50 years of independence: is the country on the right track?

By Dr Mohammad Didare Alam

THE journey since the independence has not been an easy one for Bangladesh. From a war-torn country in December 1971, Bangladesh, at 50, has progressed a lot and there are miles to go.

The Pakistanis left the country’s economy hollow. In the last days of the war, the West Pakistanis transferred almost all of their trade money to West. To mention a case in point, the Pakistan International Airlines left exactly Rs 117 ($16) in its account in the port city of Chattogram. In addition to the economy, all sectors including food, education and health care had to be repaired and rebuilt. Besides, it was essential to build friendly relations with the whole world by promoting Bangladesh as a peace-loving country. The founding president had only a short span of about three and a half years to face this huge challenge before his tragic assassination.

The country has come a long way today. Henry Kissinger’s bottomless basket now holds the second highest foreign exchange reserves in South Asia, after India, with about $43 billion. According to the International Monetary Fund, the country’s per capita income in 2019 was $1,906, with a GDP of $317 billion. The main sources of foreign exchange are the remittances of 12 million expatriates working in different countries across the world and the export of the ready-made garments industry. What, however, is gravely concerning is that while working people are working hard at home and abroad to supply the country’s treasury, on the one hand, some people, on the other hand, are looting the financial institutions of the country or cheating/trapping the common people to grab their last resources and smuggling the embezzled money to other countries. According to a report by the Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research institute, $7,585 crore, amounting to Tk 606,868 crore, was smuggled from Bangladesh in 2005–2014. The amount is the equivalent of almost two budget allocations in Bangladesh. During this period, Bangladesh was the country from which the highest amount of money had been laundered among the least developed countries.

One of the major challenges for the country has been to achieve self-sufficiency in food production. There has been a significant progress in this area since independence. In the post-independence period, the production of food grains in Bangladesh was only 11 million tonnes. In 2019–2020 financial year, it has increased to 45.3 million tonnes. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation report entitled ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World’, the production of staple food grains in Bangladesh has increased three to five times since independence. Bangladesh is among the top 10 countries in the world in the production of 12 agricultural products. However, despite self-sufficiency in food, according to experts, some people in the country are still suffering from food crisis due to poverty and income inequality. Moreover, unscrupulous traders make adulteration and mix various harmful chemicals at different stages of food production, preservation, processing and marketing, making the availability of safe and healthy food rare in many cases.

The country has made significant progress in the field of education. In the post-independence period, Bangabandhu placed utmost importance on primary education. Thirty-seven thousand primary schools were nationalised during his time in office. Following in his footsteps, the current prime minister is leading the country to his dreams and ideals by nationalising 26,000 primary schools. The country now offers unpaid and compulsory primary education up to the 5th grade. The literacy rate has risen to 74.7 per cent. The country’s progress in women’s education is astounding. According to the Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information and Statistics, 28.4 per cent of the total students in the country were girls in 1970–71. In 2018, it has increased to 50.54 per cent — about 51 per cent of the total students at the primary level, more than 54 per cent in the secondary and 48.38 per cent at the HSC level. Whereas in 1971 there was only six universities in the then East Pakistan, now there are 57 public and 107 private universities in independent Bangladesh. However, many academics feel very concerned in terms of the academic environment and priorities, as partisan, parochial politics has infiltrated into the academia. Administrative positions are often gaining more importance than teaching or research at the seats of higher education and, as a result, despite having a world-class manpower for conducting and guiding advanced research, our universities have not flourished to the desired level.

Our achievements in medical education and health management are not bad either. In 1971 we had only six medical colleges. Now there are 36 government and 71 private medical colleges. In addition, the Institute of Postgraduate Medical Research, established in 1965, has been transformed into the Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University for creating a specialist physician workforce and conducting advanced medical research of modern standards. In the same continuity, four more medical universities have started their activities. Apart from medical colleges and universities, having their own hospitals, many government and private hospitals/clinics have been set up at the district and upazila levels. In addition, quite a few specialised hospitals are working in different parts of the country, including the capital city, for the treatment of specific diseases. At the grassroots level, about 14,000 community clinics have been set up across the country with the idea of providing primary health care at the doorsteps of the people. Over the past few decades, Bangladesh has achieved significant success in reducing infant and maternal mortality rates. According to the World Health Organisation, the under-five mortality rate has come down in the country from 143.8 per thousand in 1990 to 30.8 in 2019 and the maternal mortality rate from 574 per lakh in 1990 to 173 in 2017. Bangladesh’s success in drug production is enviable. Bangladesh is exporting medicines to 160 countries after meeting 98 per cent of the domestic demand. However, the number of doctors in the country is still insufficient in proportion to the population — only 5.26 per 10,000 people. A large section of the population fails to receive the necessary treatment because of a lack of financial means. In the absence of proper policy adoption and implementation, trained pharmacy professionals having degrees from the universities are not getting a chance to make the desired contribution to the health system of the country.

The foreign policy that Bangabandhu employed based on the principle ‘friendship to all, malice to none’ has been followed more or less by all the post-independence governments till date. Bangabandhu, as the head of a Muslim-majority country, felt the need to establish contacts with other countries in the Muslim world. For this reason, he decided to attend the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation conference held in Pakistan in 1974, but on the pre-condition that Pakistan recognises Bangladesh. In the reality of that day, it was a very difficult decision to make, but today Bangladesh is enjoying the benefits of this far-sighted decision of him. Many of those who took a stand against Bangladesh during the war of independence, including the United States, China and Saudi Arabia, are today in close ties with Bangladesh and are important partners in the country’s development.

In today’s Bangladesh, the main tensions in international relations are with the two neighbours — India and Myanmar. The major unresolved issue of the country with India is the water sharing of common rivers flowing between the two countries. In addition, Bangladeshis are often shot to death at the frontiers by Indian border guards. Bangladesh’s huge deficit in inter-state trade with India is also an unpleasant issue. Meanwhile, the other neighbour, Myanmar, has been torturing the Rohingya Muslims of Rakhine State since 1978, pushing them in several waves to Bangladesh and, in turn, creating a long-term humanitarian problem for the country. Bangladesh has for long been making its highest efforts to resolve these issues with the two neighbours diplomatically, but the results are not very promising. Many believe that in order to resolve these issues Bangladesh needs to build a strong national unity at home and launch a serious move to create strong public opinion in the international arena so that the two friendly neighbours feel international pressure.

On the question of governance, the people of this country always wanted to keep confidence in the democratic system. Thus, military rule or any other kind of dictatorial system could not establish a permanent foundation here. In fact, the people of this country had to take up arms for independence in 1971 because the Pakistani generals tried to overturn the mandate given by the people in the 1970 election. Although there is no disagreement on the question of democracy, the country has failed to build an electoral culture acceptable to all in the past 50 years. Due to the intolerant and belligerent attitude of the major political parties towards each other, muscle power is getting shelter under the political umbrella and some unscrupulous people in different positions are taking the opportunity, using political connections, to embezzle people’s money. In order to get out of this situation, the political parties need to build trust, respect and friendship among each other, so that a liberal democratic environment is created and they feel safe with each other. Only then can the country and the country’s overall system get out of the grip of the grabby, ambitious musclemen and the military-civilian bureaucracy.