On Ragging (Part One)

There was this senior in our university. Fourth year, first semester. Same department as mine. Quite handsome, always impeccably dressed. His father was very wealthy, so by extension, he was well-off too. He'd drive to university in his car. Even back in 2003, he always carried around five thousand rupees in his pocket. If anyone asked to borrow money or wanted something to eat, he'd cheerfully lend it or treat them. He'd take people for rides in his (father's) car. Besides that, he always had a pack of Benson cigarettes in his pocket. (The moment his cigarettes ran out, he'd immediately 'refill'!) Getting unlimited cigarettes from him had become something of a right for many people—or rather, he had made it so. Back then, local mobile calls cost seven rupees per minute. His mobile was like a government phone—whoever wanted could talk for however long they wished. People would even make international calls. He didn't mind at all. Dad will pay the bill! What's there to worry about? In return, everyone treated him with deference, spoke to him with great flattery. He believed himself to be very powerful, that he could do whatever he pleased. One of his uncles was an MP of that time, another uncle was a professor in our university. He would go around telling people about his family's wealth and influence almost forcefully. Many were impressed by his words, but most just humored him. From the very beginning, I found him a bit of an ass. For him to rag someone meant that person's luck had opened up. After getting ragged, all their eating expenses, cigarettes, and mobile bills would be taken care of by this bhai. Not to mention the casual lending of money whenever needed!

I was in first year then. I always went about university in a devil-may-care style, but very politely. So one day, bhai called me over while sitting at the central circle. I went. He said, "Hey you! What's your name?" "Why are you addressing me informally? Please speak properly." "Oh really? I have to speak properly to you! So what's your name?" I told him my name. "You seem to think quite highly of yourself?" "Meaning?" "Nothing much." "Listen, go get me a pack of cigarettes from that shop!" (He pulled out a 500-rupee note from his wallet and handed it to me.) I placed the money back on his lap and said, "I can't, bhai. If you want to smoke, please get up and get it yourself." He was completely flummoxed! Beside him sat two other seniors (one second-year, another from his batch) who treated him like a cash cow and regularly emptied his pockets, so they were very 'devoted' to him. "Sushanto! This won't end well for you! You have to live in the dorm, you can't always come to class from home." "Bhai, do you allocate dorm rooms? Or are you the supervisor?" He raised his hand to hit me. I immediately grabbed his hand firmly and said, "Hey bhai, don't you feel ashamed behaving like such a sycophant?" Meanwhile, I noticed that powerful senior was wiping sweat! From that day onwards, no senior ever tried to mess with me even minimally.

But yes, I had one advantage—I didn’t live in the dorm, so I didn’t really have to care much about anyone from the halls.
Happily, after that incident, this senior would call me out during class intervals to chat on the verandah outside the classroom, and he apologized several times for what had happened that day. But talking with him was tiresome, because whenever we talked, he would try to entice me into taking various kinds of favors from him, and he would go into elaborate detail about his influence and power. The poor fellow was really a good-natured type, but he never wanted to understand that the boys were making a fool of him and squeezing money out of him. Rich fathers’ sons either become fools in such matters, or they remain fools because having so much money means it doesn’t really matter to them if they’re being fooled.
I have always been against the ragging culture in universities. Once, in one of my posts, I asked readers to share their experiences with ragging. In response, I received many messages in my inbox. I’m sharing some of them here. I’m presenting these messages in my own way. Keeping the core message intact, I’ve written this piece as case studies in my own style of writing. After reading this, you can easily gauge how awful and twisted a practice ragging is. However, many people have also written about some positive aspects of ragging. Read on and judge for yourself.
(For obvious reasons, I’m keeping the university names and the names of those who shared their ragging experiences confidential, or using pseudonyms in both cases.)
Case Study-1.
Brother, I’m a student at Jaunpuri University. From the ’15 batch. I came here to study engineering. I didn’t know there was such horror here. I left my parents and came here from Rajshahi. But brother, after coming here and enduring ragging, I’ve become a living corpse inside. Even during meals in the dining hall, if my eyes accidentally meet the seniors’, they call me to their room and tell me to think of the table as a girl and have sex with it. (They use exactly this language!) They make me bring cigarettes, slap me, and when my mother calls, I have to say, “Mom, I’m fine!” My mother says, “Son, let me talk a bit,” and I say I won’t be able to talk again before evening, but I still have to cut the call.
Is this why I came here, brother? We can’t tell the teachers because we have to live with these same seniors. Brother, at 2 or 3 AM, they pull us out of the hall and say, “Do 50 sit-ups holding your ears,” and they tell me and my friend to demonstrate sex positions and make those expressions, make those sounds.
Brother, we also know that the seniors are like family to us. They’ll correct our mistakes, come forward when we’re in trouble. But by making us demonstrate sex positions, what exactly are they teaching us, brother? The question remains. You played a big role in my coming here to study. Now you tell me—did I come here from Rajshahi to learn these things?
This is reaching an unbearable level. A few seniors do these things. There are many good seniors too. They discipline us a bit, but then they normalize things, show a lot of affection too; but brother, because of these few people, I’m mentally devastated. Maybe you won’t read this message, but telling you has made me feel much lighter, brother. There’s no one else to tell. My friends are also victims. The pressure of studies, yet the days pass doing these things. You don’t have to do anything, brother—even if you don’t read my message, that’s fine.

