Editor,
It is deeply shameful that an 18-year-old MBBS student from a medical college in Patan, Gujarat, died as a result of ragging by his seniors. The accused, all second-year MBBS students, allegedly made the victim and several other juniors stand in a hostel room for over three hours on November 16, subjecting them to both mental and physical torture.
It is a misconception that victims of toxic masculinity are only women. A 17-year-old male student from Jadavpur University, had allegedly been sexually assaulted and ragged by senior students before his death in August of last year.
These two male students were also victims of toxic masculinity. Moreover, the perpetrator of toxic masculinity can even be a woman, such as Lynndie England, whose photographs of torturing prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War shocked the world.
The concept of toxic masculinity is gender-neutral, as highlighted in Konkona Sen Sharma’s film A Death in the Gunj. In the film, the main male character, Shutu, becomes a victim of toxic masculinity at the hands of his relatives.
Society must demand justice for these male students who were victims of ragging and ultimately lost their lives. A society should protest just as strongly against the ragging and murder of male students as against the rape and murder of female students. Both ragging and rape are manifestations of toxic masculinity.
Sujit De
Kolkata