1/11/2025 Depoliticization of Neoliberal University Campuses: The Case of Private Universities in Bangladesh By: Sohom RoyRead NowNeoliberalism and Higher Education We live in neoliberal times. The global march of capital goes on, with the opposition being fragmented, weakened, or co-opted (Hill and Kumar 2012). Neoliberal capitalism makes dominant the discourse that human well-being can be best advanced ‘the maximization of entrepreneurial freedoms within an institutional framework characterized by private property rights, individual liberty, unencumbered markets, and free trade’(Harvey 2007). The market is believed to be the solution of all problems and all effort goes to give it a free reign. Attempts are made to free private enterprise from any state-imposed restriction and regulation, the state withdraws from public expenditure and social services, giving up its erstwhile duties to the reign of private capital, and the ideas and existence of ‘public goods’ and ‘community’ are pushed back leaving the individual (now individual consumer) to grapple with immense market forces determining his life. The net of neoliberalism today captures all the world and its claws are sunk in all aspects of society. This includes higher education and universities which have been vastly affected by neoliberalism. This affect has been produced or forced upon by various methods ranging from imposing preconditions for loans to governments by international institutions, lobbying by capitalist elites, and violence by neo-fascist student groups against other students and faculty, to gradual changes in norms, rules and curriculums of universities due to the influence of neoliberal ideologies. Neoliberalism has an agenda in higher education centering on ‘socially producing labor power for capitalist enterprises’, and providing private capital and enterprises a free reign in profiteering in the field of education (Hill and Kumar 2012). This means that neoliberal universities are integrated with the market. On one hand they produce laborers for the market by training students as per the needs of capital and on the other hand they themselves become a part of the market as the sector of higher education privatizes and universities become privately owned. Higher education under neoliberalism becomes a commodity to be bought with money for increasing the chances of being able to labor in a capitalist sector or enterprise of one’s choice. The concrete micro ways in which this larger change occurs in universities is multivariant and context dependent. The shifts often include increase in fees and higher education becoming more inaccessible for the masses, capturing of campus spaces by corporates, influence of business interests on choice and design of offered courses, defunding of state-owned universities and proliferation of private ones, etc. In this essay, we will discuss one particular impact of neoliberalism on higher education- that of the depoliticization of university campuses, as observable concretely in the case of the private university sector of Bangladesh. Depoliticized Campuses Neoliberal universities (and universities in general under capitalism) produce the commodity of labor-power for the market (Kumar and Paul 2022). It trains its students in skills required to be productive in the jobs produced by the market. Students buy education (usually in the form of degree certificates) from neoliberal universities to increase their chances of being able to labor under capitalist elites of their choice. But good laborers are not political. Good laborers don’t think of their problems as results of larger structures which are political in nature. They don’t try to form political solidarities with other laborers or classes who have similar grievances. They never unionize to engage in conflictual relationships with their employers. Good laborers don’t ever dream of engaging in political action to alter society in their favor. To ensure that only good laborers are produced, neoliberal universities sanitize their campuses of politics. A few student elections for committees might be held, class representatives might be democratically elected. But spaces of collective organization and formation of broad solidarities will be constantly attacked and eliminated. Students will not be allowed to receive political education regarding the society they live in. Their attempts to think about and see the world critically will be constantly thwarted. What neoliberal universities seem to especially fear is the connection of their campuses and students with political organizations and movements outside universities. They create exclusive silos as campuses which are disconnected from the larger politics of the society. Universities after all, don’t just produce any commodity. They produce labor-power embodied in humans who are conscious and can think (Kumar and Paul 2022). These humans can ask questions, demand answers, and sometimes take effective action against capitalist elites. All efforts must therefore be made to surveil what is happening in universities. Not only should universities not become spaces where students receive critical education and learn to take political action against regimes in power, they must also be trained to become subservient docile beings who exist only to consume and aid surplus accumulation. Depoliticized neoliberal universities, by keeping students busy with tight schedules, cut-throat competition, continuous deadlines, and pointless academic commitments, train them to live as individualistic alienated beings who can’t forge solidarities with social groups outside university walls and can easily ignore the plight of the people around them, even those within university walls. This weakens the possibilities of resistance against oppressive neoliberal systems as the wealth gap keeps widening and the conditions of masses (including students) worsens. University students- a class which have historically led many progressive revolutions, is thus turned impotent. The production of docility and alienation among university students not only allows neoliberalism to continue its war against working masses outside university campuses but also allows it to freely engage in profiteering within universities. Higher education becomes more and more inaccessible as private players start dominating the sector and run universities like profit-making business. Even state-run institutes multiply their fees