Now that the school teacher Hriday Mondal is out on bail, there are a good number of steps that the state should be taking to ensure that never again will he, or for that matter, any citizen of Bangladesh, be subjected to such humiliation.
Let us begin with that student, or those students, who recorded Mondal’s classroom comments, even as they egged him on into making, falsely as it turns out, comments that went against the spirit of religious belief. That act of surveillance, for surveillance it was on the part of the student or students, was nothing short of Orwellian.
Those who then handed over the audio recording of Mondal’s comments to the headmaster of Binodpur Ramkumar High School engaged in manifest wrongdoing, in conduct that one does not expect from students in any educational institution. It is the student who persistently asked provocative questions about science and religion of Hridoy Mondal and taped his responses who now needs to be disciplined. Such students are a disgrace to education.
The unfortunate reality is that the headmaster of the school did not carry out that responsibility of putting the leash on the student or students. He simply threw Mondal to the wolves, in this instance the mob baying for his blood on the basis of the audio tape.
Of course, as Mondal himself has made it known, he was taken into custody by the police for his own security. But that begs the question: Is it not the job of the state to deal firmly with shady elements, such as the student or students who recorded Mondal’s remarks, rather than have the victim of such outrageous conduct suffer for no rhyme or reason?
The truth out there is that Hriday Mondal said or did nothing that constituted blasphemy or, as so many of us are fond of putting it every now and then, hurting religious sentiments. That fact being obvious, the elements behind the audio should have been charged with criminal conduct. Mondal ought not to have been arrested in the first place.
But that he has been subjected to such gross insult -- and his family cowers in fear for lack of security -- throws up a stark, dark image of how values have declined in this country. When teachers are afraid to speak on science in the classroom because those young vigilantes are present in that classroom with their skewed versions of God, it is a sign of the moral bankruptcy which we in Bangladesh have been pushed into in our times.
But it does not have to be this way. And the state can begin to redeem itself through correcting the wrong that was visited on Mondal. In the first place, it should have the case against him withdrawn fully and unconditionally. In the second, it should carry out an extensive inquiry into the behaviour of some colleagues he believes were instrumental in framing him, behaviour which led to his spending 19 days in prison.
In the third, question the headmaster of the school about his failure to stand by Mondal even when he knew the allegations against him lacked credibility. In the fourth, take the boy or boys responsible for the audio into custody and grill him or them on their criminal conduct.
Apart from all such action which needs to be taken, in order to restore Hriday Mondal in society with all his dignity and to reassure citizens that never again will there be a repeat of such atrocious behaviour, the education authorities must come forth with a decree banning all mobile phones in the classroom.
It should be criminal conduct for anyone, students as well as teachers, to walk into the classroom with mobile phones. School and college administrations must put in place the arrangements by which all mobile phones will be kept in the custody of the administration of the institutions, to be returned to their owners once classes are over.
These are dangerous times we inhabit. And the danger comes from people all too ready to push people into precarious conditions through a misapplication of technology. Telephone conversations are tapped and often released on social media. Individuals commenting on contemporary issues are treated to the most vulgar exercise of vocabulary by the apparently uncouth and therefore less than civilized.
Fanatics driven by hate think little of the predicament they are pushing the country to by their deliberate hate of religious beliefs not theirs. When a policeman feels uncomfortable with the teep on a woman’s forehead, it is hate he spouts and directs at society.
It is here that the state must come in purposefully. In a state born out of the crucible of war, there can be little reason for those in the administration not to go for tough action when such action is required. And tough action is not putting journalists in fetters but looking into the allegations of wrongdoing, of corruption they highlight in their reportage.
It is not journalists who must be subjected to prosecution. It is those they cite for corruption who must be investigated by the state. Tough action is not to paper over malfeasance in state-run as also privately-owned organizations but go after the perpetrators of such crime in grim determination.
If we can go after war criminals and reassure the nation that justice has been done through prosecuting and punishing them, if we have been able to send Bangabandhu’s assassins to the gallows, it is but natural that we will expect the administration to go hard and go tough on money launderers, on bureaucrats and political elements who have regularly undermined the country.
We need to be informed how men and women of influence and sudden affluence have come by the wherewithal to purchase homes abroad when the peasant and the factory worker and the office clerk and the rickshaw puller struggle to make ends meet here at home.
Hriday Mondal personifies a society we need to reclaim from those who have stealthily and then brazenly extended their grasping hands over a long stretch of time. Observe the ubiquity of new cars on the roads; observe the rich getting nauseatingly richer; observe the widening gap between those who have much and those condemned to be in possession of the paltry.
Think of the poor auto-rickshaw driver whose life gets to be a nightmare because he cannot cough up the money to have his vehicle back from the policeman who has seized it and will not let go of it without gratification.
In Hriday Mondal we spot the grave need for the rule of law to prevail. In his defense and in the defense of others like him we must rise to beat back the mobs, those which find nothing shameful with sending a respected teacher to jail.
We must rise in defense of the cause of democratic politics, for democracy -- being our touchstone on all things good and liberal and beautiful -- is a bulwark against those who sent Hriday Mondal to jail.
Pushing Hriday Mondal into prison was a manifestation of the steep decline of our education system, of the values which have been getting whittled down step by relentless step.
When Hriday Mondal went to prison, all of us went to prison with him.
Syed Badrul Ahsan is a journalist and biographer.