To develop education is difficult without democratic system

It is often alleged that the quality of education at Dhaka University has declined. This may be partly true. However, it is also true that, like in all other fields, there has been inequality in the quality of education. Some students know and understand more than the previous students, but their number is not large. The main responsibility for the decline in quality lies with the state.

The value of education has decreased under the capitalist management of the state and employment has not been guaranteed for educated youth. So, there has been a lack of interest among students in pursuing education. The ability to pursue education has also decreased compared to before. The main reason for this is the lack of proper development of the democratic environment within the university. One explanation for why development has not occurred can be found in the ineffectiveness of the elected students’ union.

It is true that the history of Dhaka University is a history of continuous struggle. The fight is going on on two fronts – establishing democracy and managing higher education. The university has not lagged behind in either of these two tasks and therein lies its glory and characteristics.

The university acquires, creates and distributes knowledge. The work is social. The individual is educated, but the individual's education occurs socially, through student-teacher relationships, exchanges among students, research with mutual cooperation of teachers, and connections with society. There is no such thing as personal ownership in the field of knowledge. The acquisition, creation, and distribution of knowledge all occur socially, and knowledge is not personal property. If it is kept, it weakens and is destroyed. The more knowledge can be distributed, the more it grows. In a word, the university is a democratic institution.

Democracy is not just a system of government. Democracy is a culture, the essence of which is equality of rights and opportunities among citizens. Without this equality, neither of the two main conditions of democracy – the decentralisation of state power and the establishment of proper public representation in all important areas of the state and society – is possible. Social ownership of property is necessary to establish equality of rights and opportunities.

The history of human civilisation for thousands of years is a history of continuous progress. This development has passed through various stages of social development. Slavery and feudalism have been overcome and the capitalist system has arrived. Unprecedented achievements in abundance, innovation, knowledge and science have been possible. This progress has changed many things, but it has not changed the system of private ownership of property. Today, even liberal economists admit that the division stands at one versus ninety-nine. That is, a true democracy has not been established.

Dhaka University was established during the British colonial rule. Naturally, that state was not an ally of the university; it was an enemy. There were two reasons for the state's consent to the establishment of Dhaka University. The first was to create a class through education who would be loyal to the British and would cooperate in maintaining their rule. The second reason was the agreement to provide some compensation for the rejection of the hope of progress among the Muslim community in the new province formed with East Bengal and Assam through the administrative division of Greater Bengal in 1905. However, this was not the interest of the state in establishing the university. The partition of Bengal was abandoned in 1911; the establishment of Dhaka University was delayed until 1921. Even after its establishment, the university did not receive the financial support it was supposed to receive. On the contrary, the state has taken over; it has been doing so.

The character of the state is colonial. Its ideology was capitalist exploitation and the smuggling of wealth from the ruled country. On the other hand, the character of the university has always been democratic. Therefore, the university has stood against the state rule. The student community had a special role in the anti-British movement, and Dhaka University was not left behind in that regard. The British policy of division incited the Hindu-Muslim difference to become a division. As a result, communal riots occurred; but Dhaka University remained outside the riots. The students of the university instead rushed to rescue the people in danger in the riots. Since the state guards the interests of the privileged class, its nature is undemocratic and authoritarian. In contrast, the role of the university is like that of a mother. Just as a mother does not see differences among her children, the university also sees all its students and teachers equally.

The British state was completely anti-democratic. Even with the independence that came in 1947, there was no change in the characteristics of the state. The power of state rule passed into the hands of the military-civilian bureaucracy. The state wanted to turn East Bengal into an internal colony. This intention of the state rulers was clearly expressed in the Dhaka speech of the alleged father of the Pakistani 'nation', Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Ignoring the obvious fact that 56 percent of the citizens of the new state were Bengalis, he declared that Urdu would be the only state language of Pakistan. This meant that the character of the state would be completely undemocratic and colonial.

Then, the movement that developed to demand Bengali as the state language was led by Dhaka University. The essence of the demand for language was the desire to establish language-based nationalism instead of religion-based nationalism. Since language is not anyone's private property and all speakers have equal rights to it, the demand for Bengali as the state language was actually a demand for the establishment of true democracy. The struggle to establish democracy has progressed in that direction. The mass uprising of 1969 and the people's war of 1971 saw students and teachers of Dhaka University present in all areas. They struggled and sacrificed their lives.

After independence, the University of Dhaka started to complain that there was a shortage of research. This complaint is not true. A lot of research is done in the university; but not all the research is published, not much is publicised, and the results of the research are not applied in the economic and social sphere. The responsibility for increasing the figure and usefulness of research lies not so much with the university, but with the state system.

The law on the basis of which Dhaka University was established stated that the main function of the university would be teaching. The word 'instruction' was used to mean education; but that word means training. Training and education are not the same. The university did not provide training; it provided education, which increases knowledge and provides inspiration to understand the world and change it. How is the development of education possible without an effective democratic system in the country?

Writer: Serajul Islam Choudhury is an Emeritus Professor, Dhaka University