On 26 March 2024, it had been 53 years since the independence of Bangladesh was declared. On this day in 1971 when the Pakistani forces unleashed genocide on the people of Bangladesh, the people of Bangladesh stood up in resistance. India lent its support. Then after a nine-month war of bloodshed, Bangladesh was finally liberated on 16 December and emerged before the world as an independent state.
To my mind, there are very few countries in this world that enjoy absolute independence and sovereignty. The independence and sovereignty of the other countries face all sorts of limitations. All countries have certain constraints. After all, when any country signs a bilateral or multilateral agreement with others, in a sense it is giving up a little of its sovereignty. And if any country commits human rights violations against its own people, then other countries get the right to criticise or condemn it.
However, the constraints to independence and sovereignty come through informal ways. A powerful country or regional big power can force its will on the relatively weaker countries. That is why many weaker countries are obliged to take decisions in the interests of the powerful countries rather than in their own interests. This happens in many countries and Bangladesh is no exception. Constructing a deep sea port at Sonadia was in Bangladesh’s interests and the deal with China in this regard was at the final stages. However, in India’s interests, Bangladesh backed away from the deal. After all, this involvement of China may have gone against India’s strategic interests.
For the same reason, implementation of Bangladesh’s Teesta project with Chinese support remains in limbo. So far 27 years of the 30-year Ganges treaty have passed. A dam should have been constructed along the river Padma to channel water to the rivers Gorai and Modhumati. Talks on such a project did arise, albeit late, but then Bangladesh moved back the moment that West Bengal’s chief minister raised objections to this.
The leverage or capacity of a lesser powerful state can determine to a great extent how far it can enjoy its independence and sovereignty. This leverage can be economic, political or military. On the flip side there is dependence. The more a country or government becomes dependent on another country, the more difficult it is to enjoy its independence and sovereignty. The 1971 liberation war was not just for independence, it was for liberation too. It was a struggle for freedom from exploitation, deprivation, inequality and undemocratic rule. How far has independent Bangladesh gained these freedoms?
Bangladesh has achieved much prosperity, but along with this, inequality has increased too. Crony capitalism and the market syndicates have exacerbated this disparity
Bangladesh has had many achievements in these 52 years from 1972 to 2024. Overcoming the problems of a war-torn country, extreme poverty, famine and innumerable adversities, proving Henry Kissinger’s slur of being a bottomless basket to be false, Bangladesh is now a lower middle income country. While the veracity of government statistics may be questionable, there is no doubt that poverty and extreme poverty has decreased. In these 52 years, a large section of the people has emerged out of poverty.
The nightmare of ‘monga’ or seasonal famine that struck the Rangpur region every year, has more or less abated. While extreme poverty unfortunately still exists, since 1974 there has not been any famine in the true sense in the country. The country has come a long way from the extreme dependence on aid during the eighties. According to a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers, Bangladesh now is the 31st largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity. In 2050 it will rank at 23. In 1986-87, Bangladesh’s export revenue just crossed one billion dollars. In 2022 it reached around 60 billion dollars.
Bangladesh dreams of graduating from the lower middle income status to the upper middle income status in the coming decade, and then becoming a developed country in the decade after that. Bangladesh has many achievements in the social sector too. It achieved startling success in implementing the MDG. Outside of Turkey, Bangladesh is the only Muslim majority country that has achieved gender balance in primary school enrollment. Bangladesh ranks at 72 in gender gap, above India and Sri Lanka.
Against all these successes, there is a long list of failures too. The first demand by the people of pre-independence Bangladesh was for power to be handed over to Awami League which had won the free and fair election of 1971. Instead of doing that, the Pakistani rulers tried to suppress that demand by means of genocide and the liberation war became inevitable for the Bengalis.
It has been 53 years since Bangladesh was won at the cost of the blood of thousands of martyrs, yet it still has not been possible to establish a credible system for fair elections in the country. It has become inevitable for those in power to ‘win’ one-sided and fixed elections. There are no indications of when the country will be freed of the ‘hybrid regime’ stigma. Bangladesh ranks at almost the very bottom in global indexes of the rule of law and perceptions of corruption.
Alongside bringing inequality to a tolerable level, voting rights, justice and good governance are essential to render independence meaningful and to achieve real freedom. All these are intricately interlinked.
In the 23 years of united Pakistan, the people of Bangladesh were the most aggravated over inequality. There was inequality between the two wings of the country, the inequality within the society. There was extreme poverty everywhere, while mountains of wealth were accumulating with a handful of families. One of the main aims of the freedom struggle was to end this massive disparity. But the 53-year-old Bangladesh is yet to be free of that inequality.
Holistically speaking, Bangladesh has achieved much prosperity, but along with this, inequality has increased too. Crony capitalism and the market syndicates have exacerbated this disparity. While the common people are floundering under the spiralling prices of commodities, a handful of people are amassing mountains of wealth like in pre-independence times. The government’s decisions are made in a manner that billions of taka pour into the pockets of a few.
The country’s inequality as measured by the Gini coefficient was 0.458 in 2010. In 2016 this went up to 0.482 and in 2022 it was 0.499. There is now no complete equality anywhere in the world. But any coefficient above .4 indicates extensive inequality. If it crosses .5, which is inevitable for Bangladesh, that means extreme inequality exists in the country. The extreme inequality in Bangladesh is blatantly visible and needs no indicator to understand. The society expects a garment worker to run her family on just Tk 12,500 a month in these times of exorbitant prices. There are news reports of little children going to school hungry.
Alongside bringing inequality to a tolerable level, voting rights, justice and good governance are essential to render independence meaningful and to achieve real freedom. All these are intricately interlinked.
* Md. Touhid Hossain is a former foreign secretary
* This column appeared in the print and online edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten for the English edition by Ayesha Kabir