Habib Khondoker

The Emergence of
Bangladesh
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Edited by Habibul Khondker
Olav Muurlink · Asif Bin Ali
The Emergence of Bangladesh
Habibul Khondker
Olav Muurlink • Asif Bin Ali
Editors
The Emergence
of Bangladesh
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Editors
Habibul Khondker Olav Muurlink
Department of Social Sciences School of Business and Law
Zayed University Central Queensland University
Khalifa City, UAE Brisbane, QLD, Australia
Asif Bin Ali
Department of History and Philosophy
North South University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
ISBN 978-981-16-5520-3 ISBN 978-981-16-5521-0 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5521-0
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Acknowledgments
We remain indebted to a great many individuals for their cooperation,

guidance, and encouragement in putting together this volume. We must
express our gratitude to Dr Kamal Hossain, Dr Hameeda Hossain,
Professor Rehman Sobhan, and Professor Rounaq Jahan, who remain part
of the history of Bangladesh, for their support and cooperation with this
project. Since one of our aims was to introduce the leading Bangladeshi
scholars in the diaspora to the students of Bangladesh studies both at
home and abroad, we approached these scholars who, despite their
demanding schedules, favorably responded to our call. We want to express
our sincere gratitude to all our authors.
We also want to thank Palgrave for their flexibility and support as our
task faced some delays in meeting the schedule in part because of the
Covid-19 situation.
Finally, for giving us permission to include an extract from Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman’s autobiography, we want to express our sincere grati-
tude to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
v
Extract from Oshomapto Atmojiboni
(Unfinished Autobiography)
Translated by Habibul Khondker

From pp. 255–257
(Only 7 years after the creation of Pakistan, the election of 1954 was a
milestone in the history of the emergence of Bangladesh when the Jukto
(United) Front made up of the Awami League and Krishak Sramik Party
(KSP) routed the Muslim League in the election of the Provincial assem-
bly. In this election a young Bangabandhu, 34 years old, defeated a vet-
eran Muslim League leader in Gopalganj, Bangabandhu’s birthplace.)
Upon returning to Gopalganj I saw that the Muslim League candidate
Wahiduzzaman had joined the electoral fray in full swing. In his own life,
he accumulated great wealth. A launch, speedboats, bicycles, micro-
phones—he lacked nothing. As for me, I had a microphone and nothing
else. My electoral district is made up of Gopalganj and Kotalipara thana.
There was hardly a passable road in the region. For my election campaign,
all we had were two bicycles. My party workers used their own personal
bicycles. I also did not have much funds to spare. My family had some
good-quality river boats that we used. Students and young party workers
came forth and started spending their own money as they joined my cam-
paign. After addressing a number of rallies, I came to the realization that
Mr Wahiduzzaman would lose miserably. Money would not be enough;
public opinion was on my side. In every village I went to, people would
not only promise to cast their votes for me, they would welcome me into
their houses, treat me to food and drinks and donate money to my elec-
tion funds. If I declined to take their money, they would be offended and
would say this money is for the expenses of your election.
vii
viii EXTRACT FROM OSHOMAPTO ATMOJIBONI (UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY)
I remember, for example, a poor, old woman waited for me on the

roadside to catch a glimpse of me and when she saw me, she insisted that
I visit her hut. Holding her hands, I went to her humble hut. There were
many people with me. She spread a mat for us to sit down and gave me a
cup of milk, betel leaf and four annas. She said, “please have this and take
the money, since I have nothing more to give”. My eyes welled with tears.
I drank the milk and returned her four annas, supplementing the amount
with some more money. She did not take my money. I told her: “Your
prayers are enough for me; I will never be able to repay your blessings with
money”. The old woman touched my head and face and gave me bless-
ings, saying that “The blessings of the poor will be with you”. When I left
her home, silent tears rolled down my cheeks. On that day, I took a vow,
“I will never mislead the people.” Many similar events took place. I trav-
eled from union to union by foot. My travels would be interrupted as
women in the villages wanted to catch a glimpse of me. Before contesting
the election, I had no idea how much people loved me. A major change in
my outlook took place during this election campaign.
When Mr Wahiduzzaman and the Muslim League realized that their
situation was not favorable, they changed their tactics. They brought in
many religious figures, peers, and Maulanas. In Gopalganj there was a
famous religious scholar, Maulana Shamsul Haque, who I knew and had
respected. He was very knowledgeable about religion. I was convinced
that this Maulana would not take a stand against me. But he joined the
Muslim League and took active part in the campaign against me. The
Muslims in that region had high regard for him. The Maulana began to
tour the region by speedboat, moving from union to union addressing
campaign rallies against me. In one religious gathering, he issued a fatwa
that “If people voted for me, Islam will come to an end, religion will end.”
Other peers such as the Peer of Sarsina, Peer of Borguna, Peer of Shibpur,
and the Shah of Rahmatpur all joined the fray against me and did not
mince words in issuing fatwas against me. With the exception of a couple
of Maulanas, the rest of the Maulavis and their followers joined the cam-
paign in full swing. On the one hand, money and on the other hand the
peers. Lured by the money, the followers of the peers plunged into the
campaign, sacrificing their sleep at night and rest in the day to defeat me.
Some of the civil servants were also actively involved in this campaign.
The police chief from Dhaka showed up in Gopalganj and ordered the
civil servants in no uncertain terms to support the Muslim League. The
district magistrate of Faridpur, Mr Altaf Gowher, was transferred and
EXTRACT FROM OSHOMAPTO ATMOJIBONI (UNFINISHED AUTOBIOGRAPHY) ix
replaced by another officer as he declined to do the bidding of the govern-

ment. The new civil servant started addressing campaign rallies and
changed the election centers three days before the elections, to the advan-
tage of Mr Wahiduzzaman. Ordinary people and students were on my side
and they started to work selflessly. Just four days before the election, Mr
Shaheed Suhrawardy came to address two rallies in my support after hear-
ing all these partisan activities of the civil servants. A day before the elec-
tion, Maulana Bhasani came to address a rally. Few days before the election,
Khondker Shamsul Haque Moktar Shahib, Rahmat Jan, and Shahidul
Islam o Imada were arrested under the security law and were transferred
to Faridpur Jail. About forty important persons were arrested from one
union and arrest warrants were issued against another fifty people three
days before the election…
When the election results were announced, it was revealed that Mr
Wahiduzzaman had been beaten by 10,000 votes. Not only had people
voted for me, they had also raised 5000 taka to meet the expenses of the
election. It came to my realization that if you love the people, they will
love you in return. If you make small sacrifices, then people will be ready
to sacrifice their lives. Realizing his mistakes, Maulana Shamsul Haque
retired from politics. In this election, the Muslim League was routed. A
few days before the elections, Mr Shaheed Suhrawardy in a statement said:
“I will be surprised if Muslim League gets more than 9 seats in the elec-
tion”. Out of 300 seats, the Muslim League received just nine seats.
Contents
Introduction 1
Habibul Khondker, Olav Muurlink, and Asif Bin Ali

The Political and Economic Context Underlying the
Emergence of Bangladesh 7
Rehman Sobhan and Habibul Khondker

Wind of Change: Bhola 1970 25
Olav Muurlink

War Babies of 1971: A Missing Historical Narrative 39
Mustafa Chowdhury

The Making of the Bangladesh Constitution 57
Kamal Hossain

Bengali Identity, Secularism and the Language Movement 67
Tazeen M. Murshid

Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh 87
Ali Riaz
xi
xii Contents

The Making of Minorities in Bangladesh: Legacies, Policies
and Practice109
Meghna Guhathakurta

The Political Economy of Development: Bangladesh From Its
Emergence toward the Future135
Haider A. Khan and Shamayeta Rahman

Human Development in Bangladesh: A Dynamic Trajectory157
Selim Jahan

Government—Business Relationships in Bangladesh177
Syed Akhtar Mahmood
Gender and Development203

Shelley Feldman

Livelihoods and Food Security of the Indigenous Peoples of
the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: Factors of Change
and Future Prospects229
Shapan Adnan

The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh251
Amena Mohsin

Climate Change and Displacement: Locating the Most
Vulnerable Groups259
Tasneem Siddiqui

Retracing Accountability in the Bangladeshi Public
Administration273
Quamrul Alam, Shibaab Rahman, and Julian Teicher

The Changing Role of the Bangladesh Military: 1971 to
2020—The Evolving Bangladesh Defense Policy293
Mahmud Ur Rahman Choudhury
Contents xiii

The Evolution of Education Policy in Bangladesh: Past and
Present317
Mak (Chanchal) Khan

Success and Its Consequences: Bangladesh’s Health Report
Card at 50339
Olav Muurlink, Pratima Durga, Nabil Awan, and Andrew
Taylor-Robinson

The Emerging Diaspora of Bangladesh: Fifty Years of
Overseas Movements and Settlements355
Nazli Kibria

Bangladeshi Mediascape: Political and Corporate Power369
Asif Bin Ali and Olav Muurlink

Film in Bangladesh: Cultural Transformation of a National
Cinema within and beyond the Nation-state387
Zakir Hossain Raju

Hip-Hop Music Activism: A New Phenomenon in
Bangladeshi Popular Culture405
Mubashar Hasan and Priyanka Kundu
Global Bangladesh419
Habibul Khondker
Index429
Notes on Contributors
Shapan Adnan (PhD Cambridge) is a professorial research associate with

the Department of Development Studies of the School of Oriental and
African Studies (SOAS), University of London. He has taught at the
National University of Singapore and the Universities of Dhaka and
Chittagong. He has been a visiting scholar and visiting research fellow at
the University of Oxford. His research and publications are in the fields of
political economy, sociology/anthropology, and development.
Quamrul Alam, PhD is Professor of International Business & Strategy
at the School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University.
Formerly at Monash University in Australia, Alam’s research interests
include international business strategy, public governance, regulatory gov-
ernance, corporate social responsibility, and public—private partnerships.
He has published over 60 journal articles, 16 book chapters and four books.
Nabil Awan is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Statistical Research
and Training, University of Dhaka. He is on study leave, as a graduate
researcher in biostatistics at the University of Pittsburgh, and formerly
worked as Assistant Director (Department of Banking Inspection) at the
Central Bank of Bangladesh.
Asif Bin Ali is a Lecturer at the History and Philosophy Department,
North South University, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was Erasmus Mundus
Fellow (2019–2021) at Swansea University, the UK, Aarhus University,
and Danish School of Media and Journalism, Denmark. A former journal-
ist, he is regional editor of Global Dialogue, a quarterly magazine of the
xv
xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
International Sociological Association. His recent documentary is The

Concert for Bangladesh: Music to Introduce Bangladesh to the World.
His recent co-edited book is Buddhist Nationalism Rohingya Crisis and
Contemporary Politics (2019).
Mahmud Ur Rahman Choudhury PSC (Retd), was educated at
Faujdarhat Cadet College. He was commissioned into the Bangladesh
Army in 1976, as an officer in the Corps of Artillery. He retired in 2000.
Since retirement, he has been working a freelance writer and author on the
history of Bangladesh, geo-politics and military studies. He is the editor of
RAOWA Review.
Mustafa Chowdhury a Canadian of Bangladeshi origin, has graduate
degrees in English Literature, Library and Information Science, and
Canadian History. He has authored three books: Ekattorer Judhoshishu:
Obidito Itihash; Picking Up the Pieces: 1971 War Babies’ Odyssey from
Bangladesh to Canada; and Unconditional Love: Story of Adoption of 1971
War Babies.
Pratima Durga is Director of the Research Centre for Learning and
Scholarship Skills (CLASS) at Alphacrucis College in Brisbane, Australia.
Her PhD studies at Central Queensland University examine how
Bangladesh is handling remote area health delivery, and rural health inno-
vation in Bangladesh.
Shelley Feldman is Senior Fellow, Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur- und
sozialwissenschaftliche Studien, Universität Erfurt, Germany. From 1984
to 2016 she was International Professor, Cornell University, and Director
of its Feminist, Gender, and Sexualities Studies Program. She has under-
taken research in Bangladesh since 1978 with a focus on the political
economy of economic and social restructuring.
Meghna Guhathakurta taught International Relations at Dhaka
University from 1984 to 2006. She serves as Executive Director of
Research Initiatives Bangladesh, an independent research organization.
She graduated from the University of Dhaka and received her PhD from
the University of York, UK. She has written extensively on migration
trends, partition histories, and peacebuilding and minority rights in
South Asia.
Mubashar Hasan, PhD is an adjunct fellow at the Humanitarian and
Development Research Initiative, Western Sydney University, Australia.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii
He is the author of Islam and Politics in Bangladesh: The Followers of

Ummah (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and co-editor of the book Masks of
Authoritarianism: Hegemony, Power and Public Life in Bangladesh
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2021).
Kamal Hossain educated at University of Michigan and Oxford, is an
internationally known jurist. He is former Law Minister and Chairman of
the Constitution drafting Committee of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh in 1972 and former Foreign Minister of Bangladesh.
Selim Jahan PhD McGill, is a former director and the lead author of the
United Nations Human Development Report. Prior to that, he headed
the Poverty Division of the organization. He was Professor of Economics
at University of Dhaka, Bangladesh, and also taught at McGill University,
Canada. He is the author of 12 books.
Haider A. Khan PhD Cornell University, is a distinguished university
professor at Josef Korbel School of International Studies (JKSIS),
University of Denver. He is ranked among the top 1 percent of interna-
tional economists. He has served as the chief international adviser to Arab
Trade and Human Development and a senior economic adviser to
UNCTAD in Geneva.
Mak (Chanchal) Khan, PhD is a consultant and adviser to various mul-
tilateral development partners. His areas of work include public policy,
education, human capital development, governance, and development
effectiveness. A former UNDP official and an academic with the University
of Melbourne, Dr Khan has contributed to strategic plans and policies for
governments and development partners across 28 countries in the Asia-
Pacific region over the last three decades.
Habibul Khondker PhD University of Pittsburgh, is Professor of
Sociology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. He is co-editor of Covid-19
and Governance (2021) and Asia and Europe in Globalization (2006).
With Bryan Turner he co-authored Globalization East and West (2010).
His research is on global studies.
Nazli Kibria is Professor of Sociology at Boston University. She special-
izes in the sociology of families, immigration, race, and childhood with a
focus on South Asia as well as the Asian American experience. Her most
recent books include Race and Immigration and Muslims in Motion: Islam
and National Identity in the Bangladeshi Diaspora (2011).
xviii NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
Priyanka Kundu is working with Bangladesh University of Professionals

(BUP). She has worked as a journalist with UNB (United News of
Bangladesh).
Syed Akhtar Mahmood is an economist. He was previously Lead Private
Sector Specialist in the World Bank Group. He studied, and later taught,
economics at Dhaka University in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He
obtained a D.Phil. in Economics from the University of Oxford.
Amena Mohsin is a professor in the Department of International
Relations, University of Dhaka. She graduated from the same department
and later received her MA and PhD degrees from the University of Hawaii,
USA, and Cambridge University, UK. She is the author of The Politics of
Nationalism: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh (1997)
and The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh: On The Difficult Road To
Peace (2003).
Tazeen M. Murshid teaches South Asian history and politics, and has
held positions at Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium; the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London; University of North London;
BRAC University; and East-West University, Dhaka. She has been a fellow
of the Institute for Advanced Study, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin; at St
Antony’s College, Oxford; and at Homerton College, Cambridge, and a
visiting fellow at Columbia University, New York, as well as directeur des
études at EHESS, Paris.
Olav Muurlink has been involved with education development in
Bangladesh, principally in Bhola, for close to thirty years, through his roles
as Head of Country, Bangladesh, and Chair of the Australian NGO
Cooperation in Development (Australia) Incorporated. He is an associate
professor of Sustainable Innovation at Central Queensland University in
Brisbane.
Shamayeta Rahman is a research assistant at the University of Denver.
Her research work is focused on gender, health, and development in
Bangladesh. She received her Master’s degree in Economics from the
University of Denver.
Shibaab Rahman received his PhD from Monash University. He is an
academic and an experienced professional with more than eight years of
project management, policy analysis, and qualitative/quantitative research
experience within the international development arena.
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xix
Zakir Hossain Raju PhD Latrobe, is a professor and Head of the

Department of Media and Communication at Independent University,
Bangladesh. He also taught at Monash University in Australia and Malaysia
and served as a research fellow at the University of Malaya and the Korean
National University of Arts. He has authored many research articles and
monographs, including Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity (2015).
Ali Riaz is a distinguished professor of Political Science at Illinois State
University, USA. His research interests include democratization, violent
extremism, South Asian politics, and Bangladeshi politics. His recent pub-
lications include Voting in a Hybrid Regime: Explaining the 2018
Bangladesh Election (2019), and an edited volume, Religion and Politics in
South Asia (2021).
Tasneem Siddiqui is Professor of Political Science, University of Dhaka,
and Founding Chair of the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research
Unit (RMMRU). She led the drafting of the National Strategy for Internal
Displacement in Bangladesh 2021 and the Overseas Employment Policy
2006. She is on the Global Editorial Board of the Oxford Journal of
Migration Studies and adviser to the Platform on Disaster Displacement.
Rehman Sobhan is a freedom fighter and a distinguished economist.
Educated at Cambridge, he was a professor of Economics at Dhaka
University before becoming a member of the Planning Commission of
Bangladesh. An author of over 20 books, he was adviser (a cabinet posi-
tion) to the Caretaker Government and the founder of the Centre for
Policy Dialogue in Bangladesh.
Andrew Taylor-Robinson has over 30 years’ research experience in
tropical infectious disease immunology and epidemiology, including in
Bangladesh, focusing on malaria, dengue, and other mosquito-borne dis-
eases. He holds professorial appointments at VIN University and is inter-
national scholar at the Center for Global Health, University of Pennsylvania.
Julian Teicher is the CEO of the Melbourne Institute of Higher
Education, and an adjunct professor at Central Queensland University
with strong research connections with Bangladesh. He has had a distin-
guished research and leadership career in various universities, including as
Deputy Dean (Research) at Central Queensland University, Head of the
Centre of Business at RMIT Vietnam, and professor at and Director of the
Graduate School of Business at Monash.
List of Figures

Emergence toward the Future
Fig. 1 Anemia Prevalence Amongst Women of Reproductive Age.
(Source: Global Nutrition Report, 2016) 148
Fig. 2 Underweight by Sex. (Source: Global Nutrition Report, 2016) 149
Human Development in Bangladesh: A Dynamic Trajectory

Fig. 1 Human development—the analytical framework. (Source: UNDP,
2016)159
Fig. 2 Human Development Index (HDI) disaggregated by male and
female HDI. (Source: Razzaque, 2020, based on UNDP data) 162
Fig. 3 Poverty incidence in Bangladesh (percentage of population living
below the poverty and extreme poverty lines). (Note: Poverty
rates in 2017, 2018 and 2019 are based on Bangladesh Bureau
of Statistics estimates. Source: Based on Bangladesh Bureau of
Statistics data) 163
Fig. 4 Under-five mortality by the rural—urban divide. (Source: Akash,
2020, estimation based on Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of
BBS [2019]) 165
Fig. 5 Under-five mortality by wealth quintiles. (Source: Akash, 2020,
estimation based on Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of BBS
[2019])165
Fig. 6 District-wise incidence of multidimensional poverty in
Bangladesh, 2019. (Data source: OPHI, 2020) 167
xxi
xxii List of Figures
Government—Business Relationships in Bangladesh

Fig. 1 The dominance of garments in total exports of Bangladesh:
1996–2020. (Source: Government of Bangladesh) 179
Fig. 2 The relative complexity of Bangladesh’s exports: 1995–2016.
(Source: Harvard University, Growth Lab, Atlas of Economic
Complexity)180
Fig. 3 Firm-size differences in perceptions of business constraints.
(Source: World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2013) 184
Fig. 4 The Many Dimensions of Regulatory Uncertainty Faced by
Businesses. (Source: Business survey done by International
Finance Corporation) 185
Fig. 5 Business views on discretionary behavior by officials in
Bangladesh. (Source: Business survey done by International
Fig. 6 Business views on causes of discretionary behavior by officials in
Bangladesh. (Source: Business survey done by International
Fig. 7 Market Dominance in Bangladesh Relative to Peers. (Source:
World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Indicators) 190
Fig. 8 Effectiveness of Anti-Monopoly Policy in Bangladesh Relative to
Peers. (Source: World Economic Forum, Global
Competitiveness Indicators) 191
Fig. 9 Capture, privilege-seeking, and corruption 192
Fig. 10 Undue Influence on Policymaking: Bangladesh vs. Peers:
2007–2016. (Source: World Economic Forum, Global
Competitiveness Indicators) 193
Fig. 11 The attitude of mid-level officials toward business issues 200
List of Tables
The Political and Economic Context Underlying the Emergence

of Bangladesh
Table 1 Disparities in per Capita Income between East and West Pakistan 14
Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh

Table 1 Factors of Radicalization 92
Table 2 Factors of Radicalization in Bangladesh 96

Emergence toward the Future
Table 1 Key Macroeconomic Data for Bangladesh in the 1971–1980
period143
period144
period145
Table 4 General Labor Force Data between 1990 and 2019 146
Table 5 Poverty and Inequality Data for Bangladesh in the 1988–2010
period147
Table 6 Literacy Rates in Bangladesh between 1974 and 2016 149
Table 7 Education enrollment data by sex 150
Table 8 Overview of General Health Outcomes between 1971 and 2015 150
xxiii
xxiv List of Tables
Human Development in Bangladesh: A Dynamic Trajectory

Table 1 Comparison of Bangladesh’s performance under HDI
components with comparator countries (2019) 161
Introduction
Habibul Khondker, Olav Muurlink,
and Asif Bin Ali
Bangladesh, against all odds, has come of age. International pessimism

surrounding the future of Bangladesh in 1971 was clearly misplaced. This
book attempts to assess the development of Bangladesh historically, start-
ing with a rationale for the independence of this South Asian country. In
order to achieve these objectives we gathered a number of well-known
scholars on Bangladesh, as well as scholars who are perhaps better known
in their scholarly communities than they are in their original homeland.
Some of them played a direct role in shaping the history of the country;
others are eminent scholars of international repute. We owe a great debt
to them for sharing their thoughts and ideas with the students of
Bangladesh studies both at home and abroad. For the students of
H. Khondker (*)
Department of Social Sciences, Zayed University, Khalifa City, UAE
O. Muurlink
School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University,
Brisbane, QLD, Australia
A. Bin Ali
Department of History and Philosophy, North South University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022
H. Khondker et al. (eds.), The Emergence of Bangladesh,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5521-0_1
2 H. KHONDKER ET AL.
Bangladesh studies it is very important to hear from the makers and

shapers of Bangladesh’s history. One of the aims of the book was to intro-
duce Bangladeshi students to the preeminent scholars of Bangladeshis in
the diaspora. We have gathered scholars from both home and abroad who
have distinguished themselves as specialists in the fields of politics, eco-
nomics, and society.
For general readers who want to understand the paradoxical develop-
ment of Bangladesh in a comprehensive way, we trust this volume will be
particularly useful. The contributors of this book have provided evidence,
cogent arguments and a coherent narrative in a lucid way to present the
story of Bangladesh.
Paradox of Development
At 50, Bangladesh is a middle-income country, according to the classifica-
tion of the World Bank. In social indicators, too, Bangladesh has gained
remarkable success. A former chief economist of the World Bank states:
Bangladesh’s GDP per capita now closely rivals India’s and significantly
exceeds that of Pakistan. Average life expectancy, at 74, is higher than in
India (70) and Pakistan (68). The country is a leading global exporter of
ready-made garments, and other sectors are taking off, too. Bangladesh’s
pharmaceutical industry, for example, is thriving. With 300 companies (sev-
eral of which conduct research) the country now meets 97 percent of
domestic demand [in this sector], and is beginning to export globally.
(Basu, 2021)
Yet there are clear challenges ahead for Bangladesh which the nation
has to tackle, including poverty and inequality, if it is to avoid the traps
that beset middle-income countries. It does so against a background of
vulnerability to climate change, which in turn puts in peril the nation’s
plans to address its critical energy shortfall in a manner compatible with
fighting that threat.
Bangladesh’s quantitative growth in education needs to be supple-
mented by qualitative development. Literacy rates have improved dramati-
cally, but the country’s success as an ‘exporter’ of labour is tempered by
the kinds of jobs its human exports are able to attract. Technical, profes-
sional and management positions are underrepresented by Bengalis in the
‘export markets’ of Asia and the Middle East, and this is partly a measure
INTRODUCTION 3
of the room for improvement in the education sector. Capacity building in

research and fields of technology is also a clear requirement for the next
stage of development.
Towards Industrialization and Urbanization

For a country built almost solely on agriculture, and which depended
heavily in its early years on a single farm export, jute, Bangladesh is becom-
ing remarkably urban in its orientation. The disproportionate growth of
Dhaka is one of the nation’s most striking features and influences every-
thing from the country’s problems to their solutions. Bangladesh is in fact
ranked one of the fastest-urbanizing countries in the world, with an aver-
age annual rate of urbanization of 5.34% since its establishment (Roy
et al., 2019). Amongst the world’s megacities (those defined as hosting
over 10 million people) Dhaka has the distinction of being the fastest-
growing, but the story is not the speed of growth but its cause. The driver
of Dhaka’s growth is not its exceptional fecundity, but a function of what
Chowdhury et al. (2013) in their landmark Lancet study have called the
“Bangladesh paradox”: “steep and sustained reductions in birth rate and
mortality”, wrought by its extraordinary success in public health measures
and its improvement in agricultural efficiency, despite persistent poverty
and structural disadvantages. Dhaka’s population explosion is also perhaps
the globe’s clearest illustration of climate-driven migratory shift.
The shift to the city is of course not the only extraordinary transmogri-
fication under way. Key drivers that determine the demographic composi-
tion and scale of the population of Bangladesh have undergone extreme
change over just 50 years. Fertility levels have dropped so precipitously
that Bangladesh has approached replacement-level fertility, from a high of
around 7 children per family: this translates to a fall to around one child
per family size per decade. In part this has come about due to the coun-
try’s revolution in education (always linked to reduced family size), and
partly, again, the success can be laid at the feet of public health measures,
where the nation is rightly considered a world leader.
As a result, the age profile of Bangladesh will be dramatically restruc-
tured in coming years as Bangladesh achieves what is called by demogra-
phers ‘stationarity’ in population. The population is growing steadily and
remarkably older. Despite family size decreasing, the population numbers
have momentum, and will continue to grow long after family sizes have
4 H. KHONDKER ET AL.
fallen to two children per unit or below. The tax base of the nation will
have to cope, as in the developed world, with a much larger proportion of
those over 50, driving a need for policy reform that the country has not
really begun to embrace.
Challenges to Democracy
Against this background of achievement, despite significant headwinds,
Bangladesh has also faced challenges that are essentially of its own making.
Following an export-oriented neoliberal growth model, Bangladesh has
veered away from its early promise of democracy, secularism and civil lib-
erties, and its initial dalliance with socialism is also largely in the rear-view
mirror. The rule of law and administration show weaknesses that need
attention to consolidate and sustain the country’s economic growth.
Power has tended to be concentrated in the executive branch of the state,
while its democratic reputation has been tainted internationally because of
controversial elections (Feldman, 2015). Bangladesh is now a fair distance
from having a competitive and tolerant political system, and is trending
towards an intolerant political culture. This has economic implications,
emerging from the damage done to good governance. Relative to the
region, the nation is at peace, and has ‘peaceful’ elections, but while it has
democratic architecture, in reality its highly centralized bureaucratic sys-
tem with effective control over Parliament and the justice department has
gradually turned Bangladesh into an authoritarian system, albeit one that
is far more tolerant than some of the world’s dictatorships. For a nation of
over 160 million, many still living in poverty, the Bangladesh ‘experiment’
is a triumph, with increases in wealth being eked out despite the great
challenges, in an environment of relative peace.
Foreign Policy Imperatives

Where the nation sees itself is perhaps surprising when seen from the per-
spective of 1971, focused more on India than Pakistan. Even despite the
Islamization of Bangladesh and the nationalist politics in India morphing
into anti-Muslim sentiment, there is an Indo-centrism to how Bangladesh
sees itself (Bhardwaj, 2003), and India remains the nation’s largest regional
trade partner. As noted in this volume, the new nation has focused a fair
share of energy that might have been devoted to an outward effort and
building bridges with the world on repairing bridges within its
INTRODUCTION 5
borders—and in some cases, as with the Chittagong Hill Tracts (see Chap.
10), engaging in behaviour that is hard to characterize as repair. The way
in which the nation has handled its own discord, in particular how succes-
sive governments have handled political opposition, has failed to win it
allies (D’Costa, 2012). Its internal squabbling, D’Costa argues, has tainted
its international stance. China continues to play a significant role, both in
the nation’s psyche and, increasingly, in the practical machinery of its
economy, using its Silk Road plan to embed its influence in Dhaka. The
various components of the nation are not in lockstep with one another:
while Bangladesh pleads on the world stage for action on climate change,
another arm of the nation is reaching out to China for support in building
coal-fired power stations without carbon-capture technology to support
its intense thirst for electricity (Gallagher et al., 2021). Soft power and
electrical power overlap on the borders with India as well, with the nation
importing electricity through its western border.
In summary, Bangladesh is a nation that has come a remarkable dis-
tance in a short time. The Bhola cyclone of 1970, the war of liberation,
the floods and the famine that marked its birth in blood and suffering, put
the nation at an extreme disadvantage, but those who look at the next 50
years with optimism now have 50 years of evidence accumulated in favour
of hope.
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brookings.edu/opinions/bangladesh-at-50/
Bhardwaj, S. (2003). Bangladesh Foreign Policy Vis-a-Vis India. Strategic Analysis,
27(2), 263–278.
Chowdhury, A. M. R., Bhuiya, A., Chowdhury, M. E., Rasheed, S., Hussain, Z.,
& Chen, L. C. (2013). The Bangladesh Paradox: Exceptional Health
Achievement Despite Economic Poverty. The Lancet, 382(9906), 1734–1745.
D’Costa, B. (2012). Bangladesh in 2011: Weak Statebuilding and Diffident
Foreign Policy. Asian Survey, 52(1), 147–156.
Feldman, S. (2015). Bangladesh in 2014: Illusive Democracy. Asian Survey,
55(1), 67–74.
Gallagher, K. S., Bhandary, R., Narassimhan, E., & Nguyen, Q. T. (2021).
Banking on Coal? Drivers of Demand for Chinese Overseas Investments in
Coal in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Energy Research & Social
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Environment and Urbanization ASIA, 10(2), 216–232.
The Political and Economic Context
Underlying the Emergence of Bangladesh
Rehman Sobhan and Habibul Khondker
Introduction
Looking from afar one might not easily understand why Pakistan, a nation-
state carved out of undivided India in August 1947 following a period of
struggle and marked by the bloodbath of partition, did not even last for
25 years, a short lifespan for a contemporary nation. Many readers today—
separated by a distance of fifty years—may have the same question in mind.
What happened? Why did Pakistan fail to survive as a nation-state? If it had
to meet such a sudden end, what was the rationale for forming Pakistan in
the first place?
Political history has never been unilinear, nor have its paths been pre-
dictable. There is no inevitable path, no teleology, to history.
Historiographers and philosophers of history often caution us about dis-
ruptions, discontinuities, contingencies, surprises, and uncertainties,
R. Sobhan
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Dhaka, Bangladesh
H. Khondker (*)
e-mail: [email protected]

8 R. SOBHAN AND H. KHONDKER
which are the marks of history. In this chapter we outline the political and
economic circumstances that led to the emergence of Bangladesh. We
cover the period from 1947 to 1971 as the historical setting when
Bangladesh was incubated in the womb of Pakistan.
The standard, mainstream narrative of Pakistani history offers a narrow
religio-culturalist account of the birth of Pakistan. In that narrative,
Pakistan was supposed to be an abode for the Muslims in the Indian sub-
continent. However, this religious justification was a myth because a large
number of Muslims in India remained in India. In 1947, Muslims in India
were one third of the total number of Muslims of the Indian subcontinent.
Yet the myth of Pakistan’s experiment with a religion-based nationalism
became the standard textbook version of its history. The fact that the
founding father of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, was not exactly a
symbol of piety and that the leader of Jamaat-i-Islam, Maulana Mawdudi,
had reservations about the viability of Pakistan under Jinnah (Nasr, 1994)
are inconvenient truths that were swept under the carpet. Be that as it may,
here we ask: What was behind the façade of the religion-centered narra-
tive? What about the role of class? What about the class interests of the
nascent Muslim bourgeoise in India? Religion as an ideology was not alto-
gether irrelevant but class interests and uneven class formation in the
region were no less relevant.
Pakistan was born as a geographical oddity. The two provinces were
separated by the 1500 kilometers of landmass of the state of India. It was
expected that the physical separation would be overcome, and a nation
would be forged by faith in a shared religion. Islam was supposed to unify
the two parts and all the Muslims of Pakistan. Pakistan provided a test case
for Islam-based nationalism. But religion by itself failed to give any dura-
ble sense of unity. The regional disparity became more and more visible
with the uneven and dependent development of Pakistan. Religion was of
course a unifying factor and played a role but was unable to counteract
economic disparities and cultural diversity. Apart from the constraint of
distance, which made mobility an expensive and difficult proposition, cul-
tural differences must also be considered. Differences in language, diet,
and general customs made social integration difficult.
As noted, the division of historical India was ideologically justified by
the founding fathers of Pakistan in the name of Islam. However, the politi-
cal economy of the division of India lay not just in religious difference but
in the needs of the nascent Muslim bourgeoise who wanted a space of
their own, unencumbered by competition from more established Hindu
THE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC CONTEXT UNDERLYING… 9
and other non-Muslim bourgeoise in India. With the independence of

Pakistan, the Muslim bourgeoise, either from areas located in West
Pakistan or who migrated to West Pakistan from various parts of India,
looked to the Pakistani state to set them on the path of economic accumu-
lation. State policy and public expenditure prioritization initiated a process
of infrastructural development in the West Wing, which, in turn, encour-
aged the rise of new industries. A large proportion of the national budget
also went to the military establishment, largely composed of recruits from
West Pakistan and the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). The
military establishment was dominated by officers from Punjab whose elite
classes played a central role in Pakistani politics.
The cultural rights of the Bengalis were given scant recognition almost
from the earliest days of Pakistan, culminating in the language movement
of 1952. On February 25, 1948, at the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan
when a Bengali member, Dhirendra Nath Dutta, proposed that Bengali
should also be included as a language of the Constituent Assembly since it
is the language of the majority of people, he was rebuked by the Prime
Minister, Liaqat Ali Khan, who insisted that Urdu should be the only offi-
cial language of Pakistan (Waheeduzaman Manik, 2014). In March 1948,
Mr Jinnah on his first and only visit to Dhaka declared that Urdu would
be the state language of Pakistan, which invoked spontaneous protests
from the audience.
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was actively involved in the
protests against Jinnah’s ex-cathedra declaration. Four years later, in 1952,
when the then PM, Khawja Nazimuddin, once again publicly asserted that
Urdu would be the national language of Pakistan, angry demonstration
initiated by the students of Dhaka University culminated in police shoot-
ings on February 21 and, tragically, the creation of the first martyrs in the
Bengali struggle for the assertion of their cultural and democratic rights.
The problem of national integration was compounded by the growing
disparity in the distribution of public resources favoring West over East
Pakistan. This contributed to imbalanced development between the
regions, leading to the widening of disparity in living standards and per
capita incomes in favor of West over East Pakistan. The main source of
foreign exchange earnings for Pakistan, however, in addition to foreign aid
receipts, was jute exported from what was then East Pakistan. Much of the
foreign exchange earned from these exports from the east was deployed in
the west to finance the region’s rising import demands, a cycle which fur-
ther aggravated the sense of deprivation and injustice of the Bengalis. A
small number of economists, mostly based at Dhaka University, high-

lighted the issue of regional disparity and drew attention to its exploitative
implications. The work and arguments by these economists gained trac-
tion among Bengali politicians who were interested in defending the rights
of their constituents in East Pakistan.
The growing sense of injustice originating from the unfair access to
economic opportunities was directly traced to erosion of the political
rights of the Bengalis. It was observed that the politics of Pakistan devi-
ated from the path of democracy and was captured by a narrow military,
feudal, and bureaucratic elite who were subsequently joined by an emer-
gent business elite, all drawn from or settled in West Pakistan and largely
non-Bengali. Pakistan turned out to be a bureaucratic—authoritarian
regime before O’Donnell developed this formulation, later widely used in
Latin America. Hamza Alavi (1972) termed it a military-bureaucratic
oligarchy.
The real beneficiary of the state of Pakistan were the bourgeoisie and
landed interests of Pakistan. The people of East Pakistan remained
excluded from these elite classes. The promise of prosperity for the people
of East Pakistan turned out to be elusive. As hopes of economic prosperity
were frustrated and career mobility for the aspiring salaried classes stalled,
grievances began to mount. As income inequality grew and economic
polarization overlapped with geographical isolation, the 22 families who
shared the bulk of the wealth and exerted enormous control over the pol-
ity of Pakistan were also targeted by the Bengali politicians but eventually
invoked the hostility of a large segment of West Pakistan. This anger was
eventually harnessed by the newly formed Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) by
Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to propel him to electoral victory in Punjab and Sind
in the 1970 elections.
Despite the absence of the embourgeoisement processes in East
Pakistan, a growing progressive intellectual class centered around Dhaka
University came to play a dominant role, and some of its members actively
joined hands with the Awami League leadership in advancing their com-
mon cause of seeking redress from regional justice. Against all odds, a
Bengali middle class was slowly emerging, most of whom were profession-
als such as doctors, lawyers, academicians, and small traders. They remained
marginalized in civil and military bureaucracies. The aspirations for auton-
omy and right to self-determination, culminating in the call for indepen-
dence, began gradually. In order to examine this process, it is important to
recount the political forces driving economic development in Pakistan.
The demand for regional and provincial autonomy grew stronger, while
the call for social justice also became more vocal. The political climate also
influenced the one-sided treatment of the quest for regional justice.
Federalism was not given a chance and democracy was stifled first under
political conspiracies hatched by the West Pakistani rulers. Democracy was
eventually banished and replaced by military-dominated governance.
Pakistani writer Hasan Zaheer (1994) later lamented that had Pakistan
been a democracy, some of the problems and conflicts between the two
regions could have been resolved through negotiations. It is hard to
resolve issues of counterfactuals. But the military domination of politics
not only led to an imbalanced development process, but made the political
domination explicit and visceral.
The veneer of religion used by the ruling elite as cover for the undemo-
cratic and exploitative character of the state had, over the years, lost its
credibility, particularly in East Pakistan. The faux religiosity practiced by
Pakistani presidents and political parties with conspicuously secular appe-
tites further undermined the use of religion as a political instrument. In
consequence, religion-based parties, whether in what is now Pakistan or
today in Bangladesh, have invariably performed poorly in electoral
contests.
The exclusionary politics of Pakistan did not give Bengali politicians a
fair chance to participate in the democratic process. In March 1954 the
Awami League and its coalition partners under the banner of the United
Front (Jukto Front) won a landslide election routing the Muslim League
government in the East Bengal Provincial assembly, and elected A.K. Fazlul
Haque of Krishak Sramik Party (KSP), as Chief Minister Sheikh Mujib,
then 34, held his first ministerial portfolio in that elected administration.
The Jukto Front was given no time to implement its 21-point agenda.
Within a year, invoking somewhat spurious justifications, the central gov-
ernment through a presidential decree dismissed the elected government,
and presidential rule was imposed and enforced through a handpicked
governor, Iskander Mirza, the then Secretary of the Interior, who eventu-
ally played an instrumental role in introducing martial rule to Pakistan.
The dismissal of the democratically elected government left little room
for ambiguity in the minds of most Bengalis that within the Pakistani state
they would be left with little democratic space to rule themselves as was
promised under the Lahore resolution. The imposition of military rule on
October 27, 1958 was partly motivated to frustrate the impending national
elections scheduled for January 1959, where the Awami League was
expected to emerge as the electorally dominant party in East Pakistan.

This formal intervention by the West Pakistan-dominated military could
be said to have irrevocably buried the hopes of establishing democracy in
Pakistan and any prospect of building an integrated Pakistani state.
The military intervention and the growing dominance of the military
intersected with global regional rivalries at a time when the Cold War
dominated international politics. It was also rooted in internal political
and class dynamics of Pakistan. But the main casualty was the fledgling
democratic process. Ayesha Jalal argued, “The suppression of democratic
rights during the extended periods of military rule wreaked havoc on
political processes and the delicate weave of Pakistan society …” (Jalal,
2014, p. 3). But not for long. By the early 1960s protests began to sur-
face. The failure of the Pakistan project can be attributed to the failure of
nation-building, which the ruling elite neglected as their focus was on
state building (Jahan, 1972).
The India-Pakistan war of 1965 was fought exclusively on the western
front. The war was a largely fabricated event promoted by Zulfikar Ali
Bhutto, the then Foreign Minister of Pakistan, to use the Kashmir issue to
further his own political ambitions. Little attention was paid to the impact
of the war on East Pakistan. The military-inspired mythology that the
defense of East Pakistan lay in West Pakistan, whose armies were expected
to decimate the Indian armed forces, was irrevocably destroyed in the eyes
of all Bengalis. East Pakistan was left virtually unprotected during the war.
The fantasy that Chinese intervention would protect East Pakistan was
also seen as yet another part of the mythology. It was only India’s good
will or strategic choice not to open a war theater on the eastern front
which kept East Pakistan out of the war. The entire episode of the 1965
war raised further doubts in the minds of the Bengalis about Pakistan’s
sincerity in protecting the east in the event of a large-scale and more pro-
tracted war. The diversion of their export earnings from jute to finance the
defense budget of the Pakistani military was seen as yet another act of
deception.
Pathway to Independence
This chapter argues that the Pakistani state served as the principal source
for creating and perpetuating regional disparities. Its allocative strategies
on account of public expenditures, both on revenue and development
account and its aid allocations and disposition of domestic foreign

exchange earnings, constantly demonstrated a bias toward West Pakistan.
Its policy regime in relation to exchange rates and imports created an
incentive structure for the private sector which favored industry over agri-
culture, West Pakistan over East Pakistan, and non-Bengalis over Bengalis.
It is thus appropriate that we should conclude this chapter by briefly
reflecting on the composition, functioning, and political economy of the
Pakistani state.
Democracy and Disparity
Disparities between East and West Pakistan would have been more toler-
able had the machinery of state been more representative in its composi-
tion. The Pakistani state throughout its·existence denied Bengalis an
effective role in the process of governance. Representative institutions
remained compromised throughout the history of Pakistan. No direct
elections to a national legislature in Pakistan were held from 1947 to
1970. Between 1947 and 1971, no transfer of power at the Centre took
place through the ballot box. It would thus be correct to conclude that
except for during a couple of years after the emergence of Pakistan no
central legislature commanded any sort of popular mandate.
This absence of representative institutions impacted most adversely on
the Bengalis who constituted the demographic and voting majority in
Pakistan. At no stage could their numbers be counted on in the control of
the state. Between 1947 and 1958 Bengalis served as prime ministers for
half the period. But two of these prime ministers were figureheads, and
one held power as a minority coalition partner and was removed within
two years of office without reference to the legislature. From 1958 to
1971 West Pakistan provided two soldier presidents who held unchal-
lenged and unlimited power at the Center.
Given the weakness of representative institutions and the importance of
the national legislatures, power in the Pakistani state was effectively exer-
cised by the central bureaucracy, by the armed forces, and lately by the
class of landlords and businessmen who benefited and grew in power
under the patronage of the Pakistani state. Federal power was concen-
trated in the central government who not only retained the principal
sources of domestic revenue and controlled the disposition of aid and
export earnings, but also made all major policy decisions pertaining to the
economy. The provincial governments were thus creatures of the Center.
Table 1 Disparities in per Capita Income between East and West Pakistan
Year East West Disparity Disparity Ratio 2 − 1 × 100
Pakistan Pakistan (2–1) 2
1 1949/1950 288 351 63 21.9

2 1954/1955 294 365 71 24.1
3 1959/1960 277 367 90 32.5
4 1964/1965 303 440 137 45.2
5 1969/1970 331 533 202 61.0
Source: Tables 1.1 and 1.2, Report of the Panel of Economists on the Fourth Five-Year Plan of Pakistan
(Report of West Pakistan Economists)
The central government was completely dominated by the bureaucracy,

and the armed forces and these institutions, particularly in their upper strata,
were dominated by West Pakistanis. Table 1 presents some measure of the
composition of the levers of power at the Center. However, even these fig-
ures understate the extent to which Bengalis were excluded from the upper
echelons of power. In an essentially unrepresentative state, with power
highly concentrated, the fact that first Ayub Khan and then Yahya Khan
served as all-powerful presidents meant that Bengalis were totally excluded
from the center of power. In the history of Pakistan no Bengali became
Finance Minister or controlled the portfolio which handled aid negotia-
tions. Until 1971, when the Planning Commission was rendered sterile, no
Bengali became Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission. No Bengali
became a Secretary in the central government in any of the key ministries.
Only in 1969 did a Bengali become Commerce Secretary for the first time.
No Bengali became Governor of the Central Bank until 1970. In key min-
istries such as Finance no Bengali even rose to the rank of Joint Secretary
until 1969. The armed forces were more or less a West Pakistani enclave.
It would thus be no exaggeration to argue that up until 1969 Bengalis
were effectively excluded from the upper and even middle echelons of the
central bureaucracy and hence from the centers of decision-making, par-
ticularly in regard to the making of economic policy.
Marginalization of the Provincial Government

In the 1950s the first Muslim League government in East Bengal remained
a spectator to the initial acts of commission and omission which set the
stage for the buildup of interregional disparities. The erosion of its
representative status compromised their capacity to confront the Center.

