They have no real stake in the very higher education system they so readily abuse as a birthright. And so we are in the midst of another strike affecting educational institutions. Indeed, I talk of the politicians of all the major half a dozen parties whose kids are routinely sent either to foreign lands or to the expensive private universities where they are largely immune from the proclivities of so-called student politics.

This newspaper has time and again, rightly so, called for a severe reform of the culture of agitational student politics that has become usual in our higher educational institutions because innocent students and their parents should not pay the price for someone's unbridled lust for power. That reform is nowhere in sight, understandably so.

University-age students provide a fertile mind, effusive energy, and ready muscle-power for any political outfit wanting to make a show of strength. Add to the mix the promises of a few thousand takas, protection from law enforcement, and seasoned leaders who are professional "students," and any two pence politician can have enough misguided hands to force shutdowns, burn public property, and cancel examinations. If this is the legacy of the glory of student politics of the past, we can live without it.

Come on, let us be honest. Apart from the principled politics of a few leftist student organisations (with philosophies that I totally disagree with), most campus politics are about raw state power: either you are fighting on behalf of masters who want to keep it or at the behest of those who want to get it. The rest of it, curriculum, fees, cultural programmes, fresher receptions, and volunteer activities are simply facades for public consumption.

The three major student organisations are but he stormtroopers of their parent organizations who provide a violent society's muscle-power in exchange for the unhampered running of extortion rackets in all public colleges and universities. Burn a BRTC bus for us and we will protest if you are caught selling admission forms for a profit-that is the bargain in a nutshell. None of us want to believe that this is the end result of a "glorious heritage" of student politics. Yet in our hearts we know the truth.

You want to talk about elitism in education, this is the classic example. The progeny of the wealthy and the powerful go on to get an education in an atmosphere where hartals and campus violence are rare. They come back into society ready to take-over from their parents. The children of the less fortunate, however, spend years living in the shadows of mastaans in residence halls, hoping that they might be able to get their degrees while their hair is still dark.

How many sons and daughters of cabinet ministers, former cabinet ministers, and MPs do you see enrolled at Dhaka University? And these are the people who ask regular folks to disrupt education for the good of the country's future. How dare they?

If student politics are about debate, deliberation, and student union elections devoted solely to student welfare and campus issues, they are a welcome addition to the total educational experience. When such activities become simply the reservoir of extortion and violence, no matter how nostalgic the past, they are a clear and present danger to our efforts to promote higher education irrespective of class and background.

Party-based student politics as we know it today have no place in a democratic society striving for equality and excellence. They serve none but the city-dwelling privileged political class at the expense of the masses of rural poor whose taxes pay for public universities and whose kids suffer the most from campus agitation. By patronising such politics, the major parties are deliberately, deviously and decisively protecting the very social inequalities that they lecture again at every opportunity.

It is called hypocrisy but then we should not be surprised, should we?

Esam Sohail is a Kansas City based banker and former college lecturer of international affairs.