Need for evaluation of student politics
IF anything has tarnished the honeymoon period of the new government it is the student wing of the Awami League, that has been involved in conflicts with itself and with others since the landslide victory of AL-led alliance in the December 29 election.
The excesses of Bangladesh Chatra League (BCL) activists in establishing their control over the campuses of the public universities, particularly at Jahangirnagar University where they manifested their ugliest muscle flexing in a factional gunfight, have deeply annoyed many.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has expressed her determination to deal strictly with violence and extortion in the name of student politics. Speaking as the chief guest at the 61st founding anniversary of BCL, she stated that no discrimination would be made while dealing with lawbreakers, no matter which party they belonged to.
The warning is indeed timely, but whether the BCL activists are ready to listen to it remains in considerable doubt, as they have failed to learn any lesson from the dissolution of the Jahangirnagar University unit of the BCL because of their defiance of the PM's instructions.
The leaders and the activists of JCD, the student front of BNP, and the followers of Chhatra Shibir, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami, were not less violent in any way than the leaders and activists of BCL, and had unleashed the reign of lawlessness in educational institutions across the country during the tenure of BNL-led four-party alliance government.
Student politics became synonymous with party-based politics after independence, when political parties made the student organisations their wings. That was the beginning of the ruination of innocent and aspiring students with genuine intention of getting higher education.
The most silent decay in our national life has occurred in the sector of higher education because of student politics. Frequent strikes, violence and other impediments have been a heavy burden on the general students of the public universities.
Education is an area that has been kept above all political rivalry in most countries in the world. But both politicians and student leaders in Bangladesh are conspicuously devoid of such sense.
Student leaders involved in crime have caused concern in people who are in consensus that student politics needs to change for setting it on an ideal basis. An expectation from the new government is that it will bring peace in the campuses so that higher education can take the right path.
The caretaker government of Fakhruddin Ahmed initiated a move for permanent ban on student politics in public universities and colleges in a bid to restore proper academic atmosphere in the institutes of higher education. It decided to issue a moratorium on party-based politics by teachers and students of public universities.
It also amended RPO provisions to compel political parties to sever relations with their front organizations, including the student wing. But the major political parties did not agree to do so.
Student politics in this country has a historical and glorious heritage. The BCL, since its inception 61 years back, had been at the forefront of all our national movements, including the language movement of 1952. It also played the key role in mobilising public opinion in favour of Bangabandhu's six-point program.
Sadly, the BCL today is poles apart from its idealistic pursuits as its hardcore members have become involved in all sorts of crimes. Not only the BCL, but also other student groups aligned with party-based politics today are far away from the ideology of the student leaders who roamed in the same campuses during pre-liberation period.
Therefore, there is a need for the prime minister to give serious thought to student politics, which has not only become devoid of idealism but has also become rotten to the core. Students on rampage is a sign of old style of politics, not in keeping with the promise of change that propelled the AL-led alliance to power.
The time is ripe for taking some effective measures to rein-in the rampaging student leaders before they do irreparable harm to the government's image. The government should also strive to determine the forces that are driving them to violence, and lead the campaign to free the campuses from the clutches of the gangsters who go by the name of students.
Students of the universities should learn politics, but must not be sycophants of political parties. Student politics should focus on promotion of academic pursuits and building up of leadership.
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