5th Column

My dear Pasindu,

I am writing to you, knowing very well that you are not able to read this, as you lie on a hospital bed in an intensive care unit hooked up to machines that breathe for you. I am also writing to you knowing very well that you may never be able to read this. Still, I feel it is important to write to you now.

Just last week, you were a youngster on the threshold of life, having overcome hardships during your young days. You lost your beloved mother a few days before the highly competitive Advanced Level examination. Despite that shock, you were still able to secure your place in a university.

No one would have blamed you for believing that, provided you completed your academic work at the university in the same way that you did at school, a better life awaited you. You must have surely wanted to repay the faith that your parents, who toiled long and hard for your success, kept in you.

Yet, here you are now, lying on a hospital bed, your life itself hanging by a thread. The hopes of those near and dear to you have been shattered. Although many questions are being asked about ragging in universities and the entire country is outraged, the final question is, will all that be enough?

It certainly won’t be enough for you. Doctors have said it is highly unlikely that you will make a full recovery that will enable you to return to your studies and realise the hopes and ambitions that you once had. Indeed, many would be happy if you are strong enough to survive your ordeal.

That leaves us with the question as to why this happened to you – and why it has continued to happen from time to time over several decades. Although some try to make out that what you suffered was just an ‘accident’, we all know that is not the truth – if not for ‘ragging’, this wouldn’t have occurred.

You may be too young to remember someone by the name of Rupa Rathnaseeli. Like you, she was an undergraduate, but at Peradeniya 45 years ago. She was subjected to cruel and inhuman forms of ragging. She jumped from a building to escape that and was paralysed at the age of 22.

With all her dreams destroyed, and having lived like that for another 22 years, she took her own life unable to bear it any longer. If the pundits who claim that you suffered an accident were asked, they would have said it was all her fault because it is she who committed suicide!

Five years prior to that, we had already heard of the terrible plight of Selvanayagam Varapragash, another student at Peradeniya who was also subjected to strenuous exercises until his kidneys failed. He too succumbed to his injuries. Even though some were charged, no one was properly punished.

The same year that Rupa Rathnaseeli took her own life, Samantha Vithanage, a student at Sri Jayewardenepura was killed by a mob of fellow students in a violent clash. His crime was to lead a group of students who were against ragging and trying to halt that degrading ritual in his university.

These are names that come up for discussion whenever the subject of ragging is discussed. There are many others who have been subjected to ragging and paid with their life or in some other way. Now, you are at risk of having your name added to this long and seemingly unending list of victims.

If we go back to what happened to Rupa Rathnaseeli, that was 45 years ago. Yet, here we are today, when pretty much everything – governments, Constitutions, wars and possibly every institution in the country – have changed since then, still dealing with the despicable issue of inhumane ragging.

It seems that either no one can change this – or no one has the courage to do so. A few ministers – such as Ranjan during the Premadasa era and SB (whatever his other faults are) have tried, but they obviously haven’t been successful, or you wouldn’t be lying critically ill on a hospital bed today.

We know new laws were passed after the incidents involving Varapragash and Vithanage 20 years ago but that seemed to have done little to curb the demonic enthusiasm of these sadists. The big question on everyone’s mind is when will this ever end?  Or, for that matter, will it ever end?

We hope and pray for your speedy recovery, Pasindu. We also hope that what happened to you will open the eyes of those responsible to bring in measures that will bring an end to this menace once and for all – but we know that we may be hoping in vain because all those before you have suffered in vain.

Yours truly,

Punchi Putha

PS: When Gota maama was elected, he was hailed as being responsible for defeating the world’s most ruthless terrorists and as someone who can ‘change the system’ because he was never a politician. The question now is, is stopping ragging in our campuses more difficult than defeating the Tiger terrorists?