What has Ducsu done so far?

My mother, an economics student at Dhaka University (DU) in the 1990s, filled my childhood with stories about the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (Ducsu). Years later, as a student at the same university, I encountered that inheritance in a far more prosaic setting: a voting booth.

I cast my vote for candidates who, in my judgement based on what they had done before and what they claimed they would do next, seemed capable of governing student affairs. Student politics matters here because DU remains one of the few institutional spaces where student voices can still be heard. Hence, after September last year, I have been keeping tabs on what Ducsu and the elected representatives of student voices have been up to.

Four months into its tenure, Ducsu presents a picture that is far from settled. There is a growing unease about how authority is being exercised on campus. Eviction drives against both hawkers and non-students have altered the texture of DU in ways that merit scrutiny. Long described as a people’s campus and deeply entangled with the city around it, DU now risks becoming a more insulated space. These efforts, often justified in the name of security, recast ordinary people as threats rather than constituents of campus life. Order may be returning, but it comes at the cost of proximity, and with it a reshaping of the university’s moral boundaries.

The discomfort deepens when placed against commitments articulated before the election. SM Farhad, the Ducsu general secretary (GS), was explicit in rejecting authoritarian politics, torture, violence, and guest-room practices. On multiple occasions, he drew clear lines against coercion and moral policing, insisting that no one should be compelled into conformity through fear, whether in matters of dress or conduct. However, those assurances sit uneasily beside the viral video of Ducsu Executive Member Sarba Mitra Chakma forcing boys to do squats at the central playground—a scene of public humiliation enacted in the name of discipline.

Sarba Mitra has since apologised, but the incident indicates more than an individual lapse. Regardless of the person in charge, corporal punishment follows the same logic of oppression. It creates a habit of following orders out of fear, which is the opposite of what is needed for a healthy democracy.

What is equally troubling is how slowly this behaviour was challenged. University authorities did not intervene. Student peers looked on. Condemnation followed only after public outrage erupted. A leadership that fundamentally claims to be opposed to torture and arbitrary force cannot afford such latency. In moments like these, silence functions as the green light to continue abuse.

However, the material conditions under which Ducsu assumed office are worth noting. Every academic session, each DU student pays Tk 60 to Ducsu and another Tk 60 to their hall union. By calculation, since the last Ducsu committee’s term ended in 2020, at least Tk 90 lakh should have been accumulated for Ducsu, with another Tk 90 lakh for hall unions. The most striking fact about the new Ducsu committee is that it began its tenure broke, depleted by years of mismanagement and neglect, with no bank balance and no inherited funds. And yet, within four months, Ducsu leaders were standing before microphones listing renovations worth millions, alumni donations, and even a Chinese-backed hall project regained momentum.

After the July uprising, the DU campus was charged with expectations. The election of a new student union led by Vice-President Shadik Kayem and GS SM Farhad carried significance beyond the routine cycle of student politics. There have also been a series of tangible interventions. The medical centre has been upgraded with new equipment, including X-ray and ECG machines and an ambulance. Free sanitary napkins have been distributed in halls and academic buildings, a modest intervention with daily consequences. The central mosque has been renovated and air-conditioned. Plans have been announced for electric shuttles, expanded bus services, and improved transport routes. These are the basic mechanics of student welfare and dismissing them would be disingenuous. After years of being asked to wait while funds vanished into opaque systems, students are encountering visible outcomes.

Kayem’s insistence that the union did not “sit on the pretext of budget” marks a departure from a familiar culture of deferral. And yet, competence does not resolve deeper questions about power. The Ducsu leadership’s silence reappeared when a Jamaat leader publicly described the university as a “den of drugs and prostitution,” with particular hostility directed at female students. Protests erupted. Effigies were burnt. Yet, the absence of a clear and immediate response from male Ducsu representatives was conspicuous. Gendered vilification is neither incidental nor rare on campus, so the male leaders’ reticence can resemble evasion. Their ability to distinguish right from wrong seems to vanish the moment they have to confront ideas that align with their own ideological circles or senior leadership.

Four months is not a long time. No serious observer expects a student union to repair decades of institutional decay or to resolve entrenched ideological conflicts in a single semester. But it is long enough for patterns to emerge. The question emerging in many minds is whether Ducsu is cultivating a different political ethic or refining the operational efficiency of familiar hierarchies. Infrastructure can be upgraded relatively quickly. Democratic habits, however, take longer to develop, and they require a willingness to interrupt comfort, including one’s own.

For those watching closely since September, the picture remains unresolved. The improvements are tangible. DU has a long history of confronting authoritarianism beyond its gates, yet it is a difficult task to prevent that impulse from reappearing, subtly and efficiently, within them.

Azra Humayra is sub-editor at The Daily Star Campus.

Views expressed in this article are the author's own. 

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