Five days after the death of a first-year student at West Bengal’s Jadavpur University (JU), a new hoarding on campus declared in bold, red and black letters: ‘Ragging: A Criminal Offence. The Supreme Court of India directs institutions to expel students found guilty of ragging.’ Also on display were names and telephone numbers of 22 members of the university’s Anti-Ragging Committee.
Going by the University Grants Commission (UGC) directive that all educational institutions in the country observe August 12-18 as anti-ragging week, the timing of the message was on point. Perhaps the hoarding was commissioned before a student lost his life allegedly due to ragging at the university. In this new context, it became an eyesore, a reminder that JU had failed to protect a boy who would have turned 18 in two months.
As university staff carried ladders to light one of the hoardings at gate no. 3 of the university, Pijush Gayen, a student of the linguistics department, watching this said, “These posters should have been put up before the first-year students started coming to campus; now they look like a cruel joke.”
