Nearly 400 young men from Islami Chhatra Shibir, the Jamaat-e-Islami’s students’ front, gathered at Dhaka University’s historic Nawab Ali Chowdhury Senate Building ON? to celebrate after defeating the Bangladesh Nationalist Party’s (BNP) student wing in the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU) elections.
Soon the wood and glass-panelled auditorium rang out with the thunderous chorus: hijab, hijab, hijab. This continued for a good 30 seconds before the students settled back into their chairs with big smiles.
The Shibir’s nominees clean-swept the DUCSU elections, a feat not achieved since Bangladesh’s 1971 liberation war when—along with their parent party, the Jamaat—they were branded as razakars or collaborators of the occupying Pakistani army.
Bangladesh’s liberation war had led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of men and women, many as a result of the Pakistani military’s excesses which involved rape and other atrocities in which local collaborators played a significant role. The Jamaat, an Islamist party, had opposed the liberation war, a taint which it still carries unapologetically.
But the events surrounding the chanting of hijab, hijab were slightly different. This was more in response to the victory of a hijab- and niqab-wearing DUCSU electoral candidate and not a demand for compulsory headscarf use by all female students of the university.
The Shibir’s maiden victory meant a numbing blow to the Chhatra Dal, the BNP’s student organisation. Sundry other student organisations were reduced to also-rans. After all, the Chhatra Dal was the pretender to the DUCSU posts in the backdrop of the ban on its arch rival, the Chhatra League, which had been proscribed by a government fiat along with its parent party, Awami League, on May 10.
Crisis of democracy
For many Bangladeshis, the DUCSU election result is like a betrayal of history—a reminder that the values for which millions sacrificed their lives are now under unprecedented threat. But it also reflects the deeper political vacuum and crisis of democracy that grips the nation today, especially in the wake of the then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s flight from Dhaka to Delhi following a student-led mass upsurge in July-August 2024.
Several overlapping factors contributed to this remarkable election result. Foremost among them was the absence of the Chhatra League, historically Bangladesh’s most powerful student force. Following the ban on the Awami League and its affiliate organisations, a vacuum opened in campus politics. Shibir, with its well-oiled organisational machinery, was quick to fill it.
This was in the making anyway once the Sheikh Hasina regime allowed madrassa (Islamic seminary) students to enrol for regular courses in Dhaka University in 2017.
There were allegations that Chhatra League grudge votes transferred to the Shibir candidates after the Chhatra Dal-BNP welcomed the ban on the former. However, disillusionment with the Chhatra Dal also played a role. Over the past year, the BNP’s student organisation faced widespread criticism for extortion, violence and harassment. Ordinary students, alienated by such excesses, were reluctant to cast their lot with the Chhatra Dal. By contrast, Shibir projected discipline, cohesion and a message of reform. For many, it was the “lesser evil”.
There were also widespread allegations of electoral malpractices with students reporting that their ballots had already been cast, a reference to ghost voting. Intimidation was reported inside several student halls, with allegations of block voting in advance, in favour of Shibir candidates. This indicated that the election’s integrity had been compromised well before the ballots were counted.
Yet, the result also reflected a deeper protest vote. Many students, frustrated with corruption, neglect and the absence of genuine representation, used their preference to send a message. They may not fully embrace Shibir’s ideology, but they wanted to reject the status quo.
However, allowing for the Shibir’s triumph without critical scrutiny risks normalising historical revisionism. Already, there have been complaints of Shibir candidates making dismissive or distorted comments about liberation war martyrs.
Shibir’s victory is more than a campus affair. Shibir is not an ordinary student organisation but a shock force for the Jamaat, the party that opposed the birth of Bangladesh. This unpleasant past has clung to the Jamaat-Shibir. For many freedom-loving Bangladeshis, the image of Shibir cadres taking control of DUCSU is painful, as though the sacrifices of 1971 were in vain, especially on a campus that once stood as the liberation movement’s epicentre.