as government funding dries up. The insatiable desire for profits and suppression of critical education degrades the quality of higher education in universities. Students often complete their courses only to realize that their costly degrees aren’t enough to secure them jobs. Neoliberal universities are after all only a symptom of the crisis of capitalism and not a solution to it. Under such circumstances, the depoliticized condition of campuses ensures that students aren’t able to fight against university administrations and other institutions taking higher education further in the path of neoliberalism. When student unions and student politics at large is banned in campuses, nobody is there to resist another round of fee hike or the closure of another non-market oriented department. We must also note that the scope of public politics reduces when higher educational institutions are privatized. While public institutions belong to the public of which students are also a part, and therefore university administrations are accountable to them, private institutions establish the seller-buyer relationship between university administration and students. The administration is then free to run the institute however they like (it being their private property) and students are merely free to leave the institute for another seller of services. Private universities become personal fiefdoms of their owners and managers where students’ voices are limited to filling feedback forms to apparently improve quality of the bought service. It would be wrong to claim that all politics is vanquished in neoliberal universities and all relations with state and other external politics is served within university walls. It is only the students, usually along with the faculty, who are prohibited from engaging in political action and organizing. The university administration and their owners (in case of private universities) freely and openly engage in lobbying with the bourgeoise state and other political forces. In many cases they are known members, funders, and even office holders of political organizations who might have gotten their position within the university administration because of their political clout. The relationship between the elites of universities and the elites of neoliberal societies (with much overlap in between) is tightly maintained through political and social connections. This condition reflects the larger undemocratic ideology of neoliberalism which sees the working masses (here students and faculty) unfit for engaging in political decision making and social leadership, or rather, sees them fit for exclusion from political decision making because of their potentially anti-free market stances, making politics the exclusive domain of capitalist elites. The Private University Sector in Bangladesh Bangladesh was one of the first countries to be at the receiving end of the Structural Adjustment Facilities and Extended Structural Adjustment Facilities of the International Monetary Fund in 1986 and 1989, respectively. Under internal and external pressures, Bangladesh had to start walking in the path of neoliberalism comparatively early from the mid 1970s (Kabir and Chowdhury 2021). Privatization of higher education started in the 1990s amidst demands for greater accessibility of higher education (the number of public universities was limited). In 1992, the Bangladesh government promulgated the Private University Act, and the first private university was established in early 1993. Over the years, there has been a significant increase in the number of private universities in Bangladesh along with the numbers of students enrolled in them. In 2018, there were 49 public universities in Bangladesh with around 250,000 enrolled students. On the other hand, there were close to 100 private universities with more than 350,000 students enrolled in the same year (Kabir and Chowdhury 2021). Private universities helped massify higher education in Bangladesh. After a period of conflict regarding the terms of control of private university administrations between successive Bangladeshi governments and the association of owners of private universities, there seems to have been a settlement for shared control (Kabir and Chowdhury 2021). Most of these private universities are in and around Dhaka, and most of them run on a business model, making, or at least trying to make profits for their owners. The social acceptance and acknowledgement of the ‘for-profit’-ness of private universities is reflected by the commercial taxation rates imposed by the government on private university revenues. At least in the more renowned private universities of Dhaka, the fees are high enough to ensure that most of the population of Bangladesh remains excluded from them. These universities offer a range of courses, but are most famous for courses on business management and other technical science and engineering courses. Politics within Private Universities Right from their inception, the private universities marketed the fact that their campuses were free from student politics. It has to be noted that the student organizations of Bangladesh have historically played extremely important roles in the political journey of Bangladesh. They have repeatedly proven to be the movers of Bangladeshi history, be it in the independence movement against Pakistan, the movement for democracy against military rule, or in the recent mass movement that toppled the Awami regime. The student organizations of Bangladesh are powerful, and in many cases, they have been violent. In the last few decades, the student organization linked to the Awami League, the Chhatra League, was especially infamous for its violent and oppressive character. Chhatra League and other student organizations, and their conflicts, occasionally suspended university activities for prolonged periods disrupting academic calendars. Chhatra League had considerable influence over faculty appointments and individual students’ conditions during and after their university years. Student organizations could influence what teachers could teach inside classrooms and conflicts between student organizations often turned violent and even fatal. Under such circumstances the depoliticized nature of private university campuses was evaluated rather positively by many sections of the society. The private university administrations took advantage of these sentiments and ensured that their