I shared what was in my heart.
And bhaiya, I’m requesting you to keep my identity, my Facebook name, confidential. Please.
Case Study-2.
A senior sister from university called me in front of everyone and said, “Tell me the name of the sexiest girl in your class.”
I was speechless!
Even after asking several times, I couldn’t say a word. Then the sisters called the beautiful girl from our class and said, “You present him… tell us what size his *** is… then they asked, “How do you feel when you look at him? Tell us in front of everyone. If you can’t answer, you’ll get slapped!”
Case Study-3.
Bhaiya, I can’t properly describe what it feels like to be ragged, but when it happens, I feel like I’d be saved if I could just leave this world! The feeling is so horrifying that I can’t even recognize who’s standing next to me. My eyes and ears turn red, my face fills with disgust, my head starts spinning. The seniors say this is all done to teach manners to juniors, but when I was being ragged, I used to think that among all the bad boys in this world, I must be someone so terrible that they need to teach me manners in such strange and novel ways! When did I become so awful?
Case Study-4.
I was ragged the night before an exam in the hall of a notorious university.
“Imagine Shoaib Akhtar is bowling. The ball is going to hit your head. Now show us how you’ll sit and study in that situation, wearing only a lungi.”
They gave me a powder bottle to use as a bat and told me to hit a six. I had to say which direction I was hitting the ball and whose body it would strike.
They made me sing. “Munni, badnam hui…” I had to dance to this song! What an awful situation!
Case Study-5.
Bhaiya, in 2013 I went to Debnagar University to take the admission exam. And while leaving after finishing the exam, I became a victim of this situation. I was forced to propose to a sister who was 3 years my senior, and along with that, give her flowers and say “I LOVE YOU”… In front of so many people, this created a very difficult and embarrassing situation for me. After I proposed, that sister slapped me hard in front of everyone, which was part of their plan.
Case Study-6.
I’d heard before that in ragging they make you eat bananas soaked in tea. But after getting admitted to college, I realized ragging isn’t such a genteel affair. Many things happen here. Our college had ragging, and it was excessive. Like making you sit with your spine straight on concrete slabs in the blazing sun while the senior brothers recited all sorts of “unbearable” painful rules. Juniors were forced to follow the regulations. If you broke any rule, they would torment the junior however they pleased.
But yes, the senior brothers from my department who ragged a few of us—we later developed the best relationships with them. They always kept in touch with us. I’ve never been a victim of the serious ragging stories I hear about; what happened to me could simply be called mischief, which we later continued with our own juniors, and I still haven’t forgotten those brothers we did it with. But bad incidents certainly happen to some people!
Case Study-7.
I have very bad experiences about getting a hall seat, and even now when I remember it, I feel pain… and I want to spit on the faces of those two female leaders… How painful those days were!
Much more painful than ragging was the humiliation from the female leaders, their nasty words, abuse, forcibly dragging us to rallies. Later I heard that these too were a kind of ragging!
Sometimes ragging can be beautiful even, when it comes from an elegant senior.

