From eNeRGy to CURE Every year, many students become victims of severe brutal ragging; many victims turn into perpetrators of the crime of ragging and there are others who are deeply pained due to the existence of this horrible practice. But it was only in 2001, that two students decided to shape their agony towards ragging in a constructive form called The NoRagging Group. In the first year of existence, The NoRagging Group started with the only website dedicated solely to ragging. It had brought under one roof various ragging assaults committed over the years, measures taken by govt., legislations, analysis, pictures, etc. The message was simple: See what has happened on the name of ragging and take it seriously. Another dominant idea at that time was to ask people to send in their ragging experiences and thus form a database of colleges where severe ragging existed. It was so believed that this website can then act as a deterrent and force college authorities with a bad record to take serious measures against ragging.
But what came as a rude shock to us was denial , denial not only to the existence of ragging, but denial of any suffering/ills of ragging. We at NoRagging Group (NRG, call it eNeRGy) thus identified the most difficult problem attached with the social evil of ragging, denial . No one was ready to accept that they ever faced or did ragging; and secondly all of them wanted to offer explanations for ragging. As a result, we received more hate-mails than constructive ones. But, NRG held its ground, it had a strong belief in its principle and knew things would change with persistence. What added to our disillusionment was our helplessness towards making things better for any ragging victim who contacted us. Whatever limited response we got, we kept on several email campaigns and chronicled various incidents we received through mail on our site. But, we were patient and rose like a phoenix in our second year of existence. Harsh Agarwal, a person who had given two years of his life to fight his own case of ragging joined NRG. He had exposed the inability of whole system from the Office of the HRD Minister to the faculty members of his college to do anything for a ragging victim. Harsh rejuvenated the spirit to do something for ending the plight of hundreds of ragging victims who have to bear all the nonsense due to their helplessness. His own example and energy level was inspiring for the group. Mr. Rajiv Ramchandran was another new joinee to the group, who gave it stability and maturity. The coming year saw a flurry of activity both intrinsic to NRG and towards its contribution to the society. eNeRGy had now transformed to CURE, Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education; and this is what we continue to do, transform the energy of the youth towards a CURE to ragging. CURE saw several brainstorming sessions to shape its goals, principles and methodology to achieve the finalised goals. The important decision was to move beyond the web and start activities on ground. With the efforts of Mr. Rajan Srivastava, CURE published the story of Harsh far and wide through the magazine of an NGO, Bhoomika. Rajiv's initiative saw CURE members deliver talks to students at various NGO meetings, inc. Unnati. CURE members were also invited to the panel of talk show, Kuchh Dil Se at Sab TV to keep their point of view to the audience. CURE was able to project the rightful picture of the phenomenon of ragging and make a sharp attack at the ‘denial' of ragging existent in society through these participation and talks. This paved way, and CURE conceptualized and anchored the show, Meri Baat for DD-Bharati in the year 2003. CURE had arrived as an educator to the masses on the issue of ragging. CURE had made it the highlight of its agenda to establish ragging as a social evil instead of ‘chalta hai' attitude and ignite public condemnation of the phenomenon of ragging. The year 2004 was a year of action and further planning. CURE published its first yearly periodical on the issue of ragging. CURE circulated some 1000 odd copies of this periodical to people around the nation inc. Delhi, Bangalore, Bombay, Aligarh, Pune, Chennai, etc through the help of members and patrons. The periodical demolished the myths about ragging, provided information regarding ragging incidents, included first hand ragging experiences, legislation information, CURE activities, etc. In the same year in an unprecedented move, Sachin Sony inspired from CURE activities prevented any ragging to occur in SIIB Pune. CURE also established an online counseling system, where Dr. VM Sharma, Consulting Psychiatrist, VIMHANS could be contacted by email by any ragging victim for counseling. Furthermore Anant Asthana, the initiator of CURE, Aligarh facilitated religious injunction against ragging from Darul Uloom Deoband. Apart from this periodical, CURE's slogan stickers have become part of many college workshop courseware, which constantly remind students about the ills of ragging. The efforts of Varun Srivastav of Appin Chennai towards this have been exceptional. Today CURE stands tall (but humbly) with a list of clear objectives and plans. A list of projects in this periodical shall tell you about our various activities and many others planned for future. The year 2005 shall see the extension of online counseling to telephonic counseling, slogan campaign through newspapers/caps/merchandise, setup of new college affiliates, essay competitions, etc. What could be a better testimony of our work that people on The NoRagging Yahoo Discussion Group (who have been witness to our work from the last four years) have started pouring in donations inspite of the fact that CURE is not a registered NGO as of today! We seek volunteers, honest workers, financiers for a good cause; Come and join the ever-growing CURE community! |
