04 Jul
Our Constitutional Commitment: Supremacy of the Civic Framework
The first substantive section of the manifesto establishes the Constitution as the supreme civic framework governing all aspects of Chhatra.org’s operation.
This commitment has both normative and practical implications.
Normative Implications
No action, demand, or structure may contradict constitutional principles. Legitimacy derives from alignment with constitutional values, not popular emotion. Power is constrained by law, not justified by numbers. This places Chhatra.org firmly outside revolutionary or extra-constitutional traditions.
Practical Implications
By grounding all actions, structures, and decisions in the principle that power belongs to the people, Chhatra.org commits to: Transparency over secrecy. Participation over command. Accountability over coercion. Crucially, this includes recognising students as present citizens, not citizens-in-waiting. The denial of present citizenship to students has historically justified their exclusion from decision-making, while simultaneously exploiting their mobilisation capacity. Chhatra.org identifies this contradiction and seeks to correct it.
Students as Present Citizens: A Constitutional Correction
The assertion that students are present—not future—citizens directly challenges a deeply embedded political narrative. That narrative has served to: Defer student rights Silence student voices. Normalise repression in the name of “immaturity”
From a constitutional standpoint, this narrative is indefensible. Citizenship is not conditional upon age beyond legal majority, nor upon political conformity, nor upon economic productivity. By affirming students as present citizens, Chhatra.org restores: Legal equality,Civic dignity, Constitutional legitimacy. The Preamble and the Constitutional Commitment together function as a corrective lens—not against the state, but against distortions in how the state has treated its student population.
Chhatra.org does not seek to replace constitutional authority.
It seeks to reactivate it.
This is not a politics of confrontation, but a politics of restoration—where students reclaim their place not through force, but through constitutional clarity, civic discipline, and institutional integrity.
In this sense, Chhatra.org represents not a break from the Republic, but a return to its founding principles.
2. Political Non-Partisanship
Reclaiming Students from Partisan Capture
The principle of political non-partisanship articulated by Chhatra.org addresses one of the most entrenched structural failures in the political history of Bangladesh: the systematic capture of student bodies by party politics.
Historically, student organisations have not functioned as independent civic actors. Instead, they have been absorbed into partisan ecosystems, where their primary function has been mobilisation rather than representation. In such systems, students cease to be rights-bearing citizens and become political resources—used to demonstrate street power, suppress opposition, or legitimise authority through force or numbers.
Chhatra.org’s categorical rejection of party politics, electoral competition, and factional control is therefore not a neutral stance; it is a corrective intervention.
Students as Instruments vs Students as Citizens
When students are treated as political instruments, three distortions occur:
- Erosion of Autonomy
Student organisations lose the ability to define agendas independently of party leadership. - Normalisation of Violence and Coercion
Students are transformed into shields, enforcers, or foot soldiers—roles incompatible with education and civic development. - Collapse of Representation
Loyalty to party hierarchy replaces accountability to students themselves.
By refusing to function as an extension of any political organisation, Chhatra.org dismantles this model at the structural level. It rejects the logic that political relevance requires partisan alignment and asserts that constitutional legitimacy precedes political affiliation.
Non-Partisanship as a Democratic Safeguard
Importantly, Chhatra.org’s non-partisanship does not equate to political apathy or disengagement. Rather, it reflects a commitment to civic politics over partisan politics.
From a constitutional perspective: Partisan politics is competitive and exclusionary. Civic politics is inclusive and rights-based. By removing party competition from student spaces, Chhatra.org creates conditions for: Genuine deliberation, Ethical leadership development,Protection of dissent within student communities. This model aligns with democratic theory, which recognises that healthy democracies require non-partisan civic institutions to balance electoral power.
3. Education as a Right, Not a Commodity
Reframing Education within the Constitutional Order
Chhatra.org’s declaration that education is a constitutional civic right directly challenges a prevailing policy model in which education functions as a controlled commodity—distributed according to political loyalty, economic capacity, or institutional patronage.
This commodification has transformed education into: A reward for conformity, A mechanism of exclusion, A site of political control. By contrast, framing education as a constitutional right restores its function as a public good essential to sovereignty, equality, and national capacity.
Free and Universal Education: Beyond Welfare Logic
The commitment to free and universal education must be understood not as a welfare promise, but as a state capacity strategy.
In constitutional terms: Education is an investment in the sovereign people. Denial of education weakens constituent power. Inequality in access produces structural injustice.
Chhatra.org’s position aligns with global constitutional traditions in which education is treated as a prerequisite for meaningful citizenship, not as discretionary spending.
Mother-Tongue-Based Instruction as a Sovereignty Issue
The insistence on mother-tongue-based education across all disciplines—including medicine, engineering, law, and technology—is not a cultural slogan; it is a structural policy position. Research in pedagogy, cognitive science, and development economics consistently demonstrates that: Learning in one’s first language improves comprehension and innovation. Language barriers restrict access to elite professions. Foreign-language dependency entrenches inequality. Countries that have achieved sustained national development—such as Japan, South Korea, China, and several European states—did so by producing technical and legal knowledge in their own languages. Chhatra.org’s position reframes language policy as a matter of epistemic sovereignty.