It helps juniors correct their mistakes in the campus or in the hostel room……for example, if a junior becomes addicted to smoking or breaks the library codes, ragging in a proper way can be helpful.
Case Study-8.
I was born to dish out ragging, not to take it.
Once on campus, a guy pointed at me and called me ‘new import’……..Just for saying that, I straight up punched him in the nose. His shirt was soaked with blood in an instant.
And that’s how, even being a girl, I lost my ‘right’ to receive ragging for the rest of my life!
Case Study-9.
Brother, if I were to write about ragging, there’s so much to tell. I never experienced it myself, but I’ve witnessed it. First they take you to a room. Then they tell you to take off your pants. If you refuse, they threaten to beat you with a rod. Eventually when you’re forced to strip, they make one person kick another in the rear. If anyone laughs at this, trouble comes their way too. Besides this, they make some people measure the room floor with matchsticks. Even if they measure correctly, they deliberately find fault and say, nothing’s right, measure again. They make you utter such things from your mouth that a first-year boy could never have imagined hearing from a senior’s mouth before getting into university.
Case Study-10.
Ragging happens in the mess too. How, you ask……..when someone new moves into the mess, they make them strip to ‘smarten them up’………or force them to run on the streets. In girls’ hostels they’re made to dance, water is poured on their heads to soak them, they’re asked to make various expressions.
Oh, by the way, the girl who ragged me is now my sister-in-law—my brother could rag her every day now if he wanted! Hahahaha
Case Study-11.
They tried to rag me.
I grabbed that guy’s collar and shook him so hard that now he calls me ‘apa’.
Those who rag in university say it’s not ragging—for 3/4 hours they make them stand in assembly and the seniors teach their juniors manners! The senior brothers/sisters take upon their own shoulders the responsibility for what the parents of these 18-year-old juniors failed to do! Wonderful!
Actually ragging is a bitter experience where humanity, ethics and values are utterly disregarded, which deals a severe blow to a simple young person’s psyche.
During admissions, those who can’t find shelter anywhere and squeeze into the halls the night before exams—they’re handed some ‘idiotic’ question and forced to pay 200-300 taka. Would you call this extortion or ragging, brother?
Case Study-12.
I never experienced ragging myself, but I’ve seen it. When I went to take an exam at university, they forced a friend of my friend to cut his hand with a blade they shoved into his hand.
That very senior sister who made my heart race whenever I saw her—I managed to propose to her, to embrace her, something that might never have been possible without the medium of ragging!
Yes, you can learn many things from ragging. But that ragging is soft ragging.
The first day I went to the hostel, I had traveled all night from Sylhet the previous night. I went straight to sleep! The seniors woke me up at noon with a thrashing and said, go, shower and eat right now, this afternoon you’ll fry eggplant fritters for us! I was forced to learn cooking through ragging in the hostel, and later I became the best cook in the hostel—whenever we had picnics, I would do the cooking. That I love to cook—I would never have discovered this if the seniors hadn’t ragged me!
Case Study-13.
I never found myself in such situations. I’m sharing some things I’ve heard from my friends.

They were studying for a diploma at a prestigious technical college then. A few days after admission, they were all made to stand in a field under the blazing sun. Everyone was warned that any movement would result in punishment. If anyone shifted even slightly from exhaustion, they would apparently be beaten. They were kept standing all day while various rules and regulations were explained. No walking around with shirt buttons undone. No entering the college campus wearing sunglasses. In front of seniors, heads must be bowed while giving salaam and walking to one side. Any violation of these rules would bring various punishments — like running laps around the entire field, standing in the middle of a pond, skipping a meal, even physical beatings… they would do it all.
Case Study-14.
I didn’t submit my form to BUET because of ragging. While going to give the admission test at SUST, one night my friend went out wearing a lungi — for this ‘crime,’ a group of drug addicts pulled off his lungi and made him climb a tree. They told him to urinate while standing on the branch after putting his lungi back on, threatening to beat him if he came down. He was trembling with fear then. I was terrified that day. But from the time I got admission to MAU until today, no one has dared to try anything like that… because I’m prepared to deal with such situations firmly.
Case Study-15.
On the first day of class — orientation day — the senior brothers or sisters at university or college make the junior brothers and sisters do many things. For example, the brothers teach various vulgar words and say, “Go tell that beautiful sister these words.” They write “I love you” on paper and say, “Give this to that sister,” and when you give it to the sister, you get scolded in return — “How rude! Coming here to romance?” — along with a few free beatings. They also say things like, “Light this cigarette, see how it tastes!” If you don’t light it, they’ll say, “Little boy wants to suckle and comes to study honors — smoke it, I’m telling you!” When the boy fearfully lights the cigarette, they’ll say, “Smoking in front of seniors! Rude! Where’s your home? Don’t you know what respect means? Don’t you know how to honor elders, bastard!” If you show too much politeness, they’ll say, “That beautiful sister is coming — tell her ‘I love you’ in front of us,” even though the sister is doing her master’s, much more senior. You’re forced to say it under pressure, and the moment you do, you get a free beating from the sister… what a disgusting situation! Sometimes they say, “If you want to stay on this campus, you’ll get phone numbers of all the girls in the department and make a list within 2-3 days, or else you’ll be sorry.” If you try to get too smart and escape, they make you stand holding your ears in front of everyone… there’s so much more like this!
However, in my opinion, ragging is necessary. Because it builds unity. But nothing in excess is good — likewise, going overboard in the name of ragging isn’t good either. If it stays within limits, ragging isn’t too bad.
Case Study-16.
Brother, I was a victim of ragging while going to give the admission test at Jahangirnagar University. I was sitting under a tree. Some senior-type boys came. They started abusing me immediately. What language from their mouths, brother! No one hearing it would say they’re university students! I was frightened. They said, “Let’s see, draw a picture of your penis.” In fear, I drew something or other. Then they said, “There’s a sister sitting under that tree — go get her signature on this paper.” I went. Though I was somewhat strong-minded. I went to the sister and told her everything openly.

