Is it ragging or Stockholm syndrome on our campuses?

A fresher was stripped, beaten and made to dance naked in the Industrial Training Institute in New Delhi on Thursday. He had injury marks on his genitals and needed stitches.

For over a decade, incidents such as this have been debated and discussed, but we’re still short of understanding what drives this behaviour. In our attempt to look for a solution, we may have focused too much on the law and order aspect of ragging, ignoring the need to probe its psychological mysteries. We have no clue, for instance, why a victim who has been traumatised makes his abuser his best pal in a short span of time and then follows the same strategy with his juniors.

In August 1973, two bank robbers held four hostages in Stockholm. The man and three women held captive for six days developed emotional bonds with their captors, even resisting attempts made by the police to rescue them. One of the women later got engaged to one of the kidnappers. Another arranged funds for the legal defence of the kidnappers.

This incident baffled experts around the world. Psychologists later termed this behaviour the Stockholm Syndrome. Apart from hostage situations, psychologists believe hazing, child abuse, battered spouses and pimp-prostitute ties are examples of Societal Stockholm Syndrome.

Psychologists explain that capture-bonding, or social reorientation after capture, is an essential survival trait: captives who reoriented themselves survived and those who did not form social bonds with their captors were killed.

Today, when I look back at my ragging days in medical college, I can understand why my seniors used to beat me recklessly for hours without any provocation, and later show acts of kindness, like offering tea and samosas or promising to   help me with my notes. This pattern can be seen in ragging across the country.

I recently watched a Polish film Your Name is Justyna about a pimp who uses the same strategy to convince the protagonist into prostitution. He was trying to break her by simultaneously using torture and kindness. While researching the subject, the director Franco De Penn found that over 150,000 girls in Europe were pushed into prostitution using this tactic. Penn says that the experience takes away the individual’s personality.

We can find people around us who went through ragging decades ago but are still under the influence of this psychology. They justify the ‘initiation of a long-lasting camaraderie’ and to prepare students for the ‘real world’. Psychologists agree it helps in establishing emotional bonds but they call it ‘traumatic bonding’ and ‘manipulative behaviour’.

Students are so blinded by the virtues of ragging that they are unaware of the destructive psychology behind it. Awareness of this psychology can weaken the mass support that ragging continues to enjoy on our campuses. 

The author is a co-founder of the Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE)