Tanvir Aeijaz writes from his experience of being part of the sub-committee of the Raghavan Committee that prepared a fact-finding report on the Aman Kachroo case for the Supreme Court:
…not all but some juniors are targeted, as they are perceived as weak, vulnerable and pliant maybe in terms of gender, religion, caste, class and ethnicity. In the case of Aman, it was between modernity and local conservatism. Aman was smart, good looking, having a charismatic personality (won many prizes in the college academic and cultural activities) and, above all, he used to speak English with a tinge of accent (he studied abroad for sometime). All these qualities, particularly the last one, made him vulnerable and weak in the eyes of local goon-students. Being modern and progressive, I realised during my discussion with the medicos there, has its own flip-side, so much so that it renders the putative ‘support structures’ of modern civilised society ‘attack-structures’ for those who dare to think and do things against the conservative mores, culture and lifestyles. [Link]
Filed under: 2008-09, Himachal Pradesh, ragging deaths, research and opinion | Tagged: Aman Kachroo, ragging
