Dr Mohammad Didare Alam Muhsin :
One of the main demands of the recent anti-discrimination student movement was to ban the student politics in universities. Many emphasized on banning the party-affiliated student politics.
The success of the mass movement launched by students in the country and the fall of the autocratic regime created a favourable environment for the implementation of this demand.
Gonotantrik Chhatra Shakti, one of the key student organizations leading the movement, announced the suspension of the activity of all their committees across the country to press this demand more seriously.
Later, in the context of the killing of a mentally unbalanced person by some students in Dhaka University, the university authority banned all kinds of politics regardless of students and teachers.
Student movement has played an important role at different stages in the history of this country including the language movement, the mass uprising of 1969, the war of independence and the anti-dictatorship popular uprising of 1990.
The recent anti-discrimination student movement, which toppled one and a half decade long autocratic regime sitting on the throne of the country, has set a precedent that is rare in the context of this country and in the history of the world as well.
Many would still consider it as an unbelievable dream.
Despite all this, student politics, especially the politics of the main student organizations dominating the educational institutions, has created many controversies in post-independence Bangladesh.
Recent decades have seen student organizations affiliated to government party establish a reign of terror in educational institutions. They have no noteworthy constructive activities. Their main job is to act as armaments for government party and government nominated university administration.
In return, they exert undue influence on the university administration and continue, unquestioningly, misdeeds like trading seats in hostels, eating free in dining and canteens, extortion from shops located in the campus and surroundings, extortion from contractors, etc.
Bullying and physically and mentally abusing common students and members of other student organizations is part of their regular activities. During the post-independence period, many murders occurred in the universities in this country.
Most of these involved the student body of the ruling party or some other major student body that had influence on the campus. Thus, student politics, especially the activities of student organizations of the ruling party, has become a nightmare for students in university campuses and therefore the demand to stop student politics in educational institutions has become a mass demand today.
On the other hand, recalling the glorious role of student politics in different critical junctures of this country, many are of the opinion that student politics should be allowed to continue. There is no doubt that students are the most protestant section in a society.
The way they can stand up against any injustice is not possible for common people. Moreover, students always have a desire to do something for the country and society. If this energy of youth could be utilized properly, it might become easy and possible to deliver many welfare services to the society. Needless to say, there is no alternative to an organized effort to exploit this potential of them.
The question is if stopping student politics would block their participation in such welfare and constructive works for their country and society. There are more questions. There work many other student organizations in a university in addition to the government party student organization.
Why should they take responsibility for the misdeeds and crimes of the government party student organization? It may be seen that many problems disappear if the government party does not give patronage to any student organization. But a new problem may arise in that case. In the absence of the government party student organization, other student organizations may create unilateral pressure on the government and the university administration on various issues.
Also, you cannot unilaterally stop the activities of a single student organization. So, either you must stop the activities of all student organizations, or you have to go for such an arrangement that student organizations do not act as the tails of political parties and do not get special patronage from them.
Now let’s come to the issue of teacher politics in universities. To my knowledge, there is no legal bar to university or private college teachers participating in politics. But today university teachers are just playing the role of a branch like other professional branches of political parties in different sectors.
University teachers have the opportunity to play the role of think tank for the country’s politics. Unfortunately, many of our university teachers involved in politics here are essentially playing the role of just party workers.
The main aim of their activities is to get various positions in the university or outside the university by using political communication. Another problem that arises is that a kind of nexus develops between like-minded teacher and student organizations in the university.
They support each other on various issues. When an organization, especially the members of the government party student body, is involved in misdeeds, many of the pro-government teachers give them blind support instead of controlling them.
Moreover, one of their tasks is to provide unconditional support to all activities of the university administration in exchange for various positions and privileges. All in all, it may be seen that teacher politics is not bringing much welfare for the university. Due to these reasons, there has been a strong demand to stop teacher politics as well.
Analysis of the history and heritage of the world shows that the countries and nations, which progress in knowledge and science, takes the leadership positions of the world. In the modern world, universities are the main premises for the cultivation of knowledge and science. To move the country forward, there is no alternative to create and maintain a stable environment in the universities in the country.
That will let students develop themselves adequately to meet the challenges of the modern world through continuous knowledge acquisition. There can be a discussion about whether students and teachers should practice politics in the university or how much and in what manner they should do it, but it can’t be desirable that the universities will become a theatre of politics instead of an arena of learning.
(The writer is Professor of Pharmacy, Jahangirnagar University).