What my sister said next left me in such shock that words cannot describe it. She said, “You can’t sign the copy without seeing the original!” How could a girl sink so low in the name of ragging? Fear, anger, resentment, and despair brought tears to my eyes. They released me after a while. I will never forgive them.
Case Study-17.
Brother, I have a terrible experience from 2007. It happened when I went to take the admission test at Shriranjoni University. A few of us friends had taken accommodation in a hostel. Some senior brothers from that hostel gathered all of us together and forced us to strip down to just our underwear in front of everyone in the hall and dance to the song “Jhum Balika, Jhum Balika.” They even made us stand on one leg on a high bench. At the end, they took us to the hostel roof and made us hold each other’s ears and do sit-ups twenty times. One of our friends had his eyes blindfolded with a towel and was made to stand on a stool while they said, “You’ll say whatever we tell you to say, or we’ll push you off the railing right now.” Because his eyes were covered, he thought he was standing on the actual railing. They made him say extremely obscene things (which cannot be written). Out of fear for his life, he said everything the brothers told him to. Later, one brother said, “Ugh! Your mouth is so foul, I’m going to kill you today,” and pushed him off the stool. My friend, trembling with fear, fainted.
Those memories come back sometimes. When they do, I recoil in terror. What an unbearable night that was! When students coming to take admission tests at a university are treated like this, what impression does it create about that university?
Case Study-18.
Ragging really is a terrible experience. One of my friends, when he was in his first year, moved into Kaharba Hall at the university. On the very first night, an unfamiliar senior brother from the hall called my friend to his room. Then he forced him to take off his pants and made him measure the entire length and breadth of the room with a matchstick while naked, and even though the measurements kept coming out right, he’d find fault and deliberately make him measure again. There’s so much more that happens in halls that can’t all be written down.
But it’s also true that getting ragged removes that withdrawn, introverted state from within you and teaches you to enjoy everything. You could say that sometimes ragging provides a beneficial voltage shock.
Case Study-19.
An elder brother from our village got his university chance on the second attempt.
So when this brother first went to Dhaka, he entered a room in the hall without permission because of friendship. Then his friend’s senior brothers started ragging him for not taking permission properly. The brother was told to calculate the area of the room using a five-taka coin.
But that brother was spirited. He said 4000 square meters. When they said no, that’s wrong, he told them to measure it themselves and walked out of the room with complete nonchalance.
Case Study-20.
All my life I’d known that university is the cradle of knowledge. This is certainly true, and the day I set foot in the Accounting Department at Pakhoaj University in search of this truth, a senior brother gave me ragging. It was very soft ragging.
Ragging. It has many bad aspects, but the good things I’ve gained from it are: I still have very good relationships with the senior brothers; I can share any kind of work, good or bad, with the brothers, and I get solutions to problems very quickly.

