The JCD activists attacked a peaceful student procession taken out late night on Wednesday in favour of a student strike on Thursday. After beating up the leaders of the rival Bangladesh Chhatra League (BCL), this newspaper's DU campus reporter was called out of his room, beaten with iron rods and then thrown out of his hall at the dead of night. Later, his friends took him to hospital.

The following day, Thursday, the mayhem continued throughout the first part of the day with consecutive attacks on the BCL and the Chhatra Union processions by the JCD activists. All independent reports and almost all newspapers clearly and categorically blamed the JCD activists for all the attacks.

In some cases batons were snatched away from the hands of the policemen by the JCD activists and used to attack their opponents. No impartial observer has attributed the starting of this unprovoked and unnecessary attack to anybody but the JCD activists.

Student violence is not uncommon to our campuses, nor is the propensity of the JCD and the BCL to attack one another anything new. There have even been gunfights between these two groups. We are also aware that both the JCD and the BCL use every means to rally the general student body against the other. We know all this and have, regrettably and to its detriment, reconciled ourselves to accept this as part of normal campus life.

What we cannot accept is the continual use of general students as cannon fodder for party politics. The unprovoked nature of this latest violence and the scale of it clearly show that what is going on in the name of student politics has nothing to do with students' welfare. The first sign of unrest was seen on Tuesday night. On Wednesday, there was a huge protest regarding the change of the honours course duration from three to four years. All student groups, including the JCD, participated in this demonstration. They declared a 4- point charter of demand and called for an indefinite strike on the campus starting from the following day, Thursday. A section of students attacked the vice chancellor's car and damaged its windshield when the VC personally tried to calm the students. This gave, in the eyes of some, a partisan tinge to what was otherwise a non-partisan demonstration.

By the same afternoon the VC had agreed to accept the demands and had it passed in a meeting of the syndicate that was convened at 8:00pm and finished at about 11:00pm. Basically all parties--the students, the teachers, the DU authorities and the syndicate-- had all agreed to the demands made by the students. On Thursday, the education ministry also accepted the same and a declaration to this effect was published in the newspapers on Friday. So there was no reason for any conflict, leave alone any large-scale clashes between the student organisations.

Why then, was there this all out attack by the JCD on the BCL that was spread over for nearly 20 hours? Simply because, to a section of the ruling party leadership the whole episode appeared as if the campus had gone out of the control of their henchmen and that the general students appeared to exercise more autonomy of action than they should have. BNP high-ups suspected that the rival BCL had engineered the whole thing and had used the issue to gain a foothold on the DU campus. This triggered the JCD actions. Thus on Wednesday night, at the instruction that came from way above JCD's own leadership, it was decided that the student demonstration of the following day would have to be quashed violently.

The sad account of what followed we read in the newspapers.

We know that if confronted the JCD and the BNP will say this is nothing new. "We are doing exactly what was done to us. During the AL rule the JCD was driven out of the campus so now we have driven them out and that is how it will remain."

This is precisely our question. How long are we going to see a repetition of the past vitiate our present and jeopardise our future? How long are the general students going to suffer as revenge politics dominate the campus? How long will students continue to be used as cannon fodder by our politicians?

According to the JCD constitution, all power vests with the chairperson of the parent body, the BNP. Hence our initial question to the PM herself. In November 2002, both the central and the DU committees of the JCD were dissolved due to their leadership's link with criminal activities including extortion. In February this year, the present committee was handpicked by the BNP chairperson and announced without the formality of holding a JCD council session. According to newspaper reports of that time, nearly 80 per cent members of that committee comprised of irregular students and 20 of the central committee members were reportedly married. Since then numerous reports of JCD leaders being involved in different types of criminal activities were published without any action by the high ups.

So the question is what type of student party can the PM expect to have with the majority of its leaders (selected with her consent) being irregular or non-students, some involved in criminal activities, some being armed cadres and some involved in business, not to mention some being full-fledged family men? How can she expect a well disciplined and committed student party when no action is taken against those found guilty of the shameful attack, in July 2002, on female students of Shamsunnahar Hall. The report of the one-member judicial body was never made public, recommendations made in it ignored and the persons found guilty allowed to go free.

Thankfully, no lives were lost in the latest clash. But it did reveal the perpetuation of the fascist mindset that will not allow the expression of dissenting views and the existence of rival parties. There is no space for such mentality in a democracy.

The previous AL government did not understand it (when it drove out the JCD from the DU campus) and the present BNP government does not seem to understand it either. The question clearly is what is the commitment to democracy of those who exhibit these tendencies and those under whose direction such tendencies exist, thrive and show their power?

Will the PM kindly ponder about the future of our democracy with such 'proponents' in her wings?