I once dreamed about and took pride in being a student of the University of Dhaka, an institution that contributed to the language movement, the liberation war, and the democracy movement of the country. However, reading the claims of a certain party of “owning” the campus, I can’t help but worry about my younger sister as she prepares to start her dream journey in the university which was once known as “Oxford of the East.”
Having drastically different experiences in my own universities, both in Bangladesh and the US, I asked a professor in Bangladesh about the differences between “student politics” in Bangladesh and abroad. He said: “What students in Bangladesh are involved in, what is known as student politics, was never the real student politics.”
Moreover, he stated: “The political student body should be involved in that institution’s activities, and they should bargain with the (university) authority to protect the students’ interests. But unfortunately, our student politics is nothing but an extension of national politics. They are not student politics at all.”
So I did my own research about such a student body, popularly known as student government or union. Cambridge University Students’ Union “represents all 22,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge; works by bringing together students from all colleges and departments to campaign for positive change.”
The Associated Students of Stanford University “works to represent the interests, needs, and perspectives of Stanford students at every level of decision-making within the university.”
The Asian University for Women Student Government “represents and acts on behalf of the AUW student body to build a better community by creating a bridge of collaboration between the university administration and the student body, ensuring transparency and effectiveness of policies, and advocating for student voices.”
In contrast, the student political bodies in public universities in Bangladesh do not serve the interests of the students at all. The top three student political groups of Bangladesh are the student wings of the Awami League, BNP, and Jamaat-e-Islami. Thus, students who are involved in politics in public higher education institutions primarily serve the interests of Bangladesh’s national political parties. These parties have been involved in extensive instances of violence frequently throughout large public intuitions.
A piece in The Daily Star by a professor stated: “Since independence, only the University of Dhaka has seen an average of two students murdered every year, prompting suggestions to de-link ‘student politics’ from national politics.”
A group of Chhatra League men wrongly identified a 24-year-old tailor named Biswajit Das to be an opposition activist, and beat him to death in 2012. It was reported that the very same day that the Biswajit murder verdict was given, students of the same political affiliation had beaten up a non-political student at Dhaka University, suspecting he was from the opposition.
Moreover, it is now common for institutes of higher education to be closed during strikes caused by student politics. In any academic year, a minimum of 20 days is usually lost due to student political unrest.
The aforementioned incidents are just a glimpse of how out of control our student politics is. Would banning student politics rid universities in Bangladesh of this situation?
Many tend to suggest so. But what do we ban? These student political groups are not formal bodies of the institutions. Moreover, there is no legal ground to ban student politics because it is one’s political right, given by the constitution, to be able to engage in politics as they wish. Instead, we need to have fundamental changes regarding our own mechanisms for nurturing young politicians. And this has to be multi-dimensional.
Cutting ties with national parties and institutionally encouraging students to form student bodies that serve the interests of the students are the two most significant steps that need to be taken by the institutions and political parties.
Additionally, educational institutions should be held responsible for strictly enforcing academic rules and regulations regarding class attendance, examinations, and participation in other academic or extra-curricular activities.
At the same time, the national political parties must resist recruiting students in educational institutions and putting students’ lives in jeopardy in order to serve the parties’ interests. If students are practicing leadership through different activities and finishing up their formal education in a timely manner, they will automatically be ready to take on leadership positions outside the campus.
Students of Bangladesh have played an important role in the severest moments of national interest and democratisation, such as the language movement in 1952, the liberation war in 1971, and the democracy movement in 1990. Yet, today’s student-run politics within universities or such institutions are dominated by outside forces that do not speak for the students’ benefit at all.
I am proud that my sister is going to go the most prestigious university in the country. But I pray for her and the thousands of others like her, so that their dreams are not smashed by and inhuman political interests.