University life is like existence trapped within the frame of rose-colored glasses—so much so that we often forget there’s something called seniors on this campus, whom it’s our moral duty to respect, a fact they remind us of through ragging.

I truly detest ragging, brother, but sometimes the behavior of certain juniors is so irritating it’s beyond description. Then I think, yes, perhaps ragging has its place after all.

Case Study-21.
A common ragging question is: What’s the difference between a slap and a smack? I don’t know the answer. Do you know, brother?

Our university doesn’t have ragging, that’s true. But it has the bigger brother of ragging—the restroom! You must have seen it in today’s Barta newspaper. If you missed it, let me tell you something. The restroom is a place for learning the etiquette of hall life. There, mashallah, flowers of wisdom rain down from the mouths of senior brothers quite regularly. Though I haven’t been much of a victim myself, many friends who stay with me have stopped living in the halls because of ragging. The “hospitality” in the restrooms of Ananda Bhairab University halls is quite something.

But ragging is good in some ways. A student who has never been ragged has missed out on a lot in life. The first benefit is that you develop a very good understanding with the senior brothers. Inner inhibitions disappear. Courage increases significantly. Ragging does have some positive aspects.

Case Study-22.
I have a very close friend who studies at Imon Kalyan University, in Civil Engineering. When he first went to campus, I heard many stories about ragging from him. I study at a private university. Ragging isn’t such a regular occurrence here, though there’s a bit of it. So this friend would describe ragging in such a way that I felt ashamed just listening. Making grown men dance half-naked to Bengali movie songs. Detailed obscene discussions about various parts of women’s bodies, renaming certain body parts, calling girls over and trying to embarrass them in various ways, then sending them off with tea and cake.

The astonishing thing was that my friend enjoyed these things. I was amazed watching him. A classic case of Stockholm syndrome! After a day or two, I told him ragging was a terrible thing, and we had an argument about it. According to him, I didn’t understand these things—they were fun; and those who didn’t understand them didn’t know how to mix with seniors, didn’t know how to respect them. Words escalated, and we had a misunderstanding.

But there’s one thing I still don’t understand—how can such filth continue in an educational institution! My incident was quite minor, but this disagreement cost me a friend, and by falling into this stupid trend, my friend lost his conscience.

Case Study-23.
Brother, I study at Marwa University. Batch ’15. Classes started just two weeks ago. One of the reasons for studying at Marwa is that you studied here too. Anyway…

I never imagined the senior brothers would ask such questions. They took me to a room in Tritala Hall. Ten to twelve senior brothers, and me alone like a sacrificial chicken. The brothers’ first question: “What, acting too cool?” I said, “No brother, I’m not acting cool.” “Introduce yourself.” I did. “Do you f**k or get f**ked?” I was completely shocked, didn’t know what to say. I sat with my head down. “What, is yours small?” I said nothing. “Answer quickly.” (holding a rod) “No brother, I don’t do that.” “What are you saying, you don’t f**k! Then let’s see you do it with this pillow.” Then I sat crying with my head down.

