The headline "Bangladesh after four hundred years of its existence" reminded me of a course I took in Sociology at the Dhaka University. It was taught by National Professor Dr Rangalal Sen, a renowned sociologist and I am honoured to have been his student. Dr Sen's teaching style and in-depth knowledge on social theories enabled students to understand theoretical discussions in the field and synthesise different concepts in a nuanced manner.
I have written this article with a heavy heart for Dr Sen is no more with us. He was the former chairman at the Sociology Department of Dhaka University and founder chairman of Bangladesh Sociology Association. The 81-year-old educationist and social scientist has left a legacy in the area of social science in South Asia, specifically in India and Bengal. His Ph D thesis "Politico Elites in Bangladesh" earned him worldwide fame and he has held important positions in the Asiatic Society and Bangladesh Itihas Parishad.
This article discusses part of his essay entitled "The Changing Middle Class of Dhaka City and its Impact on Bangladesh" (2008) to demonstrate how Bengal was enriched with scholarship through the establishment of Dhaka University and its impact on the social and political fields. Is there any possibility to revive the "source of intelligentsia production" image of Dhaka University again? I feel disheartened and downcast observing that a large number of students of Dhaka University are becoming gangsters these days not playing the role model of professionals, academicians, researchers, scientists, political scientists or educators.
Dr Sen noted: "It is a matter of great pride and satisfaction that the city of Dhaka has completed four hundred years of its existence, having been born as a Mughal metropolis in 1608 (or 1610) AD. The historical development of Dhaka as a metropolitan city can be divided into five socio-political periods: Pre-Plassey Mughal Period (1608-1757), Post-Plassey British Period (1757-1857), Post-Sepoy Revolution British Period (1858-1947), Pakistan Period (1947-1971) and Post-liberation Bangladesh Period (1971- 2007)".
But, Bangladesh is still facing challenges in establishing democracy and social justice. The Dhaka University and its intelligentsia seem to have failed to play an effective role in this context. Sen further noted that Dhaka has a rich historical background and has grown both politically and socio-culturally. Dhaka became the capital city of Eastern Bengal and Assam from 1905 to 1911 after the first Bengal partition. In 1912, Dhaka reverted to its original status as an Eastern city of the British Empire in India. Then in 1947, Dhaka became the provincial capital of East Pakistan and the War of Liberation in 1971 placed Dhaka as the capital city till now.
Bangladesh was part of the Indian subcontinent known as Bengal, and its history began in the 4th century BC. In 1971, Bangladesh became a socialist country, and in 1988, Islam was established as the state religion. Though discrimination against non-Muslims is rife, freedom of worship is provided for in the constitution. Bangladesh is the world's third most populous democratic Muslim State with a population of 154.7 of million people of which about 80 per cent are Muslims and about 12 per cent are Hindu. Ethnicity is a major issue, as there are approximately 45 different ethnic communities living in different parts of Bangladesh, with about 12 tribes inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts. More than half a million people practice a mixture of tribal cults and Buddhist doctrines. There are also Biharis (non-Bengali Muslims from India), Arab and Dutch settlers who have adopted the Bengali lifestyle, and also small numbers of Shia Muslims, Sikhs, Baha'is, Ahmadis, and animists.
According to Dr Sen, Muslims formed 54 per cent of the total population; but only 15.5 per cent of the pupils at the high school stage and 14.2 per cent at the college and the university stage were Muslims in 1927. He reminds us that the establishment of Dhaka University in 1921 increased the percentage of Muslim students in the universities and colleges where the percentage rose from 8.9 in 1917 to 14.2 in 1927. This was a remarkable performance by any standards.
Dr Sen highlighted a few convocation addresses of chancellors and vice-chancellors to realise "what services the University of Dhaka had rendered in this respect. In the first convocation of Dhaka University, held on February 22, 1923, A G R B Lytton, Governor of undivided Bengal, in his speech as chancellor emphasised the unity of students attending the university for the development of national consciousness". Governor Lytton said, "... a nation is not an abstraction, a political theory, a form of government; it is a unit, a community …. A community consciousness is the first essential of nationhood, and here in a university like this that community consciousness can be and should be developed …. Try and conceive of Dacca university as an Alma Mater in whose service the Mohammedan and the Hindu can find a common bond of unity." (The Convocation Speeches, 1988; Sen, 2008). Dr Sen further asserted that Lytton described Dhaka University as a pioneer in producing Muslim students who are educationist and politicians, especially students who were enrolled in the late 1920s.
