, he adds.

Sagnik Saha expresses his opinion on how the media portrays ragging in JU and its past. There are certain social and political aspects that should not be ignored in this conversation, he claims. We will reach a dead end that no one wants to accept if we categorize ragging as a societal issue. He continues, “Jadavpur dormitories are a center for continual ragging and everything terrible, according to media and our ministers. First off, I detest the way in which our pupils are characterized. Second, the culture of ragging that exists there did not develop overnight.

Arpan Majhi also contests the existence of a “toxic environment” on the school. He claims that he has spoken with numerous supportive seniors and that the media is attempting to break the kids’ morale with its story.

The university administration seems to have taken action more than a month after the occurrence, but it is debatable if these efforts are sufficient to ensure the safety of the students. Ragging is not something that just happens one day; it is a long-standing practice.