Internecine feud of BCL claims another victim
Wednesday, 11 January 2012
Yet another student has inconscionably become the victim of internecine feud of student politics. Jubair Ahmed, a student of Jahangirnagar University (JU) immediately after completion of his fourth-year final examination in the English Department was mercilessly beaten by none other than his rival faction of the Chhatra League before he succumbed to his injuries in a hospital. The JU campus is naturally in convulsion, again. However, over the past weeks other campuses from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) to Jagannath University to Shahjalal University of Science and Technology have all experienced spates of turmoil. All because, the student front of the main ruling party has behaved highhandedly or most irresponsibly. In all such incidents, though, one silver-lining is that the students or leaders have been meted out punishment ranging from expulsion both from the educational institutions concerned and the student organisation to imposition of other kinds of punitive measures. This more or less speaks for the fact that there was no attempt to protect the wrong-doers.
However the fact remains that achievements made by the Awami League (AL)-led grand alliance government on the education front have systematically been undermined by the student organisation of the main party of the ruling coalition. Shorn of idealism and patriotism that once were the hallmarks of the oldest student organisation of the country, it has apparently embarked, of late, on a competition to outdo its own infamy. In fact, the Bangladesh Chhatra League has miserably failed to live up to the glorious tradition of its Pakistani days and stooped low like other student fronts of the ruling parties have started doing since the late eighties. Quite a number of incidents during the past few days including Jubair's death have only highlighted the unruly, anarchic, suicidal and could-not-care-less attitude of a section of students of the organisation. A review of the performance of the student group would confirm that the student organisation has outgrown itself and even the prime minister's dissociation, the agriculture minister's boycott of functions arranged by the BCL could not bring the detractors back to their senses. Even the newly appointed communications minister, also a renowned student leader of his time, felt prompted to be critical of the ways of student leadership at the founding anniversary of the BCL the other day.
All seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Evidently, this is proving costly not only for the student organisation itself but also for its parent party, the AL and by extension for the country in general. When the atmosphere of education is thus vitiated, it tells on the quality of education, higher education in particular. The kind of leadership now being produced mainly on the basis of muscle power hardly looks inspiring and the quality of administration and management of the financial sector are bound to suffer as a result. That indeed is a cause for serious concern. This country can ill-afford such mindless waste of its human resources. It is high time, the party that led the country's Liberation War cleaned the Augean Stable in its own as well as the nation's interests. Letting the country down further on this score will seriously undermine its future in terms of its economic prospect as also its viability as a sovereign entity.
However the fact remains that achievements made by the Awami League (AL)-led grand alliance government on the education front have systematically been undermined by the student organisation of the main party of the ruling coalition. Shorn of idealism and patriotism that once were the hallmarks of the oldest student organisation of the country, it has apparently embarked, of late, on a competition to outdo its own infamy. In fact, the Bangladesh Chhatra League has miserably failed to live up to the glorious tradition of its Pakistani days and stooped low like other student fronts of the ruling parties have started doing since the late eighties. Quite a number of incidents during the past few days including Jubair's death have only highlighted the unruly, anarchic, suicidal and could-not-care-less attitude of a section of students of the organisation. A review of the performance of the student group would confirm that the student organisation has outgrown itself and even the prime minister's dissociation, the agriculture minister's boycott of functions arranged by the BCL could not bring the detractors back to their senses. Even the newly appointed communications minister, also a renowned student leader of his time, felt prompted to be critical of the ways of student leadership at the founding anniversary of the BCL the other day.
All seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Evidently, this is proving costly not only for the student organisation itself but also for its parent party, the AL and by extension for the country in general. When the atmosphere of education is thus vitiated, it tells on the quality of education, higher education in particular. The kind of leadership now being produced mainly on the basis of muscle power hardly looks inspiring and the quality of administration and management of the financial sector are bound to suffer as a result. That indeed is a cause for serious concern. This country can ill-afford such mindless waste of its human resources. It is high time, the party that led the country's Liberation War cleaned the Augean Stable in its own as well as the nation's interests. Letting the country down further on this score will seriously undermine its future in terms of its economic prospect as also its viability as a sovereign entity.