Democracy in Bangladesh: Role of Student Politics (1972-2002)

Abstract

This thesis explores present state of student politics and its relationship with democracy. How students are getting involved in student politics? What impact they have upon democracy of the country? What are the problems and future of student politics in Bangladesh? This study demonstrates historical approaches to democracy and struggle for democracy over the past. Students played a significant role in bringing out qualitative change alone with some negative roles, such as unrest on campuses, closure of institutions and session jam. Student's activities were catalyst, to some extent, to ensure Bangladesh to journey towards democracy. This study has been incorporated with data from various newspapers and magazines along with respondent's opinions form the survey carried out. The study has employed primary and secondary sources of data. The data have been included on the basis of relevance. Comparative evaluation, logical argument, critical reasoning and rational judgment have been used in this dissertation. This thesis consists of six chapters. The first chapter encompasses introduction, discussion, definition of key terms, justification of the research, objectives of the study and methodology. A historical overview of democracy from British colonial rule to modern times (up to 2002) has been described in chapter 2. Chapter 3 encloses a historical sum-up of student politics in Bangladesh. Chapter 4 traces the causes of involvement of students in political activities with comparative analysis. Chapter-5 shows respondents· opinion concerning present trends of student politics. The concluding chapter 6 reinforces summary of the study, findings, offers recommendations for policy makers and some guidelines of future research in which future researches can be done.