campuses are student politics free. Conversations with students from some of the more renowned private universities of Bangladesh revealed that larger national student organizations were not allowed to open units within private university campuses. Even the Chhatra League, supported by the party in power, failed to open units in private university campuses after concerted efforts in 2022 (Shawon 2022). In one of the universities of Dhaka, the organization’s functionaries were expelled. Other student organizations, regardless of their ideologies and affiliations, are also not allowed to have functioning units or functionaries within private universities. Depoliticization here is not just limited to a ban on established organizations however. There is an absence of political discourse within these campuses. Spaces where students can come together and think of the world politically, linking their own and others’ lives and problems with larger structures of society are scarce. There is little scope for students to come together and build solidarities among themselves or with people outside university walls. My respondents informed me that politics is almost a tabooed topic within private university campuses. There are debating, research, artistic and other clubs. There are social science courses which are taught in classrooms. But in none of these spaces is politics, in the form of state policies, or actions of other organized political groups, discussed. Teachers, unless they are already established in the bourgeoisie ruling regime, are hesitant to discuss anything political in class. Within students, there are no political groups with differing ideologies. Democracy is limited to the elections of non-partisan class representatives and club coordinators who have very limited powers. The grueling academic pressures that students of these universities have to endure also enables this lack of political discourse. Mandatory attendance, long classes, weekly assignments, frequent tests, etc. produce a situation where students are left with little time to engage meaningfully with other students inside campus or people outside them. Organizing needs time and effort. Private university pedagogies ensure that students don’t have them. They ensure that students are trained to be individualistic workers minding their own business, especially since they aren’t left with the time and energy to concern themselves with anything other than their own business. The state of depoliticization was also arguably aided by the authoritarian nature of the Awami League government. Students and teachers were perennially afraid of critiquing (or seen to be critiquing) the politics of the Awami regime which brutally suppressed dissent legally and illegally. Another factor at play might be the fact that students who study in these elite private universities are almost invariably from the middle and upper middle classes of Bangladesh. These are classes which have benefitted from the neoliberal policies of the state and have faith in the neoliberal ideologies prioritizing private property and the free market. These students belonged to families who didn’t require the state to fund higher education and had enough capital to send their children abroad for further degrees and employment. Having relatively lesser reasons to dissent and rebel, these students arguably had relatively lesser reasons to offer staunch resistances against the vanquishing of political spaces where dissent could be registered and social change could be attempted. Political Administrators, Non-Political Students The lack of student organization and political discourse has been beneficial for capitalist elites who run private universities. Despite the prevalence of profit seeking fee hikes, employment of part-time teachers, lack of infrastructure, and financial and administrative irregularities, protests from students of private universities have been scarce. When student movements have occurred, they have been small and fragmented. No major solidarities have been established between students of different private universities even though many of them face similar issues. The securitized nature of private universities also hinders the emergence of organized resistance within them. One prominent private university of Dhaka has multiple checkpoints that students need to go through and where their bags are searched before they can enter the university campus. Teachers often fear that what they teach in classrooms will be reported to authorities. The status of the university campus as private also arguably ensures that no movement of significant militancy emerges. One of my respondents shared his discomfort (which is most probably shared by other students like him) at the idea of destroying property within the private university campus as a part of any movement. He said the case isn’t the same for public universities where the resources belong to the state and thus can be damaged. In a society where private property is given near sacral status, the private property inside private university campuses become fetish objects which are inviolable. Collective action by students, which almost invariably leads to the vandalizing of a few walls (or rather their beautification with graffiti) or the breaking of a few windows, is thus feared and discouraged. While student politics is sparse in private universities, members of the university administration, who are also usually members of the capitalist class of Bangladesh, openly pursue political agendas (for their own benefit). Many of them were associated with the Awami League or other political organizations and had used their political clout to open and run these universities. There are several known instances where administrators of private universities could flout norms or ignore the diktats of government organizations because they had strong connections with top officials of the Awami regime. The owners of private universities are formally organized under the banner of Association of Private Universities of Bangladesh (APUB). This body contains a large section of the indigenous capitalist elites of Bangladesh- the owners of these private universities usually being industrial barons of the country who needed another side-business, and is extremely powerful. The APUB has successfully lobbied with successive Bangladeshi governments and has shaped laws and policies concerning the higher education sector of