Note: This was written sometime ago, precisely on 29 January 2012 at 00:25 A.m. as a not on my old FB account.
I published this here because I felt it's timely for this to reappear.
It’s not like you do it with utmost care and expertise as in a medical surgery where your belly is dissected and intestines are examined and cleaned that you go for a Hara-kiri. It’s when you find yourself utterly helpless in a ferocious battle surrounded by foes who are positioning themselves to take their best turn and chance either to take you down or to capture you alive, that you resort to this detrimental option. Except in euthanasia, killing oneself is one of the toughest calls one could undertake in one’s lifetime.
By the looks of it, the current plight of many Sri Lankan government Universities is such that both the under graduates as well as the tertiary academia are in the process of digging their own graves in striving to survive at an outbreak of a privatization of sorts.
I remember those gone old times in which we as advanced level students wracked our exhausted brains in determining our stance with regard to the establishment of private universities in Sri Lanka, which had been then slyly dished towards us as an essay topic. At one time they had even asked whether it’s a blessing or a curse if my memory serves me right. I wonder what happened to those who wrote it’s a blessed curse or a cursed blessing in the exam at that time. The panel of examiners either could have awarded more marks to such essays claiming them to be witty and creative pieces of the bright crowd or they could have despised them altogether as follies of the silly crowd who haven’t understood or addressed the topic properly. While the things were known to be so, I personally had temporary and tentative stances which varied from one essay to another which I wrote for myself and for other lazy classmates of mine on demand. To my conscience of course, the future was uncertain to an extent that the dilemma whether I would or wouldn’t remain alive to see the sun rising for the next day was constantly dallying in my mind. Would you dare expect less from an islander destined to live with a three decades old war by the side? Therefore I didn’t care much about campuses as to whether they will or will not establish private ones.
Rather than mincing my words in minstrelsy of the folks at FUTA who are plagued with camouflaged and untraceable yet limitless plagiarism (which is their game without a name) concerning many of the research papers they present at present as the only occupation with which they are thoroughly engrossed and heavily paid for, I prefer to talk about the students who are susceptible to the politically backed pro-ragging tittle-tattle and anti-privatization protests.
When it comes to ragging as a part of the life at universities, it has numerous pros as well as cons. As for the bright side of things, ragging void of brutality inclusive of physical assault and harassments of all sorts, can be considered the pluss side with ample fun and fraternity. Lately in the middle of a friendly conversation I had with one of our seniors he revealed to me how such harmless ragging contributes to build a camaraderie between the fresher crowd and the seniors. For example, the first-years have earlier been warned by the seniors to be cautious about choosing the course units at the outset itself depending on the results given in the previous semester / year. When at the friendliest terms, those seniors have divulged even 'classified' information which came handy for many girls at that time as to which lecturers required their beauty and flesh for better results and which lecturers did not. In this highly pressurized environment concerning students, the scholars who benefitted by such advice are displaying an unprecedented keenness in ridiculing and demoting all kinds of ragging which take place at campuses. Most certainly it is quite alright to condemn politically motivated and narrow-minded raggers and those who urge or rather force the first years to engage in protests and other such campaigns even without an awareness of the intents of those activities. Yet, I observe a concealed jealousy and a loathsome hypocracy from those who look down upon even the rapport that ragging in a progressive light could foster among the batches of undergraduates in universities.
It is apparently impossible to believe that this progressive aspect of ragging has been overlooked by those who have gone through it and now trying to eradicate ragging from the entire university system having seated in their comfy chairs. In my opinion, they are deliberately undermining this opportunity of establishing a strong bond among the batches of university students so that the generations that flourish after them would hardly be capable as they are unless those successors themselves would have the urge to accomplish their expected endeavors.
In a different light, this suppression of progressive ragging could be viewed as a control mechanism that could prevent the establishing of unity among the students which if takes place, could possibly cause a danger even to the state administration at certain points. Hence why shan’t we put it down to a lame attempt of employing the typical, old fashion ‘divide and rule’ tactic.

Rather than thus attempting to suppress ragging altogether, why can’t the government and the responsible parties look into the causes of such uproars in a more rational manner and make arrangements to treat those intricacies by fair means which could retain the endangered democracy of this Democratic Republic? Although a palpable amount of propaganda is done with the view to fighting the ragging off in the very same way they fought the terrorism off this land, could it be called fair to use the very same rush to implant a highly privatized system of education and higher education step by step having abolished the most revered free education from Sri Lanka perhaps in accordance with the Whitehouse trend of demolishing the availability of free contents and free knowledge on Internet through SOPA and PIPA ?
Though Americans were strong enough to make the Whitehouse give those bills a break, will Sri Lankans be able to do the same with the soon-too-be-passed act on Private Universities?