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The university and democracy by Dr Zeenat Huda Wahid Universities are the educational institutions which adopt the distinctive model of teaching, learning and research procedure with the objective to produce the skilled manpower to meet the need of society. One of the major objectives of a university is to combine the pursuit of knowledge and truth with the values and needs of the society. The aim of the teachings at a university is to assist the students to develop their creativity, encourage their participation in the socio-cultural, economic and political life of the society as well as make them tolerant.    According to modern definition while education is often considered as a holistic process and system, the learning procedure of the university cannot be confined within a fixed framework of place and content. Universities accordingly aim to impart contemporary knowledge and diverse views, multiple perspectives and heterogeneous subject matters in consonance with up to date curriculum and ethical issues, which would ensure quality education and develop intellect and morality in society. The university in this regard could be defined as a cosmopolitan workplace which, along with science and technology, as well as arts, humanities and social sciences in its curricula, makes the student well informed and competent with critical and logical insight.    While the universities function as the highest seat of education in such a fashion, these institutions have got close association with the democratic processes across the globes. A democratic society depends on the informed populace who could raise their voice against any sort of oppression and injustice and make their political choice in their own way. Without informed, active and participatory citizens, democracy is not achievable, nor sustainable. Indeed, it would not be wrong to argue that a university not only acts as the highest echelon of academic excellence but also as a vanguard for democracy and freedom of thought. The underlying purpose of universities throughout the history has been to liberate the people from the prison of ignorance and backwardness. In its struggle against the religious obscurantist ideology of the middle ages, the teachings of the universities helped to develop the idea of modern rationalism and the doctrine of individual liberty. While education was a sacred monopoly of the small elite in ancient and medieval periods, the universities played the unique role in breaking that elitist notion of education. Since the syllabus and the curriculum of the universities remain in diversified forms, including the Marxists, Functionalists, Feminists or the Subaltern themes and sub-themes, these multidimensional approaches provide the opportunity to the students to get acquainted with the social and political thought of the classical and modern scholars. The universities thus act as a gateway, linking the past with the present to develop a critical inquiry to comprehend the meaning of social phenomena and historical discourse.    This scholarship reveals the multiple realities of society, culture and politics, and it encourages a democratic and rational outlook with toleration of heterodoxy. To have a complete picture of the social life including its complexities, ambiguities and the heterogeneities, the universities also provide research facilities by placing importance on independent thought, empirical procedure and in-depth analysis. While a research student of the university can approach the experiences of people in contemporary organizations by examining the personal and institutional documents or through exploring the history or culture of the marginalised people or unveiling the sensitive or the hidden issues of social life, she cannot remain segregated from the greater society.    While through teaching and research a university remains the integral part of the society, in time of social need and national crisis it cannot in parallel remain an isolated island. As these institutions do not operate in social vacuums their role has been found to be instrumental for breaking out of the culture of silence, the political and cultural exclusion and powerlessness. The universities from such a perspective make the students conscious about their fundamental rights and make them aware about the democratic procedure to achieve political emancipation and cultural freedom.    The role of the university accordingly remains decisive either in the social reform movement or in the discourse of modern nationalism or in the national liberation struggle. In addition, these institutions help in the growth and development of the middle class and the cultural as well as political intelligentsias in society. Indeed, the political and the cultural role of the English middle class has been analyzed in the homeland of the colonisers and reflected in its politics and philosophies. A group of classical and moderns sociologists have highlighted the role of English middle class for introducing the laissez-faire as the principle of trade and breaking the monopoly of political privileges which the owners of the feudal estates enjoyed before. With the establishment of the universities in colonial India a new group of intelligentsias appeared spearheading the anti- colonial nationalist movement. That group created the rich province of literatures and culture with the spirit of nationalism and democracy as well as fought against the traditional orthodoxy and the colonial dominance and subjugation.    The University of Dhaka also played a unique role in awakening the language based Bengali national identity among the people of the then East Pakistan under the colonial subjugation of Pakistan. With the establishment of Dhaka University Bengali nationalism entered a new phase with its socio-cultural, secular and non-communal form. It was because of the establishment of the University of Dhaka that promoted the growth of the educated middle class who conceived the national identity as a matter of consciousness and accordingly imagined the concept of Bengali nationalism in the light of the syncretic Bengali culture and Bengali vernacular. Indeed, the language controversy assumed the conflicting form in newly born Pakistan when the students of the University of Dhaka formed Tamaddun Majalish, a cultural organisation in order to demonstrate support of the Bengali vernacular. Later by negating the emphatic assertion of Jinnah that ‘Urdu and Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan’ the students organised demonstrations on the streets. That courageous protest intensified the nationalist fervour during that period. Finally, on February 21, 1952, the students for the first time laid their lives for their beloved mother tongue and shattered the Two Nation Theory of Pakistan.    The cultural intelligentsias, the product of the University of Dhaka in the similar fashion contributed in shaping .the linguistic based Bengali nationalism against the theocratic principle, communalism and colonial exploitation of Pakistan. When the West Pakistan government endeavored to construct the image of Pakistan as a homogeneous nation in the name of Islamic fraternity, it was the great Bengali linguist Dr Mohammad Shahidullah who made a remarkable observation ‘It is a reality that we are Hindus and Muslims, but the greater reality is that we are all Bengalis. Mother nature has in her own hand imprinted such indelible marks of Bengaliness on our face and language that these can not be hidden by outward signs of the thread or tuft on the head’. Through this statement he not only challenged the official nationalism imposed by the Pakistani colonial ruler but also contributed in conceptualising the concept of Bengali national identity. He in fact addressed that the very core of national identity is bound to a specific place and accordingly territory is the concrete expression of the national identity. From such a perspective he identified the Bengalis as a cultural group who share the similar linguistic and cultural experiences within their definite territorial setting.    Universities and their students as well as the intelligentsias thus pave the way for the democratic process either through reasoning or demonstration to raise the voice of the oppressed or the marginalised or the subalterns to establish their cultural and political right across the world. Democracy is such a process, which has its historical root in public reasoning as well as demands for more use of voice in the pursuit of equity. While the universities act for the deployment of argumentative voices to accept the pluralist thinking, their students consider silence as a powerful enemy of social justice. According to the concept of the university, knowledge does not involve memorising sentences or words but an attitude of creation and re-creation. And for this creation and recreation of the social reality the students require not only the cognitive development but also rational approach and intellectual autonomy to express their thought and opinions freely and independently.        Dr Zeenat Huda Wahid is associate professor of sociology, Dhaka University

HEADLINES    Ekushey and the state of undemocracy    In perpetual fear of free speech    A people’s history of the language movement    Language, nation, and multiplicity    Being Ekushey    On tyranny and terror: freedom of thought and choice of speech    The university and democracy    The implications of a playground brawl    Denying freedom, denying development

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