the country. Members of the private university administrations are also known to appoint faculty and other officials based on ideological affiliations and histories of political activities. It is only the students and junior faculty therefore who are prohibited from engaging in political actions. The elites freely engage in the same for their own interests. Indeed, they are more successful at using the political arena for their own benefits because they have successfully excluded others from the same. Nooks, Crannies and Special Occasions Yet, a complete eradication of politics among students is probably impossible. Many students of private universities are engaged in political action outside campuses even though not inside. Some of them are members of larger student organizations and many are politically active online. Inside university walls however, these students wear the robes of non-partisanship and disengage from all political action and speech. Regardless, the revolutionary character of Bangladeshi students springs forth in times of acute crisis, even if these students are from depoliticized private university campuses. In the mass uprising against the Awami regime in June 2024, private university students of Dhaka played a crucial role. While the movement was initiated as protests against an unjust quota system in government jobs by students of public universities, intense securitization of public university campuses by the state and the emptying of their student residences meant that student of private universities had to take the lead. And they did so successfully. Lakhs of private university students were out in the streets protesting against the Awami regime, unfazed by the brutal violence unleased by state forces. The majority of students who died at the hands of police, military or other state aligned forces were students of private universities. In the end, they successfully brought the Awami regime down and Sheikh Hasina had to flee the country. How was it that students of depoliticized campuses became drivers of political history? There can be multiple explanations. There seems to be a consensus about the fact that nobody expected the June protests to take the mammoth size and intensity that they took over the weeks. While organizations like the Boisommo Birodhi Chatro Andolon, Chhatra Shibir, Chhatra Union and others did prove much needed leadership, much of the lifeblood of the movement came spontaneously from the masses mainly as a reaction to police brutalities against protesting students on top of longstanding grievances against the Awami regime. Students of private universities weren’t organized as political formations and had no discernable leadership emergent from among themselves before or even during the movement. They responded en masse to public calls for protests, blockades, marches, demonstrations, etc. which were usually shared through social media. Pre-existing Facebook and Whatsapp groups, along with new ones created for the movement were used to communicate programs of action. While social networks were clearly put to work, there seems to have been little presence of formal organizations or recognized leadership which mobilized the students of private universities during the movement. This fluid nature of mobilization, along with the unpredictability, spontaneity and scale of the movement, arguably ensured the private university administrations’ inability to curtail their students’ political engagement. It must also be noted that the movement, while toppling the Awami regime, didn’t (or didn’t even aim to) act against the capitalist class of Bangladesh. If anything, under the leadership of Mohammad Yunus, Bangladesh is expected to go further in the direction of neoliberalism. It is also now known that certain sections of the capitalist class were unhappy with the Awami regime before its fall. One can thus argue that the administrators and owners of private universities didn’t have enough reasons to curtail the movement of its students. The dust is still settling in Bangladesh and the nuances of the post-Awami pathway is still being carved. It was interesting to note that nobody expects private university campuses to become any more political than before even after their crucial role in the movement. Instead, many sections are calling for a depoliticization of even public university campuses. While students, along with other working masses, seem to be movers of history through the spillage of their blood, sweat and tears, the tracks through which history moves seem to be predetermined by other classes who get to decide when students engage in political action and when they don’t. As students of Bangladesh grieve the loss of lives of their fellows, and get back to classrooms, the global march of capital continues. Acknowledgement I thank profusely my friends from Bangladesh for deep insights into Bangladeshi politics and society. I am particularly grateful to Abu Rasel, Imtiaz Ahmed Siddk, Khaingnoe Ching, Rihad Mahmud, and Protima Mitro Priti for helping me understand the circumstances of private universities of Bangladesh. References Shawon, Ali Asif 2022. “Student politics at private universities: What you need to know” Dhaka Tribune. Published on September 10, 2022. Available at- https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/education/293873/student-politics-at-private-universities-what-you. Accessed on November 21, 2024 Harvey, David. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780199283262.001.0001. ———. 2007. “Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 610 (1): 21–44. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002716206296780. Hill, Dave, and Ravi Kumar. 2012. Global Neoliberalism and Education and Its Consequences. Routledge Studies in Education and Neoliberalism. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. Kabir, Ariful Haq, and Raqib Chowdhury. 2021. The Privatisation of Higher Education in Postcolonial Bangladesh: The Politics of Intervention and Control. Routledge Critical Studies in Asian Education. Abingdon New York (N.Y.): Routledge. Kumar, Ravi, and Rama Paul. 2022. “State and Private Capital: Education, State and Capital.” In Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education, edited by Alpesh Maisuria. BRILL. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004505612. AuthorSohom Roy Archives December 2024
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