Governor Lytton hoped to "let this university take a lead in this matter and try to evolve the Dacca man - a type that shall be conspicuous both in learning and in politics ... who is a creator rather than an imitator; whose scholarship and whose statesmanship alike are distinguished by thoroughness and precision, who learns his politics not in the speeches of past orators nor in the books of dead authors, but in the living facts of his own villages and in the hearts of his own people."(Ibid, 43; quoted in Sen, 2008).
Regarding the role of Dhaka University graduates' position in society and politics, Sen further quoted Sir A F Rahman, a famous historian, who was the first Indian vice-chancellor of Dhaka University and the first provost of the Muslim Hall. He delivered his address at the twelfth convocation held on August 16, 1934. He said:
[T]hat there is a gulf between the intelligentsia and the masses. You have to bridge that gulf. All your education would be purposeless if you do not carry back with you to your homes the atmosphere of your university - the spirit of comradeship rather than communal isolation, clean living, clean thinking and the steady adherence to the ideals of social service ....I can foresee in the coming years the evolution of a society more homogeneous, reinforced by many new elements …. This university has furnished recruits to every branch of public activity, we watch their careers with pride, its products have won a place in the republic of intellect (Ibid., pp. 230-231; quoted in Sen, 2008).
Dr Sen confirmed that as envisioned by Professor Sir A F Rahman, many graduates of Dhaka University are successful locally and abroad. In the fourteenth convocation held on July 29, 1936, Vice-Chancellor Sir A F Rahman stated:
[Y]ou have also to possess the ability to win the confidence and good will of the people among whom you live and work.... In that sense politics may be said to be a branch of the art of getting on with other people ... the underlying ideas of politics should be stated free from prejudice and outworn terminology.... The duty of all of us is first of all to put ourselves right and then help democracy …. True democracy is not an external government but an inward rule. The democracy of the heart has to be developed before we get democracy fulfilled in practice. (Ibid., pp. 271-272; quoted in Sen, 2008).
In the article, Dr Sen explained that in the early 1930s, the Muslim Bengali middle class initiated the Shikha Gusthi and the Emancipation of Intellect which evolved with the Muslim Sahitya Samaj (Muslim Literary Society, 1926). These movements called for the freedom of the educated Bengali middle class. (Wadud, Eternal Bengal, in Bengali, Introduction, quoted in Sen, 2003:157-164, Sen 2008). However, due to the political influence of the Nawab family of Dhaka, the above movements were challenged. Dr Sen noted that in the late 1940s the Language Movement, supported by the middle class Muslim Bengalis, made its political presence felt in the first General Elections of East Bengal Legislative Assembly held in March 1954. The United Front was an electoral alliance which was the result of the up-rise of the middle class Muslim Bengalis and the "self-sufficient peasant proprietors and jotedars in the rural areas, on the other" (2008).
Sen further added that a new breed of entrepreneurial middle class Bengalis emerged in Dhaka since the 1990s. In this reference, Dr Sen quoted Professor Rehman Sobhan (2006):
Bangladesh society is increasingly becoming a fragmented society since people are divided by politics, by class, by gender and by communal denominations. The growing influence of money and muscle in the electoral process has effectively disenfranchised people of modest means, women and religious, as well as ethnic, minorities. Bangladesh's two societies are characterised by the emergence of an elite which is becoming increasingly differentiated from the mass of society. This elevation of a group of people, who a little over three decades ago, were part of a shared fabric of middle class society in Bangladesh, into a far more exclusive elite, integrated into the process of globalisation ... such an emergent elite repudiates the spirit of the Liberation War which promised to establish a just social order (Kochanek, 28-31; quoted in Sen, 2008).
Although Sobhan did not specifically mention the fate of the existing middle class under globalised capitalism, it is not difficult to understand the ultimate condition of the middle class. Dr Sen too cautioned us of the "changing nature and character" of the middle class. Though there were different types of problems, Bangladesh has developed a new entrepreneurial class since 1990s under three political regimes headed by Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina. The latest is the new regime formed by the Sheikh Hasina and her government at the beginning of 2014.
We deeply mourn the passing away of Dr Rangalal Sen, who guided the Bangladesh politics through the Dhaka University. I concur with Dr Sen that the role of intelligentsia of Dhaka University is relevant for Bangladesh in dealing with serious issues concerning democracy and social justice. Dhaka University and its educated need to rise once more to emancipate the intellectuals as "a secular enlightened middle class" to bring a positive social change for the nation.
The writer is Doctoral Candidate in Curriculum Studies and Teacher Development at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) and Research Assistant, University of Toronto and also Founder-President, Volunteer Association for Bangladesh Canada.
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