The brief episodes of United Front and Awami League rule in the 1954–58
period witnessed some efforts to claim resources from the Center and
retain powers for the province. But provincial governments in the 1940s
and 1950s were served in the senior ranks of the provincial bureaucracy by
non-Bengalis whose shared culture and service links with the central
bureaucracy hardly made them supportive of their Bengali ministers in
confrontations with the Center. Attempts by the Awami League govern-
ment to go outside the bureaucracy and set up a Planning Board served by
senior Bengali economists could not break the stranglehold of the non-
Bengali bureaucracy over the provincial administration or disturb the
bureaucratic links with the Center. The Planning Board thus operated as
little more than advocates for the cause of the Bengalis in various meetings
with the Center, rather than as a new source of authority within the pro-
vincial administration.
The ascendancy of Bengalis to positions of Secretary in the provincial
government around 1960 led to more conscious efforts to present the
cause of East Pakistan in debates with the Center on allocation of resources.
But it must be remembered that after the imposition of Martial Law and
the complete domination of national power by a West Pakistani chief exec-
utive, Bengali ministers at both the central and provincial level and provin-
cial governors served at the will of the president. Since they lacked
representative status or political support, they were poor candidates for
challenging the domination of the economy and polity by a West
Pakistani elite.
Bengali bureaucrats thus had to operate in a context where Bengali
ministers could not really protect them in any confrontation with the
Center. The powerless and resourceless nature of the provincial adminis-
tration in any case gave limited scope for such advocacy. The Bengali
bureaucrats in the province and the Center were thus mostly serviceable as
a source of clandestine intelligence and advice to Bengali nationalist politi-
cians and economists advocating the cause of Bengali nationalism.
Marginalization of Bengalis in the Business Sector

The Bengalis throughout the history of Pakistan felt and indeed were
excluded from the main sources of state power, namely the executive pres-
idency, the bureaucracy, and the army. The rise of the business elite as
partners in the national power structure also provided no scope for
Bengalis to assert their presence. Of the 43 families who dominated the

Pakistani economy only one was a Bengali, A. K. Khan. An earlier study,
circa 1959, had shown that Bengali Muslims accounted for only 2.5 per-
cent of all industrial assets in Pakistan. At that stage Bengali Hindus who
did business in East Pakistan owned 8.5 percent of assets, so that Bengali-
owned assets came to 11 percent. But these assets held by Hindus were
already being run down in the early 1960s and their interests were being
taken over by non-Bengali Muslims. After the 1965 war between Pakistan
and India all “Hindu” assets, including what was left of the 2.5 percent of
assets owned by Marwaris, were sequestered under the Enemy Properties
Ordinance of 1965 so that in effect Bengalis were left with less than 5
percent ownership of industrial assets. Thus, the exclusion of Bengalis
from all echelons of state power was total. An emasculated and unrepre-
sentative state legislature, where Bengalis held 50 percent of the seats but
exercised ministerial power at the will of a West Pakistani president,
remained outside the circle of power in Pakistan.
The emerging disparity between the two wings of Pakistan became
manifest (Table 1).
Struggle for Self-Government for Bengalis

In such circumstances, the response of the Bengali people to the manifest
deprivation which had come to characterize their economic life in the
Pakistani state was to directly associate regional disparities with their exclu-
sion from national power and the monopoly of power by a strong central
government geographically and otherwise removed from their interests.
The struggle for restoration of representative institutions through a free
direct election was part of the struggle by the Bengali population for a
share of national power. But the frustration of the impending national
election in 1959 by the imposition of Martial Law in 1958, the framing of
a constitution in 1962 which vested absolute power in the Chief Executive
and the Center to the exclusion of the province, and the denial of direct
franchise convinced the Bengalis that they could never aspire to a share of
national power. The death of H. S. Suhrawardy, the leader of the Awami
League, in 1963, removed the only figure in Bengali political life who had
a national constituency and aspired to national power. His successors in
the Awami League such as Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had reason to believe
that Bengalis would never command national power, and would never
receive justice from the Center.
The validity of such a perception, which came to impact on the emerg-

ing leaders of the Bengali nationalist movement in the 1960s, remains
outside the scope of this chapter. It only takes such a perception as given,
and can observe that after the failure of the opposition to unseat Ayub
Khan in the 1964 Presidential election, fought under a restricted fran-
chise, the Awami League and most other parties invested their political
resources in the struggle for regional autonomy.
The Awami League led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman presented a Six-
Point autonomy program to the world at a round table conference of the
opposition leaders in Lahore in 1966, which was supposed to launch a
national movement against the Ayub regime. The Six-Point declaration
made to the people of Pakistan demonstrated that the Bengali leadership
were more concerned with self-government for the Bengali population,
and freedom from Pakistani rule, rather than the capture of national power
through the removal of Ayub. Mujib was far from convinced that the West
Pakistani leaders of the Opposition would be any more willing to share
power than was Ayub or indeed they themselves were in their earlier days
in central power.
The Six-Point program was the lineal descendant of the struggle for
self-rule registered by Bengali Muslims in their demand for separate sov-
ereign states under the Lahore Resolution of 1940, and reiterated in the
demand for an independent and sovereign Bengal in 1946–47 by
H. S. Suhrawardy and Abul Hashim. Both moves assumed that Bengalis
could never aspire to a share of central power so that the fulfillment of the
democratic urge of the people of Bangladesh could only be realized
through self-government.
The Six-Point program had its origins in point 19 of the 21-point pro-
gram of the United Front contesting the 1954 elections, which stated that
In accordance with the historic Lahore Resolution, to secure full and com-
plete autonomy and bring all subjects under the jurisdiction of East Pakistan
leaving only defence, foreign affairs and currency under the jurisdiction of
the Centre. Even in the matter of defence, arrangements shall be such as to
have the headquarter of the army in West Pakistan and the head-quarters of
the navy in East Pakistan and to establish ordnance factories in East Pakistan
with a view to make East Pakistan self-sufficient in the matter of defence and
also to convert present Ansars into a full-fledged militia.
The failure in the subsequent 12 years to realize this demand for auton-
omy registered in 1954, and the denial of democracy to the entire people
of Pakistan to frustrate this demand by the Bengalis for autonomy, meant
that when this demand resurfaced in 1966 it did so in a much sharper and
more decisive form.
Point 2 leaves defense and foreign affairs with the Center as in the 21
points but qualifies the retention of currency by the Center with the prop-
osition that:
There shall be two separate currencies, mutually freely convertible for each
region or in the alternative a single currency subject to the establishment of
a federal reserve system in which there will be regional federal reserve banks
which will devise measures to prevent the transfer of resources and flight of
capital from one region to other.
This demand obviously derived from the experience of the last decade
with a centrally determined monetary policy. The Six-Point program
sought to regulate monetary policy regionally with a view to stimulating
economic activity within the region. Point 2 assumed that regional control
over monetary policy would be able to regulate the transfer of capital out
of Bangladesh from the surpluses accumulated by non-Bengali enterprises
doing business in this region. This point was somewhat inconsistent with
the acceptance of free convertibility and implied a measure of control over
interregional capital movements. The idea of preventing the transfer of
resources through monetary as opposed to commercial policy was some-
what misplaced since it assumed that the instrument of transfer was
through monetary rather than trading channels.
Point 4 demands that fiscal policy shall be the responsibility of the fed-
erating units. This went on to argue that such a constitutional provision
would ensure that federal government revenue requirements are made
consistent with the objective of ensuring control over the fiscal policy by
the governments of the federating units. This measure sought to use fiscal
policy as both a means of generating resources and a policy instrument for
promoting the development of Bangladesh. It sought to meet the financial
demands for defense and foreign affairs through a system of fiscal levies,
which would be automatically appropriable by the federal government in
the manner provided and on the basis of the ratio to be determined by the
procedure laid down in the constitution.
It was Point 4 which for some reason aroused the most concern and was
said to be decisive in influencing the attitude of the Pakistani army to frus-
trate the framing of a constitution based on Six Points. In actual practice,
it was likely at the outset to pose more difficulties for an autonomous
Bangladesh. By opting to fund its own development from domestic reve-
nues, it would have committed itself to the 30 percent or so of national
revenues actually accruing within the region. Its low level of development
and weak tax base would have meant that it would be quite some time
before Bangladesh could generate a sizeable revenue surplus to under-
write its development effort. Even if the fiscal levy from the provinces for
the Center were made pro rata on the basis of size of regional GDP, West
Pakistan would have generated all the revenues it needed to sustain its
defense establishment. Paradoxically, a strong center, retaining fiscal pow-
ers, could have reallocated central revenues to Bangladesh at the expense
of the defense budget. Thus, the annual budget would have been a per-
petual tug-of-war between the demands of the defense ministry, the com-
peting claim for central grants by the provinces, and the urge by the richer
provinces such as Punjab and Sind (Karachi) to retain a larger share of the
revenues collected within the province, for domestic development. Given
the disparities in levels of development and the compulsion to use the
budget to transfer resources to Bangladesh, point 4 of the Six Points
should have been seen as the best possible deal available for Punjab and
Sind and indeed for an army which would retain a constitutionally guaran-
teed share of revenues raised in each region.
As far as the development of Bangladesh was concerned, it was really
Point 5 which was the most far-reaching. It argued that:
Constitutional provisions should be made to enable separate accounts to be

maintained of the foreign exchange earnings of each of the federating units
under the control of the respective governments of the federating units. The
foreign exchange requirement of the federal government shall be met by the
governments of the federating units on the basis of the ratio to be deter-
mined in accordance with the procedure laid down in the constitution.
This part of Point 5 was unexceptional but it might have been revolu-
tionary back in 1965 when Bangladesh’s export earnings ran far ahead of
West Pakistan. But by 1967–68, West Pakistan’s earnings were slightly
larger, and this gap would have widened in their favor given the growth
and diversification of their economy. Bangladesh’s principal export of jute
and jute goods, which accounted for nearly 90 percent of its foreign
exchange earnings, was a globally declining industry. Since Bangladesh
had in the previous three years, 1967–68 to 1969–70, for the first time,
registered a trade deficit on its external account, there was no scope for
West Pakistan appropriating any of Bangladesh’s surplus export earnings.
In these circumstances, the critical provision of Point 5 related to aid
and trade. The proposition most difficult to digest for the West Pakistani
elite stated that:
The regional governments shall have power under the constitution to nego-
tiate foreign trade and aid within the framework of the foreign policy of the
country, which shall be the responsibility of the Federal Government.
This proposition exposed to serious risk the West Pakistani industrial-

ists, who supplied, in 1969–70, 45 percent of Bangladeshi imports and
whose exports to Bangladesh accounted for 48 percent of their export
market. Bangladesh’s right to handle its foreign trade and use its own for-
eign exchange meant it could import from the most competitive sources.
West Pakistanis particularly feared that trade between Bangladesh and
India would revive at their expense. However, it was a moot question
whether exposure to such external competition made West Pakistani
exporters more competitive. Indeed, with the aid of an exchange rate pol-
icy which corrected the overvaluation of the rupee, East Pakistan’s grow-
ing trade deficit and foreign exchange scarcity would have retained some
demand for West Pakistani goods, such as raw cotton, oil seeds, and rice,
purchasable in domestically convertible rupees.
Thus, the crucial issue related to the right of Bangladesh to negotiate
aid. The presumption was (a) that Bengali aid negotiators would succeed
in bringing home a much larger slice of aid than they realized from central
aid appropriations to Bangladesh, and (b) that retaining the right to utilize
such negotiated aid would deny access to West Pakistan for Bangladesh’s
“due” share of aid.
As far as the Pakistanis were concerned, aid was the bottom line of the
autonomy issue. We have observed that it was in the 1960s through sur-
render of its due share of aid that Bangladesh was in effect transferring
resources to the West. The loss of East Pakistan’s share of aid, unless com-
pensated by the superior negotiating skills of West Pakistan’s aid officials,
would have involved a high opportunity cost for West Pakistan’s develop-
ment. This proposition was raised by the West Pakistani economists on the
Fourth Plan panel and by the World Bank in its country memorandum of
1969–70. They both argued that West Pakistan, for a few more years,
needed to appropriate some share of Bangladesh’s aid to finance its import
of capital and intermediate goods. This rather colonial perspective on
inter-wing economic relations as late as 1970 was symptomatic of the
myopia which characterized East—West relations throughout their shared
nationhood. The possibility that an autonomous Bangladesh would not
surrender its share of aid and would buy from the most competitive sources
generated the strongest objections to the Six-Point demand and could
well have been, along with fears of the armed forces for their defense bud-
get, the issues around which the Bengali demand for autonomy became
unacceptable to the Pakistani ruling elite.
From Autonomy to Liberation

The Bengali economists worked closely with the political leadership of the
nationalist movement between 1969 and 1971 to make them understand
the implications of the Six-Point program and to ascertain the will of the
leaders to stand by the demand. This interaction was important because it
enabled the leaders to understand that the Six Points were workable and
that a constitution could be written based on this program. For some
unaccountable reason, no West Pakistani leader, neither Yahya Khan and
his advisors nor Bhutto and his associates, showed any inclination to sit
down to discuss the plan in depth and to articulate their specific objec-
tions. The Awami League meetings with Yahya and the Pakistan Peoples
Party (PPP) in January 1971 were exchanges of generalities and rhetoric
and not of substance. Neither the PPP nor Yahya’s government produced
any substantive critique in response to the Six-Point plan.
The only time when substantive discussions took place on the plan was
in the fateful days of March 1971 when Yahya Khan brought in
M. M. Ahmed, with Justice Cornelius and Col. Hasan, the legal draftsmen
of the government, to negotiate the issue of transfer of power with Nazrul
Islam, Tajuddin Ahmed, and Kamal Hossain acting on behalf of the Awami
League. The Awami League negotiating team were backed up by a team
of Bengali economists who met with the Awami League negotiators to
discuss all economic issues raised in the talks. In these talks M. M. Ahmed,
the once powerful Czar of the Pakistani economy, accepted the basic eco-
nomic points of the Six-Point program and worked out the practical details
of making them viable. In fact, the two negotiating teams reached an
agreement on March 22, 1971, about the constitutional mechanisms for a

transfer of power to the elected representatives in Bangladesh.
However, by that time the Pakistani army had decided that the issue of
Bengali nationalism would be settled by blood and fire and not by political
negotiations. Correspondingly, by March 23 Bangabandhu had already
established self-government within the territory of Bangladesh. During
March 1971, for the first time in contemporary history, elected Bengali
leaders were ruling Bangladesh. Their writ was accepted by all sections of
the bureaucracy, machinery of law and order, and the business community,
though the non-Bengali business community were more reluctant in their
allegiance.
By March 1, 1971, what generations of political struggle had failed to
realize was achieved in two years of sustained political mobilization in the
course of the campaign for the national elections scheduled for the end of
1970. The election campaign became the forge in which the metal of
Bengali nationalism was shaped. The period of self-rule in March 1971
was the anvil on which this steel of nationalism was hardened,
During the period from March 1969 to December 1971, the message
of Bengali nationalism had been taken to every household in Bangladesh
by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and his political supporters and other smaller
parties. At the center of this message was the issue· of economic depriva-
tion. At the end of the message was the call for self-rule to empower
Bengalis to solve their own problem. The assertion of self-rule in March
1971 thus came as the inevitable outcome of this intensive mobilization.
The elections provided the political mandate for self-rule and gave unchal-
lengeable credentials to Sheikh Mujib and the Awami League to represent
the aspirations of 75 million Bengalis for self-rule. When Mujib declared
civil disobedience and assumed virtual control over Bangladesh in March
1971 he took full control over the direction of economic policy, and over
resources within the territory of Bangladesh. In the negotiations between
the experts designated by President Yahya and the representative of the
Awami League, M. M. Ahmad, the principal Pakistani negotiator on eco-
nomic affairs appeared to concede to the new realities over the manage-
ment of the Bangladesh economy. He accepted the relevant amendments
to the Pakistani constitution which would have given juridical recognition
to the economic components of the Six Points.
Why could the urge for self-rule by the Bengalis not be accommodated
by the Pakistani state? One of the critical factors was the change in the
character of the Bengali nationalist movement. Between 1969 and 1971
what had traditionally been a movement dominated by the concerns of the

urban educated middle class was transformed into a mass upsurge. This
tendency first manifested itself in the revolt against Ayub in the winter of
1968–69, when the urban working class joined the students in the streets
and invested a new class-oriented militancy in the mobilization against the
Ayub raj. But it was the 1969–71 election campaign of Sheikh Mujib and
the Awami League which took the demand for self-rule down to the vil-
lages and made every household in Bangladesh conscious of their sense of
deprivation. This deprivation was linked with the denial of self-rule so that
the Bengali masses became the driving force behind Bengali nationalism
and the final custodians of the Six-Point demand. When they registered
their categorical commitment to the nationalist cause through their over-
whelming vote for the Awami League in the December 1970 elections to
the national and provincial assembly elections they made it clear that the
elected representatives were now bound by their mandate.
The oath-taking ceremony for the elected representatives officiated by
Mujib, before half a million people in the Dhaka Suhrawardy Uddyan, was
designed to publicly declare a commitment to the Six-Point mandate. It
was these same masses in the towns and villages who provided the sanc-
tions which sustained the period of self-rule in March 1971 and who chal-
lenged with their lives the acts of armed aggression by the Pakistani army
in the period after March 25, 1971. It was these same masses who fought
and died in the liberation war to release Bangladesh from alien occupation.
Had the masses not been drawn into the nationalist movement it is pos-
sible that the appetites of the Bengali middle classes could have been
accommodated by the Pakistani state. During the 1960s, but much more
so after March 1969, a heroic effort was made to step up allocation of
public investments in East Pakistan, build up a Bengali bourgeoisie, chan-
nel resources to the rural surplus farmers through the public works pro-
gram, and elevate Bengali civil servants to senior positions in the central
government. This process may have stopped short of full partnership in
the Pakistani state or ceding the autonomy demanded in the Six Points
but it had the potential for opening up new vistas of opportunity for the
Bengali middle classes. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman recognized this possibil-
ity of compromising the struggle for self-rule by immobilizing the middle-
class vanguard of the nationalist movement. His conscious decision to take
the movement to the masses and make them the custodians of Bengali
nationalism was designed to preempt the possibility of a betrayal of the
movement by dividing its middle-class leadership.
Once the Pakistani state was brought into confrontation with the new
realities of Bengali nationalism where the leadership could not be bought
off, they either had the option of accepting the reality of self-rule as they
had done in their negotiations with the Awami League in March 1971, or
they had to destroy the leadership of the nationalist movement. Their
miscalculation appears to have been in their failure to realize the mass base
of the movement and the heightened consciousness of the masses as a
consequence of the mobilization of 1969–71. Their decision to destroy
the Bengali nationalist movement thus meant that they had to destroy the
Pakistani state. The genocide inflicted by the Pakistani army on the people
of Bangladesh was the final recognition of the Pakistani state of their fail-
ure to accommodate the demands of Bengali nationalism within the
framework of one Pakistan.
The state of Pakistan died the night of March 25, 1971, with the may-
hem that killed scores of Bengalis, and Bangladesh was born the fol-
lowing day.
References
Alavi, H. (1972). The Post-Colonial Societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh. New Left
Review, 74(1).
Jahan, R. (1972). Pakistan: Failure in National Integration. Columbia
University Press.
Jalal, A. (2014). The Struggle for Pakistan: A Muslim Homeland and Global
Politics. Harvard University Press.
Nasr, S. V. R. (1994). The Vanguard of the Islamic Revolution: The Jamaat-i-Islami
of Pakistan. The University of California Press.
Waheeduzaman Manik, M. (2014, February 21). Shaheed Dhirendranath Dutta.
The Daily Star.
Zaheer, H. (1994). The Separation of East Pakistan: The Rise and Realization of
Bengali Muslim Nationalism. University Press Limited.
Wind of Change: Bhola 1970
Olav Muurlink
One of the clear triggers to the emergence of Bangladesh did not come
from the west, but from the south. At the time tropical cyclones in the
Indian Ocean were not given names, but this particular storm had been
given one before it reached full intensity. This storm had a history before
it made history: it was called Tropical Storm Nora, and died its natural
death on around November 5, as it edged west across the Malay Peninsula
into the Bay of Bengal. There, in the following days, drawing on the
immense energy built up in the hot air and warm water near the equator,
the storm formerly known as Nora began to literally regather steam.
Monitored closely by the India Meteorological Department, the agency
responsible for forecasting, naming and distributing warnings in the
Northern Indian Ocean region and the Bay of Bengal, the storm was
upgraded to tropical cyclone by November 9, and after a period of hesita-
tion, began a march north. Compared to the unnamed 1991 cyclone, or
Sidr in 2007 or Orissa in 1999, the November 11, 1970 storm was ‘just’
a category 3 storm. However, ‘small’ as it was in relative power, this storm
O. Muurlink (*)

26 O. MUURLINK
was about to enter the history books as the most devastating single climate
disaster in history; it was also about to rewrite the history of a new nation.
The man who originally used the term ‘cyclone’ was in some senses a
local to Bengal. Captain Henry Piddington, an English merchant sailor
who sailed East India routes, and in later life settled in Bengal working as
a gentleman scientist and curator at the geological museum in Dhaka, was
the first to document the rotational nature of the cyclone, turning around
their eerily quiet centre. He noted from the careful study of ships’ logs
that the direction of the wind in these great storms varied greatly relative
to the ship’s position to the ‘eye’, and by plotting the wind directions on
maps he was able to show, in articles published in the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal, the helical nature of these events.
Piddington’s interest in cyclones was not a coincidence. The delta
region had been the landing point of some of the deadliest storms in his-
tory. The Bay of Bengal has an unusual ‘bathosphere’, a shallow bowl
structure that didn’t allow much in the way of absorption of energy gener-
ated by storms, and thus much more subject to violent tidal surges. It also
happened to be a region that generated 5% of tropical cyclones around
the world.
The district was, in this sense, prepared. But ill prepared.
Reclamation of the substantially uninhabited mangrove region began
in the late eighteenth century, gathering pace in the late nineteenth cen-
tury in the British colonial period, which encouraged landowners to build
embankments and clear forests; both practices had implications when the
cyclones came. The stripped land offered dramatically less protection than
it would have formerly done, and the embankments stopped the process
of siltation to some degree, meaning the low country remained low, and
vulnerable (Stanley & Hait, 2000). Bhola Island as a geographic identity
that would be somewhat familiar to the present-day observer is relatively
new. When Portuguese sailors (the descendants of whose dogs can still be
seen on some of the islands or chars in the region) landed in the region in
1664, Bhola had not yet taken shape. It gradually built up its bulk as suc-
cessive floods of the Meghna and Tetulia deposited silt as they disgorged
their flow into the Bay.
By 1970, some 4700 kilometres of embankments had been built in the
region, but the embankments were designed for high tide, not to defend
the attack of a cyclone at king tide. Bhola remains the most vulnerable ter-
ritory in the world to tropical cyclones, but this vulnerability is increasing
as a result of a human threat comprising climate change on the one hand
WIND OF CHANGE: BHOLA 1970 27
and degradation of protective mangrove forests on its southern margins

on the other (Deb & Ferreira, 2017). The UN had declared even by the
1970s that Bangladesh, with a national population of around 70 million,
“has been experiencing a growing imbalance between the number of its
people and the capacity of the land”, with as much as half of the popula-
tion experiencing malnutrition. In gaining ascendancy in the battle against
malnutrition, however, the nation has started to literally strip back its nat-
ural protection against the elements. By 1970, the Bangladeshi delta
region alone was quite heavily populated already, with embankments
totalling hundreds of kilometres in length, and of varying quality.
An unfortunate side effect of the embankments was overconfidence.
Uwagawa, in his under-appreciated thesis on the side effects of attempts to
control the uncontrollable sea, remarks that “before such large-scale
coastal embankments had been completed, the inhabitants and farmers of
the islands had resided in rather high places of the middle part of the island
and performed ‘let out farming’ from the safer mainland. However since
the completion of the embankments, they had moved towards the margins
of their chars or island, as if they were shielded by the embankments: this
gave them closer proximity to the fields they cultivated, the rivers they
used for convenient transport…and the ever-present threat of the sea. The
crest of the embankments doubled as roads, but when it came to their
actual purpose, they completely failed, through a combination of neglect
and design inadequacy” (Uwagawa, 1991, p. 66). Thus, the stage was set
for November 1970.
November 11, 1970

Contemporary reports on what happened that night have tended to be
filtered through the rather clipped media reports in both Bangla and
English, from domestic journalists in Dhaka, or the somewhat more
colourful reports that appeared in the western media. High-quality analy-
sis has also appeared in the literature drawing on relatively reliable and
objective meteorological and epidemiological data. What we know is that
the cyclone made landfall just an hour and a half short of high tide, a day
before the full moon. Both meteorological and astronomical high tides
combined near their peak as the cyclone struck. Another unfortunate
coincidence was that it was harvest season, and farmers and seasonal
labourers were relatively exposed in make-shift huts near the paddy
(Uwagawa, 1991).
28 O. MUURLINK
For those living on the relatively small islands just to the east of Bhola,
where the death toll was well above 50%, the storm surge came in a wave
that allowed the victims to see their fate well in advance. A report in Time
magazine relates:
Above the howling wind and the driving rain, the villagers of Manpura
Island could hear an unholy roar welling up from the Bay of Bengal. ‘It was
pitch dark,’ said Abdul Jabbar last week, ‘but suddenly I saw a gigantic,
luminous crest heading toward our village’. (Time, 1970b)
For those living in the southern ‘capital’ of Char Fasson, as ‘inland’ as

one can be on Bhola, with the embankments still under construction to
the west, the well-educated with access to radios had longer to sense the
advance of catastrophe. The day before, the betel nut and coconut trees
were bending sharply, and the fields were already full of water. At night the
situation escalated rapidly. “We were listening to the radio, and it went
through signal 9 or 10, and the radio was then saying ‘there is no number
now’”, an eyewitness, Dr Sultan Ahmed, told me. What was in place on
the Meghna collapsed, eight feet of water rushed in (estimated speed
20 miles an hour) (Uwagawa, 1991), and the noise was intense as houses
and vegetation were crushed by the first wave. When the eye of the cyclone
arrived, the relative silence was astonishing, and one could see the moon
shining. And then, just as suddenly, the roar returned, and with it waves
that even this far from the shore left debris marks ten metres above the
ground. The tidal records for Chittagong Port note that reports of the
tide reaching fifteen metres at certain points are not at all implausible. The
records show that at 10:00 PM that evening the tide was rapidly rising,
had reached 11 metres, and then the equipment broke (Uwagawa, 1991).
If one follows the elliptical curve to its logical conclusion, the tide at
Chittagong easily eclipsed 15 metres.
The death toll and the fight for survival meant that reports from Char
Fasson and to the south were muffled to the point that many hours after
the worst of the crisis had passed, there was no clear concept in the capital
about what had happened. The Daily Sangbad referred to the cyclone in
its November 12 edition, for example, but it was not until November 14
that the paper started reporting the tidal surge (“21 feet high” and
“unimaginable damage”). In his seminary in Dhaka, Father Richard
Timm, a zoologist of note who dedicated a lifetime to his faith and his
development work in Bangladesh, was listening to the radio on the night
of November 11 and reported hearing the signal warning steadily climb to

six, at which point the radio stopped posting further increments. Instead,
an incessant ‘grave danger’ warning was sounded. He asked his fellow
priests what the pattern meant, and wrote that “no one knew”. There
were other hints of trouble in the capital. On the night that the cyclone
made landfall there was a torrential downpour in Dhaka. Watching from a
friend’s veranda, Alfred Sommer, a young epidemiologist at the Cholera
Research Laboratory (later the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease
Research, Bangladesh; ICDDR,B) recalled seeing “whitecaps on Gulshan
Lake?” (Jaffe, 2019).
“It is almost incredible that the first news of the extraordinary loss of
life and the damage caused by the cyclone … came [only] after three days
had passed and that from the BBC London. They speculated that as many
as 50,000 had been killed” (Timm, 1995). 50,000 may have been a mis-
translation of a figure sent to the UK by a stringer known as Fakhruddin,
to the Daily Mirror, which read: “Five lacs gone. Definite. No souls sighted
Patuakhali. Wave 30 feet. Minimum one crore cattle gone Noakhali”
(Francis, 2020). Even at the Daily Mirror desk, the mention of Patuakhali
would have alerted journalists to the highly populated nature of the
impact zone.
If one tracks the increase in reported casualties in the Bengali-language
daily newspapers, one can observe how the scale of the calamity crept up
on readers safely away from the impact zone. The number of deaths as
reported in local media rose from 559 (the Daily Azadi report on
November 16, quoting the Deputy Commissioner of Chittagong), to tens
of thousands a day later (with Manpura, “which had a population of
25,000, now empty1), while in the Daily Sangbad, the figure rose from
16,000 (“official government estimate”) to numbering in the lakh (or
hundreds of thousands) in the following days. Western media reported
Information Secretary Said Ahmed stating that “no matter if the death toll
is 300,000 or 500,000”, indicating that once the president had flown over
the region, the scale of the disaster must (but is in fact not certain to) have
reached the government’s consciousness.
1
This assumption was in fact false. There were many survivors on Manpura—and the
author has spoken with some of them—but many many more deaths. An eyewitness contem-
porary news report by Howard Whitten in the Guardian confirms many people—Whitten
claims a quarter of the population survived.
30 O. MUURLINK
Getting an exact bearing on the size of the population in the impact

zone at the time is difficult (a UN report from 1976 refers to the “prob-
able population” of the nation, and The New York Times reported contem-
poraneously that the population of the main island of Bhola itself was
900,000 (Schanberg, 1970)—but this did not count the day labourers
there for the harvest, even if it did accurately count the permanent resi-
dents. As to the death toll, the 500,000 figure is not a number described
long after the disaster, but, as noted, was expressed almost immediately in
reports to London, and first aired locally by Dacca Radio, at a time when
the official figure was just a 10th of that. It was reported in Dhaka on
November 22 by relief Commissioner Abu Mohammed Anizuzzaman
that aid workers were simply overwhelmed by the task of accurately count-
ing the dead, and had given up. By the end of November some news
media were reporting an official death toll of over 1 million. The Manchester
Guardian reported on November 18 that the Government Press Trust in
Pakistan was beginning to fear that the death toll from both the initial
event and the aftermath was closer to that mark.
To come to an estimate of the toll by extrapolation, without exaggera-
tion, is possible. A careful population survey published in The Lancet a
year and a half after the cyclone reported the work of a team from the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the organization that became
the ICDDR,B. The team was on the ground in late November 1970
through to March the next year. The team was small and working in trying
conditions, sampling sites with the benefit of a helicopter, asking respon-
dents to list all those family members who had passed away, by name, age,
sex and occupation, as well as all those who had died since the cyclone, or
migrated away from the family unit. This enabled them to estimate the
proportions of the population lost, as well as the pre-cyclone population
(which could not be reliably established in the absence of a recent census).
They established an average mortality rate of 14.2%, with a maximum for
Tazumuddin of 46.3%, showing that there must have been an absolute
minimum of 224,000 casualties.
This is the ‘floor’ of estimates. The team acknowledged that this did
not take account of migrant workers (in the region for the rice harvest),
families with 100% mortality or those whose families had so few survivors
they had left the region (Sommer & Mosley, 1972). There are problems
evident with the methodology, some of which the authors acknowledge—
including that whole islands were stripped bare of both population and
vegetation, leaving no one to verify the count. The author of this chapter
interviewed over thirty survivors in the period 2017-2020 who live in the
region to this day, chiefly in char areas south of Char Fasson and on the
island of Manpura, and these interviews confirm that mortality on the
night alone in these districts was much higher than the average for the
survey area. A number of authors acknowledge that almost all children
and women were lost, and these oral histories confirm that. The following
account, from an interview by the author with a survivor on Manpura, for
example, gives a sense of the death toll at its extreme:
In our family there were 29 members, and the house was built to take them,
but when the rains and winds began then the immediate neighbours and the
day labourers came, because our house was the biggest and strongest house
around. My father asked one of the permanent labourers to go and check to
see if the tide had started. When he returned, he said the canal was under
water, the water was coming. He’d barely closed the door, when 5 foot of
water swelled into the courtyard. By this stage there were around 200 peo-
ple in the house, including 160 day labourers, shoulder to shoulder with the
wind roaring outside.
Of the family of 29, six survived. Of the 160 labourers there for the
harvest, only ten survived the night. In this cluster alone, according to an
account given by a credible eyewitness, a professor at a local college, the
mortality rate was 85%. Even this number underestimates the toll in that
locality. Of the families in several homes in the cluster who did not join
them in the main house, the source noted, none survived. Some of the
dead, including the interviewees’ own mother, were never found. In sheer
numbers, the toll was vast. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who was in Bhola
late in November, noted:
Whole areas have been totally depopulated. In many areas of Patuakhali,

Bhola and Noakhali barely 20 to 25 per cent of the total population has
survived. The survivors have lost their homes, their crops, their cattle; in fact
they have lost all their worldly belongings. They are without clothes, with-
out shelter and in many of the areas without any food or drinking water. The
wounds on their bodies are turning septic. They face death from starvation,
exposure and disease. (Francis, 2020)
Twenty three thousand square kilometres of rice fields had been

impacted, with 10,000 square kilometres rendered completely lost, and a
quarter of a million cattle, a similar number of houses, 50 bridges, and
32 O. MUURLINK
190 kilometres of roads destroyed (Uwagawa, 1991). Even for a much

richer country this would have been a body blow. Not surprisingly,
‘Bangladesh’ became a byword for utter poverty.
Aid to the Region and the Government Response

The cyclone struck three weeks before the general elections, which meant
that even putting aside other factors, the aftermath was always going to be
a political event. With the cyclone came an influx of international media,
at a time when they could bear witness to the sluggishness or indecisive-
ness of the Pakistani government’s response to the crisis.
The picture of blame is not simple, however. There is some evidence
that the government of India did not pass on information about the dan-
ger of the cyclone to the Pakistani administration, and there is some evi-
dence, as noted earlier, that in Dhaka (let alone West Pakistan) there was
genuine uncertainty about the scale of what had happened. If one notes
the comments of President Yahya Khan in Dhaka on November 14, it is
clear from his language that he had little real sense of the scale of the dam-
age. He had been in China, and stopped in Dhaka for two days before
proceeding to Rawalpindi on November 17 when clearly he should not
have left. Photographs show the president flying over what seems to be
normal terrain below, and a report from a contemporary claims that the
plane was only out of Dhaka for an hour, and at that time a jet from Dhaka
took over half an hour to make the jump to Barisal, let alone take in the
scale of the catastrophe in Bhola (Timm, 1995). Timm’s report suggests
the army was delayed in getting to ground zero of the disaster by as much
as a fortnight, and these dates seem to be confirmed by reliable sources.
The Thames Television crew mentioned earlier interviewed a British
soldier who declared (well into December) that having rushed to the stag-
ing point on Bhola, “they [were idle for] two days...waiting for a Pakistani
officer to arrive”. Extraordinarily, the troops declared that the tragedy had
been exaggerated, that they had been ‘conned’, and when the governor of
East Pakistan arrived for the cameras, he declared, in a decidedly educated
British accent, that the people were “not so badly off, at least medically
speaking” and “not a single death case from starvation has been reported
to me”. The crew, perhaps unbeknownst to them, were far from the pri-
mary impact zone. The rice, the locals stated, is salvageable. According to
an interview the author conducted with Dr Sultan Ahmed, an additional
secretary in the Department of the Environment who was a young man
living at Char Fasson at the time, the rice crop on Bhola was “meshed with
the earth”.
Yahya Khan flew back into Dhaka within a week, but meanwhile the
Awami League President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was literally ahead of
him. He stayed in the affected areas of Bhola for two days, press reports in
the Daily Songba suggest, and had a hand in distributing relief. He
reported from Patuakhali that during his tour he did not see any govern-
ment relief camps in the affected areas. A damning analysis by a Briton
who was later awarded Bangladeshi citizenship for his work with Bengali
exiles in India post Liberation War suggests that “The response of the
Pakistan government itself was very slow mainly because the largely
Punjabi-run administration did not mind if Bengalis suffered and per-
ished. Even the international response by donor countries was very slow.
They did not want to rush in for fear of upsetting the Pakistan govern-
ment” (2020).
While President Khan was late to the table, the local administration did
act. By no later than November 17, however, the Governor of East
Pakistan, Vice Admiral S. M. Ahsan had moved his headquarters to
Manpura, east of Bhola (New York Times, 1970). In the interests of bal-
ance, it is difficult to look favourably on the behaviour of authorities in
general, not just the Pakistani overlords. The New York Times reported on
November 20 that
Today was declared a national day of mourning by the Government, but in

the city of Barisal tonight the Awami League—East Pakistan’s dominant
political party—was holding an election rally and candlelight procession
down the main street.
Two days later, the same paper, and the same reporter, noted that just
one Pakistani military helicopter was in operation. “Questions are being
asked about why none of the army’s several helicopters stationed in West
Pakistan have been flown to East Pakistan—which is separated from the
western half of the country by 1,000 miles of Indian territory”. The paper
pointed to ‘poor’ relations between the two nations as the cause. Time
magazine was more direct:
… Pakistan’s government proved shockingly inept and many of its people

cruelly callous … Though people were reported floating alive offshore three
days after the cyclone, the Pakistani navy was never ordered to search for
34 O. MUURLINK
survivors. Some 500,000 tons of grain were stock-piled in East Pakistan

warehouses, but the 40-odd Pakistani army helicopters that could have air-
lifted them to the delta sat on their pads in West Pakistan. (Time, 1970a)
Contemporary reports (e.g. in the Guardian a week after the disaster)

(Whitten, 1970) stated that on Manpura survivors had been watching
planes come and go, but none had dropped supplies, and oral histories
collected by the author tend to confirm this. Meanwhile, offshore, the
hundreds if not thousands of citizens who had floated out to the Bay of
Bengal, some of whom are known to have survived for over a week (at
which point survivors were still being picked up alive, clinging to flotsam
or the bloated bodies of drowned cattle), would have drowned or died of
exposure. President Khan would have known the political harvest he was
about to reap. Time magazine quoted him as saying acerbically, “my gov-
ernment is not made up of angels”, and the Morning News claimed he
said, “I hope they [the Awami League] come to power and do better. I
have tried to do my maximum (Morning News, 1970).
History records incontrovertibly what happened next, and this is dis-
cussed elsewhere in this volume. The Awami League duly did win the
election, but did not ascend to power the way Khan hinted they would. It
won 167 out of 169 seats in the east while in the west there was no such
unity in the division of the 144 seats remaining.
The Future
The cyclone has had a profound influence on the future of Bangladesh
even though it is somewhat marginalized in the psyche of the nation. A
balanced view suggests that the (lack of appropriate) response to the
cyclone meant that the rapid backpedalling of the West Pakistani ‘wing’ to
try to rectify the mistakes of the past (see Chap. 1) were now never going
to be sufficient to pacify the east. The disadvantage the west had structur-
ally imposed on the east was compounded by a crisis that destroyed lives
and livelihoods on a scale possibly unmatched in history. The scholarly
consensus is that the cyclone shifted history at least somewhat, in favour
of independence (Biswas & Daly, 2020), and disasters have a way of shap-
ing nations (Voneiff-Marx & Muurlink, 2020).
The bit-part role that the Bhola Cyclone plays in the narrative (rather
than the reality) of the emergence of Bangladesh is partly due to the nature
of the time and the almost absolute destruction caused by the disaster: no
footage of the cyclone exists to bring the horror back to life; there were no
tourists, and few journalists active in the region to provide eyewitness
reports. The impact emerged despite, not because of, the narrative. The
origins of BRAC, for example—an organization which remains the largest
non-governmental development organization in the world in terms of
number of employees (almost 100,000)—cannot be disentangled from
the aftermath of the cyclone, as Smillie (2009) notes in his volume Freedom
from Want.
For the people of Bhola, destruction came rapidly, and receded rapidly;
however, in a real sense, the aftershock of that day has never left. For four
years after the cyclone, crops on Bhola were mediocre. As remarked by the
Australian education pioneer Fred Hyde, who spent decades on Bhola
after the Great Cyclone, better embankments will expose the region to
greater risk if a tidal bore again breaches the defences to the degree it did
in 1970, because salt water would be retained behind the embankments to
a greater degree than it was. The ‘development’ of new, surfaced roads in
the region will also lead to a much greater retention of salt water in the
paddies, but if there was a repeat in this rice bowl of the nation, what
would be the national consequence this time? To this day citizens of the
region remain frightened of wind and storms.
They have reason to be frightened. Cyclone Sidr in 2007 sent a warning
that what had happened could happen again, even if the nation was better
prepared, with a veritable forest of relatively crude but almost indestruc-
tible cyclone shelters being built within walking and running distance of
much of the population in the exposed south.
One kind of catastrophe, however, is harder to avoid by simply stepping
into a shelter.
Meteorologists have capped the scale for the power of storms at
Category 5, but with an increase in global temperature, there is between
5 and 8% more water vapour in the atmosphere than there was in 1970. As
a result, the globe has started to see Category 6 storms, with sustained
windspeed in excess of 200 miles per hour, capable of peeling the bark off
trees, becoming increasingly common (Masters, 2019). What would hap-
pen to the region if such a storm were to aim itself at the delta, particularly
at higher tide?
Climate change even on what seems to be a fractional scale will simply
spell catastrophe for the region. A two-degree temperature rise will equate
to 4.7 metres of sea-level rise, rendering most of southern Bangladesh—
not just the vast territory inundated in November 1970—permanently
36 O. MUURLINK
underwater, and while some experts believe that the government can
respond by gradually inching up the height of embankments, the embank-
ments contain hidden traps—reducing, along with the risk, the bountiful
annual yield of fertility (Darby, 2017). The region meanwhile sits uneasily
low in the water.
References
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Politics, and the 1970 Bhola Cyclone. Modern Asian Studies, 1–29.
Darby, M. (2017). What will Become of Bangladesh’s Climate Migrants?
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Bangladesh.
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Agriculture Expo No. 1577.
Voneiff-Marx, E., & Muurlink, O. (2020). Cyclonic Change: How Tracy Shaped
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Guardian, p. 1.
War Babies of 1971: A Missing Historical
Narrative
Mustafa Chowdhury
Products of one of the most outrageous crimes, the “war babies” were
conceived by Bangladeshi women and girls who were the victims of sexual
crimes committed by Pakistani military personnel during the Bengali
struggle for independence. The 1971 Liberation War brought with it a
severe humanitarian crisis, involving massacres, torture, sexual violence,
displacement, destruction and confiscation of property. There are stories
of frequent kidnappings of Bengali women, many of whom had remained
captive in military camps and barracks until the occupied land was liber-
ated after nine months of struggle. The military crackdown of 25 March
1971 was immediately condemned by the global media for the killing of
Bengali civilians whose demand for greater provincial autonomy turned
into a war of liberation. President Yahya Khan’s strategic planners in
Islamabad had already worked out a scheme to flex the country’s military
muscles to put down what was called a “rebellion” in East Pakistan.
Genocidal forces continued unabated; the death toll leapt from thousands
to tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands regardless of the role of
international observers. Those spared remained in constant fear of being
M. Chowdhury (*)
Ottawa, ON, Canada

