JOURNEY THROUGH RAGGING

A Personal Account from a Sri Lankan State University

- By Thasmina Sookoor

Ragging in state universities of Sri Lanka has become a trending and highly sensitive topic these days. As someone who has experienced it firsthand, I felt compelled to share my personal journey with ragging during my time at a state university in Sri Lanka.

To be honest, it was not a pleasant experience. After completing my A/Ls, I began to dream about higher education. A few months later, I received the long-awaited good news. My results were good enough, and my Z-score qualified me for entry into a state university. It was unexpected, but I was overjoyed. I had always known the academic standards of state universities in Sri Lanka were high, and this felt like a major milestone.

By then, I had already started working and was pursuing a few external diplomas on the side. Like most students, as soon as I received my university entrance letter, I started researching the university culture, particularly about “RAGGING.” As someone who strongly believes in individual freedom and self-respect, the information I came across was deeply unsettling. To make matters more challenging, the university I was selected for was far from home, and I had never been away from my family for long. It was my parents who stood firm on sending me for higher education because they believed in my potential more than I did. And so, the journey began. I resigned from my job, shed many tears, and went through sleepless, stressful nights trying to mentally prepare myself for this new challenge.