Bullying: The Role Of Social Harassment In Our Society

Introduction:
Verbal and physical harassment has been prevalent in our society as long as one can remember. These modes of afflicting social harm on others have evolved into ‘bullying’ and ‘ragging’ over time and have become so ingrained in our society that one does not need to look hard to find these social illnesses being practiced around us. Bullying is the act of victimizing a person continuously, by another person or a group, when he/she is exposed to negative actions on the part of other people or ‘bullies’. This act consists of hurling abuses, taunts, insults and physical abuse on someone; this process in effect asserts an individual’s or group’s dominance over the one being bullied. As a consequence, a person’s self-esteem is harmed

Another difference one can highlight is in the fact that ragging usually occurs in the freshmen years of a person’s university life and rarely happens outside that period. It is an act carried out by seniors in educational institutes which involves forcing the juniors to carry out daring tasks in front of total strangers. This is done by dominance over a person by defaming them and laying stress on their own seniority. Students usually conform to these seniors on account of the threats they receive from the seniors if their demands are not met. These threats are mostly empty but in certain extreme cases things may get out of hand and may result in physical violence. Even though ragging itself poses a threat to a person’s social wellbeing, it does not bring drastic changes in a person’s personality as bullying does. One can argue that the effects of ragging can be relative in the sense that it depends on the victim on how he takes the experience, so it does not matter if the intensity is lesser or higher than bullying. But as compared to bullying, ragging does not have the potential of being as continuous as bullying is because it only occurs during the first two to three weeks of freshmen year and ceases afterwards. However, whatever happens in the name of ‘ice-breaking’ is considered against social ethics and does

In schools and universities, even though strict rules have been devised against them, they are rarely implemented. There is a lack of awareness and a common misconception that ragging and bullying is nothing more than teenagers having fun, making jokes and fooling around. Victims rarely speak up against these issues as they themselves are under a lot of social pressure and tend to avoid talking to anyone. Therefore, this research is conducted to understand the various factors that lead to bullying and ragging and how harmful it’s effects can be on the victim. In order to provide a comprehensive and systematic view about this issue a research has been conducted and all of the findings have been compiled in this report which involves a micro and macro-sociological analysis of the