I was saying, “Brother, this isn’t possible, I can’t do it.” “What do you mean you can’t? Then what can you do? What will you do with your wife on your wedding night!” I was still crying with my head down. A little later, they called another guy from the ’15 batch into the room. After putting a lot of pressure on him, he demonstrated having sex with a pillow, in ten different styles no less. Meanwhile, I kept crying silently. The seniors mocked me. Then they told me to imagine that ’15 batch guy as my wife and show them those same things, doing it over clothes. Brother, what could I do—I couldn’t understand anything. Then everyone threatened me a lot. Still, I didn’t do anything. After nearly two hours of all kinds of talk, they finally let me go.
There are many more incidents. Brother, if you read this message, please let me know in your inbox. You asked about ragging, so I told you directly. Brother, please don’t think I’m being disrespectful. I’m truly a great admirer of yours.
Case Study-24.
I was already terrified hearing about ragging at Puriadhaneswari University. The information I found online was truly horrifying. With fear in my heart, I went to take the admission test. For the crime(!) of getting a chance, the first-year seniors took me out for tea. They only talked obscenely and wanted to hear such things from my mouth. If I didn’t speak, they’d scold me. And they’d ask me to do such things as if we were slaves they’d bought, or as if we’d made a mistake coming to take the exam. They asked, what will you have? I knew what was about to happen. Fortunately, I got away with just a few glasses of water. At the end, there was tea and some decent behavior too. But they were first-years themselves. By then they’d only received ragging, not given it. Their first experience of giving ragging probably wasn’t that pleasant for them.
Case Study-25.
In class seven, I got severely ragged by a class ten senior from my house, for turning off an Atif Aslam song—which was the craze then—and playing Warfaze instead. The funny thing is, this happened in the afternoon. In the evening, when going for prep study, that same senior called me to the canteen and explained that if he hadn’t taken action like that, his own seniors might have done something much more severe. In my later years, he was the one who introduced me to Samaresh Basu/Majumdar, Sunil Gangopadhyay, and Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay.
Case Study-26.
I have an experience. I got ragged in my first year after getting admitted to university.
One day I was entering campus with several friends. Fifteen to twenty brothers and sisters were sitting on one side. So they called us over. One of them asked which batch we were from, which department. Then they said, you’re now the most junior batch in the university, and everyone else here is your senior. Haven’t you learned manners? Don’t you know you have to greet your seniors?
We said, Brother, we made a mistake, it won’t happen again.
Then they said, okay, fine. But we’re very angry at your behavior, so now you all sing us songs so we can be pleased with you and let you go.
None of us who were there had ever sung in front of anyone before. When we told them this, they said, if you’re too shy to sing alone, then all of you sing the national anthem together.
We were all in a terrible state from fear and shame, and meanwhile we were getting late for class.
We could understand that they wouldn’t let us go unless we sang. Seeing no way out, I raised my hand and said, Brother, I’ll sing. Then I sang in my tuneless voice in front of all those people.

Everyone applauded and said, “Wow, that was beautiful!”
Then one of the seniors said, “A girl sang, now let a boy sing.” So a boy also mustered the courage to sing. After that, the senior asked me where I was from. When I said Noakhali, he gave me a sentence and asked me to say it in the Noakhali dialect. I did that too. Then, making excuses about having class, I somehow escaped from there. The seniors had asked us to go to the cafeteria, saying they’d treat us, but I couldn’t go because I had class.
This was my ragging experience. Though I was terrified at first, I later realized nothing too terrible had happened to me. Friends used to say that university life remains incomplete without experiencing ragging!
Case Study-27.
Greetings, dada. Seeing that you wanted to know about ragging, I felt like writing. This is an incident from my life—I don’t know if it counts as ragging, but if it fits your criteria, please share it. This happened in 2008. I had gone to take the admission test at Kaushadhvani University. I stayed in a dormitory. The exam was held over two days. The senior in whose room I stayed the first day seemed quite nice. The trouble began a little after eight at night. I was about to go eat dinner in the dormitory dining hall when a senior from the next room called me over. I went. As soon as I arrived, they handed me a bundle of 500-taka notes to count and everyone left the room. I was stunned as I counted the money—there was probably 10,500 taka (I don’t remember the exact figure). After a long while, three or four people entered the room, demanded the money, and asked how much there was. I told them and tried to return the money. Then they denied it, saying there had been 15,000 taka. I was shocked. One of them was hurling abuse, directly calling me a thief, while someone else was threatening to call my home. In this situation, I broke down crying. A moment later, the senior in whose room I was staying said something to them and sent me to the dining hall. I couldn’t sleep that night, and the next day’s exam didn’t go well either.
Case Study-28.
Being quite tall and lanky, I was naturally a bit of a don’t-care type. So I caught the attention of the seniors. I had been targeted in our mess for quite some time. But I was ragged last of all. They even brought in a large, leader-type senior from Darbari University. The ragging went on from eleven at night until two. Some seniors who had become close to me by then left the room. About 7-8 people ganged up to rag me. There were obscene questions, threats, and intimidation. At one point, someone was about to hit me with a bat. They also threatened to strip me naked. At that moment, I looked up and stared directly into his eyes. He changed the subject.
Actually, they were angry about my attitude. Just because they were half my size and had only given HSC a year ago, they expected me to dance to their tune—I couldn’t accept that. So their anger was also greater. They wanted to mentally torture and break me. I didn’t cry that night. I just thought—this time will pass eventually. Unless you become such a bastard yourself, you can never really forgive these ragging seniors, never support ragging. Even now, when I see those seniors on campus, though I greet them politely, I’ve never been able to love them from the heart.
Case Study-29.
I had my ragging experience when I went to take the admission test at Brindabani Sarang University. How terribly those who rag can behave is beyond imagination.

