Chhatra League once again

Violent images from Rajshahi University filled television screens and newspapers’ front pages on Sunday and Monday. Around 100 students of the university and eight journalists were wounded, as armed Bangladesh Chhatra League men backed by police attacked the students protesting fee hikes and evening shift master’s courses on the campus.

The BCL activists opened fire on the agitating students, while police discharged tear shells and rubber bullets. Conditions of some of the bullet-hit students are reportedly critical.

This is not the first time BCL has gone against a popular student movement. All the TV channels and newspapers aired and published the picture of the BCL goons brandishing firearms on the campus.

Questions come to mind: What’s going on? Where will all this lead to? And, what can be done about it?

The answer to the first question can be the same cynical response: This is what student politics is in Bangladesh. The party in power becomes the owner of everything. Everybody knows what’s going on, but the reaction is: “Who cares?”

After the Bishwajit murder by Dhaka’s Jagannath College BCL cadres, one of the senior leaders of the AL said a surgical operation was required to control BCL.

But how can they go for surgery without a diagnosis of the problem? The party high-ups must take a closer look into the Chhatra League activities. The AL leadership must think of doing a thorough diagnosis to make the student wing really pro-student. The nation has to care.

The fact is, BCL activists have been found involved in campus violence, intra-group fighting, the admission business, forcible occupation of student dormitories, vandalising academic institutions, tender-snatching, and extortion since the AL-led alliance was elected to power in January, 2009.

The unruly BCL members sometimes even assaulted senior Juba League and AL leaders. They even vandalised police stations to force the release of their comrades.

The Rajshahi University incident is the first one since the AL came to power through the January 5 elections for a consecutive second term. But during the previous five years, almost every day, BCL captured media headlines because of unruly actions.

There were hundreds of incidents of intra-group clashes in different educational institutions including the Dhaka, Chittgaong, Rajshahi, Khulna, Jahangirnagar, and Jagannath Universities.

Bangladesh has a long and often proud history of student politics. But now, in the public universities, everything from getting a dorm bed to enrolling in a decent course is controlled by student political bodies.

Student politics has become so polluted in Bangladesh that it is working against the students’ interests. There is no idealism, everything is about greed. Student political leaders make money from extortion, and from selling tenders. They control student accommodation, the canteen, and have shops on the campuses.

All three of Bangladesh’s main political parties have strong student wings, which they fund and allegedly arm with guns and other lethal weapons.

In return for providing a ready reserve of young rioters when needed, the political parties allow their respective student wings to make money from their control of the university education system.

Ruling party student organisations, especially the armed cadres, act like gangsters on campuses. They eat at campus canteens for free, keep the best student accommodations for themselves, and harass professors or students who oppose them.

Civil society members debate endlessly on whether the police are adequate to the fight the thugs on campuses. It is clear as daylight that until the major political parties stop using their student wings as musclemen to do their dirty work, the violence will not stop.

The ugly incidents by BCL are frequently happening due to factional infighting and inaction on part of the government. A group of fortune seekers are also allegedly using BCL leaders and activists for their own interests.

The last question – what can be done about it? – is what the government needs to spend most of their time on. The AL top brass must answer why, with each passing day, BCL cadres are wrecking the educational institutions.

Despite repeated warnings and threats from the prime minister and other influential AL leaders, no effective action was taken during the last five years to contain the unruly activities of the student wing of the party, which has emerged as the main factor for widespread violence and unrest in different educational institutions across the country.

Seeing inaction in the face of growing misdeeds of errant students, the public is sure to suspect that feuding politicians are themselves nurturing support groups among students.

Already, there are widespread allegations that a section of former student leaders who are not inducted in AL key positions are patronising factions in BCL.

No one knows where the solution lies. But these activities will take the government’s credibility to a new low, and some of its good work will get overshadowed in the process.