Jahangirnagar University: A building on its way up, a greenery on its way out
Students at JU are protesting against the destruction of Sundarban – a campus area known for its rare animals, reptiles, and birds – to construct the new IBA building
Auritro grew up in the Jahangirnagar University (JU) campus because his father is a faculty member here. Not only is the campus greenery familiar to him, it also inspired him to take up wildlife photography.
The young boy will soon take part in this year's university admission tests. However, he is more worried about Sundarban – a jungle in the campus he often scouts for taking photos, which will soon be demolished to build new academic buildings.
The university administration has sanctioned this 20-bigha jungle for the Institute of Business Administration (IBA) and two other departments to build their academic buildings.
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The students of JU – its campus widely known for its greenery and migratory birds – have already witnessed another such jungle area behind the social science building, being wiped out for construction purposes, a few months ago.
When the trees behind the social science building were chopped down, many wild animals and reptiles were displaced. Students spotted venomous snakes on the streets as they lost their habitat.
They fear the same, or that even worse is about to happen to Sundarban, the jungle area behind the chemistry department building. Not only does it have hundreds of different trees and bushes, it is also a habitat to many animals, birds and reptiles.
"I have seen golden jackals, jungle cats, large Indian civets, and Irrawaddy squirrels, among the animals in this jungle. There are over 30 species of birds, including rose-ringed parakeet, yellow-footed green pigeon, oriental white-eye, and spotted owlet here," Auritro said.
"It has reptiles like rat snakes, common wolf snake, checkered keelback, buff striped keelback etc. There are also oriental garden lizards, skink, yellow monitor lizard and Bengal monitor lizard here," he said.
He added that the entire ecology will be ruined when this area is converted to academic buildings.
What exactly is happening?
The IBA department in JU doesn't have an academic building of its own. Faculty members say several of them do not have their own office rooms and are sharing rooms with each other.
In 2012, the then vice-chancellor promised them that the old registrar building complex will be redeveloped as the academic building but a decade has passed with no progress. The next vice chancellors kept changing the space, till they finally confirmed Sundarban.
The 20-bigha land was distributed among three different departments along with IBA. Dr Nurul Alam, the current vice-chancellor, has recently laid the foundation stone of the academic building and ever since, students have been protesting against it. There have been demonstrations, processions, and human chains.
Among the protesting groups is the Deep Ecology and Snake Conservation Foundation, a platform created by wildlife enthusiast students of the university. They have provided a memorandum (sharoklipi) to the vice-chancellor.
"We believe that the IBA building is being constructed unreasonably by felling trees," said Mahfuzur Rahman, president of Deep Ecology and Snake Conservation Foundation, adding that there are many other spaces and deserted buildings that the administration could consider, instead of destroying Sundarban.
According to the students who are protesting, the administration did not consider the fact that they are damaging a highly diverse ecology by constructing the new building.
On Thursday, The Business Standard visited the Sundarban in question. While exploring the jungle, we came across a team of surveyors who were demarcating the area for building.
There were five IBA faculty members overseeing it. Among them was Associate Professor Md Alamgir Hossen and Assistant Professor Palash Saha.
"We were finally given this place [Sundarban] in 2018. Ever since, we have tested its soil. We have already spent Tk1 crore. The tender is done and construction work will begin soon," Alamgir Hossen informed us.
Palash Saha said, "Our first choice was the empty space near CNB beside Mir Mosharraf Hossain Hall. It was far from the hullabaloo. Our second choice was the space near Tarzan point. That space too was not given to us. Then we said, just give us whatever place you want, and we were given Sundarban."
The faculty members said that before finalising this area, they were given another place, where they spent around Tk40 lakhs in surveys and other things, before the administration stopped all process and decided on Sundarban.
"Five of us are here today to ensure we cause the least damage to the trees. To those who are talking in favour of the trees: of course we need trees, but we also need the building to accommodate everything," said Alamgir Hossen, adding, "for every tree that is cut down, we will plant five more in its place."
The protesting students, however, are not convinced by such promises.
"Planting five trees in place of one tree is a completely wrong idea. Because this is not only about trees. It is about ecology. There are only a few places in the campus where animals can roam freely because of the density of trees, and the presence of humans is an important factor in their habitat," said Mahfuzur.
Some of the other protesting students we interviewed said they are planning more demonstrations in the coming days as they fear the administration might clear the entire area when the students go home for the summer vacation.
The Business Standard tried to contact the vice-chancellor several times to ask why the administration chose Sundarban, when alternative spaces were available. His PA said the vice-chancellor was busy and couldn't provide a comment.
Shrinking nature and ecology
Felling of trees in Jahangirnagar University, however, is nothing new.
A couple of years ago, one such event of felling trees in the Shantiniketon area of the campus led to massive protests that eventually grew into an anti-VC movement.
The Sundarban area is one of the few places in the campus where there are dense trees. This is one of the places where animals can roam freely, as mentioned earlier.
"From small civets, foxes to birds, we have recorded even uncommon snakes in this jungle. Sundarban is a significant habitat for migratory birds that visit the JU campus. When they arrive, they make this place their habitat," Mahfuzur said.
"There are one or two places like Sundarban in our campus, including the botanical garden and the Wildlife Rescue Centre (WRC) vicinity," he said.
Mentioning the destroyed jungle behind the social science building, Mahfuz said they found Cantor's kukri snake there – recorded the second time in Dhaka, and also the lesser black krait various times.
"We have seen that when a building is made, all the trees nearby are felled. As we do not have proper waste management, plastic pollution is also rampant. When several thousand students will be roaming the area, it will no longer remain a place for animals," he added.
Unplanned constructions leading to a concrete jungle
Amartya Roy is a student leader at JU.
He believes that the problem is not the IBA building itself. He sees a bigger problem in the university administration not having a "master plan" for the university "although they claim that they have one".
"We want planned development. We don't want haphazardly built buildings," Amartya said.
Highlighting the administration's penchant for constructing new buildings, he said, "The administration wants to develop a third registrar building at Tk137 crore in front of the main gate. But they already have two of them – one of them could be extended with only Tk40 crore."
Amartya lamented the ongoing felling of trees. "There are other open spaces and many older buildings too can be rebuilt. For example, our BBA faculty; this is a one-storeyed building. There is a lecture theatre building that has 62 classrooms, which can hold more than 6,000 students. If they rebuild the BBA building into a multi-storeyed one, they could distribute different floors to different departments of BBA and several others to IBA," he opined.
Mahfuzur said, "Today IBA is being given this place for building; you know the law department also doesn't have their own building. When they ask for a building, another space will go to them. There are over 30 departments on campus. If each of them wants a building, this campus will become a concrete jungle. This is not acceptable. You need to have a master plan."
The students also mentioned several deserted buildings like the Fazilatunnesa Hall, which could be redeveloped into a multi-storeyed building to accommodate more students and departments.
They also mentioned the space in front of the chemistry department, the Al-Biruni extension etc where authorities could construct new buildings without damaging the ecology.
"You can't keep turning everything into a concrete jungle. You cannot wake up one day and say let's develop a building by destroying the jungle and ecology," said Imran Hossain, a student, adding, "people are nostalgic about JU. We cannot picture our beloved campus like this."