40 M. CHOWDHURY
arrested, imprisoned, tortured or killed. The global media witnessed, and

in some cases reported on, the brutality of the military regime, which
conducted a murderous and systematic programme of violence, sexual
violence and slavery through to 1971 until the surrender of the Pakistani
army on 16 December.
There is, of course, a causal relationship between rape and enforced
pregnancy. Since the records of the Pakistani armed forces remain closed
or unobtainable, it is impossible to provide evidence of direct links between
the Pakistani army’s sexual assaults and its military policy in “Occupied
Bangladesh”. To understand this linkage, it is important to recognize the
extent of rape and sexual assault by the Pakistani army personnel in
“Occupied Bangladesh”, and, as a consequence of rape, the birth of the
war babies. Needless to state, sexuality and militarism of the Pakistani
army were intertwined amidst fear of guerilla attack, isolation from both
home and other monitoring influences, and moral degradation among the
military men. One also needs to be mindful of how reliance on captive
women became the standard measure for relieving the tension of guerilla
war through the practice of rape, sodomy and mutilation, a common prac-
tice in a protracted war. The large-scale rape of Bengali women and anec-
dotal observations also strongly suggest a pattern of behaviour of
perpetrators consistent with brutalization that takes place in elon-
gated wars.
The extent of rape, gang rape, sexual servitude and the subsequent
birth, death and abandonment of war babies is an area which needs to be
included in the historiography of the liberation of Bangladesh, despite the
lack of authentic records relating to this highly sensitive topic. It is under-
standable why the military authority would not keep any such record even
though, or perhaps even because, it was aware of the war crimes. With an
open mind, one should strive to piece together the various components,
such as abduction, confinement, repeated rapes, murder, enforced preg-
nancy, birth and consequent mass abandonment of the war babies, that fit
together as a pattern of events that took place in “Occupied Bangladesh”.
This also means that the Liberation War and sexual violence during the
reign of the military regime ought to be discussed first, although, unfor-
tunately, within the means provided by fragmented and, in many ways,
insufficient documentary evidence.
In the study of rape and sexual slavery in “Occupied Bangladesh” and
its aftermath (i.e. the birth of the war babies) one ought to be cautious
about the reliability and use of source materials that come from a number
WAR BABIES OF 1971: A MISSING HISTORICAL NARRATIVE 41
of channels. The greatest problem that one encounters is to decide where

to begin, as the picture may remain lopsided for the story of sexual vio-
lence by the military personnel during the Liberation War. There is a polit-
ical note, of course, to the questions: Where are the women who were
dishonored? Where are the birthmothers who were forced to abandon their
“unwanted” babies? Where are the abandoned babies today? The greatest
difficulty, in this case, results from the limitation of documentary evidence,
as well as the absence of primary sources—that is, the unwillingness of the
rape victims to recount their experiences.
There is nevertheless substantial hearsay evidence regarding the sexual
crimes committed by the Pakistani soldiers and their associates; there is
also some concrete evidence available through the presence/birth of the
war babies. However, there is yet another layer to the problem. Members
of the medical community, health professionals and social workers who
interacted with the rape victims, despite having first-hand information
about the victims and their ordeals, are unwilling to talk about their expe-
riences directly. Like the rape victims, they too are reticent about discuss-
ing what they saw. Before embarking on a quantitative approach to the
extent of rape and birth of the war babies, it is necessary to recognize these
limitations. There remain some limited documentary and non-documentary
sources (or documentation created after the fact), through interviews with
the rape victims and the services provided to them by the government
through various government-established reception centres of what
took place.
Having given birth in secret anywhere between late October 1971 and
early September 1972, many distressed birthmothers disappeared from
official records immediately after abandoning the newborns. By the third
week of December 1971, their alleged fathers had already surrendered to
the Allied Forces and, within months, were sent off to India as Prisoners
of War (POWs). Socially speaking, even today, the war babies bear the
stigma of illegitimacy, viewed as “unwanted” since they were born as a
result of rape. Because these were cases of enforced pregnancy through
penile penetration against the will of the victims, the print media in
Bangladesh variously referred to the newborns as “enemy children”, “ille-
gitimate children”, “children of mixed blood”, “offspring of depravity”,
“segregation of bad seeds”, “throw-away” or “disposable” babies, and
more contemptuously, “bastards”.
Within the context of Bangladesh, all “war babies” (born as a result of
rape by the Pakistani military personnel) are also called “war orphans”, in
42 M. CHOWDHURY
that they were abandoned at birth by their birthmothers while their puta-
tive/alleged fathers were nowhere to be found. Not all war orphans are
war babies. They are referred to as “war orphans” because they were aban-
doned by their parents, or, because of the death of their parents, conflat-
ing the two categories, they are interchangeably but erroneously referred to
as “war babies”.
There is some written record of the birth, death and abandonment of
the war babies that were born in the government-established Seva Sadans
(clinics and delivery centres that were set up by Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mijibur Rahman and the Jatyo Nari Punorbashion Board across
Bangladesh, as a part of the government’s rehabilitation programme for
the rape victims). Baby Homes and other orphanage premises across
Bangladesh give us a starting point. Many war babies born secretly in
other places were often dumped at some of the above-noted places as they
were seen as “undesirable” and “disposable” babies. Some of these babies
were also secretly brought to various orphanages for relinquishment on
behalf of the birthmothers who did not wish to keep them.
Incidence of Rape
There is no consensus as to the number of Bengali women raped during
the “Occupied Bangladesh” period. Scholars report that tens of thousands
of women were raped as part of the Pakistani policy of intimidation
(Bartleman, 2004), but in the “fog of war” records are difficult to keep,
even with the best of intentions—let alone the worst. There is no consen-
sus as to the number of women raped by Pakistani military personnel, and
the estimates vary widely (Chowdhury, 2015). The numbers are often
obfuscated, underestimated or exaggerated for a particular political or his-
torical purpose.
However, based on the fact that the “Occupation Army” stayed for
270 days, the Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation Program (BWRP)
developed a somewhat crude formula for calculation: 480 thanas or geo-
graphical areas under occupation × 270 days of occupation × 2 victims.
Allowing for exaggeration, the Board rounded the figure downward to
200,000, which since then has become the official figure for citation
(Davis, 1972a).
Having reviewed the numbers collected from various sources, Dr
Geoffrey Davis, then International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF)
Director who came to Bangladesh at the request of Bangabandhu, argued
that the number may well understate the reality. This figure does not
include the numbers of women raped in the course of the army’s transient
subjugation of a village, he argued. He further argued that “as about one
third of the country’s villages were molested, even though not destroyed,
this army activity provides a huge number of cases of rape though the
number of conceptions would not be enormous” (Davis, 1972). When
the 10 million who fled to India are deducted, the remaining population
of “Occupied Bangladesh” was 65 million. Of this number, roughly
1.1 million were women of reproductive age. If a third of these women
were raped, argued Davis, then the number of victims would amount to
anywhere between 300,000 and 400,000 Bengali women. Justice Kazi
Mohibus Sobhan, then BWRP’s Chairperson, agreed with Davis’ estimate
(Davis, 1972).
Incidence of Enforced Pregnancies

With no definite number of rape victims, it is even harder to determine
how many rape victims became pregnant—a possibility that remained cer-
tain as late as August 1972. As the story goes through hearsay and innu-
endoes, the Bengali women, who were held as captive sex slaves, were
allegedly forcefully impregnated. Ferdousi Priyobhashini, the first rape vic-
tims to come out in public had testified to the news media, the precarious
conditions of the helpless captives. Speaking from her own experiences,
according to Priyobhashini, being in the captivity of the ruthless military
people, naturally the victims were forced to go all the way, willy-nilly. The
long and the short of it is that it did happen—in the nature of things.
While in the camps, the rape victims had no chance to slip out for a preg-
nancy test although one could speculate that, under the circumstances,
such a victim would have tried to conceal her pregnancy at any cost. Any
investigation along this line constantly reveals the nature of severe limita-
tions which one cannot overcome.
Following his visits to the remote areas of several districts including
many clinics and rehabilitation centers in the Dhaka area, Dr. Davis argued
that the sexual violence was in the form of penile penetration. Having
examined many of the rape victims, Dr. Davis concluded that of the
approximately 400,000 women who were raped following the military
crackdown, the report of approximately 200,000 becoming pregnant
seemed an underestimation. It is because, he argued, it considered only
those who were reported as missing. There were many families who did
44 M. CHOWDHURY
not dare to report for fear of persecution; as well, the same families also
tried to keep such incidences secret. The media coverage of the day could
not provide a verifiable number of pregnancies although there were many
allusions to sexual violence and its fall out.
Again, based on another estimation of 300,000 rape victims, who were
as young as 12 or 13 years of age, Dr. Davis maintained that with a popula-
tion growth rate of 3% per annum, it was safe to assume that about half
of these victims were pregnant—an assumption that would amount to
150,000 in this group (Davis, 1972). As mentioned, Dr. Davis’ assump-
tion reinforced the known fact that many rape victims were let go by the
military personnel as they were deemed “unserviceable” due to pregnancy,
overt sign of venereal diseases, or both. It is estimated that the incidence
of pregnancy at the end of December 1971 was about 1500 per district
(Davis, 1972). However, in most of the districts that Dr. Davis visited, the
numbers of unwanted pregnancies were lower than this figure. He further
opines that “this figure would suggest and, taking into account the num-
ber already delivered and the suicides, the numbers available, usually about
10 per village cluster is low” (Davis, 1972). Again, given the fact that he
Army had stayed longer in certain parts of towns and villages than other
villages, the soldiers were likely to have committed more crimes over a
longer period, thus increasing the probability of a greater number of preg-
nancies. For example, if the approximate figures for rape victims estimated
as 1500 per thana for half of the 480 thanas (that is, those afflicted by a
high concentration of military for an extended period) are accepted, then
one could come up with approximately 360,000 pregnancies, an argu-
ment with which Dr. Davis agreed at the time (Davis, 1972).
Again, it was Dr. Davis’ estimate that most of the victims were treated
by the village dais (midwives), quacks, or homeopaths, etc. leaving only a
small number still pregnant. This was prior to his arrival in Bangladesh in
February 1972. Not surprisingly, when he visited the remote villages, he
had found that the number of unwanted pregnancies was lower than what
he was led to believe after his first meeting with Bangladesh authorities in
Dhaka. Dr. Davis came to Bangladesh in February 1972, whereas sexual
violence had begun right from the night of 25 March 1971. The rape
victims had started giving birth from as early as October 1971. Dr. Davis
himself observed: “About 10 % of all conceptions should have delivered
before liberation” (Davis, 1972).
One must exercise caution and bear in mind that, though Dr. Davis’
observations were based on his personal visits to the premises where raped
women (many of whom were pregnant) were temporarily housed, he had

no information with regard to the number of pregnancy of women who
had killed themselves or were killed by the Army. In addition, the informa-
tion/sources that Dr. Davis’ provides do not include information from all
of the 17 districts of Bangladesh at the time (1972). The actual number
for the entire country could thus be potentially higher.
Incidence of Abortion
To understand the incidence of abortion, one must recognize at the outset
that Bangladeshi society regards sex outside of marriage, even consensual
sex, as a sin, but equally, considers abortion an act of infanticide. By and
large, Bangladeshi society still frowns upon both the unwed mother and
the child. Therefore, the first choice of pregnant rape victims was to abort
the unborn. Though there is no reliable number for the incidence of abor-
tion, evidence of abortion ties in quite well with the overall picture of
enforced pregnancies. Many depressed pregnant rape victims tried to
abort the unborn on their own and, in so doing, hurt themselves more by
risking their own lives. Some were successful while many are known to
have failed to abort, having put their own lives in danger in their attempts
to terminate the life of the unborn using traditional indigenous methods.
Due to the secrecy surrounding such conception and abortion, we do not
have any quantitative information on this phenomenon.
In the newly independent Bangladesh abortion continued to be gov-
erned by the provision of sections 312 and 313 of the Penal Code of 1860,
which stated that whoever voluntarily causes a woman with a child to
miscarry shall, if such miscarriage is not caused in good faith for the pur-
pose of saving the life of the woman, should be punished. The vagueness
of the law and the haphazard nature of its enforcement made it difficult to
determine what was and what was not legal/ethical at the time. There was
quite a bit of confusion regarding the legality of abortion in Bangladesh,
and no government agency was prepared to give a clear unequivocal state-
ment on this issue. Davis, through cooperation from Ruhul Quddus, then
principal secretary to the prime minister, persuaded the Bangabandhu
administration to amend the existing penal code that was in the best inter-
est of those raped women who desperately needed to terminate their preg-
nancy. Bangabandhu ought to be credited for this timely initiative hitherto
not known widely.
46 M. CHOWDHURY
Field reports from each district under the signature of the Deputy
Commissioner, Civil Surgeon and Family Planning Officer are an impor-
tant source of information with regard to abortion. Interviews of doctors
such as Drs. Halima Hanum Akhter, Mohammed A. Bashed and Biral
Mallick made it possible to cross-check the authenticity of these reports
(Akhter, 2000; Bashed, 2000a). Such reports became available only after
the arrival of Davis in February 1972.
Again, Davis, who travelled across the country, including the remote
areas where rape victims had no access to any medical help, estimated the
incidence of pregnancy at the end of December 1971 at about 1500 per
district. At that time, most of the victims were treated by village dais (mid-
wives), quacks or homeopaths, leaving only a small number still pregnant.
When he visited the far-flung areas of the villages, he found the number of
unwanted pregnancies lower than what he had been led to believe even
though rampant, war-related sexual violence had begun on the night of 25
March 1971. The rape victims had started giving birth from as early as late
October 1971. He was not able to find out anything from those who had
already aborted and had disappeared from the scene. According to Davis,
about 10% of all conceptions should have delivered before liberation. But
no one could assign a particular number to the incidence of abortions
performed (generally without anyone’s knowledge) across Bangladesh
(Davis, 2002).
Some evidence of abortion with regard to the rape victims surfaced
through word of mouth from many families that had crossed the border
and gone to West Bengal, India, for abortion while Bangladesh was still
under the occupation army. Following liberation, this practice was contin-
ued by many families, though in utmost secret (Bashed, 2000b). West
Bengal was known to have a relatively flexible abortion law at that time.
Newspapers of the day, which included interviews of Justice
K. M. Sobhan, chairperson of the Board, Sister Margaret Mary, superior,
Missionaries of Charity, Dr Geoffrey Davis, and the IPPF personnel, Odert
von Shoultz, reveal different numbers with regard to the incidence of
abortion that tend to be exaggerated. “Between 15,000 and 170,000 who
fell pregnant were aborted in highly undesirable but unavoidable condi-
tions before the outside world even knew the problem existed”, one news-
paper contemporaneously reported (Toronto Star, 1972).
Incidence of Birth
The birth of the war babies that began in late 1971 and continued until
September 1972 remains as prima facie evidence of sexual violence and its
aftermath in Bangladesh. Many abandoned war babies were rescued by the
sisters of the Dhaka-based Missionaries of Charity and other orphanage
personnel across Bangladesh in the hope that they could go to the homes
of those who genuinely wanted to adopt some of these “unwelcome”
babies as their own children (Mary, 1999). Although the majority of the
expectant mothers had successfully aborted, many were unsuccessful in
doing so. This group of birthmothers, having failed to abort on time, had
no choice but to carry their pregnancy to full term. Again, there were
many who were opposed to abortion even though they did not wish to
keep the “unwanted baby”. There was yet another group that could nei-
ther perform abortion on its own nor find any assistance from anyone.
Evidently, many doctors were opposed to conducting abortions because
of their religious beliefs.
When Mother Teresa came to Dhaka right after the liberation of
Bangladesh in December 1971, she was welcomed by the acting president
Syed Nazrul Islam with open arms. The government held several meetings
with Mother Teresa accompanied by Father Richard Timm of Notre Dame
College. The government was prepared to do everything possible within
its limited means to save the rape victims and their babies. The govern-
ment maintained that those who preferred abortion should have full access
to this facility as their basic right with complete confidentiality. In the
event that abortion would be too late for an expectant mother, she should
be encouraged to give birth and leave the newborn in the hands of the
government, if the birthmother did not wish to keep the newborn. This
was the instruction from the government of the day. With this objective in
mind, the government made an undetermined number of makeshift shel-
ters in addition to 22 government-established Seva Sadans, and Jatyo Nari
Punorbashon Board, Shishu Bhavan and Baby Homes that had housed
unknown numbers of violated women and their newborns in complete
anonymity.
The Canadian team under the stewardship of Fred and Bonnie
Cappuccino that visited Bangladesh in June 1972 to pick up a handful of
war babies for adoption in Canadian homes is another source of informa-
tion. Even though it was estimated that about 5000 babies would be born,
following the liberation it became difficult to determine the number in
48 M. CHOWDHURY
exact terms. Through their conversation with Dhaka-based Missionaries

of Charity’s Sister Mary, the team also learned that many birthmothers
were hiding their babies either to keep them or to abandon them secretly.
It was disconcerting to the team members as the orphanage personnel
with whom they spoke made them cognisant of how and what was happen-
ing to both the newborns and their birthmothers.
Sister Mary, who came to be known as the “mother” of the “unwanted”
babies, played a key role in estimating the number of war babies, as she
directly dealt with those who worked in various orphanages and delivery
centres across Bangladesh at the time. Although they could not provide
any hard numbers, the historical fact is that they had collected many dying
newborns from clinics, slums and remote areas by persuading the depressed
birthmothers to leave their newborns with the orphanage authority, hav-
ing given them full assurance of confidentiality. In examining the Shishu
Bhavan’s records, however, extra caution must be used as there are also
records of those who are referred to as “orphans”, “foundlings” and “ille-
gal” (probably meaning illegitimate) babies who were not necessarily
fathered by members of the Pakistani military personnel. There were also
many abandoned babies who were not necessarily born as a result of rape.
The 1972 print media reports in Bangladesh indicate that between 3000
and 4000 babies were born in the Seva Sadans’ premises across the
country.
The point to note is that Seva Sadans were established in February
1972, only after Bangladesh’s independence. The pregnant rape victims,
however, began to give birth all across the country in strict secret before
the establishment of these institutions, from as early as October 1971.
There is absolutely no record of this group of births. The numbers from
October 1971 to February 1972 that are often quoted come through
personal, word-of-mouth accounts but there are no documentary records
of any kind.
Incidence of Death
Both Sister Mary and many social workers who counselled many rape vic-
tims also later came to learn about the incidence of the birth of stillborn
babies and the deaths of a large number of infirm babies immediately after
birth. This was also reinforced by the Canadian team that visited
Bangladesh in June 1972, being firsthand observers of the grim situation
on the premises of the orphanages they visited. The team members were
shocked to see with their own eyes the challenges of trying to care for an
overwhelming number of infants, the majority of whom were under-
weight, in war-ravaged Bangladesh with far too few supplies, scarce medi-
cine and few human resources (Chowdhury, 2016a).
Throughout early 1972, the news media’s relentless coverage included
news regarding the birth and death of the war babies. The print media
often wrote about partially or completely decomposed bodies of many
babies discovered by people in the streets. There are many anecdotal sto-
ries of stillborn babies and the birth of very frail and prematurely born war
babies, many of whom died shortly after birth, with the nation ill-equipped
to provide the level of care required of premature babies. There were also
rumours, some exaggerated though not totally baseless, of babies secretly
buried in bags or sacks by close relatives to avoid shame and disgrace. No
standard or religious burial practices were followed and many dead babies
were wrapped in cloth and were simply dumped in holes or thrown into
nearby canals and rivers. Such stories through the grapevine still persist to
this day.
The general consensus, based on the observations of those in the health
field at the time, is that these war babies born under the most unfavour-
able circumstances could not be provided with the minimum medical care
they required. Consequently, many perished over the course of time.
Those who worked at Shishu Bhavan and other delivery centres recall in
startling detail vigils at the bedside of dying newborn infants at the orphan-
ages as moments seared in their memories (Mary, 1999). While talking
about the high incidence of death among the newborns having ear infec-
tions, pneumonia, boils, fungal infections and so on, Sister Mary stated in
June 1972 that the newborn babies would “go on dying at least for a few
more months” (Chowdhury, 2016).
The desperate birthmothers’ attempts to terminate the lives of the
unborn through abortion were ironically eventually achieved by the cir-
cumstances the nation found itself in soon afterwards.
Incidence of Abandonment
Variously referred to as abandonment, relinquishment, surrender or giv-
ing up of the “unwelcome” babies who were being born right up to
September 1972, there is, understandably, little quantitative information
on instances when mother and child were separated. Legally, the process
came to mean relinquishment of a child by the child’s biological father
50 M. CHOWDHURY
(who was not around) and mother (who willingly gave up the infant), and
hence loss of parental rights. Under the circumstances, the orphanage or
other receiving party became the caregiver/caretaker of such aban-
doned babies.
Mahmuda Begum, then a social worker who joined the government
following the liberation, recalled how she found it “both tragic and ironic,
many rape victims became mothers through forced conception, which
resulted in the birth of their babies; on the other hand, they had nothing
to celebrate ‘motherhood’”(Begum, 2001). “On seeing the newborn for
the first time, the rape victims who became birthmothers demonstrated no
love for the newborns which is not only an emotional requirement but a
biological necessity for a baby”, Kashem (2002) noted. According to
Hosne- Ara Kashem, one of the counsellors at the Jatiyo Punorbashon
Board, abandonment of the war babies arose from the helplessness of the
birthmothers who could not resist the forces of social pressure in
Bangladesh that made it impossible for them to make any other decision
at the time. It was accepted by the health professionals and government
authorities that, under the circumstances, removing a relinquished new-
born from its birthmother would be in the “best interest of the child”.
The only known information about the process of abandonment is that
entered in the highly confidential Register Book of the Missionaries of
Charity for the purpose of adoption. In determining the number, one runs
into the same problems as with the incidence of rape, enforced pregnan-
cies, and birth and death of the war babies. It is known with certainty that
often war babies were left in baskets just outside the orphanage premises
overnight, meaning the records are essentially incomplete. The under-
resourced, under-staffed and over-burdened orphanage personnel had
worked frantically, hoping for foreign intervention to rescue the newborns.
Government Initiatives in Inter-Country Adoption

Immediately upon his arrival in Dhaka in January 1972, Bangabandhu did
not fail to notice the one-sided historical narrative of the liberation of
Bangladesh by many freedom fighters, poets and writers, and historians
with rhetorical flourish and extraordinary language of passion and emo-
tion. A great deal of such history seemed to Bangabandhu “inspirational”
and “triumphant” and romanticized the War of Liberation by emphasiz-
ing the “heroism” of the Mukti Bahini (freedom fighters). At a time when
the entire euphoric population was celebrating the hard-earned victory in
Shonar Bangla, the rape victims (including birthmothers who abandoned

the newborns) were trying to find a safe place to hide themselves to live in
anonymity to avoid social stigma that they feared they would face.
Bangabandhu and his cabinet colleagues saw the situation—imbued with
tragic stories of sexual violence and its fallout—as part of the historiogra-
phy of the War of Liberation.
Fearing that the political and religious leaders would play “hardball”
politics which could result in further stigmatization, the Bangabandhu
administration diligently worked with the Geneva-based International
Social Service (ISS) and key stakeholders seeking creative solutions. The
Bangabandhu administration and ISS were looking for programmes that
were future-oriented and transformative to accomplish its desired goals
keeping in mind “the best interest of the child”. Dismayed by the descrip-
tion of the war babies as “unwanted” babies or “bastards”, Bangabandhu
called them manob shontan (human child) and argued that, like all of us,
above all, such babies are human, regardless of the circumstances under
which they were conceived and born. He claimed that the war babies
ought to be embraced by all without looking at their birth history as they
would become an integral part of the national history of Bangladesh.
The ISS recommended inter-country adoption as a healthy and forward-
looking alternative under the unusual circumstance (Klein, 1972). The
government recognized the curious alchemy of society and its priorities
and handled the issue cautiously. It agreed to opt for foreign adoption,
being convinced that a war baby without any biological family ties has a
right to grow up in the best adoptive home even if it is in another country,
and in the home of a parent who is of a different racial background.
Adoption Within Bangladesh

There are a variety of forms of adoption in Bangladesh, such as guardian-
ship and informal and formal adoption, that are not necessarily the same
as the process understood in western countries. Upon assuming “statutory
guardianship”, Sister Margaret Mary endeavored to lessen the stigmatiza-
tion by encouraging couples to assume their parenthood, but she did not
have any luck in placing the “unwanted” babies locally. Socially speaking,
changes with regard to adoption in Bangladesh might have been taking
place in the minds of progressive Bangladeshi citizens, although for all
practical purposes, in 1972, the country was still anchored in a close and
conservative matrix. Understandably, those who raised any such
52 M. CHOWDHURY
“unwanted” babies are unwilling to come forward even today after

50 years to talk openly about their story of adoption of the “disposable
babies”. If anyone did adopt and raise a war baby, the official record
is silent.
While Bangladeshis frowned upon the war babies that were socially
unacceptable, many fertile and some infertile couples from around the
world were moved by the high incidence of abandonment. They responded
to the opportunity to adopt some of the abandoned war babies who were
in need of a safe home. This gave the government of the day an opportu-
nity to explore foreign adoption of the war babies not wanted in their
country of birth.
Although the Bangabandhu administration was overwhelmed with the
effort required to rebuild war-ravaged Bangladesh, Bangabandhu himself
pushed for new legislation. Within months, the administration was to cre-
ate legislation that enabled the government to make arrangements with
foreign countries for adoption. It promulgated a new Presidential Order
in October 1972 titled The Bangladesh Abandoned Children (Special
Provisions) Order, 1972 (Gazette, 1972). This was a special legislation
mainly in response to the “felt necessities” of the time. It was, however,
repealed through a proclamation of 24 March, 1984.
Those with serious misgivings regarding adoption saw the govern-
ment’s initiative as a means to create a family in the “best interest” of the
“unwelcome” babies, but many cynics saw it as the government’s callous-
ness in passing the buck in the name of “foreign adoption” and an aban-
donment of its responsibility.
Canadian Initiative in Adopting the War Babies

The personal efforts of Mother Teresa and her colleagues at Missionaries
of Charity and the Montreal-based Families For Children (FFC), a non-
profit adoption agency for inter-country adoption, made it possible to
work out a deal with the government of Bangladesh for adoption of a
certain number of war babies in Canadian homes. In fact, Canada was the
first country in the world that took the first contingent of 15 war babies
for adoption in Canadian homes in July 1972. The second contingent
went to Canada in October 1972.
Countries such as the USA, the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands,
Sweden and Australia followed suit and adopted Bangladeshi war babies
through the Holt Adoption Program, Inc. and Terre des Hommes.
Conclusion
As for the final estimation of the numbers of war babies, whether about
the incidence of birth, death, abandonment or adoption, no one can
quantify these figures with any certainty for reasons raised in this chapter.
The much-quoted exaggerated numbers are more of a hindrance than
a help to the objective study of the war babies. Given that there is no hard
number, based on the above analysis, it might be safely observed that the
number of war babies born in Bangladesh (as opposed to conceived)
between October 1971 and September 1972 would not be less than 4000.
Regardless of the number of unidentified war babies in Bangladesh,
their whereabouts within Bangladesh are not known, although adoption
to foreign nations will have left a trail of evidence relating to a minority.
Forty-three years following the birth of the war babies, the International
War Crimes Tribunal 2 in Bangladesh rendered a far-reaching decision on
23 December 2014 that it is the moral obligation of the nation to come
forward and accept and honour the birangonas (rape survivors of 1971)
and their babies. The title birangona (war heroine of 1971) was given by
the Bangabandhu administration to honour them as the nation’s heroines
by recognizing their sacrifices in the war of independence. Chairman
Justice Obaidul Hassan found Syed Md. Qaiser, who had been charged for
‘murder’ and other inhuman acts as ‘crimes against humanity,’ guilty of
‘substantially inducing’ and ‘facilitating’ the commission of murder. (The
Chief Prosecutor vs. Syed Md. Qaiser, ICT-BD [ICT-2] Case No. 04 of
2013). The group formed members of ‘Qaiser Bahini’ and Pakistani Army
was guided by Qaiser. Paying homage to the war heroines, he called them
the “national heroes” of Bangladesh and ruled that the government and
non-governmental organizations should compensate them and their
“unwelcome” babies conceived through enforced pregnancies. Justice
Hassan also referred to both the rape victims and the “unwanted” war
babies as the “best children” of Bangladesh.
The decision has made little impact on the situation. Seven years have
gone by since the decision was announced. The birangonas continue to
live in disguise with a false identity with no desire to ever come out in
public to reveal their identity despite the assurance of respect and dignity
to be accorded to them along with a hefty compensation package. To this
day, not a single war baby has self-identified to receive compensation. The
fear of discrimination or social ostracization is such that they are discour-
aged even today from revealing themselves. Ferdousi Priyobhashini was
the first rape victim who had the courage to come forward in public in
1999, detailing her story of pain and agony at the hands of the Pakistani
54 M. CHOWDHURY
military personnel. There were several more rape victims in later years who
came out to self-identify only to be frowned upon and abandoned by their
own families. The victims were devastated, punished twice by fate. Their
experience has reinforced the structure of silence, with the lives of the
ubiquitous war babies of Bangladesh continuing as before.
References
Akhter, H. (2000). Author Interviewed Both Dr. Halima Hanum Akhter on 10
January 2000 in Dhaka.
Bartleman, J. (2004). On Six Continents: A Life in Canada’s Foreign Service
(p. 62) McClland and Stewart. He was the First Canadian (Resident) High
Commissioner to Bangladesh.
Bashed, M. A. (2000a). Dr. Mohammed A. Bashed on 15 January 2000 in Dhaka.
He Followed Up with Dr. Bashed on Several Occasions Over the Years for
Further Research.
Bashed, M. A. (2000b). This Was Stated to the Author by Dr. Mohammed
A. Bashed on 15 January 2000 in Dhaka.
Begum, M. (2001). This was Expressed to the Author by Mahmuda Begum, on
10 January 2001 who worked at the National Institute for Population and
Research Training at that time. For details, see, Chowdhury, M. (2016).
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: Story of 1971 War Babies. Opt. cited. p. 20.
Chowdhury, M. (2015). Picking Up the Pieces: 1971 War Babies’ Odyssey from
Bangladesh to Canada. Xlibris.
Chowdhury, M. (2016a). UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: Story of 1971 War Babies
(p. 18). Academic Press and Publishers Library.
Chowdhury, M. (2016b). UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: Story of 1971 War Babies.
Opt. cited. Sister Margaret Mary Said This to the Canadian Team During One
of Her Interviews with the Team Members, Fred and Bonnie Cappuccino and
Elisabeth Mowling while visiting Shishu Bhaban Immediately After Their
Arrival in Dhaka in June 1972, p. 24.
Davis, G. (1972a). The Changing Face of Genocide—Bangladesh.” Proceedings of
the Medical Association for Prevention of War, Volume 2, Part 7, 1973. p. 176.
Author also interviewed Dr. Davis on 17 February, 2002 in Sydney, Australia.
Davis, G. (1972b). The Changing Face of Genocide—Bangladesh. Opt. cited,
pp.176–177.
Davis G. (1972c). Ibid.; The Author also interviewed Justice Kazi Mohibus
Sobhan in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 12 January, 2000.
Gazette, B. (1972, October 25). Bangladesh Abandoned Children (Special
Provision) Order, 1972, Number 6 in the Bangladesh Gazette Extraordinary.
Kashem, Hosne-Ara (2002). This Was Expressed to the Author by Hosne-Ara-

Kashem on 15 January 2001, a Counselor at Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation
Board in 1972, Now Retired. For Details, See, Chowdhury, M. (2016).
UNCONDITIONAL LOVE: Story of 1971 War Babies. Opt. cited. p. 20.
Mary, M. (1999, 10 July). Correspondence of Sister Margaret Mary, then Superior,
Missionaries of Charity, with Mustafa Chowdhury.
Memorandum on Observations and Suggestions for Implementing Inter-Country
Adoption from Wells C. Klein. (1972, 9 May). General Director, International
Social Service, American Branch to M. Hasan-uj-Zaman, Secretary of Labour
and Social Welfare, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, p. 2.
Toronto Star. (1972, August 24).
The Making of the Bangladesh Constitution
Kamal Hossain
Interviewee: Dr Kamal Hossain, former Law Minister and Foreign

Minister of the Peoples’ Republic of Bangladesh
Interviewers: Asif Bin Ali and Habibul Khondker
Q1: It took 325 days for Bangladesh to gain its first constitution—on
November 4, 1972. What were the political and economic contexts of this
constitution-making process?
KH: As you know, there were dramatic developments during the emer-
gence of an independent Bangladesh. When we started working on the
document, we were thinking about the constitution for the whole Pakistan;
it was a case of two wings together making Pakistan. Therefore, the federal
structure was a relationship between two wings when we started. One of
the things that concerned everybody with these dramatic developments
was the question of how the economy transfers into a freedom movement.
So, a lot of work we had done earlier became redundant once we began
working towards a single sovereign state. So we actually had been working
on the draft amendments of what could have been the constitution of the
united Pakistan for a couple of years. We were not satisfied with the con-
stitutional relationship between the two wings, and therefore the exercise
K. Hossain (*)
Dhaka, Bangladesh

58 K. HOSSAIN
was to get much larger autonomy for Bangladesh. That is the background.
Now once it was a process of an autonomy movement it quickly acceler-
ated into a freedom movement. This was the dramatic change that
occurred when we finally introduced the constitution to the sovereign
parliament. Making a constitution for a sovereign state assumes a lot of
federal relationships—all of that became redundant. So in fact the process
really took a short time. The constitutional issue was something we had
been working on for quite some time, well before independence. And of
course when we became independent much of the work focused on what
could be the constitution for a single sovereign state. This is the important
remembering—the 325 days is not very short because there had been at
least a couple of years’ preparation.
Q2: In 1947, Mohammad Ali Jinnah preferred the position of
Governor-General of Pakistan to that of the Prime Minister. However, the
people of Bangladesh had struggled for a parliamentary democracy with
the president as a nominal head and power given to the legislature. Was
there any thought of preferring a presidential form to a parliamentary
form of government in the early days?
KH: You are absolutely right that because of the background, no sug-
gestion of a presidential form was raised at the time.
Q3: On April 2, a 34-member Constitution Drafting Committee was
set up with you (Dr Kamal Hossain, Minister of Law and Parliamentary
Affairs) as its chairman, and also including four other top-ranking minis-
ters. All members (including one woman) of the Committee belonged to
the ruling Awami League, excepting Suranjit Sengupta, the lone opposi-
tion member from the (pro-Moscow) National Awami Party. Do you
think this ruling party majority-dominated constitution-drafting commit-
tee reflected the opinions and aspirations of all the people of Bangladesh?
KH: If we had to create a document for all of Pakistan and there had
been differences [the process would have been] much more complex and
certainly would not have been done. It became much easier as the result
of Bangladesh having [its own] government, an independent state. There
might have been differences for some reason among different sections. I
don’t deny that. However, because you also see the [overwhelming]
elected majority that the Awami League got, this shows that there was at
the time a national consensus reflected in the election result and that
would show you how the nation was unified in terms of thinking on the
kind of state we wanted, the kind of state structure we wanted, the kind of
vision protecting parliamentary rights, an independent judiciary, and that
THE MAKING OF THE BANGLADESH CONSTITUTION 59
really emerged strongly as a consensus among all people regardless of par-

ties, so I would say it was not so much about party but a national intention
through the process.
Q4: The Committee invited submissions from any institution or person
interested to send proposals in writing for consideration of the Committee
during the preparation of the Draft Constitution for the People’s Republic
of Bangladesh. The invitation was publicised through the press, radio and
television, but only 98 memoranda were received. Was the three weeks’
time given for sending proposals adequate? Particularly considering that
India allocated more than two years to the process?
KH: I don’t think anyone wrote a complaint stating, ‘We don’t have
enough time’. Because these constitutional issues had been under discus-
sion for at least two years before we became independent, three weeks’
time came at the end of three years of opportunity to discuss…. As I said,
there was a very strong consensus. If on the working of the constitution
we found something valuable that we needed to include, there would be
no difficulty improving it other than delaying the process, and we were all
very conscious of the long delay. It is important to note it was not the
blank draft from zero. We had an earlier draft to draw upon and clearly it
made our task much simpler—we could, you know, have eliminated a lot
of provisions and just kept those provisions which would be appropriate
for an independent state.
Q5: Article 70 was perhaps the most controversial, at both the drafting
and the enacting stage. This provided that if a person elected as a member
of parliament at an election at which he was nominated as a candidate by
a political party either resigns from or is expelled by that party, he shall
vacate his seat. Why did the constitution committee think to incorporate
this article?
KH: It’s a good question because even within the constitution commit-
tee and on my part as chairman, I was not happy with article 70, yet it was
the most constitutional with the previous experience of the society affect-
ing making our constitution. This part is really something that
Bangabandhu emphasises, where we are thinking judicial democracy is
fine but this would look bad. And this is a problem not only with us but
other developing countries. It’s a slow process that people get elected on
a party ticket and then somebody offered a ministership [with another
party]. Bangabandhu said, ‘You listen to me, you don’t know how much
we had to protect the gate, and see people didn’t come, we had to see that
people did not cross the floor to go hostile in night and join the other
60 K. HOSSAIN
party because we are becoming a minister’. This was a common affair; not
everyone did it, but it does undermine parliamentary democracy.
Q6: The opposition party led by Maulana Bhashani attacked the Draft
Constitution most severely, even challenging the right of the Constituent
Assembly to frame the Constitution. According to Maulana Bhashani, the
present Constituent Assembly was elected under the Legal Framework
Order (1970) of General Yahya Khan to frame the Constitution of
Pakistan. It got its mandate on the Six-Point Programme of the Awami
League (which envisaged maximum regional autonomy of the provinces
within the framework of one united Pakistan); consequently it had no
right to give a Constitution to a sovereign Bangladesh. How would you
address that criticism?
KH: I think those who lived those days would see how strong the con-
sensus had become among the Bengali members in national parliament, if
you look at the provenance of the Constitution that had emerged from a
consensus since 1947. So it was not something that we artificially sort of
devised—it emerged through a process from 1947 onwards. At the time,
everyone said congratulations, you made a constitution in one year,
whereas Pakistan had not been able to develop one in so many years.
Q7: Was there any discussion of adopting the constitution through a
referendum?
KH: One or two members or a few members may have called for it, but
it was not something that, you know, was so substantial that it was either
taken up in debate in the house or outside the house. So that I think
everyone was seeing that this process, the consensus in discussion, it was
something that was a genuine consensus, not a forced one, or with certain
provisions on this body, and it was accepted that no one had an agenda at
that time. And this is why it was I think a very healthy atmosphere: every-
one felt that what was achieved was something that everybody aspired for,
regardless of party.
Q8: Some “good words” about socialism had been incorporated in the
Fundamental Principles of State Policy, but why was there no guarantee of
food, clothing, shelter, education, medical care and employment for the
citizens in the constitution?
KH: It was said that look you cannot achieve this through political
consensus and through resources being available, all being important
when these are all economic and social rights. Apart from universal educa-
tion, [these other] economic and social rights would require a large
amount of resources to be allocated for achieving those objectives and it
was said it was not something that could be guaranteed—so there are
some other constitutional rights that are mandatory only if resources are
available. Resource availability is a critical question and it begs the ques-
tion: Why put something forward that you know you do not have the
resources to guarantee?
Q9: A. S. M. Abdur Rab, the former leader of Bangladesh Students
League (anti-government) and now the Joint Convenor of the newly
formed (October 31, 1972) National Socialist Party, remarked that the
Draft Constitution did not reflect the hopes and aspirations of the people.
By imposing so many restrictions on the fundamental rights, democracy
had been turned into “controlled democracy”. Do you think he had
a point?
KH: Well, there is no doubt about his sincerity in saying that he wanted
a democracy to safeguard these rights, but the discussion and debate we
had were around ensuring certain safeguards. [It is important to point out
that] the atmosphere was so positive in the assembly hall. So, it was not a
case of the ruling party which was trying to rule or something and others
who were resisting. There may have been a few people as you said, young,
militant, very young who would stand for militancy, which we respected
but at the same time this was what we were doing for the majority.
Q10: Well, that’s an interesting point: I am getting the sense that the
lived experience that you had at the time was very positive and it was all
about unity. At the same time information that appeared in the newspa-
pers tended to illustrate the conflict, which may have been out of context?
KH: No, I think I noticed there are people who made that kind of com-
ment simply because they want to get across to the public their distinctive-
ness as not being part of the ruling party.
Q11: The Constitution had been formulated on the basis of four
accepted fundamental principles of state policy (democracy, socialism,
nationalism and secularism). While democracy, socialism and nationalism
were explicitly mentioned in the 1970 election manifesto, secularism was
not. How did ‘secularism’ manifest popular hopes and aspirations? Why it
was added as one of the fundamental principles?
KH: It’s a very good question! And the answer is not difficult to give
because the Pakistani government used religion to carry out a kind of
persecution movement against democracy… [Religion had been associ-
ated with] justification or excuse for suppression by force of what was a
genuine movement, while the central government was trying to paint a
different portrait.
62 K. HOSSAIN
Q12: So you are saying the incorporation of secularism was inspired by

the experience of the then political parties instead of emerging through an
election?
KH: Yes.
Q13: Was there any tension in the four fundamental national princi-
ples? What were the sources of those principles? For example, Awami
League was not known for its pro-socialist stance before the liberation war.
KH: You know because some people in our party whom I might say are
right of centre had instincts towards secularism, as a reaction against their
previous experience, and they would say look India didn’t have social-
ism…. However, the people as a whole wanted change; they wanted a
change from a capitalist system. In that sense you are right: this was some-
thing that emerged relatively late in a sense to the assembly and was a case
of reacting to experience.
Q14: How did the towering personality of the Prime Minister and
Leader of the House, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, influence constitu-
tion making?
KH: Well, you know he had not in a sense sat down and said, ‘take
down this is what the constitution should look like’. He did not do that,
but he would say that there were things we must remember, drawing on
the experiences that we had—and this is why Article 70 in particular came
about. We had to protect the system so that people wouldn’t cross
[between parties] arbitrarily, in order to get political power, because you
know before the election there had been a great deal of achievement for
Bengalis but that was undermined by floor crossing. So that was an exam-
ple of how his own experience influenced the process. Everyone has a right
to get elected by the electorate but we wanted to avoid cases where mem-
bers sacrifice principles for a ministry.
Q15: You had a relationship with Bangabandhu, especially during the
duration of the Agartala conspiracy case. You were visible as a legal voice.
Moreover, you had helped Thomas William, the British politician, in rep-
resenting Sheikh Mujib. So you had a relationship with Bangabandhu that
goes back a long time. So did Bangabandhu give you like a carte blanche
to write the constitution?
KH: Well, that may be an element but of course not only that. It is fair
to say that we shared the same moral thinking. But really this was the
party’s thinking at the time. It is worth noting that he wanted a parliamen-
tary form, and of course he was influential in holding that position. He
later recommended a presidential structure but not at the time.
Q16: The judicial power has been vested in a Supreme Court in which
judges are appointed by the executive. Did that provision curtail indepen-
dence of the judiciary?
KH: It is a good question. The fact of the matter is that in those days
there was a strong support for independent judiciary. You will see the
appointment that we made was not to ensure appointing people from
Awami League. Good lawyers from other parties as well as an independent
lawyer were appointed. This shows the commitment to an independent
judiciary.
Q17: Well, it’s a matter of fact that some initial appointments in judi-
ciary were well thought out. For example, the newly appointed Chief
Justice, a person with a clean reputation, who was directly involved with
the liberation movement. I do understand why you are stressing upon the
good intention of the then leadership but was there any fear that in future
all those positives would fade away? And finally, would it all depend on the
power of independent institutions? So, was there any future-oriented pol-
icy thinking in terms of creating a legal protection framework for an inde-
pendent judiciary?
KH: There was a kind of consensus that nobody will achieve anything
by cramping the independence of the judiciary. Even Bangabandhu did
not want that. Our decision was based on optimism, it is true, but we did
not think that later this might be changed with a different set of circum-
stances. Well, some of us may have recognised that but nobody thought to
delay the making of the constitution.
Q18: So, you were more concerned about the delay of making the
constitution rather than creating an independent judicial framework?
KH: We thought that simply declaring the judiciary’s independence
would ensure the independence of the judiciary. There was no speculation
that we would have to secure it immediately. We thought independence
would emerge over time. But there is a danger in that approach as well. We
were fully committed to principles at the outside. As time has gone on this
commitment has changed. This was a risk that we couldn’t rule out at that
time. We believed in optimism based on a kind of consensus which was so
strong –and we knew that it was not just a party political consensus but the
national consensus.
Q19: Unlike the Pakistani practice, the Bangladesh Constitution does
not make any provision for special protection of the rights of civil servants.
They hold office at the pleasure of the president (Art. I34) and may be
removed or dismissed or demoted by the appointing authority whose
64 K. HOSSAIN
decision is final (Art. I35). According to one of your statements, this was
necessary to curb the power of “bureaucracy” and reorganise the whole
service structure in the light of the national objective of establishing social-
ism through democratic means. Was it a successful measure to curb the
power of bureaucracy?
KH: My simple answer is no. It was not able to curb the power of
bureaucracy. Because one cannot ensure the implementation of rules sim-
ply through effective language in the constitution. Effectiveness of consti-
tutional arrangement requires some political and broader consensus, the
people’s support. We have incorporated the principle that people would
like to see reflected in the constitution. It is the responsibility of govern-
ment and state to ensure those rules and implement them. In theory we
were right to incorporate that provision but it turns out that with time the
initial commitment towards democratic principle eroded. Government did
not strictly abide by the principle that they were committed to uphold.
Q20: So, you think the constitution was not enough or didn’t provide
a structured framework to control the over-exercise of power of the
bureaucratic offices?
KH: I think we need to speak about the overwhelming majority of the
ruling party. This is something that doesn’t help democracy. I mean you
know all seats except two seats out of 300 were won by the Awami League
at the most recent election? This kind of majority is something of course
very common in the Bengali political environment. Uncritical and abso-
lute majority was something that did not help the institution to work
independently.
Q21: Do you agree that the opposition parties had failed to mobilise
public opinion to criticise the Constitution, apparently feeling that they
had completed their responsibility by issuing statements and holding press
conferences?
KH: I think you are right. Look, our movement was for autonomy
which was based on 6 points and 11 points. It turned into a movement for
independence. And one party had uncritical absolute majority. And some
of our limitations were that the majority should be respected. However,
some initial appointments were not about the party but about conscience.
We had consciously reached out to opposition parties to make it clear that
independent institutions should not be party institutions. Moreover,
Bangabandhu was very conscious about it as well. It was not difficult to
make them understand. However, over time many of these understand-
ings and assumptions eroded.
Q22: So, are you saying that opposition parties were just making a
statement but not doing real-time politics in the field to create public
opinion?
KH: No, there was opinion. It was expected that opposition parties
should play an effective role. But it was not done because of the atmo-
sphere. In the post-independence atmosphere everybody was happy with
the success of the independence movement. We wanted autonomy and
got independence. And initially we were willing to sort of see everything
being done in a way on the basis of unanimity. And opposition became
very weak because the government had ensured an absolute majority in
the election that was held after independence.
Q23: This is a personal question to you which is hypothetical as well.
What if you were given the chance to go back? What could you have done
differently?
KH: I don’t know what the answer to this question could be. At that
point of time, we had knowledge of what we should do with majority in
parliament. We did not think much to create a strong opposition. This
continues to be a problem even today. There is no good sense in electoral
politics with absolute majority to one party. This we have discussed among
ourselves as well. Absolute majority allows abuse of power while a good
majority ensures an enlightened practice. This is a challenge even today
and it seems we are not bothered about it. Maybe this is what we should
have thought about more carefully.
Q24: Any final thoughts that we did not cover in our questions but you
think need stating?
KH: Yes, I think we should think about how you generate politics.
Politics will diversify as a nation matures. Getting an overwhelming major-
ity in a democratic system hampers ordinary democratic practice and pol-
icy generation. We need to think about it. I myself don’t know the answer:
But we certainly haven’t achieved that.
Bengali Identity, Secularism
and the Language Movement
Tazeen M. Murshid
Introduction
Bengali identity is both secular and deeply influenced by religion. The
various markers of Bengali identity, like language, culture, ethnicity and
religion, sit easily together unless manipulated by political elites to create
majorities in support of their specific views. Conflict arises when opposing
markers are emphasised by elites in competition. Nationalists thus
The author is a professor of South Asian History and Politics, and has held
positions at Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium, School of Oriental and
African Studies, London, University of North London, BRAC University, and
East West University, Dhaka. She has been a fellow of the Centre for Advanced
Study, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, at St Antony’s College, Oxford, and at
Homerton College, Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellow at Columbia University,
New York as well as Directeur des Études at EHESS, Paris.
T. M. Murshid (*)
Centre for Development Research and Cooperation (DRC-Global),
Rhode-St-Genese, Belgium