From then on, I developed an intense hatred for this ragging… Later, I got admitted to university. I haven’t been ragged yet, but my roommate—his name is Sumon—just a few days ago, the seniors called him to their room at night! He hadn’t even eaten yet, had just come back from class and was sitting with the seniors watching a game. The seniors call us for any reason or no reason… How can we study when we’re constantly living in fear of them… Anyway, what I was saying—I’ll tell it just as that boy told me. After he went to the senior’s room, they made him take off his clothes. Made him lie on the floor, then said, “Imagine Sunny Leone is beneath you now…” Then they said, “You’ve built a good body figure, how many girls have you…?” They even put their hands on his body… Then they handed him a bottle and said, “Put your d*** through the mouth of this bottle…” They said terrible things about his parents too, and what else they did—it’s unspeakable. I later brought him back to the room with great difficulty… He was in a terrible state, vomiting… Later I heard it wasn’t just him—they were calling all the boys from the department one by one for ragging…

I couldn’t take it anymore. I called my classmate Siraj. When he came, I told him everything, and said we can’t let this continue… That night I called everyone, and we all gathered at Yogiya Square… During election time at our university, a senior named Alawol Bhai had said if anyone ragged us, we should inform him. He’s a fourth-year student… I told him everything openly. He called the second-year students. Then what happened—before I could understand, the third-year seniors called us and scolded us severely. After being scolded by them, the boys got scared, our unity broke… They said we had to apologize to the second-years by tomorrow… What could we do! For 2-4 days we followed them around, even touched their feet, but we couldn’t get forgiveness… Later they caught our boys and questioned who had given us these ideas, and so on… Our own boys put all the blame on me and Siraj… What could we do! We were the ones being tortured, and we were the ones who had to apologize…

Justice has disappeared from the world, brother… Now whatever happens, it’s all theater. Whoever has more money and power becomes the hero of the play! And as a nation, we’re very forgetful, so people’s anger against such injustices doesn’t last long either. The lifespan of outrage has become very short.

**Case Study-30.**

I have an experience with ragging. Though I was never a victim of ragging myself. I was in third year then. We had a practical exam coming up, so I was busy with practical work in the seminar room. Many of my classmates were with me in the seminar room. Everyone was busy preparing their practical notebooks. The new batch had finished their orientation class and came to sit in the seminar room. A few from our batch and the next batch decided together to do some ragging. The seniors had already told them, “Don’t do anything that reaches the teachers’ ears. Just have a little fun and let it go.” Anyway, they all grabbed a boy from the new batch. They told him to propose to a girl from their own batch that he liked, in front of everyone in the seminar room. He looked around at everyone and said he didn’t like any girl. Then he was told to propose to one of the senior sisters in the seminar room. He looked around and pointed at me. Immediately my friends whispered to me to react in such a way when he proposed that the boy would get scared. Anyway, he proposed to me in front of everyone. Instead of showing anger, I was actually finding it funny! Suppressing my laughter, I scolded him.

Later he said ‘sorry’ and asked for forgiveness. I laughed it off. And my friends, instead of saying anything to him, scolded me for laughing about it. Whatever the case, from then on, wherever that boy saw me, he would greet me with a salaam.
Case Study-31.
This happened to my cousin. Girls facing extreme ragging at Hindol University. This university’s campus is the only student politics-free campus among Bangladesh’s public universities. Many breathe a sigh of relief just hearing this. But if you hear what’s happening at Hibi, you’ll be shocked! Classes for the 2015-’16 academic year had started just a few days ago. Most students were staying on campus, especially the girls. And this became their doom. Every day the girls were subjected to ragging. A student from the 2015-’16 academic year, on condition of anonymity, revealed that senior sisters would call them and take them to the field. There they would say all sorts of vulgar things. Even after class time had passed, they wouldn’t be released. Such questions were asked that every girl was reluctant to answer. They were made to cry before being let go, and while leaving, they were made to take an oath not to tell anyone about this. Threats were made to deal with them if anyone found out. As a result, many couldn’t muster the courage to inform the administration about these incidents, yet couldn’t bear this psychological torture either. Multiple female students confirmed this on condition of anonymity. Many expressed concern about what kind of lesson such behavior from seniors would teach the juniors. They sought help from the university administration and UGC to stop ragging.
Case Study-32.
This happened in 2012, I had just finished giving an interview for subject selection and came out. 8-10 unfamiliar seniors sitting in a circle on campus called me over with hand gestures. When I went to them and gave salam, they said the salam wasn’t proper, I had to give salam correctly again. I gave salam again with clear pronunciation. They said again, not standing like that, I had to walk from a distance and then give salam. I walked over and gave salam. Then they told me to sing a song or dance. I sang 3-4 lines of a patriotic song. They weren’t pleased with my singing style and the fact that it was a patriotic song. Right then my father called. As the phone started ringing, they began saying, “What’s this, your girlfriend is calling?” After I showed them the saved name ‘Baba’ on my mobile, they ‘permitted’ me to receive the call. When I received my father’s call and was telling him I was fine in front of those 8-10 raggers, I felt deeply distressed. After finishing the conversation with my father, the ragging started again. They asked whether I had a girlfriend or not.

