Mridul Chowdhury
Published in the Daily Star on 13 May 2009.
THE North South University incident of May 10th of a non-violent protest being dealt with police batons and tear gas is symptomatic of a larger problem that has permeated our entire society — lack of adequate mechanism to voice grievances and unjust reaction by those in power when grievances do get raised. When a general citizen dies at a public hospital due to negligence, there is no one to complain to since certain quarters are much too powerful. When a female student in a university gets harassed by a local hooligan, she keeps silent since even the teachers do not want to ruffle feathers. When an ethnic minority leader dies during interrogation, no one raises questions since the answers are buried too deep.
