Partisan Political Clashes Still Suffocating Promise of Public Universities!

When the historic July Mass Uprising 2024 brought down an autocracy, it was the students of our public universities who stood at the vanguard. They spilt blood to break a chokehold of fear, promising a new dawn. The single loudest cry reverberating across campuses from Dhaka to Rangpur was the demand to dismantle the toxic culture of partisan student politics. Students dreamed of universities defined by academic freedom, intellectual rigour and physical safety. Yet, two years into this post-uprising reality, our higher education institutions stand at a critical and dangerous crossroads. The recent surge of campus conflicts and clashes across the country suggests that the old, dark habits of political violence have not been exorcised; they have merely changed hands.

The numbers and the sheer brutality of recent confrontations are deeply alarming. In a chaotic span of just 24 hours, multiple campuses transformed into battlefields. At Jagannath University (JnU), a ferocious three-way clash involving the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal (JCD), Islami Chhatra Shibir and Chhatra Shakti left at least 50 people injured, grinding all academic operations to a sudden, painful halt. Concurrently, violent skirmishes erupted at Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur, Dhaka College and Government Madrasah-e-Alia. Activists armed with iron rods, sharp weapons and bamboo sticks attacked each other with terrifying abandon. Over 90 individuals, including ordinary students and working journalists, were left badly injured.

The bitter irony of these clashes is that they unfolded during programmes meant to commemorate the July Mass Uprising that sought to end campus terror. For the average student who risked everything for a reformed nation, this is a profound betrayal.

For 15 long years, the previous regime turned public universities into instruments of totalitarian domination. Vice-chancellors were appointed based on absolute partisan loyalty rather than academic merit, while residential halls were run like fiefdoms by ruling-party goons. The infamous “guestroom” and “gonoroom” (overcrowded common living room) cultures subjected freshman to systematic psychological and physical torture, forcing them into political rallies as a tax for a single bed.

When that regime fell, the collective expectation was a structural overhaul of university governance. Instead, a dangerous vacuum has emerged, and the appetite for territorial dominance remains unchecked. What we are witnessing today is a familiar script. The actors may have changed, but the violence remains identical. Student wings of major political parties are once again fighting for organisational supremacy, campus influence and control over lucrative student union bodies. At Rajshahi University, the shocking spectacle of a student union leader striking a peer with a stick inside a library reading room and later dragging an injured student out of an ambulance reveals how deeply entrenched the culture of impunity remains. If student leaders can wield clubs inside libraries, the ultimate sanctuaries of knowledge, then the “new Bangladesh” we speak of has stopped at the university gates.

The consequences of this ongoing anarchy extend far beyond physical injuries. They paralyse the entire academic ecosystem. When campuses break out in chase and counter-chase, libraries close, exams are postponed and the dark cloud of session jams returns. Parents are once again consumed by anxiety, terrified to send their children to public institutions. Furthermore, this instability severely cripples our universities’ global standing. Bangladeshi institutions already lag behind their regional peers due to abysmally low research output and outdated, rote-learning curricula. When university administrations spend all their energy managing political crises and deploying riot police, structural educational reforms are indefinitely shelved.

This raises an uncomfortable but urgent question for university administrations and the present government: why is the response to campus violence still so agonisingly weak? Historically, vice-chancellors and proctors have resorted to knee-jerk, superficial measures, such as sudden late-night hall bans or temporary suspensions, whenever a crisis boils over. These stopgap measures do not work because they treat the symptoms rather than the diseases.

To break this cycle, a radical shift in campus governance is required. Firstly, university administrations must show zero tolerance towards any individual wielding a weapon or instigating violence, regardless of their political banner. The culture of impunity must end with swift, transparent legal and academic expulsions. Secondly, the allocation of seats in residential halls must be fully automated and managed strictly by university authorities based on merit and financial need, completely removing student political cadres from the equation. Thirdly, if student politics is to exist, it must be thoroughly decoupled from national political parties. Our campuses require issue-based, clean youth leadership that advocates for student rights, better facilities and modernised curricula, not armed proxies executing instructions from party headquarters. Most of all, university administrations must reclaim their autonomy. They must stop acting as extensions of state or party apparatuses and start acting as custodians of student welfare.

The students of Bangladesh did not face down bullets in July 2024 to see their campuses inherited by a new generation of political autocrats. The current wave of violence is an explicit warning signal that if we do not structurally reform our public universities now, they will collapse under the weight of their own internal conflicts. The university should be a space for intellectual inquiry/debate, critical thinking and groundbreaking research, not a battlefield for partisan supremacy. University authorities must step up, honour the spirit of the mass uprising, and rescue our higher education instructions from the clutches of partisan terror.
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The writer is an Associate Professor of the Department of English at Stamford University Bangladesh. He can be contacted at [email protected]