68 T. M. MURSHID
formulate and reformulate concepts of state, nation and identity to gain

political power, legitimacy and economic advantage.
Identity can be understood as primordial or instrumental.1 Geertz
argues that the ties of identity are primordial, or underived and unchang-
ing (Geertz, 1963, pp. 105–157). Anderson, Hobsbawm and Ranger
favour an instrumentalist view, that is, identity is constructed, imagined
and even invented (Anderson, 1999, pp. 5–7; Hobsbawm & Ranger,
1983, pp. 62–111). Ruling elites create ‘ruling ideas’ to determine the
beneficiaries of state patronage through policies of inclusion and exclu-
sion; counter-elites emerge to challenge its hegemony.
This chapter explores the articulation of Bengali identity in East Bengal
in the 1940s and 1950s, particularly after the emergence of Pakistan. The
Bengali Muslim intelligentsia was not homogeneous ideologically, in
terms of their social and political perceptions or the articulation of their
identity. They were constantly torn by the opposing pulls of religious and
secular concerns in every aspect of their lives—social, cultural and politi-
cal. This tension was influenced by religious and secular movements, west-
ern ideas and values, local customs, as well as the history and tradition of
Islam itself. This chapter explores the articulation of Bengali identity, par-
ticularly with reference to its secular heritage and the language movement.
Notably, the experience of Bangladesh supports the instrumentalist view:
that identity is not given or primordial, but is derived through social and
political interaction.
Post-Partition East Bengal

In post-partition East Bengal, there was no strong Hindu presence. The
absence of a ‘Hindu threat’ automatically relieved the pressure of com-
munalism; organisations such as the Yuba League (Youth League) founded
in 1947 and the Awami Muslim League, a political party founded in 1951,
1
For a discussion of the theme of primordial and instrumentalist identity, see Clifford
Geertz, Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa, New York:
Free Press, 1963, pp. 105–157; Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on
the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London: Verso, 1991, pp. 5–7; Eric Hobsbawm and
Terence Ranger eds. The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1983; Terence Ranger, ‘The Invention of Tradition Revisited: the Case of Colonial Africa’,
in Terence Ranger and Olufemi Vaughan, eds, Legitimacy and the State in Twentieth Century
Africa, Houndsville: MacMillan, 1993, pp. 62–111; Paul R. Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism:
Theory and Comparison (New Delhi: Sage, 1991), p. 15.
BENGALI IDENTITY, SECULARISM AND THE LANGUAGE MOVEMENT 69
actually worked towards inter-communal harmony (Umar ed. v.1, 1984,

p. 168; Anisuzzaman, 1985, p. 12). The state, on the other hand, con-
stantly projected the alleged threat from India and the underlying fear that
the two Bengals would unite. In fact, any stress on cultural similarities
between East and West Bengal was interpreted by the Punjabi-dominated
government as a desire for such unification and a denial of the two-nation
theory on which Pakistan was founded. The struggle to establish Bengali
as one of the state languages was perceived to be a major threat to the
ideology of Pakistan, for Bengali was one of the cultural links between the
two parts of Bengal. The official ban on the broadcasting of Tagore songs
on radio and television in 1966 was mainly to counter such sentiments of
affinity. Reaction to the ban was varied: to one group of poets and writers,
Tagore was ‘an integral part of the cultural existence of Bengali-speaking
Pakistanis’; to another, this assertion was ‘not only misleading but also
fundamentally opposed to the principles of Pakistan’.2 The legacy of com-
munalism was played up with suspicions cast on the Hindu community, a
tiny minority: there were dark hints about their possible role as a fifth
column working for the disintegration of Pakistan and merger of East and
West Bengal. For example, The Morning News, voicing official opinion,
attributed the language movement to the leadership of Hindus and a few
communists, as well as to ‘external provocation’ conspiring to destroy the
state. Hindus were often harassed as communists, particularly in areas of
peasant disturbances, nor were Hindu urban intellectuals spared.3
In the absence of the ‘Hindu threat’ of the pre-1947 period, a more
secular and tolerant culture might have developed in post-partition East
2
Abul Mansur Ahmad, ‘Cultural Identity of East Pakistan’, Concept of Pakistan, vol. IV,
August 1967, p. 11. Abul Mansur Ahmad believed that the cultural expressions of East
Bengal were distinct from those of West Bengal. East Bengal had a rich heritage of punthi
literature and music. Among the musicians were Nazrul Islam, Alauddin, Abbasuddin and
Khusro. Its folk heritage included bhatiali and murshidi songs. The musical heritage of Pak-
Bharat is an integral aspect of Muslim civilisation and the heritage of Arab-Persian and
Turkish traditions. East Bengal shares this heritage. Abul Mansur Ahmad did not see Tagore
as a representative of this tradition. See Abul Mansur Ahmad, Bangladeser kalchar (Culture
of Bangladesh, Dhaka, 3rd edition, 1985), pp. 37–48.
3
Jyoti Sen Gupta gives detailed accounts of reprisals in areas of peasant disturbances where
Hindus were particularly singled out for punishment, History of Freedom Movement in
Bangladesh, 1943–1973—Some Involvement (Calcutta, 1974), pp. 26–36; for a discussion of
the role of communists, see Talukder Maniruzzaman, Radical Politics and the Emergence of
Bangladesh (Dhaka, reprint 1975), p. 6; on Hindu grievances, see Constituent Assembly of
Pakistan, Debates (hereafter, CAP Debates) 6 March, 1949; 26 March, 1952.
70 T. M. MURSHID
Bengal were it not for a state policy which constantly played up the fear of
an Indian threat, communist incursions and Hindu-phobia. At the same
time, Islam came to be accepted as state ideology and the bond of unity
between the two wings of Pakistan. In such a situation, minority commu-
nities would have been treated as second-class citizens were it not for the
strong opposition from a section of the intelligentsia including politicians,
students and teachers of the University of Dhaka (Stock, 1973, pp. 2–3).
Suhrawardy’s defence of minority rights is worth mentioning here, for it is
partly in this context that the religious—secular tension developed after
1947.4 An important segment of the upper-class Muslims, with roots in
the aristocratic ashraf, dominated the Muslim League. It sought to main-
tain its position of influence as the defender of Islam and stoutly defended
the national integrity of Pakistan. In the ensuing power struggle, the reli-
gious—secular tension became significant and impinged on the domains
of language, culture and identity.
The religious basis of identity acquired a special importance because
religion was politicised in Pakistan. The pull towards an inclusionary, secu-
lar definition was, however, inevitable, as a form of protest against the
official worldview, and was reinforced by the Bengal Muslims’ natural
attraction towards their eclectic, local, cultural roots. This was anathema
to those who visualised an essentialised, pure and underived Islamic cul-
ture. In reality, this culture evolved through centuries of interaction with
the systems of newly conquered territories, and was thus hybrid in charac-
ter. Nevertheless, the secularists were suspect in official circles as a possible
threat to the integrity of Pakistan.
The Bengal Muslim was confronted with the dilemma of choosing
between a religious and a secular basis of identity as popularly understood.
If he accepted religion, he also accepted the right of the Muslim League
to ‘determine what Islam is’, but if he opted for secularism, he was labelled
a renegade who denied Pakistan and therefore had to be controlled. The
religious—secular tension thus straddled both political and cultural spheres
and accentuated the Bengal Muslim’s identity conflict.
Another important factor contributing to the religious—secular ten-
sion relates to the culturally ambivalent self-image of the intelligentsia—
their basic inability to come to terms with their apparently contrary
multiple identities. While the intelligentsia idealised aristocratic ashraf eth-
ics and values derived from the Persianate Islamic world, the harsh reality
4
Speech of Suhrawardy at the Constituent Assembly, CAP Debates, 6 March 1948.
was that the majority of them were of local origin and descended from
converts. They spoke Bengali or a hybrid variant until the nineteenth cen-
tury known as do-bhasha, or khotta bhasha intermixed with Perso-Arabic
words; they shared little with the ashraf except religion, some vocabulary,
and perhaps certain food preferences. Hence, the fear that Bengali Islam
was contaminated by local and un-Islamic practices. This fear is curious as
it begs a certain exceptionalism for Bengal, since local Islam in all regions
of the world had acquired local peculiarities.
The orthodoxy was harsh against those who accepted local customs.
They were referred to as a ‘class of fossilised imbeciles and fogies, who live
in a cloud of un-Islamic superstitions inherited from the local pagan tradi-
tions’ (Al-Islam 15 December 1961). The dichotomous self-image was
not as devastating for the intelligentsia in the 1940s and 1950s as it was
until the 1920s, when they were still talking in terms of ‘choosing’ their
mother tongue (Bangla Nur, 1.3. 1920). Nevertheless, the perceptions of
ashraf ideals determined cultural and linguistic choices until groups could
break from the established mould and assert that culture and identity be
determined by secular criteria.
At the time of partition, the intelligentsia were still striving towards a
definition of their linguistic and cultural identity. Although the question of
the mother tongue was resolved in favour of Bengali, the fear that it was a
lesser language than Urdu or Arabic persisted. So trials were conducted in
writing Bengali in the Arabic script.5 The consequent tension was largely
between a secular and religious approach to language and identity. It not
only divided one group from another but generated deep conflict in the
individual consciousness.
The process of resolving this tension involved defining not only the
intelligentsia’s cultural identity but also national objectives in the context
of the new state of Pakistan. The emphasis on religion as the guiding force
behind the idea of Pakistan, the need to give structure to a modern state,
and the fact that the founding fathers of Pakistan were secular politicians,
and that Bengal Muslims were divided as to the nature of the state and the
role of Islam, gave rise to considerable debate. In the process, sections of
5
The Report of the East Bengal Language Committee, 1949–50 (Government of East
Pakistan, Dhaka, 1958), pp. 6–11, 15, 22, 26; speech of Muhammad Habibullah Bahar at
the Constituent Assembly, CAP Debates, 27 March 1951, pp. 471–472; Constitution of
Pakistan—Basic Principles as adopted in the Grand National Convention, Dhaka, 21 January,
1953, Umar Dalil, p. 139.
72 T. M. MURSHID
the intelligentsia became deeply involved, both individually and collec-

tively, in articulating their view of their world and the form and shape that
world, Pakistan, should take.
The Worldview of the Post-Partition Intelligentsia

The worldview of the intelligentsia in the immediate post-partition period
reflected their acute need to define their social, cultural, linguistic and
political identity. In the later period, political considerations became para-
mount while socio-cultural ones receded into the background to re-
emerge only after the creation of Bangladesh. The 1940s and 1950s saw a
continuing reassessment of ideals and values—a trend which began at the
turn of the century. It was a period of hope, full of dreams of what Pakistan
was going to be. There was a sense of confidence and pride in the asser-
tions made by the intelligentsia deriving from the assumption that it was
up to them to give shape to the new country.6 This mood of optimism,
however, did not last long. The upper ashraf and Punjabi-dominated
national political elite’s determination to hold on to power at all costs
effectively crushed such idealistic dreams.
The concerns of this period were rooted in pre-partition ideologies
covering a wide spectrum—orthodox, pan-Islamist, humanist and com-
munist. Maududi and his Jama’at-i-Islami, with its mouthpiece Al-Islam,
followed the traditionist path of Indian Muslim thought in prescribing a
strongly Islamic state. The ‘New Values group’, deeply influenced by
humanist thought, envisaged a liberal democratic society where culture
belonged to the secular arena. This was one way of resolving the religious—
secular tension over culture and identity. Organisations such as the
Yuba League or Youth League, heavily infiltrated by communist ideas,
undertook political-cultural activities with decidedly secular objectives.
Other organisations such as the Tamaddun Majlis, which had deep reli-
gious orientations, nevertheless recognised a secular dimension to ques-
tions of language, identity and culture. Nor were their motives free from
6
Pakistan Student Rally—Aims, Objects and Programme: Draft Constitution, Umar Dalil,
p. 66; S. Murshid, ‘Editorial’, New Values, vol. 1 no. 1, September 1949; ‘Letter to the
Editor’, The Pakistan Observer (hereafter Pak. Obs.), 1 March, 1951. A. G. Stock records the
literary and intellectual stirrings in East Pakistan which found focus in New Values; see her
Memoirs of Dacca University, p. 52.
self-interest and considerations of political advantage, a fact which under-

lined the hard, secular core of avowedly religious aspirations.
The orthodox view was unwilling to allot a neutral, non-religious or
secular zone to any aspect of life, be it cultural or political—for life, or the
‘Process of Reality … is one unitary flow’ and it cannot tolerate duality
(Al-Islam, 1 June 1963). It associated secularism with ideas of profanity,
disregard for the sacred, scepticism about religious truth and opposition
to religious education. Some understood the term as dunyawiyyat or care
for bodily and worldly affairs. To them, ‘what is criminal is what is immoral,
and what is immoral is what disrupts the essential cultural values of soci-
ety’ (Al-Islam, 1, 15 October 1961, 1 January 1962). These forces of
disruption were western values, industrialisation, materialism, emancipa-
tion of women and local pagan traditions.
The teachers and students of the University of Dhaka played a signifi-
cant role in putting forward their view of the ideal polity. However, they
refused to adopt a religious argument against the status quo primarily
because their aims were not always political. They sympathised with the
disadvantaged Hindu minority and desired a more inclusive and tolerant
society, that is, a secular society. They feared the religious argument with
its implications in favour of orthodoxy, puritanism, religious revivalism
and intolerance of other ways of being.
In 1950, the editor of New Values, a quarterly, commented that culture
should be so conceived as to allow the uninhibited self-expression of the
entire population:
A secular attitude to cultural values, will in our context, keep culture from
egocentricity and exclusion and make it absorptive of outside influences.7
Such an attitude to culture stood in sharp contrast to the orthodox Jama’at

view which insisted on a rejection of all external influences.
The liberal mood in the 1950s favoured seeking guidelines for society
through open discussion and debate. The quarterly New Values was
founded in 1949 by Sarwar Murshid, a young teacher of English at the
University of Dhaka, with precisely such an aim in mind. The aim was to
look for ‘new social values’ in ‘our particularly groaning and travailing
times’ and meet the need for ‘newer assumptions on which to build’
(Murshid, 1949, 1.1, pp. 88–89; Stock, 1973, p. 52).
7
S. Murshid, ‘Editorial’, New Values, vol. 2, no. 1, 1950, p. 50
74 T. M. MURSHID
Although New Values did not represent any one point of view as it was
meant to be a forum for debate and discussion, its bias was towards a ratio-
nal and secular society. The editor and contributors were deeply influ-
enced by men like Humayun Kabir and Kazi Abdul Wadud. Both were
humanists and involved in the movement for the ‘emancipation of the
intellect’. Humayun Kabir saw an ‘affinity between the basic concepts of
Islam and the principles which govern science’.8 His rationalism was based
on the belief that ‘the Prophet of Islam laid down that religion must be
based on reason, not authority’, and that ‘every article of faith and belief,
every institution of society and polity would be subject to continual scru-
tiny, analysis and revision’. Such scrutiny falls within the realm of ijtihad
(application of reasons). He carried forward the tradition of reformist
interpretation of Islam begun by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and followed by
Syed Amir Ali.9
Kazi Abdul Wadud rejected the idea of shariat being the basis of
Pakistan.10 He addressed the age-old debate between reformist and tradi-
tionalist Muslims (Abbott, 1968, p. 24). Reformists argued that the per-
manent basis of Islam was the spirit of the Koran, not the specific words
aimed at a seventh-century audience. Traditionalists stuck to the letter of
the law, placing form and ritual first and maintaining that without them
the spirit could not be approached. For example, the Tabligh Jamat or the
Faith Movement continued the tradition of the Wahabi and Faraizi move-
ments. It stressed that rituals were an integral part of faith.
The Sahitya Patrika was published several years later in 1957 by the
Bengali Department of the University of Dhaka. It represented the grow-
ing cultural consciousness of Bengali Muslims and as such was secular in
outlook. Its aim was to contribute to the understanding of Bengali litera-
ture. It projected no vision of an ideal society.11 The contributors were
concerned with culture as literature and education. Some felt compelled
8
Humayun Kabir, ‘Islam and Science’, New Values, vol. I, no. 1 (September 1949), p. 19.
9
For the views of Syed Ahmed Khan, see A. H. Albiruni, Makers of Pakistan and Modern
Muslim India (Lahore, 1950), pp. 36–60; A Aziz, Muslim Self-Statement in India and
Pakistan, p. 4.
10
Kazi Abdul Wadud, ‘The Foundations of State in Islam’, New Values, vol. I, no. 1
(September 1949), pp. 1–6.
11
See ‘Editorial: Bangla Academy’, Pakistan Observer, 5 December, 1955. For a history of
the Sahitya Patrika, see Muhammad Muniruzzaman, ‘Sahitya patrika panchis bachhar’,
Sahitya Patrika. Panchis bachhar purti samkhya, 25th yr., no. 2, Barsha 1389 B.S (1982),
pp. 173–208.
to address educational problems. Muhammad Abdul Hai, the founder-

editor, emphasised the need to preserve universities as neutral places of
learning (Maniruzzaman, 1982, p. 112)—a subtle reference to political
interference in the functioning of universities.
Since partition, the intelligentsia had taken a stand on issues of national
importance. But these issues usually had political import. The contribu-
tions to the journal Forum, founded in 1969, are notable here.12 They
responded to the cultural subjugation of East Bengal and to problems of
economic and political disparity between the two wings of Pakistan.
Others acted in a militant fashion.13 But they never seriously social issues
such as the hypocritical observance of rituals or aimed at social transforma-
tion — for example, to free society from superstition, establish equal rights
for women, fight religious and moral prejudices, or analyse the nature of
current social problems. Some of these issues became matters of intellec-
tual concern only from the 1980s.14
Intellectual preoccupation among prose writers in the years after 1947
focused on an ‘anxiety to assess themselves and their environment in the
light of their post-independence experience’. One central question was the
rightful place of Islam in society. In the ensuing deliberations, the religious
ideal was constantly measured against the secular ones of freedom, democ-
racy and humanism.
Problems of Identity
The identity problem of the intelligentsia was accentuated by a range of
factors—cultural, religious and political. Most of these related to the dual-
ity in their self-perception, the discrepancy between the ideal and practice,
coming to terms with their social origins, not to mention the trauma of
12
The group included Kamal Hossain (barrister), Rehman Sobhan (economist), Muzaffar
Ahmed Chowdhury (political scientist) and Anisur Rahman (economist), among others, all
teachers at the University of Dhaka, and closely associated with Bangabandhu.
13
The more militant section was a faction of the Student League led by Abdur Rab, who
burnt the Pakistani flag and provocatively hoisted that of independent Bangladesh even
before the military operation at midnight on 25 March 1971: see Hasanuzzaman,
Antarjatakik prekshapate bangladesher chhatra andolan (Dhaka, 1984), p. 26.
14
In the 1950s, women members of the All-Pakistan Women’s Association pressured the
government to improve women’s rights. The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance, 1961, was
thus passed. In the 1980s, Bichitra and the programme called ‘Ain o adalaut’, on Bangladesh
Television, discussed the social oppression of women. Similarly, the journal Ekal, later known
as Edesh ekal, has explored the condition of women; see issues from 1986 to 1991.
76 T. M. MURSHID
twice forging new states out of old territories, each involving the need to
redefine the nation, nationhood and national identities.
At the turn of the century, there was hardly any conflict in the Indian
Muslim self-perception over being Indian and Muslim. Maulana
Muhammad Ali (1878–1930), one of the leaders of the Khilafat move-
ment, commented that ‘where God commands, I am nothing but a
Muslim’, but where India was concerned, ‘I am nothing but an Indian’
(Symonds, 1966, pp. 42–43). However, in Bengal, the practice of distin-
guishing between a Bengali and a Muslim did contribute to an Identity
conflict later on (Umar, 1967, pp. 2–3).
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the politically conscious
Bengal Muslims tended to be members of the Congress. A. K. Fazlul
Huq’s early speeches fiercely asserted his Indian identity, but after 1940 he
invariably declared himself to be a Muslim first. Yet many Muslims could
not accept the partition of Bengal, although they had campaigned for the
partition of India. Abul Mansur Ahmed went to East Pakistan only in
1951. Suhrawardy maintained dual residence until it became an obstacle
to his remaining in Pakistani politics. Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who vigor-
ously campaigned for the Muslim League and Pakistan, remained commit-
ted to the Idea of Hindu—Muslim unity and staunchly championed the
idea of a secular, inclusive Bangladesh (Asamapta Atmajibani, 2012). The
principle of secularism was incorporated in the 1972 Constitution as one
of the four pillars of Bangladesh state policy.
Until the mid-1960s, there was no conflict in East Bengal as to whether
one was a Bengali or a Pakistani. However, the movement leading to the
emergence of Bangladesh in 1971 induced the intelligentsia to define their
identity once again. ‘Bengali’ acquired a secular connotation emphasising
the cultural dimension of identity. ‘Pakistani’ implied a continuing belief
in the two-nation theory and an emphasis on religion as an overall guiding
principle.
A new dimension was introduced into the culture conflict after the
assassination in 1975 of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of
the Awami League and President of independent Bangladesh. Nationality,
which was until then defined in terms of Bengali ethnic, linguistic and
cultural identity since independence in 1971, was now sought to be rede-
fined on the basis of political considerations. The new definition required
a distinction to be made between East and West Bengal, an issue which
was not very important in 1947, although there was some sentiment in
favour of Pak-Bangla as distinct from the Sanskritic Bengali of West
Bengal. In 1978, under President Zia-ur-Rahman’s military regime, citi-

zens of Bangladesh came to be known as ‘Bangladeshi’ rather than
‘Bangalee’, which was how they were described in the constitution of
1972. Bangladeshis, Zia implied, were different from the Bengalis of India
and so were their culture and language: the language had to be moulded
‘in our own way’.15 His speech to this effect reminds one of Jinnah’s
famous statement distinguishing the cultures and religions of Hindus and
Muslims as two different social orders. Zia thus asserted the precedence of
political identity over the cultural. In ideological terms, this was some-
thing of a rejection of Mujib’s secular stance. Although the preference for
‘Bangladeshi’ over ‘Bangalee’ had no strong religious connotation, it was
accompanied by a constitutional change in 1977—the dropping of one of
the fundamental principles of state ‘secularism’ from the constitution of
1972. Though Zia’s political party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party,
asserted through its manifesto that Bangladeshis had freed themselves
from ‘the evils of communalism’ because of the ‘great teachings of Islam’,
Zia’s actions have invited speculation to the contrary. It may be argued
that by emphasising the distinct and separate identity of Bengali Muslims
vis-à-vis the Bengali Hindus he had created grounds for the exclusion of
Hindus from effective political participation. To this extent, he acknowl-
edged once again the concept of two nations on which Pakistan was
founded and which was rejected by a large segment of the population
through the 1971 war of liberation. The basic complexities of defining
culture and identity which existed during Pakistani rule persisted in
Bangladesh. Notably, other non-Bengali minorities such as the Chakma
and Marma found the term Bangladeshi to be more inclusive.
Language and Politics
The contested status of the Bengali language in national life highlights a
power struggle between East and West Pakistan and pinpoints contradic-
tions in the self-perception of the intelligentsia. These often reflected a
tension between religious and secular dimensions of identity.
15
Zia’s speech of 1978 is cited by Abul Fazl Huq, ‘The Problem of National Identity in
Bangladesh’, The Journal of Social Studies, no. 24, April 1984, p. 58. Also see G. Hossain,
General ZiaurRahman and the BNP: Political Transformation of a Military Regime (Dhaka:
UPL, 1988, p. 119.
78 T. M. MURSHID
At the moment of partition in 1947, Bengal Muslim politics was domi-

nated by a non-Bengali-speaking elite. Although Bengalis formed the
majority in the first Constituent Assembly, real power was exercised by
Muslims from outside Bengal, such as Jinnah and Liaquat Ali Khan along
with the Punjabis, who believed in a strong centre (Callard, 1957,
pp. 3–39; Ahmed, 1975, p. 97). The bureaucracy and military, which
influenced decision-making, had only 30 per cent and 5 per cent Bengali
representation respectively (Jahan, 1973, p. 25). The dominant upper-
class ashraf ideology was legitimised by the massive Muslim vote in favour
of Pakistan in 1946. It perceived society and politics as exclusive, attrib-
uted high status to ethnic origin and foreign descent, accepted prejudices
against popular Islam in Bengal as inferior, and believed in the two-nation
theory as the essential basis of Pakistan.
Before partition, only a few left-leaning Bengali Muslims expressed
doubts about this ideology. Abul Hashim, who campaigned against the
partition of Bengal, expressed his fear in the Millat of 2 May 1947 that
Urdu would become the national language of independent Pakistan
(Umar, 1979, pp. 1–19). His fear was well founded.
The paradox was that Urdu, and not Bengali, was considered an Islamic
language, in an area where the majority of Muslims spoke Bengali
(Campbell, 1963, p. 226). The introduction of Urdu as the only national
language of Pakistan would mean that it would become the official lan-
guage and medium of instruction, thus replacing Bengali in schools. This
would place Bengalis at a disadvantage in the competition for education
and employment. Such apprehensions had already surfaced in September
1947, but few dared to speak up, for they feared reprisals from officials
and the kuttis (natives of Dhaka) of Dhaka.16
The Language Movement: Growth and Impact

Concern for the status of Bengali in Pakistan was articulated within weeks
of the birth of the country. The Tamaddun Majlis, founded in 1947 as a
cultural body, brought out a book on 15 September 1947, called
Pakistaner Rashtra Bhasa: Bangla Na Urdu? (The National Language of
Pakistan: Bengali or Urdu?). It clearly had deep political aims, for in the
introduction Professor Abul Kasem demanded that Bengali be given the
16
‘Memoir of Abul Kasem’, Ekuser sankalan, 1980: Smriticharan (A collection of mem-
oirs) (Dhaka, 1980), p. 2 (hereafter Smriticharan).
status of a national language.17 The response to this demand was negligi-

ble: only 5 books were sold. The kuttis of Dhaka and Muslim migrants
from the Indian states where they had been in a minority, and had been
mistreated as such, fiercely guarded the Pakistan ideology.
Initially, the language movement was limited to a handful of intellectu-
als and students, especially from the University of Dhaka. It soon gained
support from civil servants who as quickly dropped out of it due to gov-
ernment pressure. These early enthusiasts were pragmatic. They were con-
cerned because villagers and poor people found it difficult to fill Urdu
registration forms. They also believed that it would be easier for the popu-
lation to learn Bengali, and this would prevent national wastage.
Bengali politicians, whether Muslim Leaguers or Communists, sup-
ported the movement secretly in order to avoid giving it a political tinge
and being dubbed traitors. In 1947, most Bengal Muslim members of the
Assembly belonged to the Muslim League party, and thus they could not
openly support this struggle. Their involvement became more direct later,
for example at a public meeting held at Barisal Town Hall in April 1951.18
In 1952, some members, like Abul Kalam Shamsuddin, resigned from
their Assembly seats in protest against the shooting of university students
on 21 February.19
Amongst other groups which worked to achieve national status for
Bengali was the East Pakistan Democratic Youth League (Purba Pakistan
Ganatantrik Yuba League). It was founded on 6 September 1947 as a
non-communal and anti-imperialist student and youth organisation with
the help of politically committed radical intellectuals like Shahidullah
Kaiser, Muhammad Toaha (Communist), Shamsul Huq (Muslim Leaguer,
who later became a member of the Awami Muslim League), Ataur Rahman
(of Rajshahi), Aziz Ahmed, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Tasadduk Hussain and
Hazera Mahmud (wife of the politician Mahmud Ali). On 2 February
1948, the Youth League decided, at a meeting in Rajshahi, to demand
state language status for Bengali. Previously, its manifesto only stated that
the language of the majority had to be given priority.20 This organisation
could not last long in the face of the government’s drive against
17
The book was written by Quazi Mutahar Hussain and Abul Mansur Ahmad. See
‘Memoirs of Gaziul Huq’, Smriticharan, p. 99; ‘Memoirs of A. Kasem’, Smriticharan,
pp. 1–2.
18
Pakistan Observer, 6 April 1951.
19
‘Memoirs of Hasan Hafizur Rahman’, Smriticharan, p.48.
20
‘Memoirs of Gaziul Huq’, Smriticharan, pp. 98–100.
80 T. M. MURSHID
communism. In 1951 it regrouped itself as the East Pakistan Youth

League. This was a leftist youth organisation which believed that Pakistan
was created by an imperialist conspiracy and considered the Muslim
League to be a communal organisation.
The Pakistan Students’ Rally, probably established in 1948, addressed
the issue of the lingua franca of the country. It was of the opinion that
both Urdu and Bengali should be state languages and that Bengali should
be treated as the provincial language. By 1951, student activism had
become somewhat aggressive. The University of Dhaka students organ-
ised themselves into the Dhaka University Language Action Committee.
In April, the Committee submitted a memorandum to the Pakistan
Constituent Assembly:
We, the students of Dacca University, who initiated the language movement
in East Bengal three years ago, who are now more determined than ever to
secure for Bengali the status of state language of Pakistan, will take this
opportunity, while you are all assembled at Karachi, to press once more, our
legitimate claim. (Pakistan Observer, 24 February 1951)
The memorandum considered it ‘absurd’ to claim that Urdu was an

Islamic language:
We refuse to believe that any language under heaven can be Islamic or

Christian or Heathen. (Ibid.)
It argued that Bengali had a greater claim to be called Islamic because

more people spoke it. It rejected the idea that Urdu could be a unifying
factor between the provinces of Pakistan, because ‘it is equally foreign to
all parts of Pakistan’. It echoed the concerns of a section of University of
Dhaka teachers that the implementation of Urdu as the only state lan-
guage would create a ‘privileged class’, ‘nourish disaffection’, and jeop-
ardise the country’s material and intellectual development. It boldly
suggested that if Pakistan was to have one state language it had to be
Bengali.
Although not all intellectuals organised themselves into associations for
the purpose, they took an active interest in the state language issue. On 23
February 1951, a deputation consisting of Dr Muhammad Shahidullah,
Principal Ebrahim Khan and Dr Quazi Mutahar Hussain waited upon the
Prime Minister, Mr Nurul Amin
... with an application widely signed by MLAs, MCAs, professors, officials,

writers, lawyers, publishers and students requesting him to immediately
introduce Bengali as the official language of the province. (Pakistan
Observer, 24 February 1951)
Among the reasons cited were the following: it was the mother tongue of
most Bengalis; the majority of Pakistanis spoke Bengali; the Provincial
Legislature had already passed a resolution moved by the then Prime
Minister, Khwaja Nazimuddin, on 8 April 1948, accepting the claims of
official status for Bengali; and the implementation of the Language
Committee recommendations would modify the Bengali script, and thus
there could be no valid objection to the acceptance of Bengali as a state
language.
Intellectuals at this time saw themselves as nation builders. Some teach-
ers of University of Dhaka, such as Abdur Razzak, Sarwar Murshid,
Muzaffar Ahmed Chowdhury and Enayet Karim, saw themselves as citi-
zens of a democratic state who had the right to disobey ‘the pernicious
injunctions—Legislative or Executive—of the Government’. In a letter to
the editor of The Pakistan Observer in March 1951, they argued that the
‘attempt to make the National Language of Pakistan distinct from the
medium of instruction of any part of Pakistan’ was ‘a pernicious act’ and
‘dangerous to the existence of a state’.21
During his only visit to Dhaka, Jinnah reiterated the central govern-
ment position that Urdu alone would be the national language of Pakistan,
first at the Racecourse Maidan on 21 March 1948 and again on 24 March
at the Curzon Hall convocation ceremony. On both occasions some in the
audience shouted ‘no! no!’ Jinnah later spoke to various student represen-
tatives and members of the Samgram Parishad—Syed Nazrul Islam,
Professor Abul Kasem, Naimuddin Ahmed, Toaha, Tajuddin Ahmed and
Oli Ahad. Jinnah’s personality was such that many students began to have
second thoughts about the movement (Ahmed, 1975, p. 101). Between
1948 and 1952, the language issue lay fairly dormant. Occasional meet-
ings were held and Rashtrabhasa Dibas (State Language Day) was observed
annually on 11 March.
Official circles often revived the bogey of India and cries of Islam and
Pakistan in danger, in order to corner the opposition. On 15 April 1951,
21
Letter to the editor, Pakistan Observer, 1 March 1951.
82 T. M. MURSHID
in his presidential address to the Urdu Conference, Maulana Akram

Khan stated:
The group of people opposed to Urdu language in East Pakistan took their
inspiration and support from quarters who were opposed and antagonistic
to everything which was Islamic. (The Pakistan Observer, 17 Apr 1951)
Ekushe: 1952 and Its Aftermath

The event which shook the foundations of the Muslim League govern-
ment and had long-term repercussions for the ideology and politics of
East Bengal was the shooting of university students on 21 February 1952.
This day of martyrdom is known as ekushe, and in the popular psyche it
marks the beginning of the language movement. On 26 January, Khwaja
Nazimuddin had declared at Paltan Maidan that Urdu alone would be the
state language of Pakistan, after having agreed in March 1948 to give
national status to Bengali (Ahmed, 1975, 110). The vernacular intelligen-
tsia, already agitated by the Basic Principles Committee Report, which
vested unlimited powers in the president, became more restless (Pakistan
Observer, November—December 1950).22 The result was a student strike
on 30 January. A procession was taken out despite opposition from the
student wing of the Muslim League, the East Pakistan Muslim Student
League. The Rashtra Bhasa Samgram Parishad called for a strike through-
out Dhaka on 4 February in which about 10,000 people participated,
including approximately 2000 women (Gaziul Huq, 1980, Smriticharan,
pp. 135–137). The Parishad called for a province-wide strike on 21
February. But one day before the event, the government banned the
assembly of more than four persons under Section 144 of the Criminal
Procedure Code. This deterred the Parishad, but a radical section within
it was determined to challenge the law. Among them was the leftist Oli
Ahad, secretary of the Youth League, and Ibrahim, a member of the
Islamic Brotherhood (Umar, 1984, pp. 292–299). The religious—secular
divide on the language issue was no longer clear-cut.
The events of the next few days occurred swiftly in a mounting cre-
scendo of violence, excitement and mobilisation in favour of the language
movement. On 21 February students defied Section 144 and came out of
the University of Dhaka campus in groups of ten to offer satyagraha on
22
Pakistan Observer, October–November 1950.
the advice of the Communist Party, which had failed to dissuade them
from breaking the law. At first, the police arrested large numbers and took
them away in trucks and buses until there were no more vehicles left
(Sultan, 1980, Smriticharan, pp. 1–2). They then lathi-charged and tear-
gassed them. Some students retaliated by brick batting. Finally, the police
opened fire. Among those dead were four students and a rickshaw-puller.
On 22 February the students erected a memorial (shahid minar) for the
martyrs; they went on a protest march wearing black badges and carrying
the bloodied clothes of the shahids (martyrs). More shooting and arrests
followed. On 24 February, the shahid minar was destroyed by the police.
There was more marching and more shooting (Gaziul Huq, 1980,
pp. 149–182).
The events caused an open split in Muslim League ranks. Bengali mem-
bers walked out of the Assembly; one resigned. By March, the movement
had lost its momentum as the organisers were forced to disperse. But it left
a long memory; it created a stronger sense of Bengali ethnic consciousness
than ever before, a consciousness once again of ‘us’ and ‘them’, a con-
sciousness which became more secular with each successive clash with the
government. It culminated in the rejection of the ruling ashraf ideology,
which was later reflected in the United Front victory over the Muslim
League in the 1954 East Bengal elections. The 21-point election mani-
festo of the United Front incorporated the decision to make Bengali one
of the state languages of Pakistan.23 Here the secular consciousness
opposed the communal. Although Islam was the declared state ideology,
what was actually practised by the state could be described as ‘religious
communalism’ (Umar, 1974, p. 119).
During 1952–1955, various cultural institutions such as the Samskriti
Samsad kept alive the spirit of the language movement. The Samsad was
based at the University of Dhaka. It did not publish bulletins but organ-
ised plays to raise people’s consciousness. Moreover, every year students
persisted in observing 21 February as a day of mourning and protest even
after the Bengali language was given national status in the 1956 constitu-
tion. The day acquired a ritual and symbolic significance. In later years, it
came to represent freedom from all forms of oppression. From a day of
23
Government of East Pakistan, One Year of Popular Government in East Pakistan (Dhaka,
6 September 1957), p. 15.
84 T. M. MURSHID
mourning, it had become a day of celebration to commemorate the brav-

ery of our young heroes: it came to symbolise the becoming of the
Bengali nation.
Conclusion
Although the appeal of the language movement was secular in nature,
student activists did operate within a religious framework. Homage was
paid to martyrs through special prayers and fasts, and by wearing white
and black for mourning. The ideal of martyrdom invoked in this context
was the greatest glory a Muslim could achieve in a jihad. At the same time,
the influence of indigenous traditions could be seen: floral offerings at the
shahid minar and singing of dirges at times resembled devotional offerings
common among Hindus.
The secular reaction to the politicisation of religion by the national
political elite indicated a ‘new ideology’ which rejected received prejudices
regarding the inferiority of Bengali Islam, language and culture. It
demanded a new set of ideological criteria in terms of secularism, equality
and parity. The achievement of national status for Bengali was a political,
not cultural, success. The cultural conflict certainly persisted until 1971. It
has not come to an end even in independent Bangladesh.
In the post-independence period of Bangladesh, the lines of alignment
changed once again. The secular basis of identity, which was gaining
ground through the rejection of the Muslim League ideology of religion-
based nationalism as symbolised in the emergence of independent
Bangladesh, came to be questioned in the mid-1970s. The death in 1975
of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the man behind the secular
thrust in Bengali politics, brought to the fore new rulers struggling to
forge new ideologies in the hope of creating new loyalties and identities.
The sacrifice of the secular ideal, one of the four fundamental pillars of the
state, was an essential aspect of the new ‘ruling ideas’ promoted in 1977
under military rule. It took thirty-four years for that principle to be rein-
stated in our constitution in 2011. Each time it re-opened the delicate but
controversial questions of language, identity and culture. The experience
of Bangladesh clearly supports the instrumentalist view that identity is not
given or primordial, but can be derived through social and political
interaction.
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Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh
Ali Riaz
Introduction
In the past decade, Bangladesh has witnessed a meteoric rise of radical
Islamist groups on the one hand and increasing public display of religiosity
on the other. These have led some to conclude that the country is becom-
ing the battleground between violent Islamism and secularism. This por-
trayal assumes that religion has served as the primary source of radicalization
in Bangladesh. The perceived causal relationship between religion and the
radicalization process warrants examination, while it is also necessary to
explore the sources of radicalization in the emergence of Bangladesh.
This chapter will proceed by first offering clarification about the con-
cept of radicalization, as I argue that a distinction between radicalization
and violent extremism needs to be made to dispel some conventional mis-
understandings and explore the available knowledge about the relation-
ship between Islam and violent extremism. In this chapter, I will explore
the existing models of radicalization, develop an alternative framework,
A. Riaz (*)
Department of Politics and Government, Illinois State University,
Normal, IL, USA

88 A. RIAZ
and employ it to understand the radical thoughts and behaviours particu-

larly connected to religion.
This chapter responds to three questions: What factors contribute to
radicalization and do these factors and religion intersect? What are the
features of ‘religious radicalization’ in Bangladesh? What are the factors of
radicalization in Bangladesh?
Radicalization: Definition, Factors, Framework

and the Model
There is no universal definition of radicalization. The concept has emerged

out of two different fields—terrorism and social movements, which have
seldom interacted with each other (della Porta, 2018). In addition, there
has been a significant historical shift in the notion of radicalization in past
centuries. In the nineteenth century, for example, “‘radical’ referred pri-
marily to liberal, anti-clerical, pro-democratic, progressive political posi-
tions” (Schmid, 2013). Donatella della Porta reminded us that
“radicalization historically indicated movements and parties advocating
democratic and republican institutions, mostly to be promoted through
peaceful means” (della Porta, 2018, p. 74). But as both Schmid and della
Porta have noted, in recent years, particularly in the discussions on the
emergence of “radical Islamism’ in a post-9/11 environment, scholars
“tend to point in the opposite direction: embracing an antiliberal, funda-
mentalist, anti-democratic and regressive agenda” (Schmid, 2013, p. 8).
According to della Porta, “recently, radicalization has acquired an ambiva-
lent meaning, denoting in some cases the presence of “nonmoderate” ide-
ologies, in others the use of violent means” (della Porta, 2018, p. 462).
The growing insistence on the connection, often as a phased progres-
sion between radicalization and terrorism, is questioned by several
researchers, for example Bjørgo and Horgan (2009), Borum (2011) and
Neumann (2013). They have demonstrated that there is neither a linear
progression between these two, nor are they sequential. As such, the rela-
tionship between radicalization and terrorism is ambiguous at best; these
two phenomena need to be understood individually, and identification of
the key characteristics of both is necessary.
For our discussion, I will maintain a distinction between radicalization
and violent extremism/ terrorism, while noting the points of intersection.
Often scholars have underscored two dimensions of radicalization:
RELIGIOUS RADICALIZATION IN BANGLADESH 89
functional and descriptive. For example, McCauley and Moskalenko

(2008) argue that from a functional point of view, radicalization is an
enhanced preparation for intergroup conflict and an accentuated engage-
ment with it, while from a descriptive point of view, radicalization refers to
a change in beliefs, feelings, and behaviours that justifies intergroup vio-
lence and the demand for sacrifice in defending their own group. This
provides a simplistic picture of overlap.
Neumann’s point is worth recalling here: that the study of the causes of
cognitive radicalization should not be considered as unrelated to the study
of behavioural radicalization (Neumann, 2013). This interaction between
cognitive and behavioural is an important aspect in understanding the role
of religion in radicalization. Schmid’s (2013, p. 8) argument that radical-
ism has two domains, thought/attitudinal and action/behavioural, is an
important contribution to our understanding of radicalization, particu-
larly its relationship with violent extremism. In Schmid’s formulation, the
cognitive aspect means advocating sweeping political change, based on a
conviction that the status quo is unacceptable while at the same time a
fundamentally different alternative appears to be available. As for the
behavioural aspect, the means advocated to bring about the system-
transforming radical solution for government and society can be non-
violent and democratic (through persuasion and reform) or violent and
non-democratic (through coercion and revolution).
Radicalization can be considered as adoption of either and/or both
aspects of radicalism. As such, Sinai describes the process “by which indi-
viduals—on their own or as part of a group—begin to be exposed to, and
then accept, extremist ideologies” (Sinai, 2012). This is further explicated
by Trip et al., who suggest that “radicalization is a process of developing
extremist beliefs, emotions, and behaviours. The extremist beliefs are pro-
found convictions that oppose the fundamental values of society, the laws
of democracy and universal human rights by advocating the supremacy of
a particular group (racial, religious, political, economic, social etc.). The
extremist emotions and behaviour can be expressed both in non-violent
pressure and coercion and in actions that deviate from the norm and show
contempt for life, freedom, and human rights” (Trip et al., 2019).
The dominant thinking of radicalization points to a process orientation,
which implies a progression from one point to another, even when the
authors have argued against stages theories; Hafez and Mullins, on the
other hand, have offered a different perspective (Hafez & Mullins, 2015).
First, they have distinguished radicalization of ideas (justifying violence for
90 A. RIAZ
a political goal) from radicalization of action (from legal activism to par-

ticipation in terrorist attacks). This is akin to the discussion we have pre-
sented so far. Second, they have used the metaphor of a puzzle to describe
the radicalization process. According to them, there are four pieces of the
puzzle: personal and collective grievances; networks and interpersonal ties;
support structure, and political or social ideology. They argue, just as with
the different pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, the factors of radicalization are
interconnected and only a combination of them can reveal a complete
image. This perspective of radicalization helps us to understand that the
radicalization process is non-linear, multivariate, and contextualized. I
have adopted this framework to explore the radicalization and use of reli-
gion in the radicalization process in Bangladesh.
The issue of context, which has received far less attention in conven-
tional theories than it deserves, has been highlighted by Matthew Francis
in his model (Francis, 2012). Based on Martha Crenshaw’s study on ter-
rorism (Crenshaw, 1981), Francis suggests that the causes of radicalization
can be grouped into three categories: situational, strategic, and ideologi-
cal. Situational conditions can be sub-grouped into pre-conditions and
precipitants (or drivers), and further divided into two elements—enabling
and motivating.
Nexus of Religion and Radicalization

