The lengthy observation that follows is an attempt to match the concept of democracy with its practical functioning in Bangladesh, primarily in two sectors: education and politics. A scholar perceived the need for schools to effect a magical reconciliation of pupils with society, rather than confining, or even betraying, an ideal.
The schools of past centuries turned out not to be educational in the sense of removing ignorance, but rather as institutions meant to bring about a reconciliation of the people with society, as well as with life itself.
The world is intolerable from several perspectives because it lacks reasonableness; just human intentions are ignored, according to one view, and they are ignored because of the difficulty of method, translating a good and rational plan into a reality that has become monumental. In this way, all that democracy has decreed shall be respected- the rights of individuals and groups to be consulted and conciliated.
This brings us to a significant watershed in Bangladesh: more than half a century of history, and the latest series of elections to choose representatives of the respective student bodies of Dhaka University Students’ Union (DUCSU) and Jahangirnagar University (JU). Both public institutions; with Dhaka University having crossed the venerable century mark in 2012.
In terms of longevity, JU is over half that number. Both the aforementioned institutions recently went ahead with the election of their respective student bodies, a very democratic endeavour. All kinds of verbal suspicions, accusations, and ‘guest’ thoughts seemed to float around, not just within the respective campuses.
The process was domestic. DU has been perceived as practicing it for a long time. Interestingly, though, after an initial period of heated debate following the results, diluting all manners of speculation surrounding the outcome (we will restrict ourselves to DUCSU here for reasons of space, though JUCSU followed a similar pattern of political choices), the elections were held reasonably without the traditional student political violence in which groups fought bitterly against each other.
This was settled especially in DU, where the Islami Chhatra Shibir (the student wing of the rightist political party Jamaat-e-Islami) and an assortment of secular student bodies had previously held office following earlier elections.
Most interestingly, the two ideological rivals refrained from previous armed clashes, and the secular parties have seemingly gone into self-introspection to determine what went wrong and what should be done about it. This endeavour goes back to and has been discussed even in the national press.
At the time of one of the progenitors of political thought, Aristotle, the question arose of how might could be reconciled with rights. This is still a question for today. He championed political communication, arguing that the good life involves active participation with shared common political tasks. Liberal democracy emphasises the natural rights of individuals: the matter of their right to life. Relevant today is still the matter of how might could be reconciled with rights.
Democracy has endorsed this notion in several degrees- matters to be respected. However, the matter of reconciling the rights of individuals and groups to be consulted and conciliated is not yet settled, so no one can or would want to object to their right of resistance. With the above point in mind, we still have to keep in view the key lesson of politics: nothing can be taken for granted, and politics has to be seen through both normal as well as crooked lenses. For instance, very recently, in the manner of many political observers, public leaders accused the government of engineering the DUCSU and JUCSU elections in favour of the incumbent government for different occasions.
We may be pardoned for categorising politics as a nasty creation of greedy human beings or, alternatively, depending on the politics involved, a blessing to the vast multitudes of human beings who have neither much insight into the workings (both good and/or deceitful) of political parties and party oligarchs. It truly matters to broad ordinary people and can be served by different degrees of liberal democracy. The rest must be supplied by party bigwigs with the will and resources to do good for the people they purport to serve. If you claim to be a party leader, then show leadership. Plato and Aristotle lived long ago but had contributed so much to both the practice and writing of politics and its importance that they will live on in the annals of great minds. While it would be reasonable to hope and expect that different generations continue to be guided by their willingness to serve towards healthy politics and humanity.
