Story of University of Dhaka

I would like to begin by congratulating the editors Imtiaz Ahmed and Iftekhar Iqbal for bringing out this timely volume of essays University of Dhaka: Making Unamaking Remaking. As this institution which is the  alma mater of many of the people who will be reading this book room reaches its centenary it is to be hoped that many such volumes are in the making and that we will see a republication of older histories and memoirs centred around the university. This volume refers to many of such older publications. The ones that caught my attention were the collection of convocation speeches edited by Professor Serajul Islam Chowdhury or the memoir of Philip Hartog, the first vice-chancellor of the university. I do hope our centenary celebrations will feature such a collection of books memoirs and reports pertaining to the history of the university which will also be a record of the history of country and society.

Let us come to the volume under consideration. The 14 articles are arranged under 5 sections, each of which looks at different aspects of the university as it exists today. While most authors bemoan the academic decline of the university, there is an outline for the remaking of the university. Were we to put all the recommendations in the various articles together we could come up with a comprehensive set of recommendations for the remaking of Dhaka University. The recommendations range from looking at the 1973 ordinance, thus concentrating on the policy level, to budgetary considerations or the financing aspects to the administration of both faculties and residential halls, remarking on the social and political aspects that govern the lives of students and teachers both.

I would like to the first look at the political. There is a dual, conflicting and contradictory attitude towards the political life of the university. As many of the authors refer to, and as is completely foregrounded in the articles by Amena Mohsin and Iftekhar Iqbal, the founding of the university itself was done with political considerations in mind. Founded as a sop or a consolation to East Bengal and specifically Bengali Muslims after the dissolution of the first partition of Bengal, the university had to grapple with an underlying sense of communalism. However the university began and continued to function as a place of secular education from the beginning, as the Hartog memoir, quoted in the last article, amply illustrates. In fact, the stress on science education and research was prominent at that stage.

While there is a general glorification of the role of student politics as it emerged in Dhaka University and its impact on national life, from the 1952 language movement to the 1990 democracy movement, there is a consensus that present-day politics is in the hands of party political goons, which vitiates both academic life and social life on campus. However, there is also an indication that this tendency itself has historical roots which can be traced back to the founding of NSF by the Pakistani authorities in the '60s. The articles in section 2 –'Student Politics and Youth Mobilization' – bring out this aspect clearly.  The piece by Anu Mohammad in this section places student politics in a larger framework, and sees the rampant corruption and decline as part of the broader political framework. However he also points out the various other movements that have sprung out of public universities, specifically the anti-sexual harassment movement in Jahangirnagar University, which went beyond party political lines and had a national impact. It is in this sense that one wonders whether it is at all possible to separate the political life of the university from the national sphere as has been suggested in many articles. 

The articles in section 4, looking at campus life, become pertinent and important in this regard. The rampant lack of control due to politicization in the residential halls is indeed to be decried, and a way out of this morass has to be envisioned. Depoliticisation can be the only way forward one feels at this stage. Coping with the increase in student numbers with the construction of more residential facilities has been part of the efforts made to ameliorate the situation. But given that this is the most difficult part of the university administration, we can perhaps think of even more drastic measures. We can perhaps take a leaf out of British universities, where residential facilities are available only to first-year undergraduates, after which they seek shared lodging facilities in the surrounding area. As many students already live in messes, perhaps we can curtail the use of residential facilities to the first years only, as they find their feet in Dhaka.

The importance of  elected bodies under DUCSU and in the halls have been emphasized both in the light of the past role that DUCSU has played in national life, as well as in the transformation of the halls from political to social and cultural spaces. The politics that will emerge from this reformed elected body of students may be more conducive to student welfare. 

Articles in section 3, under 'Pedagogy and Curriculum', based as they are on close research and analysis, contain wonderful debates on the purpose and nature of tertiary education. Concentrating on the arts and humanities and social sciences, the sense of a liberal education is clear. New approaches to education through new technologies and so on are adequately highlighted. What is missing – I suppose reflecting the academic affiliations of the editors – is the science component. As science education is being replaced by a stress on technology, an emphasis on the study of basic sciences would have been welcome and would have added to the richness of the volume and the recommendations coming out of it. This also has historical relevance. As has been pointed out, Satyen Bose's contributions were one of the first achievements of the DU faculty.

While going through the collection, I was struck by the absence of the female component. After all, DU is and has always been a co-educational university. There is no sense of what it was like to be a female student or when the first female graduate or faculty member became part of the university. I know that Professor Abul Kasem Fazlul Haque has done research on this subject, and that some of this information is available in the references that authors have used. It is with this sense of 'absence' that I came across the wonderful article by Lailufur Yasmin on the changing patterns on dress. As we change from saris to shalwar-kameez to the hijab, Yasmin's article shows how this is a reflection of the changing patterns in our cultural life. While the Bengali-Muslim identity has often been seen as in conflict, she shows how the diversity of women's dress in the DU campus is a way of combining these two adjectives, separating them (as we do) and inhabiting them together. Women's dress thus becomes a reflection of the changing social and political scene.

What does one miss in this volume? I missed an article on the library. While Mohammad Atique Rahman does talk about e-resources, the DU library already has a rich repository of documents that need to be better preserved. There is a foundation of a research library, but which has not been replenished or looked after properly. We do need to think more about this. One of the very creative policy considerations that was mooted was to think of the university as a research one. Iftekhar Iqbal has pointed out how this was the original basis of recruiting teachers. We have all been beneficiaries of this policy, as the university through the UGC provided scholarships for Ph.D.s and gave us adequate study leave to pursue doctoral and post doctoral research. But the development of research in the university does need concentration on research material and facilities. In the sciences again, a larger budgetary outlay would be necessary to bring lab facilities on board.

While there is a large stress on political activities, most of the articles have not gone beyond reiterating a glorious past and a dismal present. However changes in thinking and ways of being have emerged and need to continue to emanate from the university itself. Existing cultural activities and ways forward could have been included, with inputs from the Institute of Fine Arts, the Drama and Music departments and now the Film and Television department. 

Finally, I would like to add a word of criticism. In the preface the editors talk about the few editorial mistakes that remain. I would think that the adjective few do not describe this. Greater attention needs to be paid to editing, both stylistically and in the matter of proof-reading. While the remaking of Dhaka University should indeed envisage it as a bastion of higher education not only in the country but internationally, greater attention to detail and commitment to the task at hand is required to reach the heights that we desire. This very valuable contribution needs greater care and I hope that subsequent editions will look into this matter.

Congratulations are indeed due to the editors and contributors of this very valuable and timely volume.

The reviewer is a faculty, Department of English and Humanities, Brac University.