UP med students tonsured and ragged: VC says ragging is a matter of 'love and sanskaar'

After videos surfaced of the horrific incident of alleged ragging, in which the junior students were seen with shaved heads and “bowing in reverence” to the seniors while walking in a single line at a prestigious university in Uttar Pradesh, now the Vice-Chancellor appears to defend the act in another outrageous video interview.

What came as a shock to most of the people on social media is that the VC of the UP University of Medical Sciences in Saifai village, appears to defend the practice in a video interview with NDTV, stating that "these kids can't even tolerate 10 per cent" of the ragging he had faced when he was a medical student. "You know I was ragged so badly when I was a student during the 80s. These kids can't even tolerate 10 per cent of that. When I was a student we used to jump over walls out of respect for our seniors. The same seniors then fed us samosas and tea, they taught us the difficult chapters, trained us for the classes. But that culture has gone now," Dr Raj Kumar, Vice-Chancellor of the Uttar Pradesh University of Medical Sciences in Safai village, can be heard saying in the video. The VC adds that ragging is only a matter of love and 'sanskaar' which has been inculcated into students of various institutions through time. 

The VC appears to be condoning the act calling it a matter of love and sanskaar. Then, the pertinent questions that remain are - what is to stop the seniors in that college from crossing their lines and taking it to physical abuse or violence? How do we know anything is being done to stop these alleged acts of ragging?

After several attempts of trying to contact the administration, no one was ready to comment on the matter. Over 150 first-year medical students at the UP university were forced to shave their heads and salute their seniors, in an alleged case of severe ragging that took place at the university in the state on Tuesday. The videos circulating on social media of them walking with bald heads have garnered criticism from netizens across the country.