Campus politics
Tariq Sadat Hai, Postgraduate Student, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Like everyday I was looking at The Daily Star website from my home when one of the headlines caught my attention . A seminar was held in Dhaka where some academics got together and expressed their views whether politics should still be allowed in the public universities.Personally, I am always against political involvement of the teachers and students in the public universities. Previously, when I was studying at Dhaka University, I always argued with fellow students on this issue and on many occasions students did favour student politics in the universities, though they themselves were not involved because it would harm their study and exam results. They always asked me to look back at the historical journey of student politics in Bangladesh starting from the Language Movement. So, I was not surprised to see a couple of speakers in that seminar still expressing their 'different views'. My first question is, did the role of DU students in 1952 have anything to do with national politics? I would say, the term student politics was coined only after the liberation war when a couple of political parties formed their students' wings. My second question is, have the universities or the general students or the academically dedicated teachers gained anything from teacher or student politics? Yes, some teachers have gained promotions and also positions like the VC, Pro-VC, positions in the Senate and Syndicate, teachers' association, hall provosts etc only to help themselves, not to help the students or the universities. And the students, I mean, the few student leaders, have always gained some good pocket money from the parties to live on and spend on drugs, alcohol etc and of course training on how to use arms and muscle. Yes, a very few of them ended up being parliament members! My third question is, what have these students lost doing politics in the universities? The list won't end here. One of my uncles, who stood 1st in his first and second year honours final at the Jahangirnagar University years back, got third class in his university final year exam and had to retake the exam only to get a second class as he became a popular student leader of one of the two major political parties!! Now it is appropriate time for the lawmakers to look at this issue and take necessary steps so that the universities don't get bogged down by student politics.
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