Student violence 2008-2018

Zooming in on the 2008-2018 period, we gain crucial insights into the latest developments in student violence. After the 2008 elections brought Awami League (AL) to power, AL has consolidated its position and has been able to win successive elections in 2014 and 2018. The period thus also saw

23 an unprecedented period of BCL dominance

on campus, allowing it to extend this dominance even to JCD and ICS strongholds.

Figure 3 shows the number of events and wounded and lethal casualties for both student violence and overall political violence. It allows us to get a better sense of the general trends, also looking at the intensity of violence. 2008, which was still largely under the caretaker government saw less violence. 2013 was very violent for student groups. Also 2015 saw quite a lot of (lethal) student violence, as this year saw the struggle for consolidation of BCL rule. After this was achieved 2016 and 2017 saw markedly less events of political violence, before a slight resurgence in violence in the 2018 electoral year. Still, it was limited, certainly compared to other electoral years.

In the case of Bangladesh violence is most intense when there are real, competitive elections.

The spatial distribution of violence (Table 7) confirms the overall trends we have discussed before, but the addition of data on wounded and lethal casualties allows us to get a better grip on the intensity of violence for the 2008-2018 period. While student violence has always been less lethal than other forms of violence, what the data shows is that there is an important spatial

dimension to this. In places like Dhaka, Savar, Kushtia and to a lesser extent Bogra, lethal casualties are markedly below expectations (when looking at the events data). In other places like Barisal, Rajshahi and Sylhet, student violence accounts for a very large percentage of lethal casualties. These percentages are however still lower than the percentage of the engagement of students in violent events in these localities.

What is also interesting in these latter cases is that when students engage in violence off campus, this leads to proportionally more lethal casualties. One factor that could explain this imbalance is that campuses are the site of more petty everyday inter- and intra-group violence – for example, over women, disrespectful behavior in front of a leader, or theft – while the city streets are more often the site of more impersonal large scale violent events occurring during hartals (general strike) or elections.

Table 8 allows us to understand the role that specific student groups play in violence in Upazila and university towns. It is clear that BCL is by far most active in violence and this in almost all locations. Particularly noteworthy are their dominance in Rajshahi, Sylhet, Savar, Hathazari and Kushtia.

24 FIGURE 3: EVENTS, WOUNDED AND LETHATL CASUALTIES OF STUDENT AND TOTAL

POLITICAL VIOLENCE (2008-2018)

TABLE 7: SPATIAL DISTRIBUTION OF STUDENT/CAMPUS VIOLENCE (BY UPAZILA/CITY CORPORATION; 2008-2018)

25 For the opposition JCD and ICS the picture is

much more mixed. In Dhaka it is clear that opposition student groups are relatively weak, but in other places like Rajshahi or Khulna, opposition student groups continue to play a role. It is interesting that in many places the opposition group most engaged in violence is not JCD, but rather ICS, showing their importance on many university campuses.

In Kushtia, where the Islamic University is located, ICS records a surprisingly low share in violence, notwithstanding the 2013 violence about the war crime tribunals. This may partly be explained by ICS domination and the concurrent weakness of BCL’s organizational capacity and lack of control on campus. ICS was only pushed out in 2017 by BCL with the help of the police.

Given the historical importance of ICS in Chittagong ICS’s share in both Chittagong city corporation and Hathazari is also surprisingly low.

What is clear is that JCD seems to have very few true strongholds left, trailing BCL in all locations by a large margin and only making a mark in Khulna, Savar, Barisal and Sylhet.

The role of ICS becomes even more pronounced when we look at the role of factional violence. As is also true for their parent party JeI, ICS registers very low levels of factional violence (at less than 1 per cent of all its engagement in violence), while

violence within BCL and with other AL organizations accounts for more than a quarter of all their violent encounters and almost 15 per cent for JCD. This is even more pronounced in key university towns who all register higher shares of factional violence, with Dhaka, Chittagong (including Hathazari), and to a lesser extent Khulna seeing particularly higher shares of factional violence (Table 9).

TABLE 8: SHARE OF VIOLENCE (EVENTS) OF PARTICULAR STUDENT GROUP IN UPAZILA/CITY CORPORATION (2008-2018)

26 TABLE 9: SHARE OF FACTIONAL VIOLENCE

PER STUDENT GROUP IN UPAZILA/CITY CORPORATION (2008-2018)

In some key university towns like Chittagong and Sylhet, JCD records a substantial share of

factional violence. This is surprising as they are in opposition and thus, normally less engaged in factional fighting. One would rather expect JCD to violently engage BCL and AL or state security forces.

If we take a look at the evolution of BCL, JCD and ICS violence throughout the 2008-2018 period (Figure 4), we can see that apart from a resurgence in 2013 both ICS and JCD have become gradually less engaged in violence, and thus marginalized. The peak in violence in 2013 is particularly pronounced for ICS.

Afterwards ICS’ share dropped to almost zero in 2008.

BCL violence has remained fairly constant throughout the period, with very few spikes in violence.

FIGURE 4: PARTICIPATION IN INSTANCES OF VIOLENCE BY STUDENT GROUP (2008-2018)

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