Vice-Chancellor Emajuddin Ahmed has done about the most correct thing in the circumstances now prevailing at the Dhaka University. He has sent letters to the leaders of the political parties appealing for their help in containing student violence in the campus. And he has, in a rare flourish of forthrightness on the part of anyone holding responsible non-political office, implied in his letter that the leaders have a say in how their respective student wings conducted themselves and this was time the leaders put that to good use to free the campus from terrorism. We not only welcome his initiative, we endorse and support it strongly.

It is ages that the holders of the position of chief executive at our universities have been anything other than plain yes-men. It is through their default that Mr Ahmed's act of a very plain necessity, neither more nor less, has come to assume the character of a courageous deed. Right from the inception of our new state, student fronts of the ruling party had an eminent role in campus violence.

Awami League was no exception to this and the ruling BNP is famously carrying on with the tradition. Through the years, successive governments have tended to have as VC people politically congenial and reassuring for them — which hit a peak in the very open and bare expression of politicisation of that office, in the appointment of the founder of the Zia Parishad in Rajshahi as the chief of the university there not long ago. When such is the history. Mr Ahmed’s courageous act, although losing somewhat in impact for choosing as the occasion one which did not feature the ruling party student wing's involvement, gains tremendously in significance. If the parties so want, there wouldn't be any terrorism in the campuses from tomorrow. Now that the leaders of the parties have been addressed very plainly on the subject. the onus should rest on the parties squarely.

It is very difficult for one who has lived with the weird ways of our politics for long to believe that things are indeed so simple.,But at least from now on. if the violence continues, we shall be left with the simpler explanations of either the parties — all. some or any of them — do not feel confident enough of their hold as to neutralise their armed cadres in the universities, or they have no effective control over their student wings. Before Mr Ahmed’s letter, the parties enjoyed the fact of no one holding them responsible for both campus violence or its elimination. Now that opportunity is surely on the way out. The parties should heed the change in the society's attitude the letters may set on and prepare in good to repudiate arms as a means of controlling the campuses.