Authorities at Khulna University, Bangladesh, last week issued orders to rename all students’ halls and other establishments, christened after renowned Hindu-sounding freedom fighters and scholars, Sufi saints and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s family, as part of a wider objective to wipe out such memorialisation.
An ‘office order’ issued by the registrar office of the 34-year-old university on February 12 reveals that the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sejikh Mujibur Rahman Hall has been renamed after Bir Sreshtha Mohammad Ruhul Amin.
Likewise, the Dr Satyendranath Basu Academic Hall has been rechristened Bijoy’ 24 Hall after the August 5 students-led violent agitation that forced then Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to flee Bangladesh.
The ‘office order’ listed 19 halls and other ‘bhabans’ whose original names have been dispensed with.
These have now been named in more general terms, barring those that were named after Rabindranath Tagore. Kazi Nazrul Islam and Michael Madhusudan Dutta.
The halls that bore the names of prominent Hindu scholars and intellectuals include the Acharya Prafulla Chandra Roy Central Laboratory, the Dr Jyotirmoy Guhathakurta Residential Bhaban, the Dr Sukharanjan Samaddar Residential Bhaban and the Dr Gobinda Chandra Deb Residential Bhaban.
These have been replaced with more general names such as the Khulna University Central Laboratory, the Professors’ Quarter, the Associate Professors’ Quarter and the Assistant Professors’ Quarter, respectively.
The Jibanananda Das Academic Bhaban has been renamed Academic Bhaban 3 and the Acharya Jagadish Chandra Basu Academic Bhaban now bears the name Academic Bhaban 2.
The Satyendranath Basu Academic Bhaban has been renamed Academic Bhaban 1. The Lalan Sai Meeting Room has been renamed TMC Bhaban.
Once the Sheikh Hasina regime fell on August 5, 2024, Bangladeshi authorities under the Yunus-led interim regime went on overdrive to do away with universities and other educational institutions that were named after Sheikh Mujibur Rahman or any other member of his family.
Recently, the Anti-Discrimination Students Movement threatened to shut down the Begum Rokeya University in Rangpur if the authorities did not change its name back to Rangpur University in seven days.
Established in 2008, Rangpur University’s name was changed to Begum Rokeya University by the then Sheikh Hasina regime.
Three months after Sheikh Hasina fled Bangladesh, the students forced the renaming of six government-run medical colleges that bore the then prime minister’s name as also of Sheikh Mujib and other members of the family.
These universities are located in Manikganj, Noakhali, Jamalpur, Tangail, Faridpur and Dinajpur.
Earlier, the Bangladesh Digital University replaced the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Digital University in Gazipur, the Pirojpur Science and Technology University will be the new name for the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Pirojpur, and the Narayanganj Science and Technology University in Narayanganj was till last year known as the Jatir Pita Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University.
Besides, the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj, was renamed the Gopalganj Science and Technology University.