In recent years, especially after 9/11, religion (in this instance Islam) has
been identified as the primary source or drive of radicalization and terror-
ism. In these discourses radicalization and terrorism have often been used
interchangeably. This became an issue of intense and incessant discussions
in the post-9/11 environment within the context of the so-called Global
War on Terror (GWOT). Some claimed that Islam has served and contin-
ues to serve as the driver of radical thoughts and violent extremist behav-
iours (Silke, 2008). Various counter-terrorism policies and programmes,
focusing on international and domestic arenas, were formulated based on
this understanding. But by 2008, it had become evident that such claims
were not supported by evidence. For example, an MI5 Report revealed
that “[f]ar from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved
in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious liter-
acy and could actually be regarded as religious novices” (Travis, 2008).
Marc Sageman’s seminal study of 500 cases found that religiosity and
terrorist behaviour are not causally linked. The terrorists of his sample
neither had profound literacy in religious texts, nor had they come from
religious families. The most telling finding was that only about one-fourth
of the terrorists in his sample were deeply religious, and then chiefly when
they were young; two-thirds were fervently secular; and the remainder had
converted to Islam. He concluded that the majority of terrorists’ “reli-
gious understanding is limited; they know about as much as any secular
person, which is to say, very little” (Sageman, 2008). In a similar vein,
Fair, Goldstein and Hamza, in their exploration of support for terrorism
in Pakistan, have shown that knowledge of Islam rather predicates less sup-
port for violent extremism (Fair et al., 2017a).
However, three caveats are in order. First, data related to support for
political violence, especially suicide bombing, show that it is significantly
higher among Muslims (Pew Research Center, 2014). Muslims in various
parts of the world to varying degrees stated that they support suicide
attacks. Second, empirical studies have documented that there are positive
correlations between support for particular strands of Islamist politics and
militancy. The relationship is complex because not all Islamist parties or
organizations support violence. However, those who have adopted Islam
as a political ideology with a goal to capture state power or establish a
global order through any means necessary provide a pathway for violent
radicalization. Interestingly, this is not a unique phenomenon for Islamist
politics. Juergensmeyer’s study of six major religions (Islam, Christianity,
Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism and Sikhism) shows that theological justi-
fications can be developed for the adoption of violence. Placed within the
context of a cosmic war, a symbolic and transcendent conflict, violence has
been justified by various religious militant groups around the world. He
writes, “[Religious violence] has much to do with the nature of the reli-
gious imagination, which has always had the propensity to absolutize and
to project images of cosmic war” (Juergensmeyer, 2003, p. 249). The
third caveat is that sectarianism, trying to establish the supremacy of a
particular school of thought or denomination, contributes to the use of
religion as a justification for violence.
Within the model of radicalization (Table 1) religion becomes a factor
when it is transformed into an ideology rather than an act of personal
piety. Religion plays several roles in an individual’s life, including, but not
limited to, offering a meaning in life, a reason for living, a quest for signifi-
cance, an order or a certainty. As I have noted elsewhere (Riaz, 2010), in
the contemporary world, religion of all kinds provides ways to encounter
what Anthony Giddens has described as ontological insecurity. Giddens,
92 A. RIAZ
Table 1 Factors of Radicalization
Category Sub- Examples

categories
Situational Pre- Enabling Developments within modernity, for example the

conditions internet
Motivating Racial and religious discrimination; economic
and social exclusion
Precipitant Foreign policy, e.g. the Iraq war
Strategic Long term Defeat of Western modernity/morality
Short term Attention for aims; fear, etc.
Ideological Non-negotiable beliefs about what is good for
society
Source: Francis (2012)
in his sociological analysis of high modernity, insists that modernity brings

a fundamental change: it breaks down the protective framework offered by
the community and tradition. In a situation like this, Giddens argues, “the
individual feels bereft and alone in a world in which she or he lacks the
psychological support and the sense of security provided by more tradi-
tional settings” (Giddens, 1991, p. 33). Giddens has explained this situa-
tion with two key theoretical formulations, “ontological security” and
“existential anxiety”. Ontological security, according to Giddens, is the
basic need of individuals for “a sense of continuity and order in events,
including those not directly within the perceptual environment of the
individual” (Giddens, 1991, p. 243). It refers to a “person’s fundamental
sense of safety in the world and includes a basic trust of other people”
(Giddens, 1991, p. 38). “To be ontologically secure is to possess, on the
level of the unconscious and practical consciousness, ‘answers’ to funda-
mental existential questions which all human life in some way addresses”
(Giddens, 1991, p. 47). The absence of these answers accentuates existen-
tial anxiety. Giddens further argues that the doubt and insecurity inherent
in our time favours a resurgence of religion (Giddens, 1991, p. 185).
This environment allows various interpretations of religion to be
offered and creates a cognitive opening for individuals to accept different
interpretations. On the one hand, there is the idea of being more pious in
personal life, adhering to the fundamental moral teachings of religion,
practising the rituals with regularity, and adopting a life which is close to
the ideal dispensation of a moral person with an expectation that it will be
rewarded in the afterlife. Personal salvation becomes the goal. On the

other hand, there is the understanding that there is one ‘true’ interpreta-
tion of religion, that it is incumbent upon the adherents to change the
present condition of society and the state through violent ways, because it
is a divine duty ‘in direct response to some theological demand’. This is
not a binary choice, but a broad spectrum; it can take both violent and
non-violent pathways; goals can range from incremental religionization of
society through peaceful means or capturing/creating a state through vio-
lence. The wide variation among Islamists—who have transformed the
religion into an ideology—bears testimony to these differences. However,
the presence of a radical worldview and ideology is not sufficient to radi-
calize individuals, because not every adherent of the religion is becoming
radicalized; instead, other pieces of puzzles need to come together: per-
sonal and collective grievances, networks and interpersonal ties, and sup-
port structure. Furthermore, at the micro level, a precipitant/driver is
essential.
Radicalization Pathway: An Alternative Framework

Hafez and Mullins’ puzzle model and Francis’ categorization help us to
develop a framework to understand the pathway to radicalization. In
doing so, it is also necessary to note that, despite the overarching macro
perspective of radicalization, micro-level factors warrant inclusion to cap-
ture the dynamics. Within and beyond the situational factors, the role of
groups, both as networks and interpersonal ties and support structure, is
immensely important; this is a piece necessary to complete the puzzle of
radicalization. Radicalization is a relational process: as noted by della Porta
(2018, p. 463), “radicalization stems from complex and contingent sets of
interactions among individuals, groups, and institutional actors”. Available
studies, for example Silber and Bhatt (2007, p. 74), Tahiri and Grossman
(2013, p. 42) and Sageman (2004, p. 37), have underscored the signifi-
cance of groups and group dynamics. Denoeux and Carter argue that
group environment becomes the most influential element in individual
behaviour and judgement, meaning it affects both cognitive and behav-
ioural aspects (Denoeux & Carter, 2009, p. 77).
Based on these considerations, and the particular aspects of Bangladesh,
I develop the following model to explain the radicalization process with a
focus on the role of religion. I divide the process/puzzle into three
94 A. RIAZ
categories: situational/preconditions, precipitant/driver and ideological.

The situational category includes two sub-categories: enabling and
motivational.
‘Religious Radicalization’ in Bangladesh:

Two Strands
Bangladesh drew international attention after an audacious attack on a
café in the upscale neighbourhood of the capital Dhaka on 1 July 2016
which killed 29 people, mostly foreigners. The Islamic State of Iraq and
the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the attack (BBC News, 2016).
This was followed by suicide attacks outside Dhaka (Sattar, 2016).
Although the scale and nature of the café attack were unprecedented, it
was not the first time that Bangladesh had witnessed an attack by a militant
group. Between February 2013 and June 2016, there were at least 48
attacks on religious and ethnic minorities, foreigners, liberal activists,
authors and publishers reported in the press, with several fatalities. Militant
groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS)
claimed responsibility for 12 of these attacks while ISIL claimed responsi-
bility for 21. According to the Global Terrorism Database maintained by
the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to
Terrorism (START), between 2000 and 2015, there were at least 114 ter-
rorist acts perpetrated by Islamist militant groups (Fair et al., 2017b).
These incidents demonstrated that violent extremist organizations have
taken a foothold in the country. Consequently, it is being asked in the
media and in public discourse whether the country is witnessing a signifi-
cant process of religious radicalization. The presence of Islamist violent
extremist organizations, and the 2014 public survey data show that 47%
of Bangladeshis support (often and sometimes, combined) suicide bomb-
ing whereas 33% who are opposed to it under all circumstances (Pew
Research Center, 2014), provide a disturbing picture. These also give cre-
dence to the argument of creeping radicalization. This support grew from
44% in 2002 to 47% in 2010 and has remained at that level since (Fair,
Hamza and Heller 2017b). Between 2003 and May 2020, the govern-
ment proscribed eight Islamist militant organizations: Shahadat-e-al
Hikma, Jama’atul Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB), Jagrata Muslim Janata
Bangladesh (JMJB), Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami (HUJI) Bangladesh, Hizb
ut-Tahrir, Ansarullah Bangla Team, Ansar al Islam, and Allah Dal. Ansar al
Islam, formerly known as Ansarullah Bangla Team, claims to be the

Bangladeshi chapter of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS).
While these data clearly point to violent Islamist radicalization, or in
other words the presence of a violent strand of Islamist radicalism and
behaviour, it does not establish whether religion has acted as the driver of
militant behaviour. On the contrary, micro-level data on the profiles of
militants show that they were far from being religious. A study of 112
alleged militants who had been arrested between July 2014 and June
2015, and 38 militants who participated in terrorist acts between July
2016 and June 2017, shows that social networks, such as friends, teachers,
family members and influential persons, play a significant role in radicaliza-
tion. It was also noted that in the case of the majority of those who partici-
pated in violent acts, personal crisis had created the cognitive opening
allowing the individuals to embrace religiosity, particularly a violent radical
interpretation of Islam, propagated by transnational militant Islamist
organizations such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) and al
Qaeda (AQ) (Riaz & Parvez, 2018).
The country has also witnessed another strand of radical religious
worldview and activism gaining strength in recent years. Hefazat-i-Islam
(HI), an umbrella organization of various smaller conservative Islamist
groups, gained prominence in 2013, demanding the government intro-
duce the blasphemy law to punish those who insulted Islam and the
Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), and additionally scrap the women’s devel-
opment policy. The organization called on the government to “end to all
alien cultural practices like immodesty, lewdness, misconduct, culture of
free mixing of the sexes, candle lighting in the name of personal freedom
and free speech”. These demands reveal a radical outlook and worldview.
HI and similar organizations have pursued a line of social Islamization
wherein they intend to Islamize society from below, without explicitly
espousing violence to capture the state.
These two radical Islamist strands represent two avenues of religious
radicalization, as both have adopted Islam as the political ideology, rather
than as personal piety and individual salvation. But these constitute only
one of the four pieces of the puzzle; comprehending the radicalization
requires exploration of other pieces.
96 A. RIAZ
Factors of Radicalization in Bangladesh

The proposed theoretical framework (laid out in Table 2) categorizes the
factors that have influenced the presence of radical religious ideas and
behaviours in Bangladesh into three categories: situational, precipitant/
driver, and ideology. The model also divides the situational factors into
Table 2 Factors of Radicalization in Bangladesh

Category Subcategory Features Examples
Situational/ Enabling Patronization of radical Acrimonious politics since

Pre- ideas and rhetoric; 1991; questioning the
conditions acceptability of intolerance;legitimacy of the rival; rise of
construction of a binary of intolerant behaviour; divisive
good and evil; networks and rhetoric; the growing violence
interpersonal ties; presence in mainstream politics;
of group dynamics emergence and thriving of
Islamist parties; access to
internet and radical ideas
Motivating Sense of alienation; Weak governance; patron—
discrimination; economic client structure of politics; lack
and social exclusion; of access to employment;
unequal access; lack of economic disparity;
recourse; personal and deterioration of law and order
collective grievances and weak social cohesion;
perception of global Muslim
victimhood
Precipitant/ Support structure; social External connections,
driver factors; personal trauma; particularly of violent
life crisis; atonement for extremists; participation in
past transgressions; Afghan War; emergence of
existential anxiety; quest for Jama’atul Mujahideen
significance Bangladesh (JMB); the
government’s tacit approval
Ideological Political or social ideology; Foregrounding of Islam in
non-negotiable beliefs social and political lives;
about what is good for constitutional provisions of
society; accepting state religion; befriending
interpretation of religion/ Islamist parties; providing more
worldview; accepting a space for conservative and
distinct set of moral and literalist interpretation
behavioural standards.
Source: Author
two sub-categories: enabling and motivational. The enabling environment

emerged as a result of the country’s political environment.
Since embarking on the democratic journey in 1991, Bangladeshi poli-
tics has been witnessing the emergence and deepening of an acrimonious
relationship between two major political parties, the Bangladesh Awami
League (AL) and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) (Riaz, 2016a).
Although power had alternated between these two parties through elec-
tions in 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2008, both parties questioned the integrity
of the election when they lost (Schaffer, 2002), failed to strengthen demo-
cratic institutions such as the Election Commission (EC) and failed to
adopt democratic practices within the party (Amundsen, 2016). These, in
combination with the politicization of the administration (Hassan, 2013)
and questioning the legitimacy of the other party, have created a hostile
political environment. Divisive and radical political rhetoric and belliger-
ent posturing were matched with increasing violence by various political
parties (Parvez, 2019). State instruments have been used to persecute
opposition parties and dissenting voices, and the ruling party has connived
with groups which have tried to physically annihilate political leaders.
These are also the markers of authoritarian behaviours of the leaders, as
noted by Levitsky and Ziblatt (2018). With Bangladesh transforming
from an electoral regime to a hybrid regime—that blends democratic rule
and authoritarian governance—not only have lack of accountability and
transparency become the norm but also impunity for the perpetrators of
violence, both state and non-state actors, has become a culture. Restrictions
on freedom of expression and assembly have increased, shrinking the dem-
ocratic space. These factors are conducive to cognitive radicalization of
many kinds, not exclusively of religious variants.
The growing intolerance, on political and religious issues, has become
palpable on various occasions throughout recent years. Violence perpe-
trated by then opposition AL activists in late 2006 ahead of the scheduled
election, the killings of bloggers and liberal voices by violent Islamist
extremist groups beginning in 2013, the government’s volte face on pro-
tecting them and repeated stern warnings by the prime minister and offi-
cials about religious sensitivities, the protests by Jamaat-i-Islami (JI)
activists against the verdicts of the International Crimes Tribunal, agita-
tions by the BNP on the eve of the first anniversary of the 2014 one-sided
election, and in almost all instances heavy-handed measures by the police
and law enforcement agencies are indicative of the acceptance of and
patronization of radical ideas and behaviours. The religionization of
98 A. RIAZ
radical thoughts, or, in other words, making use of the enabling environ-
ment by religious radicals, was made possible because of the presence and
thriving of influential religio-political forces in the political landscape, and
the proliferation of religious rhetoric in politics and society.
Perhaps the most telling example of the intolerance and radicalization
of the mainstream is the face-off between the Gonojagon Mancho (GM,
also referred to as the Shahbag movement), and Hefazat-i-Islam. The for-
mer was a movement demanding capital punishment for those convicted
of crimes against humanity in 1971, insisting on a particular narrative of
history which favours the incumbent and provides justification for the
growing authoritarian bent of the ruling party. The latter, an Islamist
coalition, described the GM activists as “atheists” and the movement as
“anti-Islam” (Zaman, 2018). It also pushed a retrogressive socio-political
agenda. Selective history and intolerance for dissent became the hallmarks
of both movements. The construction of a binary of ‘Us versus Them’ and
painting the rival as the ‘mortal enemy’ by these movements were a reflec-
tion of the deep-seated problem of framing the differences as ‘good versus
evil’. It exacerbated the schism. The events of 2013 have also shown how
hyper-nationalism can become as radical as religious nationalism.
Technology has made contributions in creating networks and ties,
enabling radicalization. Easy access to the internet and the availability of
radical thoughts, and particularly the use of the internet as a vehicle of
recruitment b transnational extremist groups, have made serious impacts.
Many authors, for example Awan (2007), O’Rourke (2007), Tucker
(2010) and von Behr et al. (2013), have argued that the internet is a tool
of radicalization. In the context of violent Islamist extremism and transna-
tional terrorism, the internet has been variously described, for example as
a ‘driver’ (Birdwell & Briggs, 2009), ‘accelerant’ (Pantucci, 2011) and
‘echo chamber’ (Saddiq, 2011). While these studies have focused on
Islamist radicalization, we must be cognizant of the fact that the use of the
internet, and particularly social media, as a tool of radicalization is not
limited to Islamists, and appears to have flourished in recent year, and
violent right-wing radicalism has grown with its help (Board, 2018), with
radical groups using it extensively to propagate their ideology and recruit
members (Koehler, 2014).
Until the 2016 café attack and the real-time broadcast of the attack via
ISIS internet channels, little attention had been paid to the role of social
media in radicalization in Bangladesh. Recent studies have shown that
Bangladeshi violent radical Islamists have used the internet as a powerful
tool to reach out to potential members. Fair notes that “Bangladesh’s

rapid digitalisation, notably as a result of the Digital Bangladesh policy put
forth in Vision 2021 (the Awami League’s political manifesto for the 2008
National Elections) has led to a substantial increase of Internet users in the
country. With propaganda materials available online, terrorist organiza-
tions such as IS have been highly successful in managing to attract and
radicalize young individuals. What is more, security and counter-terrorism
experts believe that a new generation of Islamists terrorists, earlier linked
to JMB or Ansar, now identify more directly with IS than with home-
grown entities” (Fair, 2019). Riaz and Pervez, in their study of the profiles
of 150 militants, found that use of the internet is one of the four factors
which have played a pivotal role in radicalization, the remaining three
being social relationships, personal crises and external relations (Riaz &
Parvez, 2018). Parvez’s extensive study on Bangladeshi militants’ social
media presence shows that they use it extensively for various purposes,
such as propaganda, fundraising and recruitment (Parvez, 2017). A
Bangladeshi police study claimed in 2017 that around 82% of arrested
violent extremists were radicalized through propaganda content on vari-
ous social media platforms (Corraya, 2017).
There are various motivating factors of radicalization in Bangladesh,
but broadly they contribute to a sense of alienation and exclusion. While
Bangladesh has achieved significant economic growth in the past decade,
the benefits have not been shared by all classes of people. On the one
hand, the country became the home of the fastest-growing super rich
(New Age, 2019) and per capita income grew (Uddin, 2020), while on
the other hand income inequality increased (Byron & Parvez, 2019) and
job opportunities shrank (Raihan, 2018). Economic disparity has been
matched by weak social cohesion (Riaz, 2019), weak governance, and a
poor law and order situation. These factors do not point to a role of reli-
gion but rather deep discontent about the present system of governance.
The feeling that a radical change is the only way to address the situation
creates the cognitive opening. The perception of global Muslim victim-
hood, the double standard of the West, the plight of Muslims in Palestine
and Kashmir, the US invasion of Iraq, often presented and interpreted
through the religious prism, bring religion into the mix.
One of the key precipitants or drivers of radicalization is personal loss
and trauma. Our analysis of 150 militants in Bangladesh has shown that
those who were engaged in violent extremism experienced personal loss
and life crises (Riaz & Parvez, 2018). This is often matched with
100 A. RIAZ
existential anxiety and a quest for significance. As mentioned, religion is

more likely to provide comfort.
But it is also necessary to note that religion is not the only way of
addressing these micro-level factors. The micro-level element of radical-
ization has drawn the attention of academics and policymakers in recent
years. For example, McCauley and Moskalenko note, “Chechen Black
Widows are described as seeking revenge against Russians for their own
experience of rape or for the deaths of their menfolk. Tamil Tigers of the
suicide brigades called ‘Black Tigers’ are often described as survivors of
Sinhalese atrocities” (McCauley & Moskalenko, 2008). However, per-
sonal factors can become a driver if a support structure is not available to
the individual, and the support structure is often provided by existing
organizations. In the case of Bangladesh, violent extremist organizations
such as JMB, and later ISIL and AQIS, became the vehicle of such a sup-
port system, and thus the religious dimension of radicalization became
prominent. Externally funded and operated organizations and groups
have been active since the late 1980s (Riaz, 2016b). The BNP-led govern-
ment’s tacit approval of militant organizations during the 2001–2006
period has also been perceived by individuals as a support system.
The final piece of the puzzle is the ideological dimension. The rise of
religion, in this instance Islam, as a political ideology in Bangladesh is the
result of a long historical and political process since its independence.
Although in its constitution Bangladesh declares ‘secularism’ as one of the
state principles, promises neutrality of the state regarding religion, and
proscribes religion-based political parties, these steps have not settled the
question of institutional arrangement between religion and politics. There
was a discrepancy between secularism as stipulated in the constitution and
as practised, and the meaning of secularism was ambiguous. An elite-
constructed grand narrative of national history was propagated which
failed to recognize the internal tensions and misunderstandings surround-
ing secularism, and ignored the ubiquity of Islam in the culture and daily
lives of the masses. The perceived settlement between religion and politics
and the founding of a secular state were reversed through constitutional
changes, for example in 1977 the military regime of Ziaur Rahman
(1975–1981) removed secularism as a state principle, and subsequently a
ban on religion-based parties was rescinded. This provided the space for
Islamist parties to reappear in the political landscape, particularly as the
multiparty system was reintroduced in 1979. Ziaur Rahman’s successor,
General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who usurped state power in 1982
through another coup, declared Islam the state religion in 1988 in his bid
to gain political legitimacy. While a crisis of legitimacy was an important
factor in such moves, these rulers also wanted to create a different identity
for the citizens of Bangladesh which reflected both its territorial and reli-
gious aspects.
These developments were matched by the opposition parties’ approach
to the Islamist parties. Islamist parties had become influential actors in
mainstream politics by the mid-1980s. Opposition parties, including the
ostensibly secular Awami League, befriended Islamists. The BNP has
always insisted on a role of religion in the socio-political life of the
Bangladeshis. Throughout the pro-democracy movement (1982–1990),
Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), the party proscribed in 1972, worked closely with
both the BNP and the AL. After 1991, the party continued to switch sides
and appeared as the kingmaker until 2008. In addition to the organiza-
tional relationship between Islamists and the self-described secularist par-
ties, religion came to the forefront as various political parties began to
adopt Islamic discourses and use religious symbols and icons on a regular
basis after 1991. This not only marked a shift of party positions on the role
of religion in the public sphere but also reaffirmed that religion, particu-
larly Islam, is deeply rooted in the social milieu of the country.
The re-emergence of Islam as a side effect of mobilization and ideology
was also interpreted as “the strength of Islam as a strong ideology” (Khan,
1985, p. 831). Huque and Akhter argue that “considering the nature of
Bangladeshi society and the various institutions and forces operating
within it, the entrenchment and resurgence of Islam in the country are not
surprising. The only attempt at secularizing the country failed as the soci-
ety and the overwhelming Muslim majority of its population did not
undergo a change of lifestyle and outlook” (Huque & Akhter, 1987).
In 2011, with the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment of the constitu-
tion, many argued that the ‘Islamist tide’ has been reversed, as secularism
was reinstated in the constitution as one of the state principles. However,
the constitution retained Islam as the state religion.
In past decades, particularly since the 1990s, a distinct new trend has
emerged insofar as Islam in politics is concerned. Organizations which
promote a literalist interpretation of Islam have proliferated. The growth
of the Ahle Hadith movement is a case in point. Organizations with the
agenda of establishing an Islamic state, or a variant of it, have not only
increased but many of them have advanced the notion that there is a uni-
versal interpretation of Islam. They have declared some traditional
102 A. RIAZ
practices ‘un-Islamic’ or bida’t (innovation), branded individuals with

contrarian views as ‘infidels’ or ‘apostates’ and demanded stricter punish-
ments for them. Many have called for legislating blasphemy law to force
individuals to comply. The proliferation of these organizations and the
growing appeal of the literalist interpretation is tied to external influence
(Riaz, 2009), which has come through the media, short-term migration of
Bangladeshis to the Middle Eastern countries, and the presence of various
Islamic non-government organizations.
The foregrounding of Islam not only provided the backdrop for creat-
ing a conducive environment for Islamists to claim a space in politics but
also for projecting Islam as a worldview, and a moral code. In the absence
of an alternative hegemonic ideology, Islam has been projected and
accepted as the non-negotiable belief system. Such an approach to a reli-
gion or an ideology makes its adherents prone to adopt a radical mindset,
and the cognitive aspect of radicalization becomes easy to achieve.
The success of radical organizations in achieving its desired goals, even
incrementally, provides legitimacy to radical ideas and pathways. The
move of the incumbent AL to appease the HI and accept its demands is
testimony to the normalization of religious radicalism. The ruling party
began to succumb to the pressure and accepted some of the demands
between January and May 2017. The reason for the ruling Awami League’s
gradual, yet decisive, move towards embracing the Islamists’ agenda is
intrinsically connected to the legitimacy crisis of the government since the
controversial election in 2014 and growing authoritarianism. Jasmine
Lorch, in an insightful study, showed how a combination of three fac-
tors—the rise of Islamist social movements, fierce political competition
and (semi-) authoritarian rule—has contributed to “a top-down process of
state-led Islamization in Bangladesh” (Lorch, 2019). The impact and
importance of the ‘top-down’ process notwithstanding, Islamization of
the society and polity, which demonstrates the heightened role of religion
in the public sphere, also happens through bottom-up progression. In the
case of Bangladesh, one strand of the Islamization process has been from
the bottom up (Rahman, 2019), through the emergence of a new Islamic
public sphere (Riaz, 2013).
Conclusions
In the context of a growing presence of violent religious extremist groups
in Bangladesh, this chapter has explored the relationship between religion
and radicalization. Through problematizing the juxtaposition of radical-
ization and violent extremism, this chapter has underscored the need for
differentiating these two phenomena. In a similar vein, it has underlined
that radicalization is not by definition violent; it can be peaceful too. The
two dimensions of radicalization, cognitive and behavioural, are impor-
tant. While behavioural radicalization presupposes a cognitive shift, cogni-
tive shift alone is not sufficient for adoption of violence. Our discussion
has demonstrated that radicalization does not involve a process of various
stages, nor is it a progression in a linear manner. Instead, it is argued that
it is a complex relational process, and the coming together of four pieces
of a puzzle allows radicalization. Consequently, this chapter offers a model
with three aspects: situational/preconditions, a precipitant/driver and
ideological factors. The intersection of religion and radicalization takes
place when religion emerges as an ideology.
The chapter has argued that religious radicalization in Bangladesh is
intrinsically connected to the country’s political environment, as it created
a conducive environment for radicalization, both religious and non-
religious; and growing violence has paved the way for radicalization.
Patronization of radical ideas and the construction of a binary between
‘good’ and ‘evil’ have served as the enabling environment. Grievances—
personal and collective—due to economic disparity, weak governance and
the structure of politics have motivated individuals to espouse radical
ideas, and some have found a particular interpretation of religion as the
answer to these crises. Violent extremist organizations have offered the
necessary support structure, in many instances through the internet. One
of the key elements is the emergence of Islam as a political ideology, and
the widespread use of religious rhetoric by political parties of different
hues. State-led, top-down Islamization, under military regimes and civil-
ian governments, especially due to the legitimacy crisis, has significantly
contributed to the process. However, the country has also witnessed the
bottom-up Islamization process, which also plays a role in shaping religion
as an ideology.
104 A. RIAZ
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The Making of Minorities in Bangladesh:
Legacies, Policies and Practice
Meghna Guhathakurta
Introduction
I remember one occasion in the mid-1990s, sitting at a conference on
Bangladesh, listening to a former student of mine who was then attached
to the Bangladesh Embassy in Berlin. She was immensely happy to see me
in the audience and addressed me with glowing tributes. But then she
dropped a bombshell. As she began the official address she said in a stri-
dent tone “there are no minorities in Bangladesh”. Participants who came
mostly from development partners based in Europe and civil rights activ-
ists in Bangladesh who were having to confront discrimination and vio-
lence against religious and ethnic minorities in their daily lives could not
believe their ears. They turned on me accusingly, saying, “What did you
teach her? She’s denying your existence!” I tried to fend off the accusa-
tions by muttering about the official position of the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, but the politics underlying such a position needed to be clearly
articulated.
M. Guhathakurta (*)
Research Initiatives Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh

110 M. GUHATHAKURTA
In a situation of growing global extremism, Bangladesh was often

alluded to as a moderate Muslim majority country. This gave Bangladesh
policy makers a better position to negotiate with the western world than
other countries in the region which showed more visible signs of radical-
ization. At the same time, any signs of internal dissension arising between
majoritarian state policies and religious and ethnic minorities in the
domestic space could be drowned out by referring to the Bangladesh
Constitution, where technically speaking the word ‘minority’ was not
used. This gave rise to defensive statements on the part of the Government
such as the one referred to in the above incident.
To truly understand the dynamics that were and continue to be working
in the state of Bangladesh with respect to rights of minorities, religious and
ethnic, we need to understand not so much the presence or absence of the
term ‘minority’ in the Constitution but rather the constitutional construc-
tion of minorities in the Bangladeshi state and the debates ensuing from it
to the laws, politics and governance that dictated its development.
Constitutional Construction of Minorities—

Religious and Ethnic
The Bangladeshi state, predicated on the ideals of Bengali nationalism,
lent itself to the construction of ethnic and linguistic minorities. Subsequent
political developments which brought in Islamic ideals in the practice of
statecraft helped to recreate constructions of religious minorities, which
had been deeply entrenched in the construction of the Pakistani state. The
following clauses derived from the Constitution of Bangladesh demon-
strate this (Government of Bangladesh, 1972).
Article 9 of the Constitution defines Bengali nationalism as: “The unity
and solidarity of the Bengali nation, which deriving its identity from its
language and culture, attained sovereign and independent Bangladesh
through a united and determined struggle in the war of independence,
shall be the basis of Bengali nationalism”.
Article 6, part 1 declares that the citizens of Bangladesh are to be
known as Bengalis. The imposition of these clauses upon the entire popu-
lation of Bangladesh turned the non-Bengali-speaking population of the
state into ethnic minorities as Bengali became a cultural category (Mohsin,
2003). Through Article 3, part 1, Bengali was adopted as the state lan-
guage. This turned the non-Bengali-speaking people into linguistic
minorities as well.
THE MAKING OF MINORITIES IN BANGLADESH: LEGACIES, POLICIES… 111
Since most of the above populations also professed religions other than
Islam, they also constituted a religious minority. But in the category of
religious minorities, the largest component was the Hindus (approxi-
mately 10 per cent of the population), who were also mostly Bengali
speaking. Alienation of religious minorities arose out of the gradual
Islamification of the state policies, which eventually were also reflected in
constitutional reforms, as outlined below.
Secularism was one of the four pillars of the first Constitution that was
drafted in post-independence Bangladesh. This principle was constructed
largely in response to the use of Islam as an ideology of domination by the
Pakistani state vis a vis the Bengali population. During the 1971 Liberation
War of Bangladesh the military crackdown and genocide committed by
the Pakistani Army was often justified by calling the Bengali Muslims kaf-
firs, or non-believers, or Hindus. Needless to mention, non-Muslims in
East Bengal were especially targeted. Thus the way in which secularism
entered the political discourse in Bangladesh did not mean the absence of
religion or a separation of the state from religion, but rather that each
individual was allowed to observe their own religion and interference in
others’ beliefs was prohibited. It also noted that religion could not be used
for political ends.
Article 12 of the first draft of the Constitution stated that the principle
of secularism should be realized as follows:
(a) communalism in all its forms

(b) the granting of the state of political status in favour of any religion
(c) the abuse of religion for political purposes
(d) any discrimination against, or persecution of persons practising a
particular religion
(e) no persons shall have a right to form or be a member or otherwise
take part in the activities of, any communal or other associations or
unions which in the name or on the basis of any religion has for its
object, or persons a political purpose (GoB, 1972, p. 27)
The above principle resulted in a state practice where all religions were
tolerated, for example in ceremonial state functions not only the Quran
Tilawat would be recited but also verses from the Gita, Bible and Tripit ̣aka.
Such tolerance at the religious level was, however, not matched with
toleration of ethnically and linguistic diverse populations.
112 M. GUHATHAKURTA
Well intentioned as the above clauses of secularism were, these notions

could not withstand the political turmoil of the mid-1970s, which saw the
assassination of President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman by a bloody coup and
the eventual takeover of President Ziaur Rahman, first as Chief Martial
Law Administrator and then as President. The constitutional changes
which accompanied this political changeover of power were equally radi-
cal. Secularism as a principle of statehood was replaced with the clause
“the principles of absolute trust and faith in the Almighty Allah”. Socialism
was replaced with the phrase “economic and social justice”.1 It was also a
time when the banned party of Jamaat-e-Islami, which had collaborated
with the Pakistani Army, was rehabilitated back into mainstream politics.
The year 1981 saw the assassination of President Ziaur Rahman, and
from 1982 to 1991 Bangladesh came under the autocratic rule of General
Ershad. A further constitutional amendment (the Eighth Amendment)
declared Islam to be the state religion of Bangladesh. It was a ploy to use
Islam as a policy of statecraft so as to gain more friends and allies in the
Islamic countries, as well as to legitimize Ershad’s autocratic rule. It is
interesting to note that even the right-wing parties such as Jamaat-e-Islami
opposed this since it fell short of their ideal, which was to make Bangladesh
into an Islamic Republic.
The 1990s witnessed a further deterioration of communal harmony in
the region due to the attack on the Babri Masjid by Hindu fundamental-
ists in India. This created a backlash against Hindu lives and property in
Bangladesh. The election year of 2001 also witnessed post-poll violence
against Hindus in particular, as they were considered to be vote banks of
the defeated party, the Awami League. State-instigated communalism,
which had been absent in the early years of Bangladesh’s independence,
had made itself a regular feature of the political landscape.
Jamaat-e-Islami, the party which gave a national platform to the many
Islamic extremist groups, officially disagreed with many of the
Government’s ‘Islamization’ policies. They largely saw them as compro-
mise formulas by populist governments. It was therefore not surprising to
see them mobilizing against the very regime which had strengthened them
substantively. And it was thus ironic that at the end of the pro-democratic
movement against Ershad’s autocratic regime not only did a
fundamentalist party emerge stronger than before, but a democratically
elected government was also formed with their support.
1
Government, of Bangladesh, the Constitution of the peoples republic of Bangladesh, 1972.
All these developments had an adverse effect on minority communities.

Their sense of alienation deepened as Islam, the religion of the dominant
community, gradually became woven into the national identity of the
Bangladeshi state, which culminated in the Eighth Amendment. Although
the Eighth Amendment provided that minorities could observe their
respective religions peacefully, the government did not seem to be very
concerned with this. Debates in the National Assembly were dominated
by an apologetic argument that the equality clause and fundamental rights
would be sufficient to safeguard against abuse, but it totally disregarded
the concerns expressed by minorities.
Minority groups within Bangladesh were also threatened in retaliation
for the unfortunate development of Hindu nationalism in India. The inci-
dent of the attack on the Babri Masjid in India by Hindu right-wing
groups in 1992 brought a backlash against Hindu temples, life and prop-
erty all over Bangladesh. Even Christians and Buddhists were not spared.
There were reasons to believe that these acts of omission and commission
were also politically instigated. The Ershad regime, facing pressure from
the opposition coalitions for a free and fair election under a caretaker gov-
ernment, found it politically expedient to divert the public’s attention by
letting ‘communal forces’ take the upper hand and thereafter trying to
patch things up when most of the damage had already been done.
Discourse and Practices Related

to Ethnic Minorities
Neither the Constitution of Bangladesh framed in 1972 nor the more

recent Fifteenth Amendment (passed on 30 June 2011) gave recognition
to ‘indigenous’ (Adibasis) groups in the country or offered any safeguards
for the protection of their rights. Rather, they were termed ‘tribals’ (upo-
jati in Bangla, which is considered a very derogatory term by indigenous
peoples) and “small ethnic groups” (khudra jatisatta) (Article 23, Ka13).
This was protested by indigenous peoples of the country as they had lob-
bied hard for constitutional recognition. They also refuted the use of the
term upo-jati or ‘tribal’ in an Act called the Small Ethnic Minority Cultural
Institution Act 2010, which was passed by the government to promote
cultural development of ethnic minorities both on the plains and in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT).
114 M. GUHATHAKURTA
The crux of this problem lay in the reluctance of the government to

ratify Convention 169 of the ILO which gives indigenous communities
the right over customary lands and cultural practices. However, this is a
misperception among some quarters within the government. Both the
ILO Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and the earlier
Convention 107 are applicable to indigenous people no matter what term
the government uses to refer to them.
Although a hesitancy to use the word indigenous in diplomatic circles
had existed in previous regimes, the Bangladesh Government first offi-
cially objected to the use of the term ‘indigenous’ at the 10th session of
the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues held in May
2011. A former member of the Permanent Forum was appointed as a
Special Rapporteur to prepare a study on the status of the implementation
of the 1997 CHT Accord. Among the recommendations in the study were
two which were directed to the UN Department of Peacekeeping
Operations. The study recommended that the UN develop a system to
monitor and screen the human rights records of military officers in
Bangladesh and prevent human rights violators from taking part in the
peacekeeping forces. It should be mentioned here that Bangladesh sup-
plies the highest number of peace keepers in the world and that there are
allegations of human rights violations by military personnel in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), which successive governments have failed
to address over the years. The Government of Bangladesh stated that since
there were no indigenous people in Bangladesh, there was no locus standi
for the Permanent Forum to discuss matters related to the CHT. It should
also be mentioned here that the present government led by the Awami
League mentions the terms Adibasi and ‘indigenous’ in their election
manifesto and also delivered public messages of solidarity in favour of
indigenous peoples before their landslide victory in December 2008.
The Government of Bangladesh after its independence ratified
Convention 107, which also supports the rights of indigenous people, but
is not as elaborate as the later Convention 169. The Government claims
that the Bangladesh Constitution does guarantee equal rights for all its
citizens (Article 26) regardless of religion, caste or creed. However, such
a clause does not recognize Indigenous Peoples as separate nationalities,
having distinct cultures, traditions, customs, ways of life and land tenure
systems (common property concept and practices), nor does it recognize
discrimination on the basis of mother-tongue/language, which is one of
the basic contentions of the Urdu-speaking/Bihari minority groups resid-

ing in Bangladesh.
The dispute has come to a head in recent times in the following context:
(a) The Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution did not provide

constitutional recognition of indigenous peoples as indigenous
peoples (Adibasi), rather terming them tribals (upo-jati), small
nationalities (Khudro Jatishotta), ethnic groups and communities
(Khudro Nrigoshti), terminologies that are not accepted by the
indigenous peoples.
(b) The Fifteenth Amendment provided that the people of Bangladesh
shall be known as Bengali as a nation and the citizens of Bangladesh
shall be known as Bangladeshis. Indigenous peoples of Bangladesh
do not want to be known as Bengali. They rejected the term, say-
ing that they are Bangladeshi as citizens but are not ‘Bengali’ as a
nation/community, since they possess a separate identity, culture,
customs, language and society.
(c) The then foreign minister herself as well as representatives of the
Foreign Ministry in various national and international forums,
including the recent Economic and Social Council meeting held
in Geneva on July 30, 2011, gave statements that there were no
‘indigenous people’ in Bangladesh. According to them, ethnic
minorities in Bangladesh have been termed variously ‘late settlers’,
‘asylum seekers’ and ‘migrants’ and hence not original settlers in
the sense used in the Austro-American context. These terms have
been vehemently opposed by indigenous leaders as well as by main-
stream civil society groups including the International CHT
Commission.
(d) The situation has, however, had the effect of fuelling movements
on the part of indigenous leadership supported by many civil liber-
ties groups to continuously lobby to uphold indigenous peoples’
rights in Bangladesh.
Minorities both in the numerical sense and in the sense of ‘voice’ have
thus undeniably been a factor in the politics of Bangladesh ever since its
emergence. The highlights of such political dynamics will be discussed in
two following sections: one relating to religious minorities, the other to
ethnic minorities.
116 M. GUHATHAKURTA
Policies, Politics and Governance—

Religious Minorities
According to the 2011 Census, Muslims in Bangladesh constitute 89.7
per cent of the population, with Hindus at 9.2 per cent, Buddhists at 0.7
per cent, Christians at 0.3 per cent, and others like animists or believers in
other faiths at 0.1 per cent (Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information
and Statistics, 2014: www.banbeis.gov.bd/bd_pro.htm) making up the
balance. The politics surrounding religious minorities are based on poli-
cies towards the Hindu religious minority that historically originate in the
1947 partition of the Indian subcontinent into India and Pakistan. This
legacy brings with it two important cornerstones that are reflected in the
policies of the Bangladesh state towards religious minorities: land (prop-
erty) and representation (elections). These are reflected in the politics
behind the Vested Property Act and resultant appropriation of Hindu
property and consequent migration often known as the ‘silent exodus’,
and the use of the Hindu vote bank by the current ruling party, the
Awami League.
The zamindari system (a land revenue system introduced by the British
in 1793) was the basis of the political economy of British Bengal until it
was abolished by the East Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act of
1950. The post-partition migration of many Hindu zamindars of East
Bengal to India left behind opportunities for the state and rural elite to
acquire such property legally and illegally. This trend continued as post-
partition communal violence created a steady exodus of Hindus into India.
This trend was aggravated by the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 that gave
birth to another law that was termed a ‘black law’, the Enemy Property
Act, that remained instated after the emergence of Bangladesh as the
Vested Property Act.
Abul Barkat and his colleagues examine the Vested Property Act in
Bangladesh (Barkat et al., 2008) and how it affected the Hindu popula-
tion, focusing on the figures that indicated a continuing silent exodus of
the Hindu population from Bangladesh from the time of Partition to date.
According to their statistics, over the last 40 years, since 1961, the relative
share of the Hindu population declined from 18.4 per cent of the total
population in 1961 to 12.1 per cent in 1981, to 10.5 per cent in 1991 and
further down to 9.2 per cent in 2001. There was a corresponding rise in
the relative share of the Muslim population from 80.4 per cent in 1961 to
86.7 per cent in 1981, 88.3 per cent in 1981 and 89.7 per cent in 1991.
It was estimated in 2007 that the Hindu population may have decreased
further to 8 per cent and the corresponding Muslim population may have
increased up to 92 per cent. This general trend was also traced by the
researchers in 16 sample districts (Barkat et al., 2008, pp. 62–75)
It is estimated from the above statistics that the decline in the rate of
the Hindu population over the years was the result of a silent and steady
out-migration. For this the figures quoted are as follows. Assuming the
percentage of the Hindu population in 1961 was 18.4 per cent, given
comparable mortality and fertility rates, the absolute size of the Hindu
population in 2001 would have been 22.8 million instead of 11.4 million
as reported in the census, that is, twice the actual size. This meant that
mass out-migration (mostly to India) was a reality during this period. The
statistics indicate a further 1.8 million missing Hindu citizens during
1981–1991, and 2.8 million missing during 1991–2001 (Barkat et al.,
2008, p. 67).
The Vested Property Act and Dispossession of Hindu-owned Land

