Standing On a Street of Blood

It was inside Principal’s room where formalities were being done of my admission to Dhaka Residential Model College. I don’t know about other colleges, but DRMC had rules for its students to choose compulsory and elective subjects during the admission, I mean at the very beginning. When I was about to name my subjects, my mother was looking at me, to read my face what really I was going to do. My sister along with my mother, often wanted me to have Biology at least as a fourth (elective) subject so that I could at least seat for medical admissions after higher secondary. But I had my memories. I saw my sister to study up to a limit that a human being possibly can and I was never comfortable with studying this much.

Not only for admission, after getting admitted in Dhaka Medical College my sister had to put her studies in one side and rest of her world aside. I told I was never comfortable with this much studies. So for only to avoid studying 18 hours a day, I never even thought about being a doctor in anyways. So in an afternoon of 2003’s fall inside Principal’s room in Residential Model College, when I named my subjects ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Statistics’ instead of ‘Higher Maths’ and ‘Biology’, my mother told nothing. But her face left a message that at that moment she gave up her hope of another of her children could be a doctor, and she didn’t look much happy with that.

Being a doctor in anywhere is always thought to be the fulfilment of dreams of the one who became and the people around him. In all over the world medical schools appear to be pretty different from other schools just because it contains its pupils who beside studies receive lessons to get prepared mentally to serve the people with devotion and adoration. We can look over an array of essays with title “aim in life” where confirmedly majority of the essays will hail the dreams of kids those want to be doctors. When parents look forward to have their child in the journey of being a doctor, their sights remain with immense hope and expectations.

Violence in our educational institutions is not new to claim lives of students. In Bangladesh more students have died from internal campus violence than the savageries of various repression-friendly regimes. The freshest claim of this nasty part of our politics has been Abul Kalam Asad Rajib.

Abul Kalam Asad Rajib was in his room in Dhaka Medical College hostel Fazle-Rabbi Hall on the second floor. A group of above twenty people with sticks, cricket-stamps, rods and other melee weapons broke in Rajib’s room. Reportedly Rajib was beaten by the group inside the room until some of the attackers took him and threw him down from the balcony of 2nd floor. After an above 25 feet free-fall on concrete slab on the ground, he was taken care of by another group waiting downstairs. There again Rajib was beaten mercilessly until a crowd converged to the spot. The attackers left the scene with more than 25 casualties including one seriously injured, Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who is a leader and General Secretary of Dhaka Medical College unit of Bangladesh Chhatro League, the student wing of the presently ruling party.

Noted number of the injured students at hospital has named a doctor called Bidyut Barua, who is another Chhatro League leader of the campus, an ex general secretary of the unit and appears to have led a faction of DMCH Chhatro League which is rival of the one Abul Kalam Asad Rajib led. Most of the injured students have stated attackers contained a few DMC Chhatro League activists, and a large number of outsiders led by some Chhatro Union (Bangladesh Student Union) activists. Abul Kalam Asad Rajib, who could have served us in health services or in politics or in anywhere in coming years, has succumbed his injuries, has been declared dead by the doctors of Community Military Hospital at Dhaka Cantonment at 6:30PM local time.

One of my recent posts was written about the student politics. A question was thrown through the post that whether a ban is appropriate and my post outlined a trail that ends in answer ‘no to ban and yes to reformation’. Many of the readers have been people close to me and I wasn’t out of touch when they came up with unending criticism of my views. Many of the readers directly said a ‘yes’ to permanent ban over student politics. Very few had a voice over the reformation but what exactly hasn’t been seen in them was optimism. They ain’t sure about a reformation that can make student politics work is in fact possible.

Abul Kalam Asad Rajib

What Bangladesh Chhatro League have been doing after the present government took oath, is not indeed any individual characteristic of Chhatro League as an organization. It has been a custom that student wings of a ruling party will act like what Chhatro League has been doing since last January, what Chhatro Dal has done in January 2002 and what Chhatro League did in May 1996.

My saying ‘no’ to banning student politics, was some sort of saying ‘yes’ to the path of progressive advancement of our national politics. To back this ‘no’ to the ban, there have been a lot of arguments which I had to get involved in with those who support a ban. But today it appears that my being stubborn with a ‘no to ban’ gives me a feeling of standing upon a street perplexedly, the street which is full of blood, bled by those who attacked, bled by those who were attacked.

Abul Kalam Asad will never know that what he succumbed was not his wounds given by his rivals. He has succumbed the wounds that are stigmatizing our politics every day. Abul Kalam Asad will never know that the prominence of notoriety that he had in his campus, didn’t require him to battle for it, he easily grabbed it from the characteristic of our politics. The failure is ours that we have ourselves ruled by politics with such a type, which creates leaders of characteristics who died and the media finds nothing to add at end of their obituaries that could make us say “Ahare…” after reading it.