Two reviews from Syed Badrul Ahsan
The campus in our history . . .
The arrest of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy by the martial law regime of General Ayub Khan on 30 January 1962 sparked intense resentment among the student community in East Pakistan, to a point where leading figures of the Chhatra Union, Chhatra League, Chhatra Shakti and the pro-regime National Students Federation felt the need for action. The groups met the next day at Madhu's canteen and decided that the students of the university would observe a general strike on 1 February. Thus, for the first time in the more than three years which had elapsed since Ayub Khan's military takeover in October 1958, a decisive move had been taken by the students, which was an early sign of the troubles the regime would confront in the times ahead. And all this recapitulation of history as it was shaped through student politics in what used to be East Pakistan and subsequently became Bangladesh has been graphically captured by Mahmudur Rahman Manna in this rather excellent examination of reality. Manna, today a leading political analyst and an intellectual voice in Bangladesh, is eminently qualified to inform a new generation as also remind his own of the momentous events which once placed the student community at the very centre of national politics. As a former student leader, one with a certain intellectual bent of mind, Manna brings together in this work the story of a gradual evolution of academia into a proper forum of public protest, all the way from 1948 and right up to the collapse of the Ershad military regime in 1990. Of course, he does go beyond 1990, to dwell on the decline which has set in in student politics. His focus, however, remains --- as it must --- on the intense struggle Bangladesh's students, especially at Dhaka University, have consistently put up as a way of resisting the varied undemocratic measures sought to be imposed on the universities from time to time. More importantly, Manna reminds readers of the pivotal role students have played in the evolution of Bengali nationalism, with all the positive ramifications that caused to be injected into the national movement for liberation from Pakistan. When the students of Dhaka University moved to enforce a general strike on 1 February 1962, they were making it clear to Ayub Khan that in Suhrawardy's arrest they spotted a larger and sinister scheme of political repression at work that could not but be challenged head-on. The regime, clearly stunned at the audacity of the young, responded in the only way it could: it ordered a shutdown of the university on 5 February. That action too called for a response. Bengali students, despite the police action on them, emerged on the streets in protest and at one point set fire to the vehicle of the Pakistan army's general officer commanding (GOC). As if that were not enough, the regime found itself in a new spot with the students launching a vigorous protest against the report of the Sharif Commission. The protest was sparked on 10 August 1962 at Dhaka College, where students from the degree as well as Higher Secondary Certificate courses took part. Manna's narrative recreates the emotion of the times; and many of the names we are today familiar with emerge from these pages as symbols of a dynamic politics that would have Bangladesh's national politics redefined in a way that would leave collective life transformed. Sultan Mahmud Khan, a brother of Rashed Khan Menon, Nurul Islam (subsequently a trade unionist and president of the Ganatantri Party killed in a mysterious fire at his home a few years ago) and Ahsan Ali were then students of Dhaka College. There is then the role of other students, such as Sheikh Fazlul Haq Moni, at the time general secretary of the Chhatra League. Manna's account of the history of student politics in Bangladesh is as much a tale of students shaping the course of national politics as it is of the many contradictions and pulls affecting some of the leading student organisations in the turbulent 1960s and, to some extent, the 1970s. In 1964, as communal riots fanned by the Ayub loyalist governor Abdul Monem Khan and his minions threatened to disrupt peace and order in the province, the governor decided, as chancellor of the universities, to have Rajshahi University hold a convocation. Monem Khan's intention was obvious from the start: he meant to show the students who was in charge. In the event, the students of Rajshahi University put up stiff resistance to the governor, who then embarked on the theme of a convocation at Dhaka University. History remains proof of the determined manner in which the progressive students of Dhaka University thwarted Monem Khan in his intentions. Any account of student activism in Bangladesh will need to take note of the significant role played by the Chhatra Union in the shaping of political perspectives among the young. And yet, as Manna relates the story once again, the Chhatra Union split in 1965 on the question of the US Seventh Fleet making its way to Calcutta through sailing across the Bay of Bengal. Away from Bangladesh, the war in Vietnam was already becoming a parameter of where the young in Bangladesh as elsewhere stood on the issue of national freedom. Among Bengali youth, therefore, the question of the Seventh Fleet was an issue that called for detailed inquiry, given that the question of US imperialism was then uppermost in the minds of the increasingly radicalized young. A group within the Chhatra Union noted that opposing the US Seventh Fleet was but a step toward promoting the cause of democracy in the region. Another group was of the clear opinion that opposing the presence of the Seventh Fleet in Indian territorial waters would only be construed as an anti-Indian move and would end up fanning the flames of communalism. Manna recounts the clear divergences in policy adopted by Mohammad Farhad and Kazi Zafar Ahmed. The