When the two-nation theory was accepted by the Muslim League in the
1930s, it gave rise to a Muslim identity politics that became part and par-
cel of an official discourse in the state of Pakistan. In East Pakistan, such a
discourse had consequences for a large part of the Hindu landed gentry
residing within the borders of what was to become Pakistan after the parti-
tion of the sub-continent. The violence that accompanied Partition caused
many Hindus to flee in large numbers, mostly on the Punjab front, but
also in waves on the eastern flanks, that is, the Bengal border. As many
accounts of Partition recount,2 the movement at the Bengal border
occurred in waves and peaked during the communal riots of the 1950s
and 1960s, just prior to and after the 1965 Indo-Pakistani War. This mas-
sive flow of out-migration created a serious administration problem of
managing the leftover properties of evacuees. Using this as an excuse and
with the growing hostilities with India, the Pakistani state promulgated
some detrimental acts and ordnances, which were to leave behind a legacy
of communal politics for many years to come.
The act which helped to destroy the fabric of communal harmony in
East Bengal was made under an executive order on 9 September 1965
(during the Indo-Pakistani War) and was called the Enemy Property
2
xxx.
118 M. GUHATHAKURTA
(Custody and Registration) Order II of 1965. Preceding this act there

were many smaller acts promulgated to administer the properties of the
evacuees and which paved the way for this ultimate act. These were the
Government of East Bengal Requisition of Property Act (Act XIII of
1948) as a temporary measure of 3 years, which indirectly through
Ordinance No. V/80.5.2 has had direct or indirect continuity through
to the present day. Other such acts were the East Bengal Evacuees
(Administration of Immovable Property) Act 1951, the East Pakistan
Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation Ordinance 1964, and Ordinance I of
1964. All of these acts created the pretext for the State to intervene,
supervise, manage and later even transfer the property of evacuees and
persons dislocated and affected by communal disturbances. The conse-
quences of such ordinances were that they alienated the Hindu minori-
ties in Bangladesh, and later other religious and indigenous communities
as well, from their ownership, entitlement and right to manage their own
property. Such a legal regime also laid the system wide open for manipu-
lation by vested interest groups and the adoption of corruption and mal-
practice by different levels of administration (Barkat et al., 2008,
pp. 49–50).
In the Enemy Property Act, India was declared an enemy territory and
all enlisted properties of the ‘enemy’, meaning minorities who had fled to
India, were to be taken by state control for management, and benefits
accruing from business relating to such properties would also fall under
the control of the state. The war lasted only 17 days. But the way in which
these acts alienated and dispossessed the minority community in the years
to come raised questions about the ulterior motive behind them.
With the independence of Bangladesh, the Enemy Property Act should
have logically been abolished, as it was not in line with the spirit of the
1972 Constitution, or the proclamation of Independence (10 April 1971).
But immediately after liberation, the Government of Bangladesh enforced,
on 26 March 1972, the Bangladesh Vesting of Property and Assets Order,
1972, by virtue of which properties left behind by the Pakistanis and erst-
while enemy properties were considered to be a single category. In 1974,
when the Government repealed the past 1969 Ordinance, it only meant
that all enemy properties of firms which were entrusted to the custodians
of enemy property in then East Pakistan remained vested in the Government
of Bangladesh under the banner of Vested Property.
In 1976, the Government of Bangladesh repealed the previous act only

to consolidate it even further. The Government was not only to administer
and manage the vested properties, but also to dispose of or transfer the
same on a long-term basis. Such developments indicate that the political
and legal regime was becoming increasingly hostile to minority communi-
ties, and the dispossession of land was a game being played out with high
stakes and at a high administrative level corroborating strongly with vested
interests at the political level.
There was then a partial thaw, as external pressures were felt in the
aftermath of the backlash against the Hindu community, which occurred
as a reaction of the attack on the Babri Masjid in India. This incident of
communal hatred against the minority community in Bangladesh brought
about strong international reaction, which was brought to bear on the
then Government in power. In 1984, President Ershad, Chief Martial Law
Administrator, issued a series of circulars where it was stated that no new
property would be enlisted under Vested Property, and that properties
already enlisted could no longer be disposed of. He also issued a circular
saying that Hindu properties would be managed according to Hindu laws
of ownership and inheritance. Both external and internal lobby groups like
the Bangladesh Hindu Bouddha Christian Oikyo Parishod, which was
formed primarily as a response to the Eighth Amendment which declared
Islam to be the state religion, were responsible for such measures.
However, these internal circulars were never translated into actual policies,
as successive regimes, especially in the BNP—Jamaat-e-Islami coalition
phase, further illustrated.
Abul Barkat and his colleagues in their study illustrate graphically
through case studies the process of dispossession of Hindu households
through the Vested Property Act.3 From a case study of Hindu households
in two different studies in 1997 and 2006 respectively, they estimate that
the “true amount of lost assets for an average affected Hindu household
due to EPA/VPA, for the whole period between 1965 and 2006 would be
Tk. 889, 517” (Barkat et al., 2008, p. 127). Through graphic in-depth
case studies, the researchers demonstrate that the dispossession took place
by various means, illegal occupants conniving with land officials, through
violence relating to control of harvest, use of forced eviction techniques by
administration, by using forged documents by bribing relevant
3
xxx.
120 M. GUHATHAKURTA
authorities, using the death or migration of family members as a pretext

for occupation, and the grabbing of land by officials themselves.
The Awami League, when it came to power in 1996 under the pressure
of internal lobby groups, did adopt the Vested Property Restoration Act
2001 in the 22nd session of the Jatiyo Sangsad (National Parliament) on
11 April, 2001, repealing the Vested Property Act. This act ensured the
return of vested properties to their rightful owners and described proce-
dures in which this could be done. The act, though welcomed, did not
escape criticism by civil society groups, who suggested amendments to
make it more foolproof for victims of land dispossession. As it stands now,
the new act is yet to be properly implemented, and experts and civil society
groups await consultation for further proposed amendments.
Majoritarian Democracies: The Politics of the Vote Bank

In a state dominated by one religious community, minorities tend to
become a vote bank for one major political party, one that they consider
to be the more secular. Therefore, traditionally Muslims in India are con-
sidered to be the vote banks for the Congress and Hindus have been con-
sidered to be a vote bank for the Awami League in pre-1971 Pakistan and
post-1971 Bangladesh. In recent times, however, the politics of the vote
bank have assumed an ugly character. For example, in Bangladesh the
numbers game is being used by the state to serve its interest, which is to
establish the hegemony of Muslim Bengalis vis a vis other communities. In
the post-2001 election violence against Hindus in the southwest of
Bangladesh, largely known as the ‘Hindu belt’ as there are many pockets
where Hindus are a majority, the political vendetta against Hindus was
carried out systematically by aiming to destroy their economic backbone
and to terrorize them into fleeing to India. Land grabbing was an impor-
tant part of the whole objective. Events in the Chittagong Hill Tracts also
bear out the fact that this process is being used against ethnic minorities as
well (Guhathakurta, 2008).
Ever since elections ceased to become truly participatory either through
the non-participation of a major opposition party (2008) or through
unashamedly rigged polls (2018), the dependency on a vote bank has
decreased and made this community even more vulnerable in terms of
protection of their lives and property.
Policies, Politics and Governance—Ethnic

Minorities (CHT and Plainlands)
In the Government Census of 2001, the figure for ethnic population or
indigenous groups is recorded as 1,410,169 persons. In the plainlands the
total population is listed as 817,192 and in the Chittagong Hill Tracts,
592,977. Indigenous peoples’ organizations disagree with these figures and
mention that their true combined population would be over 2.5 million
(Tribal Welfare Association [TWA], Jatio Adivasi Parishad and Adivasi
Forum). Given the above variations, the percentage of indigenous popula-
tion comes to about 1 to 2 per cent of the total population of Bangladesh.
Research by Barkat et al. (2009) puts it at 1.2 per cent of the total population.
The Census of 2001 did not disaggregate the population according to
ethnic groups, while in the Census of 1991 population was desegregated
according to ethnic group. The Census of 1991 mentioned 29 ‘tribal’/
ethnic groups in the country. Closer scrutiny reveals that there are some
repetitions in the list prepared in the 1991 Census (pp. 133/134). For
instance, ‘Tipra’ and ‘Tripura’ are the same group, but listed separately.
Similarly, ‘Murang’, ‘Muro/Mo’ and ‘Urang’ are mentioned separately in
the Census. The names of these three ethnic groups, in fact, refer to the
same ethnic group, ‘Mru’. Populations of Adivasis in the Census are said
to be “too low …undercounting has been done deliberately to emphasize
the marginality of the Adivasi population” (Timm, 1991, p. 11).
Number of Ethnic Groups

There is controversy with regard to the number of indigenous groups in
Bangladesh. As mentioned above, the Bangladesh Government mentions
the existence of 29 tribes in the country. The Small Ethnic Minority
Cultural Institution Act 2010 mentions 27 ethnic groups. The Adibasi
Forum speaks of 45 ethnic groups and some others speak of over 50 eth-
nic groups in the country. Some indigenous experts, however, note that
the actual number cannot be more than 36, because sub-groups of tribes
or Hindu scheduled castes are being classified using separate names
(Timm, 1991). However, the Chittagong Hill Tracts encompass 11 (often
14) ethnic groups and 31 ethnic groups live in the plainlands. In the
absence of a thorough study on indigenous peoples groups, this confusion
may continue. Forty-two ethnic groups were documented in the country
living in 30 districts, 27 in the plainlands and three in the Chittagong
Hill Tracts.
122 M. GUHATHAKURTA
The number of ethnic groups is shown in Table 8.1.
Names of indigenous groups Major concentration area
Garo, Burman, Hajong, Banai, Greater Mymensigh and Sylhet

Dalu, Koch and Rajbansi Tangail, Mymensingh, Netrokona, Sherpur,
7 ethnic groups Jamalpur, Gazipur, Sylhet and Sunamgonj
Santal, Oraon, Malo, Munda, North Bengal, Rajshahi and Rongpur Divisions:
Bagdi, Bhil, Buno, Bhumij, Kol, Rajshahi, Dinajpur, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Naogaon,
Khonda, Mahali, Mahato, Muriar Bogra, Sirajganj, Chapainawabganj, Natore, Jessore,
Musohor, Paharia, Pahan Satkhira, Khulna , Sylhet tea gardens
Rajbansi, Sing, Turi
19 ethnic groups
Khasi, Monipuri, Patro Kharia Sylhet Division:
4 Ethnic groups Habigonj, Moulovibazar, Sylhet and Sunamgonj
Rakhaine Coastal Areas:
Barguna, Cox’s Bazar and Patuakhali
Chakma, Marma, Tripura, Bawm, Chittagong Hill Tracts:
Chak, Lushai, Mru, Khyang, Bandarban, Khagrachori and Rangamati
Khumi, Pangkho, Tanchangya
11 ethnic groups
Source: Bangladesh Government: Directorate of Primary Education; Ministry of Primary and Mass
Education (2011), Third Primary Education Development Support Program (PEDP—III) p. 48, cited in
(Guhathakurta & Mankin, 2011, pp. 10–11)
Ethnic Minorities in the CHT and Plainlands

It has become almost customary to divide issues of ethnicity in Bangladesh
into two categories: the population in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT)
and the population in the Plainlands, as each have different legacies from
the colonial period in terms of land ownership and protection, as well as
different political dynamics with the state of Bangladesh. I will therefore
consider the two regions separately.
The CHT
Brought under direct administration by the British colonial powers in the
nineteenth century, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) have a political his-
tory unique to Bengal. The Government of Bengal divided the CHT into
three circles—Chakma, Bohmong and Mong—each of which was placed
under the administration of a government-recognized chief.
In 1900, the Government promulgated the CHT Regulation, where

the Circle Chiefs retained power over customary matters but were formed
into an advisory council primarily to assist the Deputy Commissioners. To
date, this regulation is the main legal instrument which protects the indig-
enous lives and livelihood of the peoples of the CHT.
At Partition, despite representations from the local people to exclude
the CHT, with its 97 per cent non-Muslim population, from the boundar-
ies of the new state of Pakistan, it was nevertheless apportioned as part of
the hinterland of the port city of Chittagong, which fell within East
Pakistan, allegedly to compensate Pakistan for its losses in the partitioning
of Punjab in West Pakistan.
Following independence in 1971, this situation continued, with no spe-
cific constitutional recognition of the special status of the CHT. However,
following the CHT ‘Peace’ Accord of 1997, which itself declared the area
to be a “tribal-inhabited area”, subsequent legislation (such as the laws
establishing the Regional Council, the Land Commission and the Hill
District Councils) included similar references.
The Constitution of Bangladesh, however, does recognize a minimal
affirmative policy for ‘backward groups’ such as ethnic minorities and
women. This gave birth to a quota system for indigenous persons (IPs)
that has only been partially implemented in certain educational institu-
tions and has not been as evident in public service establishments, except
in those institutions formed under the CHT Accord. But there has been
no systematic monitoring or assessment of the compliance of various insti-
tutions following this affirmative action policy.
Background to the Conflict in the CHT

The southeastern part of Bangladesh, commonly known as the Chittagong
Hill Tracts (CHT), occupies a physical area of 5093 square miles, or
13,295 square kilometres constituting ten per cent of Bangladesh’s total
land area. It shares borders with India and Myanmar and is inhabited by
about 13 (according to some estimates, 10) ethnic groups, among whom
the Chakmas, Marmas and Tripuras constitute the majority. Non-
indigenous hill people, that is, Bengalis who are predominantly Muslims,
also live in the CHT.
According to the 1991 Census, the total population is 974,465 out of
which 501,145 (51 per cent) belong to groups of different ethnic origins.
About 49 per cent are Bengalis. It should be noted that about 70,000
124 M. GUHATHAKURTA
refugees who were residing in the Indian state of Tripura from 1986 to
1988 are not included in the Census report. Out of the total land of the
CHT, only about 3.1 per cent is suitable for agricultural cultivation, 18.7
per cent for horticulture and the remaining 72 per cent for forestry.
Over the last quarter century, the indigenous people of the Hill Tracts
have been involved in a struggle for autonomy from the Bangladeshi state.
The main roots of the crisis in the CHT centred on the land issue, the
transfer of population from the plain districts and the control of adminis-
tration by non-inhabitants. In addition, discrimination, deprivation and
exploitation in social, cultural, economic and political fields and the pro-
gramme of assimilation of the indigenous hill people into the majority
Bengali population were other bones of contention.
It was in 1997 that the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samit
(PCJSS or JSS), the armed wing of the struggle for Jummaland, reached a
peace accord with the Government of Bangladesh. The accord attracted
considerable criticism from commentators of different political persuasions.
The mainstream political party, the BNP (then in the opposition), thought
it was a sellout on the part of the government to the rebels. The ‘civilian
wing’ of the struggle, the Proshit group, thought it was a sellout on the
part of the Shantibahini (as the armed wing was popularly called). The split
within the struggle resulted in the formation of two parties, of which one,
the Parbatya Chattagram Jana Samhati Samit (PCJSS), because it had
signed the accord, now became the official party to form the Regional
Council, and the United People’s Democratic Front (UPDF). The result
was the polarization of the politics of the Hill Tracts and the division of the
people into two and then further splinter groups—and as a consequence
their bargaining power was reduced. More than 23 years have passed since
the Accord and signs of implementation have been slow and barely visible.
The Accord and the Responses

The CHT Accord, concluded by the official wing of the Parbatya
Chattagram Jana Samhati Samit and the Government of Bangladesh in
1997, consists of four sections (Roy, 2003):
• The first section, recognizing the CHT as a ‘tribal inhabited area’,

deals with commitments to pass legislation and sets out details of the
composition of a Committee to oversee the implementation of the
Accord (but does not set out any time frame for implementation).
• The second section, entitled “Hill District Local Government

Councils/Hill Districts’ Councils”, details proposed legal amend-
ments to strengthen the District Councils’ existing powers and to
extend their jurisdiction to include new subjects.
• The third section, entitled “Chittagong Hill Tracts Regional
Council”, lays down the composition of a new unit of regional
authority to be constituted and styled as a “Regional” Council incor-
porating the three hill provinces or “districts”. In the case of both
the Regional and the District councils, the chairpersonship and two-
thirds of the seats are to be reserved for indigenous or ‘tribal’ people.
• The fourth section, entitled ‘Rehabilitation, General Amnesty and
Other Matters’, addresses a wide range of issues, including the reha-
bilitation of international refugees, internally displaced persons and
indigenous fighters, and the granting of amnesty to the guerillas and
other people involved in the armed struggle.
Whatever the disputes regarding the contents of the accord, one of its
prime limitations was the lack of a time frame for its implementation.
According to the PCJSS, which has been protesting against the non-
implementation of the CHT Accord, the following major unimplemented
provisions were considered to be crucial:
(a) the non-withdrawal of (all except a few) non-permanent mili-

tary camps;
(b) the non-transfer of land and law and order matters to the

District Councils;
(c) the passage of the CHT Land Commission Act of 2001, in viola-
tion of provisions of the Accord (reducing the geographical juris-
diction of the commission and providing too much power to its
non-indigenous chairperson);
(d) the late and problematic commencement of the work of the Land
Commission;
(e) the appointment of non-indigenous persons to the post of (cabinet
rank) Minister for Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs and the
Chairperson of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board.
The PCJSS have also criticized other aspects of the situation following
the Accord, including:
126 M. GUHATHAKURTA
(f) the inclusion of non-permanent residents of the region as voters in

the recent parliamentary elections (which were participated in by
the UPDF and boycotted by the JSS) and
(g) the inclusion of non-indigenous people within the list of the “inter-
nally displaced”.
The Plainlands
In 1772 the Raja of Chota Nagpur acknowledged the suzerainty of the
British (suzerainty referring to those cases where one state controls the
foreign policy and relations of a subsidiary or tributary state, allowing the
subsidiary state to retain internal autonomy), and thereby accepted paying
regular revenue to the Crown. In order to earn cash for revenue payments,
the Raja resorted to sub-infeudating land to Bengalis, who established
themselves as contractors and landlords claiming ownership rights to
Adibasi ancestral land. The Permanent Settlement of 1793 gave the land-
lords wide jurisdiction, but the high revenues levied from Adibasi cultiva-
tors catalysed revolts in parts of Bengal. As a concession to the protesting
Adibasis, the British reduced the rents in some of the areas of revolt and
reinstated some Adibasi chiefs.
In the nineteenth century, the British, bent on maximizing revenue col-
lection and facilitating commodity production for global markets, pursued
ruthless policies such as reinventing a rigid caste hierarchy and establishing
the construct of ‘tribe’, reforming the legal system, dismantling indigenous
political systems while co-opting part of the leadership, instituting new land
tenure and management policies, and permitting exploitation of Adibasis
through intermediaries. Brutal measures were adopted to uproot Adibasis
from some of their ancestral forested territories in order to employ them in
new grand settlement schemes. They were relocated to less colonized parts
of Greater Bengal and to northeastern regions where cheap labour was
urgently needed such as on indigo and tea plantations. Some were resettled
and turned into peasant cultivators; others became day labourers.
In the politico-cultural nationalist discourse from the East Pakistan
period and later in Bangladesh, the Adibasis are denied their ancestry as
the earliest natives of Bengal. Instead they are characterized as upo-jatis
(literally meaning sub-nations), backward aliens to be assimilated within
the Bangladeshi mainstream.
During the colonial period, some minimal protection was given to the
indigenous community in the plains. The chief protection of their land
was provided by the ‘Chota Nagpur Tenancy Act of 1908’, which prohib-
ited the transfer of ‘tribal’ lands to non-‘tribals’ without the permission of
the Deputy Commissioner (DC). Post-independence, the state continues
to formally recognize the special tenurial status of lands falling within the
traditional domain of ‘aborigines’, pursuant to Section 97 of the East
Bengal State Acquisition and Tenancy Act (EBSATA) 1950. This provi-
sion empowers the government to declare by notification any aboriginal
castes or tribes as ‘aboriginal’ for the purpose of the section (but does not
define the term ‘aboriginal’). Sub-section 2 of Section 97 of the EBSATA
further provides that no transfer by an aboriginal raiyat (tenant) of this
right in his holding or in any portion thereof shall be valid unless it is made
to another aboriginal domiciled or permanently residing in Bangladesh
(Roy et al., 2006).
In cases where the transferee is not an aboriginal, prior written permis-
sion of the Revenue Officer would be required. This provision, though
meant to protect Adibasis, could also be seen as undermining their right
to property by imposing restrictions on free transfer of the same. But the
important point to bear in mind here is that most Adibasis are not even
aware of these protective devices. For example, many Santals reportedly
lost their lands to usurious money lenders who used forged documents or
conducted other deceptions to dispossess them. They also lost land due to
the operation of the Enemy Property Act 1965, and later the Vested
Property Act 1974. Many of those so dispossessed were unable to initiate
legal procedures given the lack of resources or awareness of the legal pro-
cedures involved. Many have reportedly migrated to India, a stark indica-
tor of their dispossession and disempowerment.
Traditional Institutions
Both the plains and CHT Adibasis have ‘traditional institutions’. However,
those in the plains—such as the Garos’ Nokma or the Santals’ Parganas—
are not recognized by the state, while those in the CHT are underpinned
by statutes and orders. Thus, for example, the karbari, or headmen, and
circle chiefs all have roles to play in terms of revenue collection, land set-
tlement and, most important for our purposes, dispute settlement (as dis-
cussed further below). The Circle Chiefs, for example, are responsible for
supervising headmen regarding the collection of revenue, preservation of
public order and good administration, and also act in an advisory capacity
to Deputy Commissioners (DCs), Hill District Councils (HDCs), Ministry
128 M. GUHATHAKURTA
of Chittagong Hill Tracts Affairs (MoCHTA). The DC is obligated to

consult the chiefs formally at least twice a year on matters affecting the
administration of the CHT, although given the power politics of a majori-
tarian state such practices are being increasingly undermined and eroded.
It is apparent from the above that the CHT Accord has established
more institutions for the CHT than the plainlands. This has led to a com-
parative dearth of support services to the plainlands, a sore topic for IPs in
the plainlands. As a result, many have raised the demand for a separate
Land Commission for the plainlands, a separate department within the
Ministry of CHT Affairs, and/ or a Development Board for the plains.
The absence of a Land Commission in the plainlands, however, has
been somewhat compensated by some programmes of NGOs (mentioned
above) which have been able to help IPs retain land that had been illegally
occupied. But this is not sufficient to address the widespread instances of
forceful and illegal occupation of land evident in the plains.
There are other minority groups in Bangladesh such as the Biharis (or
Urdu-speaking communities), the Ahmadias and the Bedays (cultural
minorities) whom we cannot go into detail on due to lack of space, but it
would be relevant to briefly discuss how within the two larger groupings
of minorities discussed above, that is, religious and ethnic, internal divi-
sions of gender and caste help to create further minorities—minorities
within minorities.
Politics of Marginalization within Minority

Groups—Gender and Caste
Patriarchy and Power Relationships: The Location
of Minority Women
Male hegemony is apparent in any dominant power relations: personal,
local, national or regional. It works to deprive and marginalize women
from centres of power regardless of class, caste or ethnicity. However, the
oppression of vulnerable groups such as religious or ethnic minorities in
recent years has led to the particular victimization of minority women in a
way that compels one to understand the underlying patriarchal nature and
the workings of our nation-states.
The practice of patriarchy as opposed to its theory is neither abstract
nor monolithic. In the words of Cynthia Enloe, “patriarchy does not come
in ‘one size fits all’” (Enloe, 1995, p. 5). It has its regional and culture-
specific variations. Thus in order to locate minority women in patriarchal
power structures, only some of which are state perpetrated, one has to
look at mediating processes such as kinship family structures and commu-
nity politics.
The state in developing countries provides a locus for most patriarchal
practices of power as embodied in its discriminatory laws or political prac-
tices. However, the legitimacy of these practices is more often than not
mediated through traditional and non-state institutions, customs and pro-
cesses which structure relationships of kinship, family and community.
This has important bearings on gender relationships and hence gendered
violence.
The inscription of women into this indigenous notion of community is
an important process, which has both positive and negative implications
for minority women. Since family and kinship ties are important in power
configurations, women have become the means through which dominant
power configurations may be made manifest. Hence abductions, forced
marriages and rape of women belonging to marginalized groups, such as
minorities or opposition party cadres, are often resorted to in the politics
of domination and vendetta.
According to feminist research, this is also the juncture where women’s
interests are compromised or subsumed under the greater community
interest. Some examples are refusal by Hindu men to give Hindu women
equal share of inheritance through law reform under the pretext that they
will be too weak to defend their property against the land-hungry domi-
nant community, and the intransigence of indigenous community leaders
in allowing their women to marry into the dominant community to fore-
stall dangers of depopulating their race.
Similarly, in the indigenous resistance movement in the Chittagong Hill
Tracts of Bangladesh, Chakma male leadership of the resistance movement
demanding autonomy of the region would claim that questions of gender
equality should take a back seat to the autonomy of the ‘Jumma’ nation. In
the first case social mores and in the second case struggle, both male-defined,
were considered to be the building blocks of generating and perpetuating
trust in the community and defending community boundaries. However, it
is also true that state policies and intervention have succeeded in undermin-
ing the social trust inherent in these communities, and as such have endan-
gered the security of the community in general as well as its women in
particular. In recent years, women in minority communities have been
130 M. GUHATHAKURTA
specifically targeted during communal attacks, precisely because men of

dominant communities realize their importance in the inscription of com-
munity cohesiveness. They represent, in a way, domestic capital, as well as
the last vestiges of civil society during armed conflict, when they defend
hearth and home and carry out the day-to-day sustenance of their loved
ones against all odds. An attack on women and their bodily integrity is
therefore a direct threat to the community, which is considered to be too
close to home. It is little wonder then to find that the first consideration of
minority families is to send their young unmarried daughters away to safer
territories. It cannot be denied that in a militarized situation, Jumma women
constitute the most vulnerable section of the population. Among the many
crimes committed against the people of the CHT, sexual violence such as
rape, molestation and harassment was especially prevalent.
Dalits—Bangladesh, as the erstwhile eastern wing of Pakistan at the
time of Partition, had a Muslim-dominant population, but as noted ear-
lier, also a sizeable number of Hindus. However, with the increase of state-
instigated violence against religious minorities, more and more Hindus,
especially from the middle-class, migrated to India. Currently, in the inde-
pendent state of Bangladesh, there are about 9 per cent of Hindus still
remaining, and a large proportion of them are from the lower rungs of the
Hindu caste hierarchy. Although the caste system is originally derived
from the Hindu religion it has become integrated with the social system
practised over the years. As such, although the Hindu middle class has
migrated to India, the powerful Muslim elites who took over in the rural
areas continued the discriminatory practice against them. Thus in many
areas of Bangladesh, sweeper communities (related to the ‘caste’ of sweep-
ers/cleaners) and others like them are not treated equally in public places,
for example they are not allowed to sit with others in restaurants and
schools. According to one study, there is an estimated 4,600,000 Dalits in
Bangladesh (Kamal & Khan, 2008), while others estimate this figure to be
5,500,000 (Begum, 2008). Such communities are located all over
Bangladesh. In some instances they have been brought over from different
parts of India and settled during the British period, like the sweeper com-
munities in many small towns and cities. There are also local populations
who are engaged in occupations dependent on their environment, like the
Moualis or honey collectors, Bawalis or wood collectors, or Rishis or
leather workers in the Sundarban area, but who are stigmatized by elites as
belonging to a lower caste.
Therefore in Bangladesh caste-based discrimination not only stems from

Hindu religious doctrine, but is based on work, descent and sometimes
ethnicity and culture. Hence along with Dalits, nomadic people like the
Bedays or traditional palanquin bearers like the Beheras who are Muslims
but hierarchically situated in a low position in terms of social status, or the
Mundas, or Bunos who are originally Adibasis of the plainland areas, but
have lost their cultural heritage and are considered by the mainstream soci-
ety as outcasts, all form a larger socially excluded group. These groups have
varied occupations and their nomenclature also varies occupationally as
well as regionally. For example, those involved in fishing in the Muslim
community are called Jele, Nikari, Choudhali and Maimol. Hindu fishing
communities are called Bagdis and Paroi. Those who are leather workers
and variously working as cobblers or musicians or musical instrument mak-
ers are respectively called Rishis, Muchis, Robidas, Bajandars, Shobdokars
or Nagarchis. Other occupational groups consist of the following: Teli (oil
producers and traders), Kawras or Kaiputras (pig rearers), Shikari (scaven-
gers), Napit (barbers), Horijons (sweepers) and Domes (those who work in
cremation grounds). There are also environmental occupations such as the
Moualis (honey collectors) and Bawalis (wood collectors).
Most of the above occupations are seasonal and/or linked intricately
with the environment. Although previously Dalit groups tended to stick
to their traditional occupations, in recent years many have been known to
change their occupations fully or partially or have taken up other sources
of income as secondary occupations like rickshaw pulling or basket weav-
ing. But because of their lack of education and diverse skill training, this
change is limited to a few occupations in the tertiary sector. Those already
in cultivation and having more exposure to educational facilities have the
option of taking up white-collar service work such as teaching or NGO
work. But those who are working in traditional professions considered to
be degrading, like sweeping or handling dead bodies, are often prevented
from availing themselves of a proper education and hence taking up more
lucrative jobs, by virtue of the social stigma that exists in society. In such
societies, which are resource poor, the social hierarchy also works against
women, because they do not get an equal share of these meager resources.
There is also less scope for Dalit women to work outside the house. The
general trend among them is to settle for early marriages, dowry and
unequal marital relationships. However, in communities where Dalit
Rights Organizations are becoming stronger, and facilities for women’s
education more accessible, this trend is changing.
132 M. GUHATHAKURTA
Future Prospects
The narrative above foregrounds the fact that colonial legacies and policies
of the past unfortunately impinged on the policies and practices of our
governing institutions in the making of minorities despite the democratic
promises made by our post-independent Constitution. The intrusion of
the military into the continuity of the democratic process in the early
decades, the rise of fundamentalism, majoritarian politics both internal
and external, and the unleashing of neo-liberal policies in later decades
have further aggravated the vulnerability of minority groups in the coun-
try by depriving them of a representative voice and social justice in the
body politics of Bangladesh.
Given these current trends, where does one make a (new) beginning?
While we may proclaim our liberal values in favour of the protection of
vulnerable and marginalized peoples, it will not happen automatically
since majoritarian philosophies have become institutionalized and sys-
temic in the governance of the state and at the same time deeply ingrained
in the minds of the people. The battle against majoritarianism and the
path towards pluralism or diversity of the Bangladeshi state and society
therefore needs to be multi-pronged. The realization that Bangladesh as a
sovereign nation-state increasingly has to contend with regional dynamics
in both its economy and politics may be gaining ground. As it becomes a
middle-income country that aspires to and has indeed become a strong
regional actor, it needs to develop the confidence to be comfortable with
the diversity represented by minorities, which will enable it to deal with
the winds of change occurring in global and regional politics with cohe-
siveness. This degree of social cohesion can only be strengthened when
vulnerabilities of minority groups (inclusive of gender and caste) can live
up to the ideals of our constitutional promise.
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Barkat, A., et al. (2008). Deprivation of Hindu Minority in Bangladesh: Living
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Begum, S. (2008). Dalit Position Paper. RIB.

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to Peace. International Peace Academy, Occasional Paper series. Boulder.
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Peoples in Bangladesh. UNDP.
The Political Economy of Development:
Bangladesh From Its Emergence toward
the Future
Haider A. Khan and Shamayeta Rahman
Introduction
Bangladesh has seen robust growth rates since the mid-1990s (World
Bank, 2019). It has performed well on many macroeconomic indicators
by increasing rates of savings and investments, while improving on some
well-being indicators like literacy, life expectancy, vaccination, and nutri-
tion outcomes (World Bank, 2020). No doubt there have been significant
accomplishments in Bangladesh’s development and poverty reduction so
far, but it is also important to examine the sustainability, long-term effec-
tiveness and general well-roundedness of the development strategies
employed in Bangladesh.
With ecological crises looming, and persistent global political and eco-
nomic instabilities posing constant risks to development, it is important to
recognize the need for self-reliant and equitable development strategies.
H. A. Khan (*) • S. Rahman

JKSIS, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA
e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]

136 H. A. KHAN AND S. RAHMAN
In order for Bangladesh to take on this challenging prospect, it must aim

to ensure proper incentives in both the private and public sector for effi-
cient and equitable delivery of goods and services, while reducing the
reliance on undesirable foreign “aid” that places neoliberal policy con-
straints on Bangladesh’s sovereignty. However, it must maintain strategic
openness toward selective beneficial foreign-funded development projects.
This chapter highlights some key aspects of such a development strat-
egy, most notably the need for heterodoxy on fiscal policies, dynamic and
egalitarian policies in the agricultural and industrial sectors, and the build-
ing of human capital and technological capabilities to promote innovation
(Khan, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2020a).
The theories presented in this chapter elaborate on ideas of trade and
development, paying particular attention to an extension of Sen’s capabil-
ity approach which we call the Socially Embedded Intersectional
Capabilities approach, or SEICA. This helps to highlight the significance
of factors in development beyond economic indicators, which are essential
for development, but are not comprehensive measures of well-being.
Utilizing SEICA, along with the insight offered from the development of
the East Asian and Southeast Asian economies, this chapter explores some
of the strengths, weaknesses and potential areas of improvement for the
Bangladeshi economy.
Methodology
Along with SEICA, we also use the Gramscian-Kaleckian theory of
intermediate classes to understand and evaluate the political economy
of Bangladesh. We present our theoretical framework below. We then
move on to using empirical and institutional data and compare and
contrast the Bangladeshi development model against successful East
Asian and Southeast Asian counterparts to determine some of the
strengths and weaknesses of the current development approach in
Bangladesh. The analytical portion of this chapter is organized in a
chronological manner following the independence of Bangladesh until
2020, closely evaluating the development in three stages. This chapter
specifically analyzes data pertaining to macroeconomic indicators,
labor statistics and outcomes of basic capabilities, with some observa-
tions on future policy prescriptions.
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF DEVELOPMENT: BANGLADESH… 137
Theoretical Framework: Intermediate Classes

to Dependent Comprador Class and SEICA
We view development not only as a process of generating more income

but also as advancement in people’s abilities to enjoy positive freedoms
that lead to living a life they have reason to value (Sen & Nussbaum,
1993). Though normative views such as this are not often adopted explic-
itly in the modeling of development and industrialization, the normative
aspects of development as a “(public) good” are consistent with this capa-
bilities approach. It has become implicit in most post-1970 thinking that
development pertains to “growth plus,” even if the list varies from
researcher to researcher (Khan, 2013, 2017).
Khan (1994, 1998) developed an ethical community-based framework
by extending Sen’s capability approach and Nussbaum’s Aristotelian
framework. This specific elaboration, called the Socially Embedded
Intersectional Capabilities Approach, or SEICA, takes on a more political
and social direction and allows one to evaluate the role of political institu-
tions, most notably that of the developmental state, in greater depth
(Khan, 2020a). The state plays an important role in providing support and
creating incentives for domestic growth and export-oriented sectors
through directed credit and subsidies or via the coordination of invest-
ment across various industries and sectors. The state has the ability to take
risks where the private sector falls short, which further highlights the
importance of building a national system of innovations. It also plays a
crucial role in macroeconomic crisis management to ensure that smooth
accumulations continue in the economy (Khan & Rahman, 2020). Socio-
economic institutions are likewise of great importance. Individuals and
households are embedded in a web of institutions. We also know from
advances in research on gender, race, class and related factors that differ-
ent groups and people are situated intersectionally in different webs of
relations (Collins & Bilge, 2016; Runyan, 2018). It is thus vital for econo-
mies to adopt an intersectional development strategy that promotes equi-
table distribution and to retain democratic institutions from the outset in
order to equalize the socially embedded capabilities as quickly as possible
(Khan, 1998, 2020a, b, c). In a rapidly developing society, the state must
help to increase and enhance capabilities for everyone, and it must be con-
scious of its environment and ecological context if the development is to
be sustainable. This chapter will explore and evaluate Bangladeshi devel-
opment from this lens for two categories in particular—education and
health—making note of gender disparities to highlight further gendered

dimensions to the inefficacies of the current development plan.
The modern theory of political economy of development in class-
divided societies began, in a sense, with Rousseau’s essay on inequality,
but was carried forward more systematically by Smith, Ricardo and Marx.
From a rather simplistic two-class theory, Marx in the Eighteenth Brumaire
arrived at a more complex case study of the French state. But in Capital,
Marx went back to a two-class theory. It was Gramsci who first articulated
the concept of intermediate classes and of complex class alliances in the
context of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Italy with the history
of the alliances of the intermediate classes—a range of classes in between
the two classes posted by Marx, bourgeois and proletariat. Gramsci’s work
thus played an important role in explaining the nature of the capitalist
state in underdeveloped countries. Kalecki refined this further with his
studies of Eastern Europe and the newly independent postcolonial econo-
mies and polities such as India after WWII. He identified important con-
tradictions among the classes in such societies. The Pakistani sociologist
Hamza Alavi and others developed this theory further in the last half of
the twentieth century, especially from the 1970s onwards. In Bangladesh,
we see a complex evolution from conflicting intermediate classes and
unstable alliances to a dependent capitalist class-dominated political econ-
omy in the last 50 years.
In terms of the evolution of the state in Bangladesh, the great move-
ment in the 1960s culminating in the liberation struggle and founding of
Bangladesh was based on the six-point demand for autonomy and the
11-point demand for economic well-being of the people. From the begin-
ning, the left-center coalition that supported this was threatened by the
right even within the Awami League. The 1972 constitution and the ini-
tial development strategy showed the influence of the progressive sections
of the intermediate classes with support from peasants and workers. But the
right within the Awami League and beyond, as well as the ultra-left ele-
ments, combined after the August 15, 1975 coup. Under Zia and Ershad
from 1975–1976 on, a neoliberal project of dependent capitalist develop-
ment was ushered in, which continues its somewhat contradictory prog-
ress to this day. What has changed over the years is the emergence of a new
class of comprador capitalists dependent on world markets, supply chains
and a repressive state apparatus. While we do not have space to cover the
history here, the reader is referred to Khan (2020b, 2020c) and Riaz
(2005, 2016).
Instead, we now turn to lessons from East Asian development for

Bangladesh.
Common Strategic Orientations of East

and Southeast Asian Development: Key Takeaways
for Bangladesh
A retroactive examination of the successful development paths of a few of

the Asian economies, like China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea,
Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand, presents one with the pat-
terns of certain common strategic orientations along with similar responses
to the effects of changes in external environment and shifts in policies over
time. Though each individual case may have specific variations, a list can
be drawn to highlight some key features to examine if Bangladesh is fol-
lowing a similar development path (Khan, 2013, 2017).
1. Strategic Openness
While not all Asian economies have been open to the same degree—
with the economies of Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand being
the most open early on, and Vietnam being the least open (Thoburn
et al., 2007)—there has still been at least a strategic commitment to
export promotion. 1970s This commitment goes beyond merely
strategic import substitution (SISI) and a target of climbing the
global value added ladder (Bruton, 1998; Khan, 1983, 1997, 2004a,
2004b) which characterized an earlier period before 1970s. In the
case of East Asia, the strategy has also been to build national and
regional markets with more of a dynamic comparative advantage
along with some of the policies outlined below.
2. Heterodox Macroeconomic Policies for Stability
The Chinese and Indian economies have adopted more of a hetero-
dox approach to their policies compared to other Asian economies.
Here, heterodox economics refers to the rejection of the strict rigid-
ities and economic austerities of neoliberal ideas. Though Malaysia,
Vietnam, South Korea and Taiwan have also adopted some mix of
heterodoxy over the years, it is to a lesser degree. Even Singapore
and Hong Kong have taken on some heterodox fiscal policies over
the years (Khan, 2013). It is important that Bangladesh remains
flexible in its approach to policies.
3. Creation of Institutions for Productive Investment

The state has played a key role in creating institutions for productive
investments in most of these countries, with a notable example
being South Korea with its extensive state-led reforms leading to the
nation becoming a major technological global hub, and China with
their slow but goal-oriented development in building the institu-
tions and infrastructure needed to promote heavy local and interna-
tional investment. These examples highlight the role that the state
plays in promoting productive investment for development.
4. Agricultural Development
All of the economies mentioned placed significant effort into agri-
cultural reforms and policies to not only increase output but also
redirect resources into other industries to increase overall productiv-
ity (as seen particularly in the Thai case (Warr, 2008)). Vietnam
showed particular success in shifting from being a net-importer of
rice in the 1980s to becoming the fourth largest exporter of rice
globally by the 2010s. This has allowed the Vietnamese government
to allocate resources to other agricultural ventures such as coffee
and cashew (Thoburn, 2008). Bangladesh has been successful in
raising productivity in the agricultural sector with strong techno-
logical and financial policies.
5. Industrial Development and Structural Change
Focusing on industrial development was an essential part of most of
these successful development stories, but most importantly their
ability to undergo a dynamic set of industrial policies with constant
trial and error was key. Malaysia is a particularly good example of
this with their constantly changing industrial strategies to promote
different types of investments since the 1980s when they built infra-
structure, legal frameworks and other accommodations as needed to
draw in local and foreign investors and increase industrial growth
(Jomo & Wee, 2008).
6. Creation of Technological Capabilities
Most of these Asian states, including China, Vietnam, Malaysia and
Thailand, have invested heavily in developing technological capabili-
ties, but South Korea in particular has had the most success. The
building of technological capabilities is essential for sustainable
long-term growth, especially if countries want to move up the global
value chain (Lee, 2008). It is important for the state to identify
appropriate sectors for technological growth and strategically allo-

cate resources to building capabilities for that sector.
7. Technological Learning and Innovation
South Korea presents specific lessons for development when it comes
to establishing national innovation systems through the creation of
proper institutions and means of technological learning over time.
Lee (2008) highlights how it is important for the state to develop
the technological capabilities of local private companies so that they
can better utilize the limited resources and take on projects with the
“greatest externalities”—in other words, the greatest community
impact beyond the precise focus of the project. South Korea has
large state-owned banks and state agencies to drive this process at
the initial stages, but the ultimate goal has been to create a capable
private–public partnership to promote innovation and productivity
(Khan, 2004a).
. Direct Foreign Investment and Foreign Aid
8
Foreign investment rather than aid has played an important role in
the development of Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand. On the other
hand, in South Korea, China and Taiwan, the internal generation of
investible funds and public sector support has played a larger role
(Khan, 2013). The role of Direct Foreign Investment (DFI) has
become particularly valuable in the manufacturing sector in coun-
tries like Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. A stable macroeconomic
environment, combined with a low cost of good labor and low crime
rates, often draws in investment from both developed Western and
East Asian economies (Thoburn, 2008). It should be noted, how-
ever, that sometimes the leveraging of aid plays a stronger role in
development than the quantity of aid itself (Khan, 2017).
. Poverty Reduction Strategies
9
For countries in which much of the population lives in dire poverty,
before the state can focus on economic growth, it must prioritize
effective poverty reduction strategies—both urban and rural. States
must therefore employ policies to alleviate poverty and reduce
inequality. Countries like Vietnam and China in particular have
adopted strong poverty alleviation strategies.
In sum, it can be stated that the role of good institutions is essential for
development. The state needs to create incentives for investments, build
technological capabilities and be flexible in policy making. With these
takeaways, one can begin to examine the current political economy of

Bangladesh as it stands in comparison to these economies.
An Examination of Bangladesh from a Broad

Political Economy Perspective
It is important to acknowledge some of the strengths and features of the
Bangladeshi economy and society in order to better understand whether
its sociopolitical context is conducive to certain development strategies.
Bangladesh has a relatively homogenous population (though minority
rights, as noted elsewhere in this volume, need to be improved). It has a
mostly secular and tolerant population, with some fringe fundamentalist
pockets. Bangladesh also has a growing and increasingly diversified econ-
omy, including in the energy (in particular gas) sector. Continued improve-
ment in physical infrastructure and substantial accomplishments in
telecommunications access throughout the country have created the
groundwork for economic growth. Bangladesh has had some relative suc-
cess in poverty reduction with the utilization of microfinancing and has
also been able to implement successful population control policies. There
has been a continued improvement in human capital as seen in the rise in
the number of semi-skilled and skilled workers in both Bangladesh and
abroad. Lastly, there are social characteristics that give cause for optimism.
Bangladeshis tend to be tolerant and free of dogmatism, with a penchant
for struggling against unjust regimes (as seen in their history fighting
against the British Raj and Pakistan). These sociopolitical characteristics
offer hope for a population that might be more open to just political
changes (Khan, 2013)
However, Bangladesh continues to be riddled with problems that need
more attention if development is to become sustainable. Primarily, these
are related to limits in representative democracy and problems within par-
liamentary politics, the increasingly widening divide between the rich and
poor and the resulting social stratification and differentiation, the lack of
justice with regard to class, gender, and ethnic and religious minorities,
and, more broadly, the lack of an autonomous civil society free from
domestic and foreign state pressures. Related to these are the issues sur-
rounding linking and delinking with international forces (Khan, 2013).
The next few sections will delve into three specific time periods span-
ning Bangladeshi history and look at available macroeconomic and
capabilities data in order to analyze specific accomplishments and failures

along the development path of Bangladesh.
The 1971–1980 Period

It is unsurprising to note that the period immediately following the
Liberation War saw a boost in economic growth tied to recovery and
reconstruction efforts. However, this period coincided with significant
civil and political conflicts leading to the coups of 1975. There was a nota-
ble decline in economic growth following the political instability after the
assassination of the Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman (Table 1).
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) plays an important role in economic
growth, as discussed earlier. Though there is no significant data available
for FDI entering Bangladesh prior to its boom in the late 1990s, it was
almost negligible—approximately 0.09 million USD—in 1972. At that
time, Bangladesh was more focused on developing a formal banking and
financial sector, and creating the infrastructure needed for drawing in
more investments in the future (Islam, 2014). As for exports and imports,
Bangladeshi export growth did not really occur until the 1980s, with the
exports in the 1970s mostly being of primary products. Diversification
only occurred from the mid-1980s. This is understandable as productivity
increased, and falling prices of agricultural goods and raw materials led to
better production and performance of manufactured exports (Roy, 1991).
Table 1 Key Macroeconomic Data for Bangladesh in the 1971–1980 period

1971 1973 1975 1977 1979
GDP $8.75b $8.09b $19.75b $9.65b $15.57b

GDP/capita $134 $120 $278 $131 $201
Annual Growth Rate −5.48% 3.33% −4.09% 2.67% 4.80%
Foreign Direct Investment
Real Interest Rate 14.68% −1.39%
Net Exports $550m $528m $563m $679m $950m
Net Imports $938m $958m $1.57b $1.19b $1.19b
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh GDP, Bangladesh GDP/Capita, Bangladesh Growth Rate, Real
Interest Rate, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), net inflows (1960–2020). World Bank Open Data. Data
as of August 22, 2020

The late 1970s and 1980s in Bangladesh were periods, once again, of
political instability, first with the multiple coup attempts against President
Ziaur Rahman ultimately leading to his assassination in 1981, and then
with Hussein Muhammad Ershad assuming power in another coup and
establishing martial law in 1982. It would not be until the 1990s, after
massive public outcry, campus activism and protests, and political strikes,
that Ershad’s martial law would finally be brought to an end in Bangladesh
(Table 2).
This period saw fluctuating growth rates as political and economic sta-
bility suffered. Bangladesh was also hit with a powerful tropical cyclone in
1988 that caused immense suffering and infrastructural damage. However,
it is important to note that this period marked the beginning of many
industrial ventures in the country, and the manufacturing and agricultural
sectors did see a significant rise in productivity compared to the last decade.
Unlike the East Asian models with their rapid structural change in both
employment and outputs, especially in terms of lowering the burden on
the workforce from agriculture to other sectors of the economy, the
Bangladeshi workforce at this point in time was still heavily involved in
their agro-economy. A rise in productivity in this sector would allow for a
rise in labor productivity in other sectors as well.

