Academics in incarceration and on remand . . .
Everything that happened in August 2007 at Dhaka University, and around it, promises to remain a dark chapter in the history of this country. Of course, the university has seen some terribly bad, difficult days in the past. Take the 1960s, when the Ayub-Monem regime unleashed the corruption that would in subsequent times give student politics a bad name. The National Students Federation, with the support and encouragement of the Pakistani establishment, went cheerfully into the business of clubbing anyone and everyone promoting or upholding the Bengali secular democratic cause into silence. And then there was the scandal of the Hamoodur Rahman Commission report on education. Finally, in the last phase of the Pakistan state in these parts, the frenzy with which Pakistan's soldiers went into murdering teachers and students alike at Dhaka University in 1971 remains a blot on civilization. So how are the incidents of August 2007 any different from those Dhaka University witnessed earlier? One point ought to be enough to underscore the difference: in 2007, the state machinery swooped on teachers, as it did on students, and carted off some teachers to prison on charges that were as unbelievable as they were untenable. Never before in the history of Dhaka University, indeed in the history of any university in the country for that matter, had teachers been subjected to the kind of humiliation that Harun-ur-Rashid and his colleagues went through. Rashid was --- and remains --- dean of the faculty of social sciences. That obviously did not earn him any special favours from the state, governed as it was --- and is --- by emergency rules. In this work, Dr. Harun-ur-Rashid records in the form of a daily diary the tribulations he, along with Dr. Anwar Hossain, went through between his arrest and eventual release from jail. A rather intriguing aspect of his telling of the tale relates to the meeting some senior military officers had with university teachers on the morning of the day Rashid and Hossain were taken into custody. The officers had done their homework, as evidenced by their inquiries into the whereabouts of Professor AAMS Arefin Siddique (who was abroad at the time). The officers even knew when Siddique had been scheduled to return home. That point taken note of, they sought the academics' cooperation in resolving the crisis that had arisen out of a bad incident between soldiers and students at the university playground. The officers promised that more such interaction with the teachers would follow. In the event, as Rashid notes, nothing happened. Rashid and Hossain were arrested; two other teachers on the list, Sadrul Amin and Nim Chandra Bhowmik, went on the run. The narrative makes depressing reading. Imagine the picture. An all-powerful state machinery, backed by a state of emergency enforced by the military, makes off with the two teachers, having first blind-folded them, into an area of darkness where they are both separately subjected to rigorous interrogation. Rashid asserts that he was not subjected to physical maltreatment, but he does note that he was made to listen to the screams of others in torture nearby. Taken on remand twice, the academic, a noted observer of history, wondered if he would emerge unscathed into freedom. His thoughts on his family, the courage they were demonstrating under psychological pressure, kept him going. So did the sympathy of his fellow prisoners, all of whom remained unconvinced about his and his colleagues' 'guilt'. But that is not enough to have them go home in freedom. Rashid and Hossain are forwarded to court, even as Sadrul Amin and Nim Chandra Bhowmik surrender to the authorities. In prison, Rashid spends time reading newspapers and listening to the radio. Freedom can only be comprehended in its fullness by the man deprived of it. That is precisely the way the author feels. He remembers the times when Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman spent year after endless year at Dhaka central jail. He recalls too other famous prisoners around the world. Courage of conviction kept them going. It is a similar situation for Professor Harun-ur-Rashid. The author records in detail the gathering momentum in academic circles and across the country for his and his colleagues' release. The arrests of some Rajshahi University teachers, including a respected former vice chancellor, appall him. And then there is the matter of the trial. The military authorities promise to have the teachers freed within a specified time frame, as a way of staving off a threatened movement by the academic community. Eventually, they are all freed. But the freedom is tainted somewhat. Rashid, Hossain and Amin are all sentenced to two years' imprisonment each; Bhowmik is freed. Within hours, the three condemned teachers are 'pardoned' by the President of the republic and let off. August-er Ghotona is a record of the darkness that consumed Dhaka University at a time when its students and teachers sought to uphold freedom of thought and expression. A price was paid for those ideals. Now you have the opportunity to read that story in detail.
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