former was treasurer of the Chhatra Union, with the latter serving as general secretary of the organization. Manna makes a caveat, though: to what extent politics played a role in the Farhad-Zafar spilt and to what extent it was a question of their individual egos coming into play remains an academic question. Mahmudur Rahman Manna takes us by the hand through the long journey of the role played by students in the propagation of the historic Six Point programme of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which was to culminate in the mass upsurge of 1969, again a seminal event forged by the student community. From that point on, it was a given that the students would keep themselves in the national political focus, proof of which was soon to come in the aftermath of the general elections of December 1970 and the subsequent conspiracy by the Pakistan army and its political allies in West Pakistan to deny power to the victorious Awami League. The War of Liberation fortified the student community in the sense that it proved instrumental in drawing the young to the need for guerrilla resistance through the Mukti Bahini. The sadness was to come later, a few months after Liberation, with the split of the Chhatra League into two distinct groups. The group led by Nur-e-Alam Siddiqui and Abdul Quddus Makhan, with its emphasis on the new-found political principle of Mujibbad, or Mujibism, was distinctly at odds with the scientific socialism propagated by ASM Abdur Rab and Shahjahan Siraj. And yet perhaps some sort of reconciliation could have been effected between the two had Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, invited by both groups to their conferences in 1972, not chosen to take up the Siddiqui-Makhan invitation and push aside that from the Rab-Siraj faction. It was an indiscreet move on Bangabandhu's part. It left a whole tranche of the young, those who had been his loyalists till the end of the war in December 1971, embittered. It would lead to a steep polarisation in national politics, especially through the eventual arrival of the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal on the scene towards the end of 1972. And while you mull over all this historical background to the rise and evolution of student politics in this country, do not forget to read through the chapters on General Ziaur Rahman's rather crude attempt to walk into the Dhaka University campus in 1976 and his subsequent sanction to the formation of the Jatiyatabadi Chhatra Dal. Again, the many tales of student resistance to General Ershad following his coup d'etat in 1982 make riveting reading. Manna's work is a point of reference for everyone interested in the nation's history and not just the part of it related to student activism. The objectivity he brings into the telling of the tale, the dispassionate view he takes of events add to the substantive nature of the work. . . . The fool is the wise man A sense of humour is what you need to sail through life. That ready wit, that ability to reduce seriousness to a thing of lightness is what often gives a spur to life. Consider Taposh Roy's Ahammoker Obhidhan, or a fool's dictionary. That Bengali term 'ahammok' or fool in English parlance is sometimes intended to convey the precisely opposite meaning. At least that is what good old Shakespeare tells you. The fools in his plays, especially when you think in terms of King Lear, are actually the ones who turn out to be the wise and profound ones of the lot. It is in that spirit that you might wish to approach Taposh Roy. He takes us through some of the most common terms and phrases we come across on a quotidian basis in our lives and then, suddenly as it were, redefines them for us in a way which leaves us rolling in laughter. Here's one: for quite sometime now the word 'aantel', a twist on 'intellectual', has been employed by people to denigrate individuals with pretensions to intellectualism. In Roy's view, an 'aantel' is he who understands a little less of every subject under the sun but does not understand that he does not understand. Now work that out on your own as we move on. Think of 'atyohotya', suicide. It is that kind of murder where the murderer remains beyond the pale of punishment. And 'ijjot', honour? Roy takes you to the movies, to remind you that as long as the leading man is around, it is hard to make so much as a scratch on the 'ijjot' of the leading lady. Of course, there are some definitions you may not quite see the point of and even shake your head in disbelief. But by and large you have here a treasury of humour you might want to share with your friends. Think of 'oitijjho'. Roy defines it as the mantra which keeps seminars and conferences going. In other words, where you do not mouth the word 'oitijjho', you really do not have much of a hold on life. On the many variations of the term 'kala', here is what Roy has on offer: charukala, karukala, shagorkala, champakala, aittakala, shilpakala and, finally, a woman's sholo kala. It is, as you may have noticed, often a play of words the writer indulges in. And 'kalpana' or the imagination? As Roy would have it, it is the breeze of the mind, a phase in time when teenagers go for chemotherapy of a kind. It keeps them going. There is an apt description of 'chamcha' or, in plain English, flunkey or hanger-on. A flunkey is one from whom you have some predictable terms issuing forth, notably 'yes sir', 'okay sir', 'sir' . . . and lots more. 'Chhokra' is but a polite term of abuse for the young by the elderly. And a 'talk show' is defined as a place where volubility rather than work magnifies a human being. The 'hilsa' is a signboard the Bengali uses in the Baishakh season. And 'karchupi', rigging, is the final consolation of those who lose elections. Read on. The amusement will be endless, together with that loud laughter which might see you split your sides.
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