The tragedy involving a young college student in Himachal Pradesh’s Dharamshala has shaken the public conscience, and rightly so. A life was lost, allegedly after prolonged harassment, intimidation, and abuse. Grief demands justice, and justice demands investigation. Yet, in moments like these, there is a tendency to look for one clear villain and one clear failure. Educational institutions often become that convenient target. This response may feel morally satisfying, but it risks oversimplifying a far more complex and uncomfortable reality.
It is important to say this clearly and responsibly. Most schools and colleges today do not encourage ragging. Many actively prohibit it, invest in anti-ragging policies, conduct awareness programs, and issue repeated warnings. Faculty members and administrators, in large measure, want campuses to be safe. To suggest otherwise is to misunderstand the ethical challenge we are facing. The harder truth is this. Even when institutions prohibit ragging, it continues. Even when rules exist, they are violated. Even when warnings are given, harm still occurs. This is where the conversation must shift from accusation to understanding.
Ragging today is not merely an institutional failure. It is a social, psychological, and moral puzzle that we have not yet learned how to solve. We are dealing with a generation growing up in contradiction. Young people are told to be competitive yet compassionate, assertive yet respectful, and ambitious yet ethical. They are exposed daily to digital cultures that reward dominance, humiliation, and public shaming. Power is performed online through ridicule and control. When such values seep into real life, especially into enclosed environments like hostels and campuses, the results can be destructive.
The uncomfortable question is this. Why do some students choose cruelty even when they know it is wrong?
Rules alone cannot answer that. Many acts of ragging are committed not by hardened criminals but by ordinary students who, in other contexts, appear responsible and even caring. This does not excuse their actions. But it forces us to confront a deeper moral confusion. These students often do not see themselves as perpetrators of violence. They see themselves as participants in a distorted ritual of belonging. Harm is normalized through repetition. Responsibility is diluted through group behaviour. Guilt is postponed because consequences feel distant or unlikely.
This is not something institutions intentionally create. It is something society collectively fails to address early enough. Schools and colleges can prohibit ragging, but they cannot single-handedly repair moral development gaps that begin long before students enter campus. Many young people arrive without having learned how to handle authority, rejection, difference, or power. Emotional literacy is weak. Conflict resolution is unfamiliar. Empathy is assumed rather than taught. In such a vacuum, dominance becomes an easy language.
What makes cases like this particularly painful is that suffering often remains invisible until it is irreversible. Students who are harassed frequently do not report immediately. Not because institutions discourage it, but because fear overrides trust. Fear of social isolation. Fear of being labelled weak. Fear of escalation. Fear of not being believed. This fear operates internally long before it becomes a policy issue. From an ethical perspective, this matters. Moral responsibility is not only about enforcing rules after harm occurs. It is about creating environments where speaking up feels possible. That is a slow cultural process, not a quick administrative fix.
We must also be careful not to turn every tragedy into a narrative of institutional collapse. When we do that, we unintentionally absolve individuals of moral agency. Students are not passive products of systems. They are moral actors. When they harm others, that responsibility belongs to them first. Ethical accountability must remain personal before it becomes procedural. At the same time, faculty members accused of misconduct must face rigorous investigation without prejudice or protection. Authority carries heightened ethical responsibility. But here again, judgment must follow due process. Ethical seriousness demands neither denial nor hysteria. It demands patience, evidence, and fairness.
One of the most troubling aspects of such cases is how quickly we retreat into certainty. We decide who failed, who is guilty, and who is negligent. Yet the reality is messier. Harm can occur even in institutions that actively discourage ragging. Abuse can happen even where policies exist. Prevention is not a guarantee. It is a commitment that must be renewed constantly. Perhaps the most urgent ethical task before us is to understand students not only as learners but as moral beings in formation. Anti-ragging affidavits and warning notices are necessary, but insufficient. We need sustained ethical education that engages emotions, not just intellect. Conversations about consent, dignity, power, and accountability must be lived discussions, not annual formalities.
We also need to address peer cultures more honestly. Students listen to other students far more than they listen to authority. Institutions can create frameworks, but peer leadership determines everyday behaviour. Empowering students to protect one another, intervene early, and reject cruelty publicly may be the most effective form of prevention. This tragedy should not lead us to distrust educational institutions wholesale. It should lead us to ask more nuanced questions. How do young people internalize values? Why does cruelty sometimes feel like strength? Why does silence feel safer than truth? Until we face these questions seriously, policies alone will keep failing us. Justice for the victim must be uncompromising. Accountability must be real. But ethical progress will come only when we stop searching for simple villains and start confronting complex causes.
Ragging is not sustained because institutions approve of it. It survives because we do not yet fully understand how fear, power, group identity, and moral immaturity intersect in young minds. Until we do, tragedies like this will continue to shock us, even as we claim to have done everything right. The challenge before us is not to defend institutions blindly or condemn them reflexively. It is to build a culture where rules are supported by conscience, authority is matched by trust, and education shapes character as seriously as it shapes careers. Only then can campuses truly become spaces where growth never comes at the cost of another person’s dignity or life.
