Divya Delhi: It is difficult to overlook the "Say No To Ragging" banners emblazoned on the enormous building as one passes the archway of Government Nursing College in Kottayam. But across campus, six first-year students were subjected to horrifying torment that continued unchecked for three months.Social media users are sharing disturbing images of a first-year student who is chained to a cot and repeatedly stabbed with a geometry divider while his cruel seniors apply moisturizer to the wounds. A dumbbell is positioned on the boy's groin in another footage. The police and media now have access to more explicit footage that were taken by the offenders themselves. Five students have been detained by police in connection with the torture, which allegedly started in November 2024. They have been charged with causing harm, criminal intimidation, extortion, and violating the Kerala Prohibition of Ragging Act.This most recent instance of ragging, which is tantamount to third-degree torture, follows shortly after a ninth-grader committed suicide, purportedly as a result of bullying at a prominent Kochi school.Eleven second-year MBBS students were suspended as a result of two ragging incidences that were reported in Kozhikode in the past two weeks alone, from MES College and the Government Medical College. Another incident from Kannur included a plus-one student who was brutally assaulted by five plus-two pupils, breaking his arm.Although the state's collective awareness is still shaped by the death of Sidharthan, a student at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences, last year, the system has not improved as a result. If fact, these episodes appear to follow a distinct pattern, suggesting a more serious institutional problem in Kerala.Kerala took the lead in enacting a robust anti-ragging law in 1998, and it has a number of literacy "firsts" to its credit. This came after a wave of ragging incidents that occurred throughout the 1990s, primarily from engineering and medical schools throughout the state. However, it's possible that the law hasn't altered people's opinions. Kerala's progressive spirit has long been threatened by patriarchy, moral policing, and even ragging.Raging is problematic because it starts a vicious cycle. Even psychiatrists attest to the well-known fact that freshmen who experience ragging as a rite of passage are more likely to continue it. Many kids retain the trauma of being humiliated in the name of ragging into adulthood.However, a lot of people in Kerala are used to putting up with it. There are learned scholars who dismiss it as an initiation and defend ragging as "friendly teasing." Some refer to it as a "ice-breaker" that is intended to "open up" newcomers.It makes sense that more and more young men and women are eager to leave Kerala in order to pursue higher education. In addition to improved job opportunities, these students value personal autonomy and self-worth, which Keralan universities might not always provide.In response to the brain drain, Kerala's Left administration has changed its mind about opposing the establishment of campuses by private and international institutions in the state. However, given the annual increase in the number of students leaving the country, the action might have been made too late.Banners reading "Welcome to Red Fort" are frequently seen on campuses around Kerala. These banners are displayed by the Students Federation of India (SFI), which is the student branch of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).The bodies of Left instructors support and facilitate the SFI's hegemony over universities and even private colleges. The SFI is now the main hiring organization for the CPI-M, taking the position of the Confederation of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) in the liberalization era. In an interview with me for ThePrint, MA Baby, a member of its Politburo, decided to characterize PM Arsho, the notorious state secretary of SFI, as a “militant student leader”.