Though I had a girlfriend at the time, I said no, because I knew that if I mentioned having a girlfriend, they would ask me to call her. I didn’t want her to face the same embarrassing situation I was in. But saying I didn’t have a girlfriend created a new problem. They said you couldn’t just attend classes on our campus without falling in love. So they brought over a girl (a senior sister) and told me I had to make a romantic proposal to her. I found myself in an extremely embarrassing situation. Fortunately for me, a senior brother I knew spotted the ragging from a distance and came to rescue me from it. This was the first and last ragging of my life. I still maintain good relationships with many of those senior brothers, but two of them, who made nasty comments during the ragging, their faces still float before my eyes. I will never forgive them—rather, given the chance, I’ll give them a fitting response.
Case Study-33.
During ragging, without my permission, they had a younger intermediate student check my wallet. They were frantically searching for pictures of my girlfriend in there. Shocked and angry, I blurted out, “Haven’t you people learned anything about basic courtesy?” Then one of them said, “Courtesy? What’s that? Come on, teach us!” I replied, “If you haven’t learned it by now, you never will.”
Case Study-34.
Once, after making me break my Ramadan fast, they made me take off my entire pants and dance like a beggar. I had a CSE lab final the next day, but even after telling them this, I got no reprieve from those sick people. I had five other friends with me, and they were treated the same way. We also had to roll around on the floor. Since my home was outside Dhaka, I was too scared to say anything.
Case Study-35.
I had just gotten admitted to a university in the countryside. There was only one dormitory, and I moved in there. The ragging started the moment I entered the hall. Day and night, the ragging continued relentlessly. A senior brother had occupied the seat that was supposed to be mine. I told him very respectfully that the seat was mine. That was my mistake. He didn’t lay a hand on me, but said such things that I feel disgusted even remembering them. They would rag me saying that after I graduated, they would supposedly give me a job. (To this day, none of them have gotten good jobs—they’re wandering around like losers.) Anyway, an immediate senior brother let me stay on his bed. This brother was beloved not just by me but by other juniors as well. The reason was, he never ragged anyone. It even happened that many people would come to him crying because of the torture of ragging.
Later one day, his seniors grabbed him and took him away. They locked him in a room all night and beat him severely for the crime of helping and counseling juniors. Seeing this, we were stunned. After this, we vowed that we had to take revenge. Then, with great difficulty, we provided evidence of ragging to the university administration. Twenty-three senior students were expelled from the hall. Of these, fifteen were rusticated. After that, ragging essentially stopped at the university, in the hall. You could say that together, we all managed to eliminate ragging from the university.
Ragging is supposedly a process for meeting seniors! But what happens in its name is absolutely unacceptable.

There’s virtually no ragging at my university now (there might be some very soft ragging), but the relationship between juniors and seniors has improved significantly compared to before. Ragging has always been an utterly pointless thing. Those who rag are essentially implementing their sick, authoritarian, perverted tendencies through the act of ragging.
Case Study-36.
I studied at Gouranjani University. Even though it’s a private university, there’s a culture of ragging here. The funny thing is, they called this ragging “brotherhood.” During ragging, they would ask, “Tell me, what kind of university is this?” If the answer came back “private university,” then they would heap abuse and humiliation on you, teaching you that it’s not private—it’s a semi-private university.