The memory of a horrendous incident that took place on the BUET campus in 2019 still haunts our minds. A BUET student named Abrar Fahad was beaten to death mercilessly by some senior students of the university. The upshot of the incident led the common students to pressurise the university authorities to ban student politics in BUET.

The so-called student politics has plagued all university campuses in the country by introducing evil things like ‘mass room culture’, rag day etc.  Evil practices like extortion, sexual assault, compelling the students to participate in the procession, keeping them awake the whole night etc. are also common on these campuses.

Well, students of BUET are usually very serious about their studies. They contribute to both the intellectual as well as economic fields of the country, either living in the country or working abroad.

Among them, those who work in the foreign countries have shown good performances at their work, spreading fame of our country. Hence, it is the responsibility of the state to ensure a congenial atmosphere for the students of this institution, considering its specialty and exclusive discipline of education.

Meanwhile, many universities have lost the affability of their environment to a large extent due to so-called student and teacher politics on campuses.

Now, their students can neither stay on the campuses safely nor can they organise cultural activities or exercise freedom of speech freely, as they did earlier. Rather, they are often compelled to carry out the orders of their so-called ‘big brothers’ and cadres. And research and studies have evaporated through the windows of public universities.

Against this backdrop, a good many tertiary-level students have lost their main focus and diverted their attention to a different channel instead. Now, they are focusing more on job preparations at coaching centres rather than doing research or studying subjects of higher studies due to lack of affable environment for studying on campuses. Perhaps, student politics is largely responsible in this regard.

Unfortunately, many individuals still continue to advocate for this politics at university campuses. They try to convince others by reminding the glorious days of student politics in Bangladesh. However, they forget the fact that the current student politics and those of the seventies or eighties stand poles apart.

The ex-student of BUET, writer on mathematical problems, development engineer, music artist, and writer Chamak Hasan has said in his Facebook status, “As an alumnus of BUET, I want to make my stance clear about the introduction of student politics in BUET.

I firmly believe student politics should be banned and stopped in BUET. No student of any party –nothing is necessary here. If we divide them into two columns and put what positive aspects of the presence of student politics in BUET on the right-hand side, we can see the nightmare experiences of students, teachers, and administration because of the presence of student politics.

We will see all the negative and destructive aspects that will fill the columns such as ragging, extortion, torture, power exhibition, and enjoying illegal facilities. Nothing positive will come out of that politics.”

The principal purpose of a university is to conduct research and contribute to the welfare of the state and humanity. But, does the country’s current student politics have any connection with it? Will it elevate BUET’s position in the global ranking of universities if it reintroduces student politics in it?

Well, we cannot deny that university students should be allowed to have freedom of expression and they have the right to follow political ideologies of their choice.

But, ironically, we get just the opposite scenario at the universities in our countries, although they are supposed to be the highest seats of learning and teaching humanity and sober qualities. The list of destructive activities occurring at these holy places is really long.

So, all students and teachers who want to uphold the prestige and quality of education at universities should be quite averse to politics that goes on nowadays on campuses. And some 98 per cent of the students of BUET show their direct averseness to it. Not only that, they have submitted a petition to the prime minister seeking to keep their campus free from student politics. However, days are left for us to see whether student politics going to take the stage in BUET again or not.
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The writer is the president, English Teachers’ Association of Bangladesh. E-mail: [email protected]