1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990
GDP $18.14b $18.53b $18.92b $21.77b $26.58b $31.60b

GDP/capita $228 $221 $214 $234 $271 $306
Annual Growth Rate 0.82% 2.13% 4.80% 4.17% 2.42% 5.62%
Foreign Direct
Investment
net inflows
Real Interest Rate −5.29% 1.95% 3.82% 5.30% 7.91% 8.88%
Net Exports $996m $940m $642m $1.13b $1.44b $1.87b
Net Imports $3.24b $2.88b $2.54b $2.57b $3.25b $4.13b
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh GDP, Bangladesh GDP/Capita, Bangladesh Growth Rate, Real
Interest Rate, FDI (net inflows), Export of Goods and Services, Import of Goods and Services
(1960–2020). World Bank Open Data. Data as of August 22, 2020

With the advent of the 1990s, and with the hope of greater democracy,
economic prospects also picked up domestically. Growth rate started to
surge as the economy almost doubled every decade. FDI started to
increase as well. Real interest rates dropped as domestic investments
became more prevalent. The export market grew exponentially in size
during this period with the growth of the ready-made garments and textile
sector. However, the lack of diversification still posed risks for the future.
On the other hand, agricultural imports declined significantly, and have
continued to do so in the three decades since the 1990s, with Bangladesh
becoming self-reliant in rice, going as far as to enter the export market
as well.
With these development accomplishments in mind, it is still impor-
tant to explore whether this path is sustainable and equitable enough.
Table 3 highlights how unemployment rates have continued to increase
over the decades, with female labor force participation changing very
little during this time, while male labor force participation has seen a
steady decline. Though women in lower-income households have been
almost forced to participate in the economy, it is unlikely that there has
been a significant change in terms of access and opportunity to employ-
ment for women with higher skills, as the labor force participation for

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2019
GDP $31.60b $37.94b $53.37b $69.44b $115.28b $195.08b $302.57b

GDP/capita $306 $329 $418 $499 $781 $1248 $1856
Annual 5.62% 5.12% 5.29% 6.54% 5.57% 6.55% 8.15%
Growth Rate
Foreign $280m $813m $1.32b $2.83b $1.59b
Direct
Investment,
net inflows
Real Interest 8.88% 6.39% 8.99% 5.74% 4.74% 5.51% 4.87%
Rate
Net Exports $1.87b $4.12b $6.58b $9.94b $18.4b $33.8b $46.3b
Net Imports $4.13b $6.58b $9.06b $13.89b $25.11b $48.28b $64.86b
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh (1960–2020). World Bank Open Data. Data as of August
22, 2020
women with specific educational attainments still tends to be very low

(World Bank, 2020). As for employment composition, though the ser-
vice sector has grown significantly in this 30-year period, the agricultural
sector still utilizes a large portion of the workforce. This poses limits on
overall labor productivity in the economy for the long term, and devel-
opment policies should aim to improve agricultural output per worker—
perhaps by incorporating new technological capabilities and learning in
the process (Tables 4 and 5).
Bangladesh has had relative success in terms of employing public and
NGO services in implementing poverty reduction strategies, from the uti-
lization of microcredit to creating access to low-interest loans for farmers.
However, the income and wealth inequality continue to increase with each
passing decade, with further and further class stratification. Though sig-
nificant headway has been made in terms of reducing extreme poverty at
$1.90/day, considerable progress still needs to be made in the $5.50/day
level. Bangladesh has a growing middle-income population, but the gap
between the ultra-rich and the general population continues to widen, as
opportunities and social mobility decrease.
Table 4 General Labor Force Data between 1990 and 2019

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015 2019
Labor Force Participation Rate 50.6% 49.6% 48.2% 46.4% 43.2% 40.1% 41.9%
Female Labor Force Participation 21.7% 21.8% 21.8% 21.2% 21.9% 23.1% 26.3%
Rates
Male Labor Force Participation 78.2% 76.2% 73.6% 70.7% 64.0% 56.5% 56.9%
Rates
Unemployment 2.5% 3.3% 4.3% 3.4% 4.4% 4.2%
Employment % in Agriculture 66.1% 64.8% 51.1% 47.3% 43.5% 38%
Employment % in Industry 10.4% 10.7% 13.9% 17.0% 19.9% 21.3%
Employment % in Services 23.6% 24.5% 35.0% 35.1% 36.6% 40.2%
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh Labor Force Participation Rates, male/female (ILO model esti-
mates), Unemployment, Employment in Agriculture, Industry and Services (1988–2010). World Bank
Open Data. Data as of August 22, 2020
Table 5 Poverty and Inequality Data for Bangladesh in the 1988–2010 period
1988 1995 2000 2005 2010
Gini Index 28.8 32.9 33.4 33.2 32.1

Poverty Headcount Ratio at National Poverty 48.9 40.0 31.0
Lines (% of pop.)
Poverty Gap at $1.90/day (2011 Purchasing 9.1% 8.2% 8.0% 5.1% 3.6%
Power Parity (PPP))
Poverty Gap at $3.20/day (2011 PPP) 30.5% 28.9% 27.8% 22.7% 19.0%
Poverty Gap at $5.50/day (2011 PPP) 55.4% 52.9% 51.4% 47.0% 43.0%
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh Gini Index, Poverty Headcount Ratio, Poverty Gap at $1.90/
day, Poverty Gap at $3.20/day, Poverty Gap at $5.50 Gap (1988–2010). World Bank Open Data. Data as
of August 22, 2020
General Overview of Education and Health Indicators

From Independence Until the 2010s
Compared to its neighboring economies, Bangladesh has relatively equi-
table gender outcomes when it comes to education, and female students
have better academic retention rates and success as a result of some effec-
tive government policies from the 1990s. But this is not impressive as
more than 10% of girls never enroll in school, over 30% of them drop out
and less than 30% complete schooling with enough skills to access the
limited opportunities available later (UNESCO, 2018). It is imperative for
a developing nation to build its human capital, not only to increase growth
but also to create access to capabilities that will allow its population to
improve their quality of life. Bangladesh needs to not only improve its
literacy rates equitably with a holistic curriculum reflective of its secular
values, but also to ensure that people have opportunities for vocational,
technical and trade training to build technological capabilities within the
country (Figs. 1 and 2) (Tables 6, 7 and 8).
Everyone has the right to a long healthy life with access to proper nutri-
tion and safe water. A capabilities analysis of development looks at the
state’s role in improving health indicators as a part of its assessment.
Bangladesh has been able to significantly improve the life expectancies of
its population, almost reaching the world average on that front. It has also
been able to reduce infant mortality rates down to the world average
(World Bank, 2020). These remarkable accomplishments along with
Bangladesh’s success in population control can be attributed to the grass-
roots efforts of NGOs and public family planning clinics providing more
access to information to women across villages in Bangladesh. Despite
Fig. 1 Anemia Prevalence Amongst Women of Reproductive Age. (Source:

Global Nutrition Report, 2016)
these successes, however, Bangladesh still has a long way to go in terms of

ensuring food security and nutritional well-being for the majority of its
population.
Almost half of Bangladeshi women of reproductive age continue to suf-
fer from anemia, a marker of iron and nutritional deficiency in adult
women. This trend continues with the prevalence of malnutrition in
almost half the children in the country (Global Nutrition Report, 2016).
Male children are more likely to suffer from nutrient deficiencies com-
pared to their female counterparts and slightly less are likely to be vacci-
nated as well (Swiss Centre for International Health in partnership with
WHO, 2010). Though Bangladesh has made great strides in its immuni-
zation efforts since independence, becoming polio-free in 2014 and
administering over 10,000 vaccinations every day, the state still needs to
prioritize the development of more equitable and better-quality healthcare
infrastructure, particularly in the rural areas.
Fig. 2 Underweight by Sex. (Source: Global Nutrition Report, 2016)
Table 6 Literacy Rates in Bangladesh between 1974 and 2016

1974 1981 1991 2001 2011 2016
Adult Literacy Rates 25.9% 29.2% 35.3% 47.5% 58.8% 72.8%

Youth Literacy 35.7% 44.7% 63.6% 65.7% 92.2%
Adult Female Illiteracy 56.5% 55.9% 55.2% 50.0% 55.0%
Youth Female Illiteracy 55.9% 55.3% 53.9% 37.7% 40.7%
Source: Banglapedia (2015). Literacy. Banglapedia National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh. Modified March
15, 2015. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php?title=Literacy, Knoema World Atlas (2020).
Bangladesh—Literacy Rates. Knoema. https://knoema.com/atlas/Bangladesh/topics/Education/
Literacy/Adult-literacy-rate Data as of August 22, 2020
Conclusions
What stands out in Bangladesh’s performance is that, particularly in the
last twenty-five years, it has achieved a measure of growth and human
development combining export-led growth with some public and interna-
tional Socially Embedded Intersectional Capabilities-enhancing activities.
Yet the polity, economy and society reflect high inequalities, ecological
decay and a lack of accountability of the rising dependent bourgeoisie.
Table 7 Education enrollment data by sex

2010 2016 2018
Net Primary Enrollment Ratio (Total) 105.97% 116.47%

Gross Primary Enrollment Ratio (Female) 109.25% 120.75%
Gross Primary Enrollment Ratio (Male) 102.83% 112.36%
Gross Secondary Enrollment Ratio (Total) 51.64% 71.42% 72.69%
Gross Secondary Enrollment Ratio (Female) 54.68% 75.22% 78.27%
Gross Secondary Enrollment Ratio (Male) 48.72% 64.35% 67.37%
School Life Expectancy (Female) 12.39
School Life Expectancy (Male) 11.69
Percentage of Repeaters (Female) 3.78
Percentage of Repeaters (Male) 4.52
Source: UNESCO (2018). Bangladesh: Education System. UNESCO INSTITUTE FOR

STATISTICS. http://uis.unesco.org/en/country/bd?theme=education-and-literacy Data as of August
22, 2020
Table 8 Overview of General Health Outcomes between 1971 and 2015

1971 1980 1990 2000 2010 2015
Life Expectancy 46.6. 52.9 58.2 65.4 69.9 71.5

Female Life Expectancy 45.8 52.4 58.2 66.0 71.3 73.3
Male Life Expectancy 47.3 53.4 58.2 65.0 68.7 70.0
Infant Mortality Rates (per 1000) 148.4 133.6 99.6 63.9 38.9 29.6
Female Infant Mortality Rates 92.2 59.5 36.2 27.6
Male Infant Mortality Rates 106.6 68.1 41.4 31.5
Lifetime Risk of Maternal Death 1.6% 0.7% 0.5%
Source: World Bank (2020). Bangladesh Life Expectancy Rates at birth, male/female, Infant Mortality
rates (per 1000 live births), male/female, Lifetime Risk of Maternal Death (1971–2015). World Bank
Open Data. Data as of August 22, 2020
Clearly, a contradictory state buffeted by various intermediate classes has

given way to a combination of corrupt bourgeoisie and NGOs dependent
on Western aid. This is not a stable combination in a crisis-ridden period
of global capitalism.
The above observation underlines an important strategic consideration.
We formulate this aspect as a two-point strategic proposal in addition to
the points presented above. We submit that for a capabilities-enhancing
and enabling state of the twenty-first century with the multiple ecological-
economic, political, social and ideological crises facing the planet, the fol-
lowing two items are indispensable:
Distributional Equality
This is more of a challenge today than it was in the post-WWII setting.
Vibrant egalitarian anti-free market movements were widespread during
that period—even in the United States. A combination of Cold War poli-
cies and then a revival of Hayekian and other varieties of neoliberalism in
the 1980s coinciding with the global crises made Income and Asset
Distributional Equality an anathema among the mainstream. Bangladesh
needs to reverse the trend in rising inequalities in order to avoid political
and social crises.
But the greatest hope here comes from the people’s movements that
have been emerging globally. However, egalitarian goals need to be explic-
itly included in movement agendas and concrete strategies and tactics
devised. When in power, the energies of such movements can then be
largely directed toward making the objectives more concrete and solving
practical problems of implementation. Through learning feedback mecha-
nisms, mistakes can then be detected and corrected, and further appropri-
ate modifications made. Such a process cannot be anything but deeply
democratic. This is our final strategic point.
Deepening of Democracy
The theory of deepening democracy is derived from a history of struggles
from below. In the uneven world of the twenty-first century, the struggles
for democracy take many forms and will differ from one place to another.
But the struggles for basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health
care and education are important everywhere. With ecological destruc-
tion, movements to save the global commons are crucial. In both these
movements the voices of women, minorities, workers and peasants are
universally important. One group whose role needs to be underlined is the
indigenous peoples of the world. Their increasingly progressive and lead-
ing role in places like Bolivia is exemplary. Movements everywhere can
learn from them. New forms of deliberative democracy and advancing
human rights for the people can be discovered only through these strug-
gles. Even when state power is held by the minority dominant classes, such
struggles can lead to democratic deepening. Alternatively, they can lead to
minority-exploiting classes being forced to share state power with the pop-
ular classes.
Two conclusions for the future of Bangladesh follow logically from the
above identification of both the necessary and the more contingent factors
that have played a role in East Asia, and our additional crucial strategic
factors, egalitarianism and deepening of democracy for the twenty-first
century, enabling developmental state and a strategy for development as
freedom with a genuine deepening of democracy and human rights.
The first is the need to take a historically grounded pragmatic diagnos-
tic approach to the technical problems of development. The second is that
at the same time we must make democratic deepening and egalitarianism
the strategic centerpieces of any progressive social movement. It is impor-
tant to make these last two factors the most salient identifying criteria for
turning Bangladesh into an innovative Enabling Developmental State that
integrates useful markets with developmental objectives to increase peo-
ple’s capabilities.
It is necessary to identify distortions from the perspective of deepening
democracy and egalitarianism and correct these quickly. It is also equally
necessary to identify market failures and other institutional failures. Instead
of taking a grand, presumptive approach to development, a mix of hetero-
dox policies with the willingness to revise policies before the cost grows
too high seems to be the best recipe for avoiding failures. However, com-
promising on democracy and egalitarianism would be a strategic mistake.
In general, with careful participatory planning and implementation, deep-
ening of democracy will not conflict with growth and other goals of
development.
Clearly, in order to promote equitable growth and broad develop-
ment we must build institutions that can supply social insurance and
safety nets and create a democratic space for voice and accountability.
But there is no one-size-that-fits-all for any of these functions. Here
the role of the history of popular movements and institution building
will be crucial. While movements in different parts of the world can
certainly learn from each other and have ties of solidarity, each part will
need to have a specific strategic orientation and tactical and organiza-
tional forms to build both the movement and the egalitarian and dem-
ocratic institutions in every sphere according to its particular historical
trajectory. No predetermined futures are foreordained in this complex
twenty-first-century world.
This chapter is written with the hope of making a modest contribution
to the evolving global counterhegemonic movements in which Bangladesh
can take part by following a strategy for an egalitarian, deeply democratic

and ecologically sustainable development. The people of Bangladesh must
be a part of a global anti-imperialist democratic movement. This is the
ultimate message of an analysis within the SEICA framework based on the
relevant historical data for Bangladesh.
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Human Development in Bangladesh:
A Dynamic Trajectory
Selim Jahan
People are the real wealth of a nation. The fundamental objective of devel-
opment is to create an enabling environment for people to enjoy a long,
healthy and creative life. This may appear to be a simple truth, but it is
often forgotten in the immediate concern with the accumulation of com-
modities and financial wealth. In its development journey, Bangladesh has
always put people at the centre of development. Its focus has never been
simply on the richness of the economy, but also on the richness of the lives
of its people. Bangladesh strives towards eradicating poverty, reducing
inequality and ensuring environment sustainability, while building a fair
society in which the rule of law, fundamental human rights and freedom,
and justice would be secured for all citizens.
This year, Bangladesh marks the Golden Jubilee of its independence.
The whole nation is celebrating this milestone with joy and pride. In 1971,
Bangladesh has emerged, like a phoenix, from the ashes of destruction,
after a bloody nine-month liberation war. At its birth, doubts were
expressed by some about the future of the new country and, yes, there
have been some twists and turns in the development trajectory of
S. Jahan (*)
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), New York, NY, USA

158 S. JAHAN
Bangladesh. But over the past 50 years, the country has not only remained
on a steady trajectory but has also pushed that trajectory even higher.
Today, as Bangladesh is being heralded as a development miracle by the
world, the country and its people have every reason to celebrate the
Golden Jubilee of its historic independence.
Yet, as it looks forward to the next 50 years, human development chal-
lenges remain for Bangladesh. Some of these challenges are lingering chal-
lenges, like poverty and gender inequality; some are deepening challenges,
like inequalities and climate change; and some are, undoubtedly, emerging
challenges, like human security and the Covid-19 pandemic. The global
scenario will also give rise to some human development challenges for
Bangladesh.
In the context of all of these, this chapter reflects on the overall human
development landscape of Bangladesh from a historical perspective, look-
ing at the country’s human development trajectory over the past 50 years.
It starts with a short account of the human development framework, fol-
lowed by a section on human development trends of Bangladesh—the
achievements, the disparities and the deprivations. The next section high-
lights the factors contributing to these achievements. It then points out
the country’s human development challenges—lingering, deepening and
emerging. The chapter ends with a discussion of policy options and the
institutional reforms required to march forward.
The Human Development Framework

Human development is simply defined as a process of enlarging choices
and creating opportunities for everyone. It is about acquiring more capa-
bilities and enjoying more opportunities to use these capabilities. With
more capabilities and opportunities, people have more choices, and
expanding choices is at the core of the human development framework,
but it is also a process. Anchored in human rights, it is also linked to
human security. Its ultimate objective is to enlarge human freedoms. Such
freedoms have two fundamental aspects, well-being freedom, represented
by capabilities, and agency freedom, represented by voice and autonomy
(Fig. 1). Both types of freedoms are absolutely necessary for human devel-
opment for everyone. In the ultimate analysis, human development is
development of the people, development for the people and development
by the people.
HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN BANGLADESH: A DYNAMIC TRAJECTORY 159
Fig. 1 Human development—the analytical framework. (Source: UNDP, 2016)
The human development framework in the 1990 Human Developed

Report also introduced a composite index—the Human Development
Index (HDI) for assessing achievements in basic dimensions of human
development. It consists of three basic dimensions of human develop-
ment—a long and healthy life, measured by life expectancy at birth;
knowledge, measured by mean years of schooling and expected years of
schooling; and a decent standard of living, measured by gross national
income per capita. The theoretical maximum value of the HDI is 1.0.
To measure human development more comprehensively, four other
composite indices were also constructed. The Inequality-adjusted HDI
(IHDI) discounts the HDI according to the extent of inequality, the
Gender Development Index (GDI) compares female and male HDI val-
ues, the Gender Inequality Index highlights women’s empowerment, and
the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) measures non-income dimen-
sions of poverty.
160 S. JAHAN
Human Development Trends of Bangladesh

Over the past fifty years, human development in Bangladesh has shown
three distinct trends—impressive progress on several fronts, unevenness in
human development achievements and a backlog of deprivations. In
assessing all these trends, two tools are used—composite human develop-
ment indices such as the HDI, and individual human development indica-
tors like child mortality, school attendance and access to safe drinking water.
Human Development Achievements

Over the years, Bangladesh has made tremendous progress on economic
and human development fronts. It has enjoyed an annual average GDP
growth rate of nearly 6 per cent since 1991 resulting, in 2019, in an econ-
omy of $330 billion, from a $35 billion economy in the mid-1990s.
During the same period, the per capita income of Bangladeshis increased
from $300 to about $2064—a seven-fold increase. The incidence of pov-
erty, as measured by the headcount ratio based on a national poverty line,
declined from 58 per cent in 1990 to nearly 21 per cent in 2019
(Razzaque, 2020).
Today, Bangladesh is in the middle human development category, mov-
ing in 2015 to the ‘lower-middle-income’ country category from the
‘low-income’ category, as classified by the World Bank. It is moving
towards the official Less Developed Countries graduation in 2024 and
looks towards achieving ‘developed country’ status in 2041.1 Bangladesh
is now working hard to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDG), set by the global community in 2015, having achieved most of the
targets of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for the year 2015
following the United Nations Millennium Declaration of 2000.2
1
Graduation from the group of least developed countries requires a country to meet devel-
opment thresholds under at least two of the three pre-defined criteria of per capita income,
human asset index and economic vulnerability index in two consecutive United Nations tri-
ennial reviews. In 2018, Bangladesh for the first time achieved graduation qualification by
satisfying all three thresholds. In the second consecutive triennial review in 2021, the coun-
try is expected to fulfil the graduation criteria again, paving the way for its official graduation
from LDC status in 2024. Countries’ inclusion in and graduation from the LDC group are
assessed at triennial reviews conducted by the Committee for Development Policy (CDP) of
the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
2
The eight MDGs are to (i) eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, (ii) achieve universal
primary education, (iii) promote gender equality and empower women, (iv) reduce child
The HDI over time captures the impressive human development prog-
ress of Bangladesh. From 1990 to 2019, Bangladesh’s HDI improved
from 0.394 to 0.632—a nearly three-fifth increase. In fact, with China
leading the race, Bangladesh is one of the top five countries in terms of
largest absolute gains in the HDI score during that period (UNDP, 2020).
And on many human development fronts, its progress has been better
than its that of its neighbours (Table 1).
Thus, even with a lower GDP per capita (in 2017 PPP$), compared to
countries like India and Pakistan, Bangladesh has achieved a life expec-
tancy at birth of nearly 73 years, compared to nearly 70 years in India and
67 years in Pakistan. In 2019, the under-five mortality rate per 1000 live
births was 31 in Bangladesh, 34 in India and 67 in Pakistan (World
Bank, 2020).
When the male and female HDI of Bangladesh were compared, in
2019 the HDI value for women was 0.596, while that of men was 0.660
Table 1 Comparison of Bangladesh’s performance under HDI components with

comparator countries (2019)
Country HDI HDI Life expectancy Expected Mean years GNI per
value rank at birth (years) years of of schooling capita (2017
schooling PPP US$)
Bangladesh 0.632 133 72.6 11.6 6.2 4976

Nepal 0.602 142 70.8 12.8 5.0 3457
Pakistan 0.557 154 67.3 8.3 5.2 5005
Bhutan 0.654 129 71.8 13.0 4.1 10,746
India 0.645 131 69.7 12.2 6.5 6681
Sri Lanka 0.782 72 77.0 14.1 10.6 12,707
Maldives 0.740 95 78.9 12.2 7.0 17,417
Myanmar 0.583 147 67.1 10.7 5.0 4961
South Asia 0.641 – 69.9 11.7 6.5 6531
LDCs 0.538 – 65.3 9.9 4.9 2935
Source: Razzaque (2020), based on United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) data
mortality, (v) improve maternal health, (vi) combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases,
(vii) ensure environmental sustainability, and (viii) develop a global partnership for develop-
ment. Bangladesh achieved several goals and indicators especially in the areas of poverty
alleviation, ensuring food security, primary school enrolment, gender parity at the primary
and secondary levels of education, lowering the infant and under-five mortality rate and
maternal mortality ratio, improving immunization coverage and reducing the incidence of
communicable diseases.
162 S. JAHAN
(Fig. 2). The overall GDI score for Bangladesh in 2019 was 0.904, higher
than those of India (0.820) and Pakistan (0.745). Even though both
Bangladesh and India started from the same GDI score (0.702) in 1995,
by 2019 Bangladesh had surpassed India, reflecting better progress in
gender equality in human development, as measured by GDI
(UNDP, 2020).
In terms of income poverty, the proportion of the population living below
the nationally defined income poverty line declined from about 58 per cent in
the early 1990s to about 21 per cent in 2019 (Fig. 3). During the same
period, extreme poverty (defined as people living on $1.90 per day) declined
from about 43 per cent to 11 per cent. During the same period, more than 24
million people were thus lifted out of poverty (Razzaque, 2020).
The potential gains in human development are sometimes lost because
of existing socio-economic inequalities. When measured by the income
inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), Bangladesh loses 24 per cent of its over-
all HDI. But the good news is that during the last decade (2010–2019),
the IHDI value of Bangladesh increased from 0.387 to 0.478, implying
that inequality in human development declined during this period
(UNDP, 2020).
On the health front also, Bangladesh has made notable progress.
During the last three decades, (1990–2019), Bangladesh reduced its
infant mortality rate from nearly 100 per 1000 live births to just 21 per
1000 live births, and the maternal mortality rate from 165 per 100,000
live births, down from 594 deaths per 100,000 live births (BBS, 2018).
Bangladesh also fared better in child immunization. The diphtheria, per-
tussis and tetanus (DPT) immunization rate is now 98 per cent of children
aged 12–23 months. The situation of child nutrition has also improved
substantially in Bangladesh. During the period 1990–2019, the preva-
lence of stunting in children declined from 55 per cent to 28 per cent, and
Fig. 2 Human Development Index (HDI) disaggregated by male and female

HDI. (Source: Razzaque, 2020, based on UNDP data)
Fig. 3 Poverty incidence in Bangladesh (percentage of population living below

the poverty and extreme poverty lines). (Note: Poverty rates in 2017, 2018 and
2019 are based on Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics estimates. Source: Based on
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics data)
the incidence of underweight children reduced from 56 per cent to 22.8

per cent (BDHS, 2020 & MICS, 2019). Over the years, Bangladesh has
successfully reduced its total fertility rate (Total Fertility Rate from 4.5
births in 1990 to 2.04 births in 2019 (UNDP, 2020)
Bangladesh has also made notable progress in the area of education.
The adult literacy rate in the country improved to 74 per cent in 2018
from just 35 per cent in 1990. Between 1990 and 2019, the net primary
enrolment rose from 75 per cent to 97 per cent, and secondary enrolment
increased from less than 20 per cent to 66 per cent. Remarkable progress
has been made in female secondary education enrolment, and in that indi-
cator Bangladesh has done better than countries like India and Pakistan
(Asadullah et al., 2014). One of the major achievements in education is
reducing the drop-out rate from around 50 per cent in 2005 to below 18
Box 1 Bangladesh—A Summary of Socio-economic Progress Over the

Past Three Decades
• Bangladesh’s GDP has grown, on average, at an annual rate of

nearly 6 per cent between 1991 and 2019 and as a result, a mere
$35 billion economy in 1991 has expanded nearly nine times to
an economy of $330 billion.
(continued)
164 S. JAHAN
(continued)
• During the same period, the per capita gross national income has
registered a more than seven-fold rise from just $300 to
above $2064.
• The headcount poverty declined from 58 per cent in 1990 to
about 20.5 per cent in 2019.
• The average life expectancy at birth registered a rise from about
58 years in 1990 to nearly 73 years in 2019.
• The adult literacy rate increased from just 35 per cent in 1990 to
about 75 per cent in 2019.
• Net enrolment in primary education stood at 97 per cent in 2019,
up from 75 per cent in 1990; net secondary education enrolment
increased to 66 per cent from less than 20 per cent.
• The infant mortality rate declined from 99.6 per 1000 live births
in 1990 to 21 in 2019.
• The maternal mortality rate fell from 594 per 100,000 live births
in 1990 to 165 in 2019.
Source: Razzaque (2020)
per cent in 2019.3 Some of the salient features of the human development
achievements of Bangladesh are summarized in Box 1.
Unevenness in Human Development Achievements

Even though over the past 50 years Bangladesh has made impressive prog-
ress in overall human development, the achievements have been uneven
across several planes—socio-economic groups, regions, gender, rural—
urban divide and so on. Figures 4 and 5 highlight this issue with regard to
under-five mortality.
Such disparities are also prominent in other human development areas.
Thus, in 2019, while 85 per cent of the babies born to the richest 20 per
cent of the population were delivered by a skilled professional, the corre-
sponding figure for the poorest quintile was only 32 per cent. The same
year, the literacy rate for the population aged 7 years and above was about
3
Calculated from BBS data.
200
150
100
50
0
1993-94 2000 2004 2007 2014 2019
Naonal Urban Rural
Fig. 4 Under-five mortality by the rural—urban divide. (Source: Akash, 2020,

estimation based on Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of BBS [2019])
2019
2013
2007
2004
0 50 100 150
Richest Fourth Middle Second Poorest
Fig. 5 Under-five mortality by wealth quintiles. (Source: Akash, 2020, estima-
tion based on Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey of BBS [2019])
75 per cent in Barishal, but only 60 per cent in Sylhet. In 2019, the mean
years of schooling among girls in Bangladesh was slightly above 4 years,
but that of boys was 6 years.4
4
Author’s estimation based on Household Income and Consumption Survey (2016),
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.
166 S. JAHAN
In terms of income and expenditure, the top 10 per cent of the popula-
tion of Bangladesh accounted for 38 per cent of total national income in
2016, while the share of the bottom 40 per cent of the population in
national income was only 13 per cent. In the same year, the per capita
monthly household expenditure of the bottom decile was Taka 2122,
while that of the top decile was four times more at Taka 9137 (BBS, 2016).
Like any other country, Bangladesh also experiences gender disparities in
human development. Even though gender parity has been achieved in pri-
mary and secondary level enrolment, drop-out rates remain higher for girls
than boys. At the tertiary level of education, the rate of enrolment for females
in 2017 was 17 per cent, as opposed to 24 per cent for their male counter-
parts. Female labour force participation rate in the country is only 36 per
cent, while that of males is 81 per cent. Women’s share of employment in
senior and middle management was about 12 per cent in 2017 (UNDP, 2020).
With regard to climate change impacts, the climate-vulnerable districts
are also the districts with a higher incidence of poverty. Flood-prone dis-
tricts like Kurigram and Gaibandha also have a higher incidence of pov-
erty. In terms of nutritional outcomes, almost all of the coastal districts
and the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) zone show higher ratios of wasted
children than the national average. In the climate-vulnerable districts (e.g.
coastal, flood-prone and haor areas), about 45 per cent of households suf-
fer from some kind of disease. In the climate-induced disaster-prone areas,
because of damaged schools, travel disruptions due to road or bridge col-
lapse, spoilt books, reduced earnings or loss of parents during disasters,
school attendance is negatively affected. This has been observed in dis-
tricts like Kurigram, Feni and Patuakhali during disasters (Kabir, 2020).
Continuing Human Deprivations

Despite the phenomenal human development progress in Bangladesh over
the past 50 years, there are still significant lingering human deprivations
on various fronts. During 1990–2019, even though 24 million people
were lifted out of poverty, around 34 million people were still living in
poverty in 2019—a number which may rise due to the Covid-19 pan-
demic. The Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), which is a composite
measure of non-income aspects of deprivation, indicates that almost 1 in
every 4 persons in Bangladesh suffers from multidimensional poverty
(Alkire & Jahan, 2018; Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiate
(OPHI), 2019).
Fig. 6 District-wise incidence of multidimensional poverty in Bangladesh, 2019.

(Data source: OPHI, 2020)
There are, however, significant variations among districts (Fig. 6).

Multidimensional poverty also varies along the rural—urban divide. For
example, in 2019 the MPI value in rural Bangladesh was almost twice that
in urban Bangladesh.5
5
Based on global MPI data tables 2020, OPHI (2020).
168 S. JAHAN
Even though there have been significant improvements in health out-

comes, there are major deprivations there. More than 1 in every 4 children
are stunted and more than 1 in every 5 children are underweight. In
Bangladesh in 2018, there was 1 doctor for every 2000 people, 1 nurse for
every 2500 people and 1 hospital bed for every 1250 people (WHO, 2020).
In terms of social services, in Bangladesh 45 per cent of people were
without safely managed drinking water services in 2019 and 22 per cent
were without electricity. More than half of those who have jobs are in
vulnerable employment (UNDP, 2020).
Factors Accelerating the Human Development

Success of Bangladesh
The phenomenal human development achievements of Bangladesh over
the years did not occur automatically; several factors have contributed to
that success. At least five can easily be identified:
• Better access to basic social services: Over the years, better access to
various social services has resulted in improved human development
outcomes. For example, in health areas, maternal mortality rate has
declined because of such factors as antenatal care visits, delivery at
facility centres, presence of skilled birth attendance, post-natal care
for mothers and fulfilment of the unmet needs for family planning.
The number of births attended by skilled personnel increased from
less than 10 per cent in the 1990s to 53 per cent in 2017–2018
(Razzaque, 2020). Better access to women’s education and employ-
ment has helped in reducing infant and child mortality. The impres-
sive achievement in life expectancy at birth can be attributed to
better results in various critical outcomes, including maternal, infant
and under-five mortality rates, improved child nutritional outcomes,
and increased vaccination coverage.
• Human development-friendly policies: Proactive policies in areas of

child immunization, contraceptive adoption and oral rehydration
saline (ORS) contributed to better health outcomes. In line with
SDGs, the government is committed to achieving Universal Health
Care by 2030. Better school enrolment has been possible due to
government efforts regarding several policies—free and compulsory
primary education for all, which in 2016 was extended to grade 8,

and stipend programmes at primary and secondary levels. Rapid pov-
erty reductions in Bangladesh were possible, to a large extent, due to
targeted interventions. The National Social Security Strategy (NSSS)
of Bangladesh addressed Bangladesh’s triple problems of poverty,
vulnerability and marginalization.
• Indomitable spirit of the people: Human development achievements in

Bangladesh owe a great deal to a rapidly growing economy. Higher
economic growth over the last three decades was possible because of
increased flow of remittances and foreign exchange earnings from
garment exports. In both cases, the indomitable spirits of people
played a major role. In the first case, unskilled workers traveled to the
Middle East and worked under very demanding conditions. In the
second case, rural girls and women in the thousands migrated to
urban areas to work in garment factories. The creativity and innova-
tion of millions of people working in agriculture and other informal
sectors have contributed to human development progress in
Bangladesh.
• Women’s empowerment: Women’s empowerment in various areas—
economic, social and political—has played a role in advancing human
development in Bangladesh. Destitute women in rural Bangladesh,
taking advantage of microfinance and mobile phones, engaged in all
kinds of enterprising activities. These have changed the growth
dynamics in the country, making growth more pro-poor. Women
have initiated different social movements in areas of early marriage,
ownership of assets including land and family courts. In local-level
government, more than 25 per cent of representatives are women,
which made a difference to human development at the local level
(UNDP, 2019).
• Role of NGOs and civil society: Development partners, particularly
non-governmental organizations (NGOs), have played an instru-
mental role in providing basic social services to people. Microfinance
institutions like the Grameen Bank have provided much-needed
loans to small entrepreneurs. The non-formal education programme
of the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) has con-
tributed to enhanced enrolment. In fact, BRAC’s work on separate
toilets for girls in schools has enhanced female enrolment. The work
of such United Nations agencies as the United Nations Children
170 S. JAHAN
Fund (UNICEF) in areas of child immunization and safe water has

played a role in human development progress in Bangladesh.
Human Development Challenges of Bangladesh

Even with all the phenomenal human progress over the years, Bangladesh
still faces a number of human development challenges. Some of the chal-
lenges represent lingering challenges, like poverty; some deepening chal-
lenges, like climate change; and some emerging challenges like the Covid-19
pandemic.
Lingering Challenges
Over the years, Bangladesh has been able to quantitatively expand its basic
social services, yet the quality of such services has remained a lingering
concern. This is true of health and educational services. For example, in
the health sector there are three service systems—public services, geared
towards common people; private services, meant for middle- and upper
middle-class; and services beyond the borders, availed by the richer class.
The public health services are deprived of resources and facilities, and as a
result poor and marginalized people in the society do not get quality ser-
vices, even though there have been expansions in terms of quantity. Thus,
expansions of services have been achieved with qualitative compromises.
Bangladesh has a working age young population of nearly 30 million,
but only 30 per cent of the total employed people in Bangladesh are young
people (Moazzem, 2020). Given the current situation and the projected
demographic dividend until 2030, ensuring jobs for people, particularly
young people, remains a lingering challenge. Furthermore, as the content
and organization of jobs are rapidly changing, preparing young people for
a globalized digital twenty-first-century economy will be a huge task.
Over the years, even though remarkable progress has been made in the
area of women’s empowerment, women still face several deprivations,
often just because of their sex. About 60 per cent of women in the age
group of 20–24 years get married at age 18. About 58 per cent of women
face domestic violence by their intimate partners. Furthermore, for every
100 unemployed male youth, there are 150 female youth. Of STEM
(Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) graduates, only 8
per cent are women. One in every three women does not have access to
financial institutions with mobile banking services (UNDP, 2020).
Therefore, women’s empowerment remains a lingering human develop-

ment challenge for Bangladesh.
Deepening Challenges
Inequality has become the defining issue of Bangladeshi society. In
Bangladesh, the Gini index
of income, a measure of income inequality, increased from 0.39 in the
early 1990s to 0.48 in 2016, suggesting an increasingly uneven income
distribution over time (Akash, 2020). But the inequalities have also
expanded in non-income areas, such as health, education and ownership of
natural resources. Furthermore, there are inequalities not only in terms of
outcomes, but also in terms of opportunities—opportunities in health and
education, as well as in productive resources, such as credit.
Climate change-induced extreme weather events are estimated to have
caused a yearly loss of GDP of $1.7 billion (Kabir, 2020). Loss of arable
lands and livelihoods, displacement of people, loss of agricultural produc-
tion and food insecurity are caused by increased frequency and intensity of
various natural disasters, induced by climate change. Indeed, climate
change affects physical and social environments, knowledge and assets.
For example, in the salinity- and drought-prone areas, there is a significant
lack of drinking water, which may lead to serious health issues for the
population. Lack of access to resources, capabilities and opportunities
intensifies the risks. In the ultimate analysis, climate change is not only an
environmental challenge but has become a deepening human develop-
ment challenge for Bangladesh.
Over the years, the governance and the institutional structure of
Bangladesh have been deteriorating, as they suffer on three fronts—inef-
ficiency and ineffectiveness, corruption and leakages, and lack of transpar-
ency and accountability. Issues like lack of rule of law, lack of oversight
function, lack of judicial independence, non-meritocracy-based appoint-
ments and promotions of public officials, and lack of transparency and
accountability have deteriorated the quality of governance of Bangladesh.
Taking everything into consideration, the deterioration of governance and
institutions has become a deepening human development challenge for
Bangladesh.
172 S. JAHAN
Emerging Challenges
As in any other country, the Covid-19 pandemic is an unprecedented
human development crisis for Bangladesh. It may erode the human devel-
opment gains that the country has made over the past years. Almost 34
million people are already living in poverty in Bangladesh, and Covid-19
through its economic repercussions may push another 30 million people
into poverty (Akash, 2020). The country may also lose a total of 1.1 mil-
lion to 1.6 million jobs for youth depending on the containment of the
virus. As of June 2020, a total of 70,000 workers had lost their jobs in the
garment industry of Bangladesh, and around another 1 million jobs in this
sector were at risk of becoming redundant by the end of 2020 (ILO and
ADB, 2020). Covid-19 has already exposed the fragility of the health sys-
tem of Bangladesh, which may become more vulnerable in the near future.
Information technology-based education may generate more inequalities
as children from rural areas or poor households will not have access to this
technology. Covid-19 will have asymmetrical impacts on women in terms
of their formal work in the economy as well as the burden of their house-
hold and care work. It may also lead to more frictions and domestic vio-
lence because of lockdowns, and this will have implications for people’s
mental health.
In recent times, shrinking democratic space, limited freedom of expres-
sion and state control of the media have been marginalizing people’s par-
ticipation in the human development process. The lack of people’s voice
and autonomy has been identified as an emerging threat to human devel-
opment in Bangladesh. The spread of terror and violence, extrajudicial
killings and lack of rule of law have had a serious impact on people’s secu-
rity in Bangladesh. The affluence and wealth bias of the system, intoler-
ance on the part of people and weaponization of the society have made the
situation worse. In many instances, terror has become our culture and
violence our language. As a result, human freedom has been limited,
human dignity has been shattered and human security is at risk.
The global economic system has become more fragile and inward-
looking because of the Covid-19 pandemic. As the economic growth of
the rest of the world including the developed countries slows down,
Bangladesh may be adversely affected in three ways. First, demands for its
garments and its unskilled workers in the Arab world may decrease; sec-
ond, there may be imposition of non-tariff trade restrictions by the devel-
oped world; and third, there will be fewer opportunities for concessional
aid or grants. All of these would reduce the resources available for human
development in Bangladesh.
Addressing the Challenges: Policy Options

and Institutional Reforms
Addressing the human development challenges of Bangladesh—whether

lingering, deepening or emerging challenges—would require both policy
options and institutional reforms. An objective assessment and recogni-
tion of problems, strong political will and an honest implementation of
strategies are preconditions for successes of the policies and strategies.
The lingering problem of poverty and the deepening issue of inequali-
ties would require pro-poor macroeconomic policies with investment in
human development priorities, redistribution of assets, an employment-
led growth strategy with a conducive legal and regulatory framework of
the informal sector, creation of jobs where poor people live, building rural
infrastructure, and enhancing financial institutions with expanded banking
services to disadvantaged and marginal groups. Targeted interventions
like comprehensive social protection programmes and school feeding pro-
grammes can also make a dent in poverty and inequality.
The issue of quality of services demands, on one hand, traditional mea-
sures like training of teachers and provision of modern teaching materials,
but on the other hand innovative approaches in providing low-cost quality
services in health, supply of better drinking water and improved sanita-
tion. South—South cooperation and collaboration with NGOs may help
with such creativity and innovation. Breaking the three-tier educational
and health structures and introducing a uniform service structure is also a
must. Public administration reform with decentralized services and build-
ing a cadre of committed service providers with necessary compensation
would also help.
The deepening challenge of climate change must focus on a multi-
pronged approach. Advocacy and awareness through raising human devel-
opment concerns in climate change discussions and building awareness
among vulnerable populations should be the starting point. The other
building blocks should be, first, provisioning of basic social services to
climate-vulnerable people through designing effective public investment
programmes, bridging the spending gap and promoting basic public ser-
vices in riverine and coastal islands, and, second, promoting livelihood
174 S. JAHAN
options through occupational diversification and viable alternative liveli-

hood options, pursuing innovative farming practices, and protecting the
ecosystem and food chain. Cross-cutting initiatives like building on mutual
synergies between climate change and public health, integrating climate
change issues into development strategies, and implementing mitigation
measures would also be necessary.
The lingering challenge of youth employment would require building
their capabilities on one hand and creating opportunities for them on the
other. On the first front, through appropriate education, skill training and
acquiring digital competency, they have to be prepared for twenty-first-
century jobs. Skills and trainings must also be imparted for young migrant
workers. On the second front, through labour-intensive manufacturing,
providing a support matrix to young entrepreneurs, seizing outsources
opportunities, developing ‘search and match assistance’, and formulating
internship programmes, opportunities for their employment should be
created. During the time of Covid-19, responding to changed demand for
skills, opting for e-commerce, and pursuing creativity and innovation are
some of the options for younger people.
The challenge of women’s empowerment must encompass women’s
access to assets including land, fostering their higher education, support to
their work and strengthening social protection. Cracks must be made in
the glass ceiling so that it can be broken once and for all. Laws against rape
and domestic violence must be watertight and their implementation must
not be compromised at any point in time.
Overcoming the deepening governance crisis must concentrate on
three issues—inefficiency and ineffectiveness, lack of transparency and
accountability, and corruption and leakages. These would require, among
other things, ensuring rule of law, tackling elitism in public administra-
tion, decentralizing the administration, making institutions transparent
and accountable, minimization of political interference in public adminis-
tration, building bureaucracy based on meritocracy, severing the network
between politics and business, improving the weak oversight function,
ensuring judicial independence, and ending money laundering. The
emerging crisis of democratic space and value cannot be addressed with-
out creating an environment that allows diverse political approaches
(except for those opposed to the fundamental principles of Bangladesh),
facilitating freedom of expression, protecting citizen’s right to informa-
tion, and providing and protecting space for civil society.
Addressing the serious emerging challenge of Covid-19 would require

measures on several fronts—some in the short term, some in the long
term; some in social services, some on economic fronts; some in areas of
vaccination, and some on global fronts. Taking an integrated approach,
these strategies would include mobilizing more data and undertaking
more research, strengthening measures that have already been taken to
address the relevant adverse impacts on food, jobs, public health, educa-
tion and so on. At the same time, the existing drive for vaccination must
continue. The country will also have to deal with an adverse global situa-
tion with regard to its garment and unskilled labour export. In some cases,
this require need fresh negotiations with trading partners; in other cases,
it may require a sub-regional or regional approach.
In conclusion, every human being counts and all human lives are
equally valuable. This universalism is at the core of the future human
development of Bangladesh. Human development for everyone is not a
dream but a reality. In January 1972, while he was returning from captiv-
ity to an independent Bangladesh, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman
described his homecoming as a journey from darkness to light, from captiv-
ity to freedom, from desolation to hope.
Today, hopes are within the reach of Bangladesh to realize. The nation
can build on what has been achieved, and can attain what once seemed
unattainable. In the days to come, the country will ensure a journey from
deprivation to prosperity, from challenges to opportunities, from ideas to
actions. And on this journey, if those who are the farthest behind are
reached first, no one will be left behind.
Acknowledgement The author thankfully acknowledges the inputs drawn from

the works of Professor M.M. Akash, Dr M. Abdur Razzaque, Dr Mahfuz Kabir
and Dr Khondaker Golam Moazzem.
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Government—Business Relationships
in Bangladesh
Syed Akhtar Mahmood
Introduction
The UN has decided that Bangladesh will officially graduate from the
ranks of the less developed countries in 2026. The World Bank currently
classifies Bangladesh as a lower middle-income country. This chapter
assesses the current nature of the government—business relationship in
Bangladesh and suggests ways in which this needs to change as the coun-
try approaches middle-income status.
The prime motivator of business behavior is profits. Businesses seek to
maximize profit, and their business decisions regarding investment, out-
put levels, product composition, nature of technology, input use, sales,
and job creation are driven by this motive. The pursuit of a profit-
maximizing strategy, while beneficial for businesses, may not always be so
for society. For example, adoption of environmentally friendly production
Some of the material included in this chapter is derived from opinion pieces
written by the author. Citations are provided in the relevant sections.
S. A. Mahmood (*)
Potomac, MD, USA

178 S. A. MAHMOOD
processes or investment in workplace safety enhancements may not be

profitable for businesses, particularly those aimed at the lower end of the
market, leading to underinvestment in such otherwise worthy practices.
In such instances it is the responsibility of public policy to steer business
behavior in a socially desired direction, such as environmental protection
and workplace safety, through incentives or regulatory enforcement.
This chapter argues that a meaningful transition to a middle-income
status will require a transformation in the relationship between govern-
ment and business. It starts with a look at the performance of the business
sector, followed by a discussion of the hurdles faced by businesses, and
finally an examination of competition in the marketplace. It then discusses
the changes required within government, as well as in the relations
between government and the business sector, in order to make the econ-
omy and business sector dynamic, competitive, and capable of making a
strong contribution to meeting social goals. Finally, this chapter offers
some concluding remarks.
Business Performance
Bangladesh is fast becoming a nation of entrepreneurs. The unleashing of
the entrepreneurial spirit is evident across the board, from small farmers
who have generated vibrancy in the rural economy by adopting modern
inputs and practices including mechanization, or changing their crop mix
over time in response to price signals, to garment manufacturers with
state-of-the art production facilities who have helped make Bangladesh
one of the world’s top garment exporters.
Despite these structural changes, Bangladesh’s export basket is heavily
dependent on one product, that is, readymade garments. Since its debut
in the early 1980s, garment exports have come to dominate Bangladesh’s
export basket. By 1990–1991, within a decade of its emergence as a sig-
nificant market sector, this industry alone accounted for 50% of total
export earnings. This proportion has been rising over time, reaching 78%
in 2010–2011 and an overwhelming 83% in 2019–2020 (Fig. 1).
Bangladesh’s garment exports are also concentrated in relatively few prod-
ucts. According to data from the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and
Exporters Association, five products, that is, T-shirts, trousers, sweaters,
jackets, and shirts, account for just over 70% of all garment exports
(BGMEA, n.d.). This proportion was even higher a few years ago, at
around 80–82% during 2006–2014, indicating that some diversification
GOVERNMENT—BUSINESS RELATIONSHIPS IN BANGLADESH 179
Fig. 1 The dominance of garments in total exports of Bangladesh: 1996–2020.

