Ban on Student Politics: Buet has launched the call. Other universities should follow.

 To say that Chhatra League is in crisis presupposes that Chhatra League, too, can be reduced to facing a crisis, a fact that would have been unthinkable even a few weeks ago. Yet this might be the case after two events tipped the scales slightly against the frontier warriors of the ruling Awami League: first, the unceremonious removal of its president and general secretary from their posts last month, and second, the very publicly played out humiliation of Chhatra League after the brutal killing of Buet student Abrar Fahad. For those who have followed Chhatra League's "gravity-defying" ascendency in the past 10 years despite all its misdeeds, this is a new experience. In these 10 years, what we know as "student politics" has been basically "student politics by Chhatra League"—so complete has been its control over our public universities that the two became one and the same.  

But the more erudite of us will remember that before Chhatra League, there was Chhatra Dal. Since 1991, when democracy was restored in the country, these two organisations have basically ruled public universities with the central power of government alternating between their parent organisations: Awami League and BNP. This makes you wonder, surely there is something amiss in this brand of student politics that makes it possible for the political parties to interfere in universities through their student wings?

On a practical level, it makes sense that a government that funds a university would have a stake in how it is being run. But using students (and even teachers) to do its bidding and take de facto control of the university suggests a sinister motive. And this is exactly why it would be a mistake to support student politics, as some pundits are now doing, from a purely ideological point of view as it plays into the rhetoric of the beneficiaries of this corrupt system.

The debate over student politics took a sharp turn after the Buet administration, on October 11, banned all forms of student politics on its campus. The decision came in response to demands raised by students protesting the murder of Abrar. It was not an organic development born of a politico-academic consensus, as one would have expected, nor much can be made of it at this stage before the directive is fleshed out to give a more comprehensive guideline. There are doubts whether this will actually be effective or at least draw down Chhatra League's involvement in the university. But the novelty of the decision and its potential should be acknowledged. Buet has set a precedent, and other universities should take note.

There are important questions that need to be addressed first, however. Since the announcement of the decision, there has been an unlikely pairing of the left-leaning thinkers and mainstream political parties (particularly the ruling coalition). Both of them opposed the move, albeit for different reasons. The reaction of the ruling coalition was somewhat predictable: it sought to weaponise people's fondness for the glorious history of student politics in our country to justify the existing system, with a few words of advice thrown into the mix, although one doubts it has any real interest in the political expressions of general students. It's strange that a sitting government would be so enamoured with the concept of student politics which is historically known for its disruptive influence on the state. When did it ever happen before?

On the other hand, the leftists and other pro-student-politics voices have offered more profound thoughts: how will the future leaders be created in the absence of student politics? How will the students protest injustices if there is no student politics on the campus? Is this part of a plot to depoliticise the masses?

There seems to be some confusion over the use of the term "student politics." "Student politics" and "partisan student politics" or "(political) party-based student politics" are being used interchangeably, although they are different. Buet's students have made it clear that they want a ban on the latter but the administration chose to put a blanket ban on all forms of political activities, leading to the confusion. But there is no point in arguing over semantics when the implication is obvious, and one expects that Buet will issue a clarification on this in due course.

When the students say that they don't want partisan student politics on campus, they don't mean to forsake their constitutionally guaranteed "right to assemble and to participate in public meetings and processions". Their right to have a political opinion and to express it without fear. It's a right that no one can take away. The Abrar murder was an assault on this right and the students are actually protecting their right and honouring Abrar's legacy by demanding the removal of barriers posed by, among other things, today's partisan student politics.

Can a student grow to be politically conscious without being affiliated with one of the political parties that have student wings in public universities? To say they can't would be an affront to their intellect, and a gross misreading of our glorious history of student activism. The best days of student politics in our history were in the Pakistan period and during the rule of military governments in independent Bangladesh, when students organised on their own and fought and sacrificed for their country without being spoon-fed by a parent organisation. They did so despite the fact that there were threats and barriers galore (one may recall that in the 1960s, Monem Khan and the NSF actually set a precedence of punishing oppositional students at Dhaka University).

Today's student politics has become the very threat that those torchbearers of our pro-people, pro-country student politics had struggled against. Today, in the mind of an ordinary individual, the term "student politics" comes coded in dread-filled premonitions that reflect just how far have we gone off that hallowed tradition. And Chhatra League is the public face of this terror at this juncture.

If Awami League thinks that the movement against "student politics" is aimed at its student wing, it is precisely because it is. Chhatra League has perfected a form of politics in which intolerance for dissent gives license to violent acts. For too long, it has been allowed to commit all sorts of crimes: killing, extortion, tender manipulation, vandalism, illegal drug trade, illegal enrolment in universities, terrorising general students and rivals alike… you name it, Chhatra League has done it. In a climate of impunity, the commission of one crime triggered the commission of another, an endless ribbon of crimes all coalescing to form the dreaded Chhatra League brand that reasserts itself with ever more ferocity.

Naturally, the essence of this brand—abuse of power to keep public universities under government's control—has accounted for the unconditional support from ruling party leaders as well as for the opprobrium of those who regard with distaste the triumph of unbridled brawn over brain, brute force over intellect. Over the years, Chhatra League has demonstrated an inexhaustible capacity for causing controversies and basically antagonising anyone with above-average intelligence.

Those who support the continuation of this brand of politics are suffering from a hereditary nostalgia for something that is no longer there. The advocates, before asking about how future leaders will be created in the absence of student politics, forget to ask how many it has actually created in the past three decades. Chhatra League is the tip of the iceberg of this problem. We are talking about a system that has been abused by all major parties. It has plagued our entire public tertiary education system, and will continue to do so as long as outside forces like the political parties, whether in power or opposition, are allowed to interfere in the universities through their student wings.

Since independence, there have been at least 151 killings on various campuses, and not once was a perpetrator punished for their crimes. The rot has clearly reached a stage which is beyond cure. We can continue to fool ourselves into thinking that things will somehow change, and our political parties will somehow grow a conscience and leave the universities to their own devices. But as Albert Einstein has said, "we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."

Badiuzzaman Bay is a member of the editorial team at The Daily Star. Email: badiuzzaman.bd@gmail.com