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| Todays NewspaperEditorialSpecial SuplimentePaper |
| Bangladesh turns 40 |
Forty years of Bangladesh: Hope survives→ Abdul Mannan
Way back in 1972, about a year after Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation the prestigious magazine National Geographic ran a twenty-six page article on Bangladesh written by its senior sub-editor William S Ellis. He came to Bangladesh in February of 1972 when the air of the newly born nation was still full of stench of rotting human flesh from bodies of innocent civilians killed by retreating Pakistani soldiers and their comrade in arms, the Al-Badars and Razakars. The smoldering smoke from the burnt down villages and homesteads suffocated the living. Ellis published his story in September, 1972 with the title 'Bangladesh: Hope Nourishes a New Nation.' Inside he wrote 'slogans and petitions to deity may or may not have helped, but Bangladesh, the world's 147th independent nation, is getting to its feet. Survival seems likely and, considering what occurred here for nine months of 1971 that is indeed a miraculous accomplishment.'Inside, it had a photographs of Nawabpur Rail Crossing (the rail crossing actually did not exist then) traffic police island, with a barefooted traffic policeman in khaki uniform desperately trying to control the countless rickshaws whose pullers were equally desperate to challenge the lone poor traffic police. The caption under the photograph read something like this 'a traffic police of independent Bangladesh.' The unkind remark by Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State dubbing Bangladesh as a 'Bottom Less Basket Case,' though made most of us sad, it made the anti-liberation forces happy. Kissinger's statement was seen as something made out of frustration as he and his government in 1971 did their best till the last moment to block the emergence of the new nation. Kissinger later said the birth of Bangladesh was seen as his personal defeat and humiliation. Yes, in 1972 Bangladesh was desperately trying to rise from the ashes of the war and survive and meet the challenges from all fronts and prove it was capable of nation building. The photograph in the National Geographic and the statement of Henry Kissinger made me sad but I and many of my generation were sure one day we would rise to write many success stories.
A country born out of blood, sacrifice and tears cannot afford to fail. This year Bangladesh is forty years old and today no traffic police of this country discharges their duties on barefoot though I have to confess the rickshaw menace in Dhaka city has grown manifold because rickshaws have their own economy. Today Bangladesh police are smartly dressed and trained, and in regular intervals join the United Nations Peace Keeping Missions and serve in other countries. In fact the country has come a long way since 1972. Bangladesh is no more seen as a 'Bottom Less Basket Case' and from a major food deficit country in the seventies today we have proven that not only can we become self reliant in food production but can also export limited quantities of aromatic rice (8,500-10,000 MT) in good times.
In 1971 when Bangladesh became an independent nation, it had a population of 75 million and produced about 10 million metric tones of food grain (mostly rice), and on an average had to import more than one million metric tones yearly. If there was a natural calamity the import statistics went up. 80% of country's GDP relied on agriculture and an equal percentage of our workforce relied for their daily bread on farming. Manufacturing was practically non-existent and service sector was barely visible. Forty years later still agriculture is the largest producing sector of the economy but it contributes only 30% to the country's GDP and employs less than 60% of the total labour force. In the meantime, the population of the country has more than doubled; food production (rice) has increased to about 30 million metric tones and still remains the principle crop of the country. Today Bangladesh has emerged as the 4th largest rice producing country in the world, in spite of the fact that we loose annually 1% of our agricultural land to urbanization. Besides rice, Bangladesh is able to produce around 10 million metric tones of wheat annually. Bangladesh saw the last major food crisis in 1974, thanks to the dirty food politics of Henry Kissinger and his President Richard Nixon. (Making of a Nation: Bangladesh. Nurul Islam). Following the devastating flood of 1998, in which 90% of the country went under water, causing extreme loss to the crops and livestock, the international media and community projected that at least two million people will die of starvation. To their dismay that did not happen, thanks to the efficient handling of the crisis by the then government. It is an irony that Henry Kissinger had to witness Bangladesh shrug off the stigma of being a 'bottom less basket case' in his life time. However with the doubling of the population and the middle class (about 9%) since 1971 the demand for food is constantly on the rise and the projected global food shortage in the coming years expects that the government will take more proactive approach in building up a adequate food security and ensure of proper management of food storage and distribution in the country.
