Every morning, students and teachers stepping into the academic building of Dhaka University’s Faculty of Business Studies are met with a familiar and frustrating sight: a lift that stands silent, its doors sealed, its buttons unresponsive. For a long time, this elevator—meant to carry people between floors and ease the movement of hundreds of students, many of whom carry heavy bags or struggle with stairs—has been completely out of order. And what should have been a simple matter of maintenance or replacement has turned into a strange and public tug-of-war between the faculty administration and the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union, or DUCSU. On one side, DUCSU insists that it has already arranged a brand-new lift and could have it installed within just one day if the faculty administration would only cooperate. On the other side, the Acting Dean of the faculty, Professor Al Amin, says he had already begun the work to repair the existing lift—or to install a new one if that proved necessary—and he dismisses DUCSU’s claims as “misinformation” dressed up in the clothes of publicity. In the middle of this war of words are the ordinary students, who simply want an elevator that works. The longer the two sides argue, the more the problem itself seems to get lost. The lift remains broken, the blame keeps moving, and the people who need it most are left to climb stair after stair, hoping that the adults in charge will remember that this was never supposed to be about credit or politics.
The story unfolded publicly on a Sunday night, when Professor Al Amin took to Facebook to explain his side of the events. According to him, he had not been ignoring the problem. In fact, since taking charge as acting dean on September 3, he said he had been working to address many of the faculty’s difficulties, including the lift issue. He described how he had spoken with the technical committee on September 6 and had taken the initiative to make the lift operational within fifteen days. He also said he had informed the faculty’s official Facebook group that if repairing the old lift was not enough, a new lift would be arranged. So when DUCSU’s Career Development Secretary, Mazharul Islam, called him about installing a lift, Professor Al Amin says he told him quite clearly that he was already arranging the lift himself and did not need DUCSU’s help. Later, DUCSU Vice President Sadik Kayem wanted to meet him, and a meeting was arranged for 11am on Sunday. But, as the dean tells the story, when DUCSU members other than Sadik Kayem arrived at his office shortly before noon, he learned from DUCSU General Secretary SM Farhad that Sadik Kayem could not come because his mother was unwell. Professor Al Amin said he thanked them for their concern but repeated that he was arranging the lift and did not need any assistance. Then, to his surprise, he later saw social media posts claiming that DUCSU had arranged the lift. His reaction was sharp and pointed: “Misinformation in the name of publicity without solving anything cannot be a political ideology.” For him, this was not just a disagreement over facts; it was a violation of trust, a moment when public relations seemed to matter more than actual service.
DUCSU, however, tells a very different story, and it is one that reveals a longer history of neglect and frustration. Around 10pm on that same Sunday, Mazharul Islam wrote a Facebook post explaining that the lift installed for students in the faculty’s academic building back in 2006 had been out of order for a long time. He said DUCSU had arranged a new lift after persistent demands, and that its leaders had met the dean to inform him that the new lift would arrive whenever the administration wanted. Installation work could begin right away, and they were seeking the administration’s full cooperation. In a later interview, Mazharul expanded on this account. He said the lift problem was long-standing and that DUCSU had been demanding a new lift since the tenure of the previous dean. According to him, when the matter was raised during a DUCSU executive council meeting with the Vice-Chancellor in August, DUCSU was asked to take responsibility for the lift. Taking that as a mandate, he said, they contacted various organizations and individuals and eventually arranged a sponsor to fund a new lift. But after Professor Al Amin took charge and publicly announced his initiative to repair the old lift, DUCSU’s newly arranged lift was not accepted. At that point, they felt they had done everything they could, so they only informed students that they could bring the new lift within a day if the administration wanted. Mazharul Islam rejected the dean’s accusation, insisting there was no scope for “misinformation in the name of publicity” in their actions. The distance between the two accounts could not be greater. The dean sees DUCSU as trying to steal a public relations victory. DUCSU sees the dean as refusing a genuine offer of help because he wants to claim credit himself. And through it all, no one has yet pushed the button that would make the lift move.
Amid all the accusations and rebuttals, there are signs that the practical work may finally begin. Dhaka University’s Superintending Engineer, Md Ahsan Habib, confirmed that the faculty dean had contacted him about making the lift operational, and he said work would begin on Monday. That small piece of news hinted that, behind the noise, some actual progress might be happening. The lift in question is old, having been installed in 2006, and after years of heavy use and poor maintenance, it may be beyond repair. Whether the solution is a thorough repair or a complete replacement, the technical assessment matters more than any political statement. But the conflicting narratives raise a worrying possibility: that the technical work could be delayed or complicated precisely because it has become entangled in a contest over who has the right to solve the problem. The dean says he has already consulted the technical committee. DUCSU says it has already found a sponsor and sourced a lift. The engineer says work will begin. These pieces should fit together, but instead they seem to be pulling in different directions. The students, who are the real reason any of this matters, are not part of the argument at all. They simply want to enter the building without exhaustion, to move from class to class without being late, to carry their books and laptops without feeling like every day is a physical test. No slogan, no Facebook post, and no press release can fix a broken elevator. Only skilled hands, proper equipment, and genuine commitment can do that.
The involvement of the Vice-Chancellor added another surprising twist to the controversy. Professor A B M Obaidul Islam addressed the matter directly and made it clear that DUCSU was not given any responsibility to bring a new lift. He said, “DUCSU is trying to involve me intentionally here. I did not give any such responsibility to DUCSU. Why would DUCSU arrange a lift? DUCSU can inform the administration. The administration will arrange it.” These words are significant because they seem to undermine the very foundation of DUCSU’s claim that they were asked to take charge of the lift. If the highest official in the university says he never gave that responsibility, then the students’ union may have overstepped its role, however well-intentioned its efforts may have been. On the other hand, the Vice-Chancellor’s statement also reinforces the dean’s position, which means that DUCSU may now have to justify its involvement without any official mandate. But this is not just about who has the authority to arrange a lift. It is also a question of how the university communicates with its student leaders and how it responds when students take the initiative to solve problems. The Vice-Chancellor’s tone suggests some irritation, even suspicion, and his words make it clear that he wants the administration to be the one in control. Yet, if the administration had handled the lift problem earlier, perhaps DUCSU would never have felt the need to step in. The line between cooperation and interference is thin, and in this case, both sides seem to be standing on opposite sides of it, staring at each other across a gap that could have been avoided with clearer communication and a shared sense of purpose.
In the end, what matters most is not which side is telling the truth, but what happens next to a broken lift that has troubled a community for too long. This dispute is a small mirror of a larger institutional problem: when solving a practical issue becomes a political contest, the people who suffer are the ones who depend on the service. The students of Dhaka University’s Faculty of Business Studies do not care whether the lift is repaired by the dean, by DUCSU, or by a team of superheroes. They care whether it works. They care whether they can get to their classrooms without climbing dozens of stairs. They care whether disabled students and staff can access the building with dignity. They care whether the university, which is supposed to be a place of reason and knowledge, can handle a simple maintenance issue without turning it into a shouting match. The dean says he is arranging things. DUCSU says it has the new lift ready. The Vice-Chancellor says the administration is responsible. The engineer says work will begin. All of these statements could be true, and yet the lift remains out of order. The question now is whether all these powerful people can sit at the same table, set aside their pride, and focus on the only thing that matters: making that elevator move again. A lift may be a machine, but at this moment it represents something much deeper—the ability of institutions to put service above self, to cooperate honestly, and to remember that public offices are not platforms for personal glory but positions of responsibility. The students are watching, waiting, and climbing. They deserve better than a war of words. They deserve a working lift, and soon.