When I was four / five years old, the mass uprising of 1971 was going on. My father was a politician. So was our home environment. All the time the boys in the neighborhood are writing posters, making festoons, the leaders are coming and going, the whole hustle and bustle. When I was young, people used to ask, what will happen when I grow up? I used to say, I will do politics. I don't remember ever wanting to be anything else.
Since I decided to do politics, after finishing Intermediate I thought I would study Bengali or English literature or Physics. But the mother did not agree, said, must be a professional, doctor or engineer. Dad said, ‘Life is yours, the decision should be yours too. But since you have decided to do politics, if you are a doctor, you can do it without depending on anyone. It is very important to be self-reliant to do politics. It is not possible in any other profession to get as close to people as possible in medicine. And if you can get admission in DMC, then it is very good, just like the political environment here, the cultural environment is also very rich. So I just took the medical admission test and got a chance at Dhaka Medical.
At that time, the medical admission test was very good. There were twenty marks on the Viva board. I went to give viva. The professor who was there looked at my eyebrows and asked, ‘What is the name?’ I said, Dipu Moni. He said, ‘What ?!’ I had to say the name again. Then he asked the name of my parents, he said, ‘Your parents are Muslims, then why is your name like that? Why Hindu name? ’I said,‘ This is not Hindu name, Bengali name. ’They may not have liked my answer, I was given the lowest marks on that board without asking any more questions. In this way, I have had to suffer for the name from the very beginning, but from that I can understand, at least a little bit, that the minorities of any country have to survive with such a push.
Our orientation was April 7. Then there was Ershad's time, martial law was going on. I took my father on orientation. My father was ill at the time and was imprisoned several times during Ziaur Rahman's tenure. Dad also came with me. I remember all the senior professors, including the principal, surrounded my father and asked Kushal. Everyone was quite surprised to hear that his daughter had been admitted. Everyone asked the father to give a speech on behalf of the parents of the new students. My very eloquent father gave a speech, ‘You are all studying in Dhaka Medical, you will be a doctor, you have to be aware of society, you have to be aware of politics. We should not be trapped under the boots of this military. Naturally, everyone recognized me as an Awami League member from day one because of my father. The student union, however, tried very hard to get me on the team. Said, you are a good student, so do student union. I said, my father was also a good student, he did Chhatra League, there was no problem. I will not have any problem. On that day I became a member of two organizations, one Chhatra League, the other Sandhani. Later I became Sandhani's secretary. If I get the post of Sandhani, I can't stay in any post of the party, that's why I remained a BCL worker.
All the funny memories are stored in the campus of Dhaka Medical. I remember, the girls would not go out in the procession then. I tried very hard to bring them to the procession. I would take the girls out of the common room on one side, and on the other side they would enter the common room again. Then Sandhani's next room was the girls' common room, followed by the canteen. No girl would enter there. There were little boys in the canteen, they would go into the girls' common room and take orders. I said, ‘Is the canteen just for the boys?’ They said, ‘No. But no one enters the girls. When I was in first year, I entered the canteen with two or three girlfriends to find out why girls don't go. I see a big room, the curtains are drawn. A lamp flickered, darkened by the smoke of cigarettes. On one side a few people are playing the keys and singing. As soon as we entered, the conversation stopped and the song stopped. Ignoring everything, we sat down at a table and said, ‘Give me this tea.’ When I went out, I told the little ones in the canteen, ‘Here the curtains will be removed, the light will come on. We will come every day. 'From then on we also started going to the canteen.
I was in first year then. I remember the blood donation program organized by Sandhani on 15th August. Sheikh Hasina Apa came. He said, Dipu will take my blood. Apar looked quite nervous while taking blood, I told her, even if Apa stays inside the needle but don't let anyone understand that she is in pain. Apa laughed and said, well I will not understand.
For young politicians, it is very important to have a clear idea of ​​what I am doing in politics and why. A lot of people come into politics, making friends, so I’m doing too or need to get a good seat in the hostel, so I’m doing it. What the Awami League means, the party has been with a thought from the beginning, the party has no idea what decision was taken at any moment, why it was taken. If one does politics out of genuine commitment to the team, only then but there is an opportunity to do something good. Doctors need to have such technical knowledge as well as empathy for the patient, politics is no different. In addition to knowledge in politics, it is very important to understand people, as well as to have a sense of history. Nowadays it is seen that getting cash has become the main issue. But politics means service to the country, service to the people. In that sense, chasing the buffalo by eating at home. In order to do that, one has to either have an independent earning system, or have the mentality of accepting normal life. He doesn't have the skills to do anything, he can't accept ordinary life, then he will sell his political identity and eat. However, the number of bad is not high, now about one and a half to two crore people are involved in politics, many are suffering for the country. Weeds are everywhere, so I will cut the tree from the root. When someone conspires, we say, ‘Don’t do politics with me.’ We have made politics and conspiracy synonymous. In this way, knowingly or unknowingly, I am making the people of politics small, giving them a chance for bad politics. If this mentality cannot be changed, then the integrity we hope for in politics will not be possible.
Upvote done back please