Not only Bangladesh has graduated from being extensively dependent on agriculture for its economic growth and employment, today approximately 25% of its GDP comes from the manufacturing industry. Bangladesh is the fourth largest manufacturer of ready made garments in the world and employs about 3.5 million workers, mostly women in its workforce. This sector alone contributes 75% of our foreign exchange earning from export and all this has happened in less than 30 years. The first consignment of Bangladeshi ready made garments hit the international market in 1978. Our export menu keeps on diversifying, while new markets are sought. Today porcelain wares, pharmaceutical products, leather goods, frozen food, vegetables, bicycles, terracotta tiles, bamboo, and even crocodile meat have found their place in our export list. For more than thirty years we were known as a nation of ship breakers. Today Bangladesh is witnessing a renaissance in its shipbuilding industry. Once our shipbuilders made battle ships for the emperor of Rome, today the country has re-emerged as a ship building nation, building ships for Denmark, Germany and Mozambique. Some of our consumer goods have found its place in the regional market, and Bangladesh is emerging as a new destination for IT outsourcing and Business Processing. Though recently the co-founder (along with the Government of Bangladesh) of Grameen Bank, Dr. Yunus has been pulled into some unnecessary controversy, he and the Grameen Bank have won a Nobel Peace Prize for Bangladesh. The per-capita inflation-adjusted GDP has more than doubled in the past 40 years, according to the World Bank, and poverty rate has fallen by 20% to 40% in last two decades. The growth was driven by the expansion of our manufacturing and the service sector.
Though Bangladesh still has one of the lowest teledensity in South Asia, telecoms experts predict that this will reach 80 percent of the population by 2012 provided the government is careful enough to make telecommunication friendly IT policy which the present government has promised in its election manifesto. Today about six crore subscribers have access to telephone, whereas even two decades ago one had to wait for twenty years before he could get a land line telephone connection. Along with this phenomenal growth of our telecommunication sector, the last two decades have witnessed a vibrant growth of our electronic and print media. Both media enjoy a substantial degree of freedom of expression and the gradual spread of information technology has contributed, at least marginally to women empowerment. However satisfactory women empowerment still remains a far cry and this could only be enhanced and gender equality and development at all levels ensured through more spread of qualitative information, especially amongst the rural societies of Bangladesh. In the last forty years we have also seen a major breakthrough in education. A conservative estimate puts our literacy rate at over 50%. In 1971 this was roughly 27%. Our child mortality has decreased, primary school enrollment has increased but high dropout rate is still a problem. About 50% of primary, and 80% of secondary level dropout of schools is recorded in Bangladesh. The enrollment in college and university levels have increased over the years though the quality of education at the levels still remains far from satisfactory.
Forty years of Bangladesh did not only witness the blooming of roses. There was occasional growth of cactus. Democracy went into hibernation quite frequently after the dark night of August 15, 1975. Corruption became endemic and the country is still searching for a prolong period of good governance and political stability. The population time bomb is ticking and it is estimated by 2025 country's population will reach 190 million which will go up to 231 million by 2050. The country does not have the resources to sustain this colossus growth of population. This problem must immediately be recognized by the government and proper strategic plans needs to be made for skill development of the people. As the developed nations will soon face the crunch of shrinking and ageing of population there is every possibility of utilizing our ever increasing population to fill in the vacuum created in these countries. But for this we need to prepare ourselves.
Our expatriate workers have been very generous through remitting the much needed foreign exchange for our development but we cannot depend on them perennially. The country needs to invest more on development of its infrastructure including its roads and highways, its ports and airports, its telecommunication services and waterway and its ever important power sector. This will enhance more investment at home in manufacture and service sector which in turn will generate more employment. Looking out for jobs in other countries in present form needs to be phased out gradually as this has become quite risky and sometimes hazardous. Only generation of employment at home can reverse the situation.
Bangladesh Awami League has won a landslide election victory in the last general election. It has to do its best to institutionalize relatively its democratic institutions. The year 2011 will be a year of transition for the present government. It must fulfill its election pledges if it does not want to afford the luxury of loosing the next general election. FTSE, an independent company jointly owned by the Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange considers Bangladesh a 'frontier market' under its own classification rules. Goldman Sachs, the New York based Investment Banker includes it among the 'Next Eleven' (N-11) and it judges Bangladesh to have the potential to become one of the world's largest economies in the present century, category separate from the BRICs- the fast-growing developing economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Whether we can live up to the expectation to a great extent depends on how visionary are our leaders and how they view the future. Hope kept us surviving for forty years. Now it is time to deliver. Happy Birth Day Bangladesh.
The author is a former Vice-chancellor, Chittagong University. Currently he teaches at ULAB, Dhaka.
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Abdul Mannan
Professor
School of Business
University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh
House # 56, Road # 4/A
Dhanmondi R/A, Dhaka-1209
Bangladesh.
BDT=GMT +6
Working Days Sunday-Thursday
E-mail: abman1971@gmail.com
http://www.ulab.edu.bd
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