The banning of Chhatra League should be an entirely non-controversial decision and is frankly only the first step of what needs to be done to hold it to account for the atrocities that it has committed over the past decade and a half, to say nothing of its ignoble role in July and August.
Make no mistake about it: the BCL was a criminal organization by any definition of the term. What else would you call an organization whose primary purpose is to serve as the private army for a dictatorial, oppressive regime?
Not only did the BCL exercise a reign of terror both across all public university campuses with complete impunity, controlling every aspect of university life, but it extended its reach into common or garden criminality such as extortion, rigging of tenders, land grabbing, etc.
The question isn’t why it has now been banned, but why a criminal organization was able to run roughshod over the Bangladeshi people for so long without consequence. Murder, rape, assault, intimidation -- no crime was left uncommitted.
Of course, we all know the reason why. The reason is that the ruling Awami League believed that it needed its stormtroopers to maintain the party’s hold on power, and thereby hangs a sorry tale.
It is a fair question to ask whether Bangladesh has ever had a functioning democracy in our 52 year history, not just the past decade of stolen elections.
I would posit the notion that, our fond belief to the contrary notwithstanding, that we have never enjoyed true democracy in Bangladesh, democracy being defined as the electorate getting to vote for whoever they wish to without fear.
And the reason for this is the student fronts of the political parties who operate as their shock troops.
In sum, you cannot hope to have a successful political party in Bangladesh unless you have at your disposal an army of thousands of young men, armed and willing to commit violence on your behalf.
I’m sorry, but that is not democracy. When political parties exist without an armed wing who commit violence on their behalf, then we can talk about democracy existing in Bangladesh.
The issue of whether student politics should or shouldn’t exist in Bangladesh is something of a misnomer, as what we are talking about when we talk about student politics in Bangladesh isn’t really student politics by any normal definition of the term, but the existence of criminal gangs that serve as adjuncts to political power.
And of course there is no question -- or there should be no question -- that political parties should not have criminal gangs in their service. The fact that we have tolerated this and normalized it says something very poor about the Bangladeshi people and our expectations of our elected leaders, and by extension, ourselves.
One of the fundamental insights of the July uprising and the new world which it has brought about is that as a society and a nation, we had become accustomed to accepting things that are in no way acceptable, and that this is why there is a need for a complete realignment of the body politic and how we as a people relate to our elected leaders and to one another.
If we aspire to be a democracy it is simply unacceptable for criminal organizations such as BCL to exist as adjuncts to political parties. The fact that this needs to be said, much less that it was tolerated for so long, is in fact shocking, when you stop to think about it for a second.
In fact, banning them should be only the first step. The more salient concern is to bring the entire BCL leadership and those individuals guilty of serious crimes to book.
With the banning of BCL there no longer remains any plausible reason for any other political party to retain their own student fronts
Whether every member of BCL should be held accountable for the crimes of the organization is a fair question, as there is some evidence that many junior members or foot soldiers were coerced into joining and may have had limited choice in the matter.
Perhaps some kind of truth and reconciliation process with amnesty for those members who are not guilty of serious crimes would be the way to move forward.
Of course, the question now arises as to what should be done with respect to other student fronts of the other political parties: Specifically, the Chhatra Dal and the Chhatra Shibir.
Both of these entities have records very similar to the one of the BCL, the only difference being that they have been out of power for 17 years, so the memory of their crimes has faded somewhat.
The current members are also unlikely to be the same ones who committed atrocities almost two decades ago and so the issue of prosecution and proscribing becomes more complicated.
Though, if we are talking about terrorist activity (BCL has been banned as a terrorist organization), the role played by Shibir in 1971 would seem to fall squarely within that ambit. JCD in the early 90s and 2000s also had its own grim record of atrocity.
Either way, though, there is no reason for these parties to have armed cadres to do their bidding either, any more than the AL should have theirs.
If neither the legal grounds nor the political appetite currently exist to proscribe the JCD or the Shibir as terrorist organizations, as the BCL has been proscribed, there is still every reason for them and all other student fronts to be decommissioned or for both the political parties and law enforcement to implement a zero tolerance policy for crimes committed by anyone affiliated to a political party.
In fact, with the banning of BCL there no longer remains any plausible reason for any other political party to retain their own student fronts. Student fronts are like nuclear weapons: you only need them to the extent that the other side has theirs. If one side has been disarmed, then there is no need for the other side to retain theirs.
If the other political parties, especially the BNP and Jamaat, really wanted to signal to the voting public that it is a new day in Bangladesh, and that Bangladesh 2.0 means political parties that operate lawfully, conscientiously, and with the best interests of the voters at heart, the best way to do it would be for them to voluntarily decommission their own student fronts.
Failing that, decommissioning of violent student fronts, with serious consequences for political parties whose members and affiliates commit crime, would be a salutary reform to be considered by the electoral reform commission.
Zafar Sobhan is Editor, Dhaka Tribune.