(Source: Government of Bangladesh)
has occurred within the garment basket. Moreover, the product composi-
tion has changed somewhat even within these five broad product
categories.
Nonetheless, the increasing concentration of Bangladesh’s exports is a
matter of concern, and diversification of the country’s export basket is a
priority. This includes diversification within the sector, for which there is
much scope since hundreds of apparel products are traded in the global
marketplace and for most of these sectoral sub-categories Bangladesh’s
market share is still miniscule. At the same time, Bangladesh should strive
to diversify its manufacturing and export base by entering into the pro-
duction of more complex products. Complex products, such as electron-
ics, involve a wider range of knowledge and skills than simpler products
such as garments, and build industrial capacity and resilience. Thus, coun-
tries which produce a critical mass of complex products acquire skills and
knowledge that allows them to later branch into a larger set of com-
plex goods.
The Harvard University Growth Lab has developed the Economic
Complexity Index (ECI), which measures the extent to which this diversi-
fication occurs (Harvard University, n.d.). This index looks at two
180 S. A. MAHMOOD
variables, the diversity of a country’s exports and the ubiquity of its

exports, with the latter being defined in terms of the number of countries
which can produce the same products that are exported by the country. If
the export of a country is relatively unique, this indicates that it has some
unique capabilities that other countries do not have. Since more complex
products require greater knowledge, the ECI is also a measure of the
amount of productive knowledge acquired by a country.
Bangladesh ranks low on the ECI, and its rank has declined rather than
improved over time. This is shown in Fig. 2, which presents trends in the
ECI value for Bangladesh and five other countries across the income spec-
trum for the period 1995–2018. Among the countries shown in Fig. 1,
the USA had the highest rank in 2018 (11), followed closely by China
(18). Next came India (42) and Vietnam (52), followed by Ethiopia (92)
and Bangladesh (108). It should be noted that Bangladesh was ranked
higher than Vietnam in 1995 (87 vs 107) but Vietnam has significantly
increased the complexity of its exports in the years since while Bangladesh’s
score on the ECI has declined due to the increased share of garments, a
product with low complexity, in the export basket of Bangladesh.
Fig. 2 The relative complexity of Bangladesh’s exports: 1995–2016. (Source:

Harvard University, Growth Lab, Atlas of Economic Complexity)
Discussions of Bangladesh’s competitive advantage tend to focus on

low labor costs. However, the capacity of Bangladeshi workers to adapt to
new processes is well recognized, and this agility is underexploited as a
competitive advantage.
Adaption of the sector requires a productivity culture in the private sec-
tor, including provision of training and incentives to workers to be more
productive. Consider the garment industry, which, as mentioned above,
urgently needs to diversify and improve productivity. This requires better
wages for workers. A demand for higher wages typically triggers concerns
among factory owners about the potential impact on profitability and
competitiveness. However, an increase in wages may be a win-win propo-
sition that will not only help enhance the quality of life for thousands of
workers and their dependent families but also trigger a more serious search
for efficiency improvements in the industry. There is evidence suggesting
that improved working conditions, including higher wages, lead to pro-
ductivity gains, including in the garment industry (ILO, 2017).
The definition of productivity improvements may be broadened to
include better environmental performance, which is particularly important
for industries such as leather products and textiles. And quality assurance
is critical to the growth of the pharmaceutical industry. The focus of
Bangladesh’s development agenda needs to move from just growth in out-
put to increases in productivity, ensuring product quality and protection
of the environment. The respectable GDP growth rates of many years
have masked the fact that productivity and quality consciousness remain
low in much of Bangladesh’s private sector.
A starting point for such change is to look for existing good practices in
the business sector. Consider the textile factories which serve the garment
industry. The growth of the textile industry is a good example of backward
linkages in Bangladesh. However, it has come at a cost. The hugely inef-
ficient use of water in the industry, with many factories using 3–4 times
more water than international comparators, has led to an alarming drop in
water levels around the textile clusters. A few years ago, one could find
water by digging 100 feet; now one must go deeper, 400 feet or more in
many places. But there is hope. There are textile factories that have signifi-
cantly reduced their consumption of water even with modest investment
in upgrading equipment and simple good practices such as insulating
standpipes, repairing leaks, and water recycling. The cost savings have
repaid the investment within a short period of time (Textilepact.net,
182 S. A. MAHMOOD
2021). Such stories refute the argument that industry cannot afford to
adopt good practices due to narrow profit margins.
Similar stories exist in other industries—stories of vanguards who intro-
duce new products, achieve productivity improvements, and experiment
with new processes and business models. Such stories show that produc-
tivity gains are possible. The challenge now is to replicate their experi-
ments and experiences in the rest of the business sector. Industries have
often developed when laggards have learned from the front-runners.
For the garment industry, the need to diversify, move up the value
chain, and increase productivity was felt even before Covid-19. These
challenges will now be compounded by new developments in a post-
Covid-19 world. For the required transformation to happen, there may be
a need for structural change, such as consolidation of many low-efficiency
firms into a few efficient ones. This, in turn, will require an enabling envi-
ronment. For example, there will be a need to improve the bankruptcy
regime. The specter of structural change in an industry appears daunting
to many. But consider the case of the Adamjee Jute Mills. Its closure in
2002 led to the loss of 26,000 jobs (the real number was lower because
there were many ‘ghost’ workers). But the Adamjee Export Processing
Zone set up in its place has already created more than 60,000 jobs since
opening its doors in 2006. This is “creative destruction” at work—the
phenomenon that drives a dynamic economy (Mahmood, 2011).
Business Hurdles
Efforts to enhance productivity, diversify exports, and go into more com-
plex products will be hampered by a host of hurdles that constrain busi-
nesses in Bangladesh. Whether it is a long-established business or an
entrepreneur trying to make a breakthrough, whether it is a large, modern
industrial enterprise in Dhaka or a small, traditional handloom weaver in
Pabna, all face a multitude of hurdles. Some hurdles are well known, and
some are more subtle. Some have been there for a long time, while some
are just emerging. But all discourage investment. In a country lacking in
natural resources, except perhaps water and human resources, entrepre-
neurial talent is an important asset. Business hurdles need to be removed
to make the most of this asset.
The constraints faced by businesses can be grouped into a few catego-
ries. The first is access to inputs, such as capital, raw materials, skilled
labor, and power. The second is the availability and quality of physical
infrastructure, such as roads, railways, and ports. The third is services,

such as insurance, logistical services, laboratories to test product quality,
and vocational training centers. The fourth is demand for products and
services, including constraints affecting exports and entry into global mar-
kets. Finally, there are regulations, as written and as enforced.
According to the World Economic Forum’s 2019 Global
Competitiveness Indicators (GCI), Bangladesh scores reasonably well on
two fronts, domestic market size and macroeconomic stability (World
Economic Forum, 2019). Bangladesh’s per capita GDP is low, but its
economy is huge. According to IMF data, Bangladesh’s total GDP (in
purchasing power parity terms) was 870 billion dollars in 2019, making it
the 31st largest economy in the world, ahead of countries such as
Singapore, Chile, and Ireland. Bangladesh’s macroeconomic performance
has been respectable, with the GDP growth rate showing limited fluctua-
tion around an upward trend, inflation under control, impressive foreign
exchange reserves, and manageable fiscal deficits.
However, these favorable factors are offset by other deficiencies in com-
petitiveness. Bangladesh ranked 105th out of the 141 countries covered
by the 2019 GCI. Examples of problematic areas (with Bangladesh’s rank
given in parentheses) include incidence of corruption (125), quality of
land administration (130), strength of auditing and accounting standards
(126), road connectivity (117), workforce skills (123), trade tariffs (130),
and extent of market dominance (122) (World Economic Forum, 2019).
The World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business (EODB) indicators point in
the same direction. According to the 2020 EODB indicators (published in
2019), it takes 281 days, 264 days, and 1442 days respectively to obtain a
construction permit, register property, and enforce contracts, compared
to South Asian averages of 150 days, 108 days, and 1101 days, respectively
(World Bank, 2020).
Each business constraint does not affect all firms equally. This is reflected
in Fig. 3, which is based on firm size-specific data from the World Bank’s
Enterprise Survey of 2013 (the last year for which the World Bank’s
Enterprise Survey data is available for Bangladesh). For the two factors
related to access to finance, small-sized firms were the most constrained,
followed by mid-sized and large firms. However, the shortage of an edu-
cated workforce was felt most strongly by large firms and relatively least by
small firms, while access to electricity was relatively most constrained for
the mid-sized firms.
184 S. A. MAHMOOD
Fig. 3 Firm-size differences in perceptions of business constraints. (Source:

World Bank Enterprise Survey, 2013)
Another major problem is regulatory uncertainty. Global surveys have

shown that policy and regulatory uncertainty is one of the top reasons why
foreign investors are discouraged from investing in a country (World Bank,
2018). A 2017 IFC survey found that businesses in Bangladesh face regu-
latory unpredictability on many fronts (Fig. 4).1 Businesses are most con-
cerned about inconsistencies in laws and regulations and undue use of
discretion by officials. More than 60% of respondents identified these fac-
tors as problematic. Businesses are relatively less concerned about
announcement of regulations without prior consultation. However, they
find it difficult to access information about existing regulations. Almost
half of the respondents believe that adverse policy or regulatory changes
often make costs and revenue streams uncertain.
Two-thirds of businesses feel that regulatory officials use a great deal of
undue discretion in dealing with them (Fig. 5). A similar proportion com-
plains about wide variation in interpretation of rules and compliance
requirements among officials. About half of the respondents believed that
there are no clear criteria for decision-making in many areas. However,
even where such criteria exist these are not followed by regulatory
1
Mahmood and Ali (2019).
80
70
percent of respondents
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Rules and Many laws in Finding information Regulatory officials Lack of effective Adverse policy or
regulations are Bangladesh are on existing rules use a lot of undue grievance regulatory changes
often announced inconsistent with and regulations is discretion in dealing mechanisms is a often make costs
without prior each other generally a major with businesses major obstacle for and revenue
notice, consultation obstacle for doing doing business streams very
or impact business uncertain
assessments Statements on regulatory unpredictability
Proportion agreeing this is a problem Proportion disagreeing this is a problem
Fig. 4 The Many Dimensions of Regulatory Uncertainty Faced by Businesses.

(Source: Business survey done by International Finance Corporation)
officials. Indeed, businesses consider non-adherence to decision-making

criteria a larger issue than absence of criteria.
Discretionary behavior has many roots, of which inadequate account-
ability and low capacity are considered the most important by businesses
(Fig. 6). Weaknesses in the way rules and regulations are written are also
cited as a major problem. This response is consistent with the response on
inconsistent laws and regulation. Rent-seeking is least cited as a cause of
discretionary behavior; nonetheless, almost 50% do consider this another
reason for undue use of discretion.
Discretionary behavior by regulatory officials can undermine the gov-
ernment’s own development objectives while creating uncertainty for
businesses. Even high-priority agendas that enjoy high-level support in
government may proceed slowly if relevant parts of government do not
interpret these priorities in a uniform and consistent manner. Such slow
movement, often coupled with contradictory signals from different parts
of government, may create uncertainty for investors and sometimes result
in their pulling out. Such issues may be particularly prevalent in the case of
large projects in complex sectors, such as in energy and infrastructure.
As mentioned previously, the scope for discretionary behavior could be
created by inconsistency in laws and regulations. Businesses operating in
Bangladesh believe that inconsistency is present along the entire legal
186 S. A. MAHMOOD
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Regulatory There is wide In many cases, Where clear
officials use a variation in the clear criteria for criteria exist,
lot of undue interpretation decision-making these are not
discretion in of rules and does not exist usually followed
dealing with compliance
businesses requirements by
different
officials
Statements on discretionary behavior

Proportion agreeing this is a Proportion disagreeing this is a
problem problem
Fig. 5 Business views on discretionary behavior by officials in Bangladesh.

(Source: Business survey done by International Finance Corporation)
continuum. Two out of three businesses think that many laws in Bangladesh
are inconsistent with each other. Moreover, regulations following from
the same law may not be consistent. The problem does not end there,
however. More than half of the businesses also complain about inconsis-
tencies between regulations and the associated administrative procedures
and compliance requirements. Inconsistency at many levels is a major
source of unpredictability and may also hinder the realization of important
government objectives. Such inconsistency is manifested in a variety of
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Such behavior is Such behavior is Such behavior is Such behavior is
usually due to usually due to usually due to usually due to
weaknesses in lack of capacity of rent-seeking inadequate
the way rules and regulatory tendencies accountability of
regulations are officials regulatory
written officials
Types of discretionary behavior
Proportion agreeing this is a Proportion disagreeing this is a
problem problem
Fig. 6 Business views on causes of discretionary behavior by officials in

Bangladesh. (Source: Business survey done by International Finance Corporation)
ways.2 For example, while one policy or rule may allow a business to carry
out an activity, another may restrict it from doing so. Another example is
when officials at different tiers within the same office are given conflicting
2
For example, the tax authority in Bangladesh, the National Board of Revenue (NBR), has
been trying get businesses to obtain new Business Identification Numbers (BIN) to success-
fully mandate the use of online systems for VAT and e-BIN. However, no appropriate notice
was circulated on this matter, which resulted in NBR extending the validity of the old BIN
three times since 2017. Businesses were not informed on this policy and out of the 800,000
registered VAT businesses only 125,000 are e-BIN registered. Those businesses that did
register in the system were only informed to do so by field-level NBR officials. Another
example relates to Green Certified Companies. Such companies were supposed to pay corpo-
rate taxes of only 10% as per the Finance Act 2017, but for FY 2018–19 rates have been
increased to 12%, without providing prior notice to businesses.
188 S. A. MAHMOOD
authorities. An important reason for inconsistent application of rules and

regulations is poor coordination among government agencies.
While existing regulations are a source of problems, both as written and
as enforced, absence of regulation can also be a problem. As the Bangladeshi
economy becomes more dynamic and connected to the global world,
entrepreneurs are seeking to pursue innovative activities, be they new prod-
ucts or new ways of doing things. Technological developments are expand-
ing opportunities to do so. To exploit these opportunities, businesses in
Bangladesh need legal underpinnings and clear rules of the game for such
activities. Where the legal and regulatory framework has provided this, new
activities and new markets have been created. The development of mobile
banking is a good example. The government has taken several actions to
support its Digital Bangladesh agenda, including an ICT Act, an E-payment
Act, a Cybersecurity bill, and installation of a submarine cable for better
connectivity. Such actions have helped create new markets. For example,
the E-payment Act, by legalizing electronic fund transfers, has helped cata-
lyze the creation of a new financial market, that is, mobile banking, which
is of extraordinary value not just in facilitating trade in general, but in
bringing banking to relatively inaccessible rural and remote regions. The
Act has helped increase the predictability of service delivery and associated
regulations. Due to the better connectivity, several young IT professionals
are now serving the globe from their home computer and internet.
However, in many cases, the government has not enacted relevant laws
and regulations. Instead, when confronted with a new technology or busi-
ness model, it has reacted in an ad hoc manner causing uncertainty for
innovative businesses. ICT-based innovative businesses remain interested
in investing in Bangladesh. These include Uber and other transportation
services, and various types of e-commerce. However, Bangladesh is strug-
gling to reap the benefits of the Digital Bangladesh agenda due to its regu-
latory unpredictability. The unpredictable nature of law and service
delivery hampers business operation, growth, and future business deci-
sions. For example, ICT-led transportation services, such as Uber, were
long operating in the gray zone of legality. Their growth potential was
thus restricted. Many investors initially invested in buying cars for the ser-
vice providers and are now uncomfortable with the risk, as they are not
legally registered and, hence, subject to harassment by traffic police or
other regulatory officials.
Information on business regulations is difficult to find and, when avail-
able, is often of poor quality. More than 50% of businesses in Bangladesh
feel that finding information on existing rules and regulations is a major

obstacle to doing business. There are also concerns about the information
that is available. Almost two-thirds of businesses complain that available
information is not updated regularly and is often unclear. About 50% also
complain that information is incomplete.
The IFC 2017 survey on regulatory uncertainty shows that mid-sized
firms seem to be most affected by the impact of adverse policy and regula-
tory decisions on costs and revenue streams, followed by small firms (61%
and 48% respectively cite this as a problem). Large firms feel more secure
in comparison, with only 30% complaining that their costs and revenue
streams are made uncertain due to adverse policy or regulatory decisions.
Market Competition3
The strength of a market system lies in the degree of competition in the
economy. Profit-driven businesses are forced to enhance efficiency to sur-
vive the competition. This is what makes an economy dynamic. Businesses
naturally dislike competition and thus, occasionally, some of them will try
to subvert competition. Such behavior drains the economy of vitality and
deprives it of the full benefit of a market economy.
Bangladesh does not score well on this front either. As we can see from
Fig. 7, Bangladesh scores poorly compared to its peers on the degree of
competition in the economy, as measured by the World Economic Forum’s
Global Competitiveness Indicators.
Given the critical importance of competition in a market economy, one
of the critical economic functions of governments is to check monopolistic
behavior and ensure a level playing field for all economic actors. Globally,
governments have enacted competition laws and established competition
agencies. The core task of a competition agency is to investigate com-
plaints about anti-competitive behavior, either proactively or in response
to complaints from the public or other agencies. It is also expected to
conduct competition-related advocacy, both within the government and
among the public, and build a knowledge base on the state of competition
in different markets.
3
This section draws upon Syed Akhtar Mahmood, “For my friends everything, for my
enemies the law!” Dhaka Tribune, February 16, 2021, and Syed Akhtar Mahmood, “A tale
of two government agencies,” Dhaka Tribune, March 1, 2021.
190 S. A. MAHMOOD
Indicator on compeon 2017 (7=best) 7

Score on WEF Global Compeveness
Fig. 7 Market Dominance in Bangladesh Relative to Peers. (Source: World

Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Indicators)
Bangladesh established a Competition Commission in 2012, but it

took four years for it to become operational. Among the major countries
in South Asia, Bangladesh was the last to establish a competition agency.
In the eight years since its birth, it has remained a largely ineffective body,
notwithstanding some recent strengthening. One measure of its effective-
ness is the degree to which such an agency is called on to assist. According
to its Annual Reports, the Commission has received just 12 complaints
since it became operational, of which only two had been resolved by June
2020, although investigation reports have been submitted for several
(Bangladesh Competition Commission, n.d.). These factors are reflected
in Bangladesh’s poor score among its peers in the World Economic
Forum’s score on the effectiveness of anti-monopolistic policies (Fig. 8).
This suggests that while the government in Bangladesh is business-friendly
it is not yet market-friendly.
Another related problem is the granting of undue privileges to politi-
cally influential businesses. Cronyism is not just unethical but also harmful
for economic dynamism. Several studies have shown that when businesses
can make money by receiving privileged treatment from friends in govern-
ment, they lose the incentive to be efficient. As a result, productivity falls,
and jobs are not created. The Middle East is an example. The high inci-
dence of crony capitalism is a major reason why this region is burdened
7
Score on WEF Global Compevenes
Indicator on compeon policy 2017
6
4
(7=best)
Fig. 8 Effectiveness of Anti-Monopoly Policy in Bangladesh Relative to Peers.

(Source: World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Indicators)
with large numbers of educated but unemployed young people (Mahmood

& Slimane, 2018). The best graduates are not necessarily employed first,
and this problem trickles down, disincentivizing performance.
Policy capture refers to a situation where a small group of very influen-
tial people can almost dictate policy to government. For example, politi-
cally connected businesses may use their influence to get policies enacted
that offer fiscal subsidies or tax exemptions, or regulations that create bar-
riers to entry for potential competitors (regulations may be written such
that entry is explicitly prohibited or applied in a manner that makes entry
costs prohibitively high for new players or a subset of players). To borrow
some terminology from the literature on institutions and development,
policy capture is a closed, ordered deal. It benefits a few (hence, closed)
and its outcome is predictable since both parties honor the deal conditions
(hence, ordered) (Fig. 9).
Privilege-seeking is somewhat different. A privilege-seeker is unable to
dictate a favorable action but must negotiate for it with officials. These
actions may involve policymaking, such as setting a particular tax rate, or
making a favorable decision within a given policy parameter, such as case-
by-case tax exemption or a favorable tax valuation. Privileges may also
involve resources directly allocated by the state, such as public
192 S. A. MAHMOOD
Systemized
petty corruption
Ordered deals Capture
unrelated to capture or
privilege-seeking
Non-systematized
Privilege-seeking petty corruption and
Dis-ordered privilege-related
regulatory harassment
deals
Closed deals Open deals
Fig. 9 Capture, privilege-seeking, and corruption
procurement contracts, public land, or subsidized credits. If well-

connected businesses who obtain such privileges are not particularly effi-
cient or innovative, such resource allocation is sub-optimal.
Well-connected businesses may also connive with regulatory officials
and misuse the regulatory tools, such as tax or factory inspections or with-
holding license renewals, to harass actual or potential competitors. Such
predatory business practices are not uncommon in Bangladesh and have
also been used to grab ownership stakes in profitable businesses through
intimidation.
The granting of privilege is also a closed deal benefiting a minority,
although typically more players can negotiate privilege than capture policy.
However, unlike policy capture, it is a disordered deal and hence its suste-
nance is not guaranteed. As is shown by the occasional actions against
some privileged people, including their arrests, there is always a risk that
the privileges will be taken away. Moreover, access to privileges in one
area, such as allocation of government land, may not guarantee privileges
in other areas, such as customs administration.
The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Indicators
include an indicator called “Undue Influence.” Figure 10 presents
Bangladesh’s score along with those of a few comparator nations on this
indicator, again showing the nation at a disadvantage.
6
Score on WEF-GCI Indicator on Undue Influence
5
(higher score means less influence)
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016
Year
Bangladesh India Malaysia Sri Lanka Vietnam
Fig. 10 Undue Influence on Policymaking: Bangladesh vs. Peers: 2007–2016.

(Source: World Economic Forum, Global Competitiveness Indicators)
Improving the Government—Business Interface

in Bangladesh
The private sector will need a conducive policy, regulatory, and institu-
tional environment to address the challenges mentioned above. The gov-
ernment has a large role to play in this. It needs to be better organized to
address the hurdles faced by businesses and improve both the formulation
and implementation of policies and regulations. To play that role effec-
tively, government needs to bring a fundamental change to its approach.
Just as the private sector needs to be productivity-oriented, the govern-
ment needs to be performance-oriented. Engendering a productivity cul-
ture in the private sector and a performance culture in government will
require a paradigm shift in the relation between the government and pri-
vate sector. At the core of this will be a focus on transparency and account-
ability for results.
194 S. A. MAHMOOD
This requires attention to the following: (a) effective mechanisms for

consulting with the private sector and gathering evidence to underpin poli-
cymaking; (b) ensuring that policies and projects are implemented well,
and implementation gaps are promptly identified and addressed; and (c) a
framework for evaluating the impact of policies, projects, and regulations.
Listening to the Private Sector

The first task is to listen to the private sector. Governments need to have a
structured mechanism to consult with the private sector to better under-
stand the constraints faced by businesses, jointly identify actions to remove
these, and build private sector ownership of such actions. Such consulta-
tions also provide a good opportunity for governments to articulate their
expectations from the business community about investment, job cre-
ation, export earnings, environmental protection, treatment of workers,
and productivity improvements.
The Bangladesh government does have a tradition of consulting with
business associations, but there is room for improvement: more struc-
tured, evidence-based and results-oriented approaches are required.
Public—private dialogue platforms may be organized at the national or
district level, or on sectoral lines. These may be complemented by periodic
business surveys, such as Investment Climate surveys every 2–3 years to
understand mid-term and long-term constraints faced by them, and
Business Confidence Surveys, conducted every 3–6 months to assess busi-
ness confidence and short-term developments.
Another useful approach used by many governments in their efforts to
attract foreign investment is an investor grievance system, for foreign
investors already operating in a country. A grievance mechanism helps
government identify issues being faced by existing investors and take cor-
rective actions, which often means bringing other government agencies to
the table. Many countries have set up such systems and have managed to
preserve investments that would otherwise have been lost.
Reducing Implementation Gaps

Governments also need to become more results-oriented to reduce gaps
between their actions on paper and what investors experience on the
ground. Implementation gaps are manifested in many ways. Reforms may
be good on paper but not on the ground. They may be good for some but
not for others: for example, an investor may get his/her company regis-
tered in a few days but for others this may take months.
Often a single reform is not enough. The government needs to go
beyond a single reform and think of a reform continuum. For example,
laws need to be followed by regulations, procedures, and manuals. A new
law aimed at improving the investment climate will often need to be
accompanied by appropriate regulations. Once regulations are adopted,
front line officials will need to be made aware of the reforms and trained
to apply the new system. They will need to be provided with guidance
notes or manuals on how to administer the new regulations. If a regula-
tory interface has been automated, its full impact may not be felt if the
frontend of the system is automated while the backend remains manual
and archaic. Sometimes reforms started may not be sustained, or reforms
in one area may be contradicted by actions in other areas.
Implementation gaps mean that desired outcomes do not materialize.
Businesses do not respond to reforms in the expected way because they do
not feel the impact on the ground. Businesses look at the regulatory envi-
ronment in its totality. Thus, inconsistent or piecemeal reforms do not
encourage them. Variations in regulatory behavior create uncertainty,
which discourages investment. Finally, investment is a long-term issue:
businesses thus need assurance that reforms will be sustained.
Improving Coordination Within Government

Another problem is lack of coordination within government. Multiple
agencies are involved in most policy or regulatory areas. For example, the
Registrar of Joint Stock Companies is the primary, but not the only, agency
involved in company registration. Lack of coordination among agencies
has many implications. Implementation is slowed down, reforms are started
but not sustained, reforms in one area are contradicted by actions in other
areas, and there are variations in regulatory behavior that create uncer-
tainty. All these discourage investment. Unless coordination, collaboration,
and information sharing between various government agencies can be
ensured, it will be difficult to improve Bangladesh’s investment climate.
Introducing Greater Result-Orientation in Government

The above discussion suggests that several bridges need to be crossed
before the real impact of new policies and laws can be felt, and previous
attempts at reform have stalled at an early stage. An important reason for
196 S. A. MAHMOOD
this is lack of strong results-orientation in government. There is too much

focus on outputs (such as a new policy or law) and not on outcomes or
process, such as a genuine improvement in the investment climate.
Performance-orientation needs to cover all aspects of the government’s
work. While there are islands of good performance in government, it still
lacks a strong performance culture permeating all levels. As a result, imple-
mentation failures are common.
Thus, government needs to put in place mechanisms to monitor the
implementation of policy actions and other reforms. It should clarify at the
outset what results it expects from its actions and what conditions need to
be satisfied for these results to materialize. It should then monitor regu-
larly whether these conditions are being fulfilled. Such monitoring systems
should include feedback mechanisms to collect real-time information on
implementation quality from businesses and other stakeholders.
Governments often mistakenly believe that reforms are having the desired
impact on the ground due to an absence of adequate feedback mecha-
nisms in which stakeholders place trust. Such complacency can be cor-
rected if government institutes reform or service specific feedback loops.
Such feedback loops can consist of short surveys that focus on a specific
policy action, regulatory reform, or service provided by government, and,
by helping to reveal implementation failures, may trigger corrective
actions.
An example of how such feedback mechanisms may help improve
implementation quality comes from India. The Indian government bene-
fited from such feedback loops as it sought to improve its ranking on the
World Bank’s Doing Business indicators. In 2017, India jumped by 30
places in the rankings with effective reforms in several areas. An example is
automation of construction permits. Its implementation was closely moni-
tored through a 6-monthly series of business-to-government feedback
exercises, which revealed implementation gaps, triggered corrective
actions, and validated the effectiveness of the corrective actions.
Encouraged by the usefulness of these exercises, the Indian government is
now replicating such feedback loops in other regulatory areas.
Another example of result-orientation comes from East Asia. East Asian
countries, such as South Korea and Taiwan, had for many years provided
a wide range of support to businesses, especially export-oriented ones, to
help them grow. However, the support came with tough conditions, such
as meeting export and productivity growth targets. Failure to do so would
mean drastic withdrawal of the benefits. The Korean government, for
example, was ruthless in instilling such discipline and was ready to let even
chaebols, the large conglomerates, die if they did not meet the targets
(Wade, 1990). Bangladesh’s readymade garment industry repeatedly asks
for help on one pretext or the other. The government usually obliges but
does not always demand performance in return. And even when it does, it
is more about maintaining business as usual, not bringing about the much-
needed transformation in the industry.
Productivity growth requires a culture where businesses do not repeat-
edly ask for bailouts from government. Government support should be
time-bound and linked to tough performance conditions, such as export
diversification and productivity improvement, and should not favor some
sectors over others. Asymmetric government support is rampant in
Bangladesh. First, there is a bias against exports. Second, within the export
sector there is a bias against non-garment products. Third, within gar-
ments, there is favoritism toward a small set of products. These policy
biases are an important reason why Bangladesh’s export volume is small
and its export basket undiversified.
One area where performance monitoring is critical is in attracting for-
eign investment. Efficient investment agencies around the globe have
investor tracking systems whereby they systematically track such leads.
Such systems monitor how far an investor has moved along its journey—
from initial interest in a country to start of operations. A good investment-
promotion agency has a clear idea of the bridges that investors need to
cross until their investment project is commissioned and operations com-
mence. The tracking system monitors at which bridge an investor cur-
rently is and whether it is finding problems crossing this bridge. The
proactive investor agency then takes corrective actions, by itself or in col-
laboration with other government agencies, to help the investor move
forward. It is important to note that many investors silently withdraw their
plans in the face of problems. An investment agency may never come to
know about such cases in the absence of a tracking system. The absence of
such a system has been an Achilles’ heel for the investment promotion
efforts of Bangladesh. The government often organizes road shows for
investors but does not track impact longitudinally. It is more focused on
events than processes.
Effective performance monitoring systems require public—private col-
laboration. The monitoring systems mentioned above will require real-
time information from the beneficiaries of government programs,
including the private sector. While the government needs to take the
198 S. A. MAHMOOD
initiative to establish such feedback mechanisms, private sector associa-

tions can help design these mechanisms and ensure that their members
provide the feedback when asked for. Businesses should also be forthcom-
ing in suggesting what corrective actions are required to improve imple-
mentation. Data will also be critical for designing government policies and
programs to facilitate the shift to a productivity culture in the private sec-
tor. The private sector needs to be more diligent and systematic in collect-
ing data on their operations and more forthcoming in sharing these with
government and researchers.
Businesses may introduce systematic and periodic rating of companies/
factories on various dimensions of operational performance, such as work-
place safety, wages, benefits and overall treatment of workers, and environ-
mental performance. There can be sub-categories within each of these
broad categories. Each factory may be rated on a scale of 1–5 for each
sub-category, with the scores combined to get an overall measure of per-
formance. The garment industry may mark a beginning in this regard.
This is not necessarily a very novel idea. Indeed, such a rating system is at
the core of the safety accord signed a few years ago by several garment
purchasing brands. Many brands have compliance checklists which are
applied to their suppliers in Bangladesh. But these may not cover all
important dimensions, nor are they brought together to present a com-
prehensive, industry-wide picture. And they are not publicized but remain
as private arrangements between the brands and their suppliers.
A comprehensive scorecard covering different companies in a sector,
with the results made public, will have many merits. Such a system will
help distinguish good performers from bad ones—this distinction is
important to create incentives for good performance. It will help identify
where remedial actions are needed, and monitor whether such actions are
being taken and if these are leading to improvements. The factory-level
data will reveal precisely where improvements are needed for each factory,
which should guide factory-specific actions. The brands that buy from the
factories may support such improvements with both technical and finan-
cial resources; in return, they may make future orders contingent on
improvement. The data will serve as a good benchmark against which
improvements can be assessed.
The industry-level data will be useful in other ways. These will help all
stakeholders, national and international, evaluate whether things are
improving for the industry as a whole, and will help identify patterns.
Thus, for example, things may improve along some dimensions but not
others, or efforts to improve on one dimension may take attention

away from others, thus making things worse on those fronts. Once such
patterns are revealed, corrective actions may be taken at the industry level
to complement actions being taken at the factory level.
Changing the Mindset of the Bureaucracy

Mid-level officials are a critical part of the bureaucracy. They work closely
with the senior policymakers in government and are aware of the policy
imperatives of governments. They are also close to the low-level officials,
who are often the interface for business, and thus have a good idea of
ground realities. The attitudes and perceptions of this important tier of
the bureaucracy have an important bearing on both the formulation of
policies and regulations, and their implementation. These attitudes are
shaped by the awareness, or lack of it, of business-related issues.
About a decade ago, the International Finance Corporation carried out
a program to build awareness among Bangladeshi government officials
about business-related issues. The program was aimed at mid-level offi-
cials, mostly at the deputy secretary level. Over 100 officials from about 20
different ministries, departments and other government agencies partici-
pated in this program. Over a period of 8–10 months, they attended semi-
nars and lectures, went on field visits, and did short assignments on
business-related issues. They interacted with businesses and with experts
who work on business-related issues. Attendees were offered opportuni-
ties to go abroad and see how business-oriented governments work.
Once the program was over, an evaluation was carried out to compare
the attitudes of these officials with those of their peers who had not been
exposed to this program and were presumably less aware of business issues
(IFC, 2012). Individual respondents from both groups were presented
with a set of statements and asked if they agreed or disagreed with them.
Figure 11 provides a snapshot of the responses, focusing on three state-
ments. The findings provide a window into the attitude of government
officials toward business issues.
Officials who attended the program agreed with all three statements to
a much greater degree than their peers. They were much more inclined to
agree, for example, that many laws are unfriendly to private sector growth
and need to be reformed. They believe more strongly that there is indeed
scope within government to proactively take these reform actions. They
had developed a more sophisticated understanding of how to approach
200 S. A. MAHMOOD
Fig. 11 The attitude of mid-level officials toward business issues
the task of reform formulation. As the last bar shows, they believe more
strongly than their peers that identification of reform priorities and
approaches should be based on systematic diagnosis, not uninformed, gut
reactions. Clearly, greater awareness of business issues shaped their views
on how to conduct public policy toward business.
This is important. The job of public policy is to help establish a condu-
cive investment climate that creates the right combination of risks and
returns and harnesses the inherent profit-maximizing goals of businesses
toward the social good. Public policy can play this role effectively if there
is sound policy and regulatory governance in the government. Good pol-
icy and regulatory governance are facilitated when governments have a
sense of accountability toward society and businesses for performance and
service delivery.
Central to this is the attitude of government officials toward business.
Therefore, the findings captured in the chart, although based on a small
sample, are important. They show that, with some effort, the mindsets
and attitudes of government officials can be changed, shifting their sense
of accountability and how business-related policies and regulations are
framed and implemented in a positive direction. As Bangladesh approaches
middle-income status, these are reforms that need to be entertained.
Mistrust and collusion should give way to trust, collaboration, and
consultation.
Conclusions
For Bangladesh to become a true middle-income country with a competi-
tive economy that delivers on society’s expectations, a paradigm shift will
be required covering several fronts. There has to be a significant change in
the mindset of the business sector, from seeking protection and privilege
to becoming truly competitive. The government should also see its role
differently, moving from privilege distribution to performance demand-
ing. Policies and programs need to be competition-enhancing, not crony-
friendly. In a post-Covid world, these changes are particularly critical.
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Gender and Development
Shelley Feldman
Introduction
This chapter offers a brief historical overview of research focused on gen-
der relations and practices within nongovernmental organizations (NGO)
and state institutions, as well as national policies that have unfolded in
Bangladesh. Research in the early years of Bangladesh’s independence
focused on rural relations, household and reproductive labor, and the
norms of purdah that guided programs and projects that sought to
improve women’s lives and livelihoods. With the rise of the garment man-
ufacturing sector in the 1980s, women’s entry into the urban labor market
shifted attention to new issues related to the transformation of women’s
work within the changing urban landscape and labor market. This new
opportunity for women also drew attention to changing household and
family relations and women’s increased mobility. Significantly, the gar-
ment sector is credited with helping to realize economic growth in the
country, where Bangladesh is now positioned as a lower middle-income
S. Feldman (*)
Max-Weber-Kolleg für kultur-und sozialwissenschaftliche Studien,
Universität Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

204 S. FELDMAN
country, even as women’s central contribution to this effort often goes

unremarked.
I begin with a brief reflection on the national context and particular
emblematic moments of change that symbolize fundamental shifts in gen-
der practices and policies. As I will suggest, these shifts cannot be under-
stood separately from the status of Bangladesh as an aid-dependent
country, which perforce responds to changing demands of bi- and multi-
lateral organizations that shape, as well as provide, institutional and finan-
cial support for the direction and scope of women and gender policies,
programs, projects, and research. And despite significant declines in aid
dependence over time, international aid agencies, as well as global social
movements, continue to exert influence over policy choices and public
action. This is especially evident given the criteria and the leadership’s
desire for Bangladesh to secure its position as a lower-middle income
country and the symbolic change this suggests given former US Secretary
of State Henry Kissinger’s identification of Bangladesh as a “basket case.”
And importantly for this discussion, the country’s economic status and
aspirations provide the backdrop for understanding the prominent role
that Bangladeshi women have played as new entrants in government and
NGO programs, in activism, and in research exploring gender relations,
and, in some cases, as those challenging the development project. I then
offer a brief conceptual overview of the changing modes of analysis that
have contributed to understanding gender relations in the country. Finally,
I turn my attention to gender and development research and NGO proj-
ects, focusing on three significant areas of gender research: early rural
women’s projects, micro-finance, and export garment manufacturing.
Important as a frame for the discussion to follow is how the relationship
between gender and development has shaped research on women and
gender relations in the country.1 An examination of social science journals,
for example, reveals that all draw attention to issues that are the mainstay
of development work, with an especially high profile accorded to women
and the benefits that women garner from improvements in health care,
access to credit, or their work and the conditions of their employment in
the garment sector. The 2010 Human Development Report, for instance,
spotlights Bangladesh as “one of the countries that has made the greatest
1
This is, arguably, a narrow focus, limited to research that is directly tied to development
issues. It does not include the rich and growing literature that offers gender and feminist
analyses of, for example, nationalism, international relations, or religion.
GENDER AND DEVELOPMENT 205
progress in human development indicators in recent decades.”2 But, as the

discussion to follow will show, following this research over time reveals the
contradictory outcomes from projects and programs for women, where
such outcomes characterize the neoliberal development project and its
goals, to transform the responsibility for social reproduction of each indi-
vidual, thereby transforming family formations, communities, lives, and
livelihoods.
The National Context: Government and NGO

Support for Gender and Development
The Constitution of Bangladesh grants equal rights to women and men in
all spheres of public life (Article 28(1), 28(2), and 28(3)) and various laws
have been enacted and amended to protect women’s rights: the Muslim
Family Laws Ordinance of 1961, the Muslim Marriage and Divorce
Registration Act of 1974, the Dowry Prohibition Act of 1980, the Family
Court Ordinance of 1985, and the Child Marriage Registration Act of
1992. The Government has also committed to recognizing the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs) (GoB, 2015), even as these goals have not
always been pursued with support for women’s issues. Moreover, wom-
en’s rights continue to be violated, especially those of poor women, even
after Bangladesh ratified the 1984 Convention on the Elimination of All
Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to eliminate all kinds
of discrimination against women in the state, economy, and family. In
response to this failure, a Shadow Report—the Shadow Report to the
Fifth Periodic Report of the Government of Bangladesh (ASK, 2004)—
was prepared by members of three constituencies, Ain o Salish Kendra
(ASK), Bangladesh Mahila Parishad, and Steps Toward Development, the
latter an NGO with a large network of affiliated organizations. A second
report, the Eighth CEDAW Shadow Report to the UN CEDAW
Committee, followed in 2016 (CIC-BD). The report acknowledged that
the country had reduced poverty, improved food security, realized gender
parity in primary and secondary education, lowered infant and under-five
and maternal mortality rates, improved immunization coverage, and
reduced the incidence of communicable diseases. Yet, there has been
2
UN Development Programme. 2010 Human Development Report: Asian countries lead
development progress over 40 years. http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/PR6-HDR10-
RegRBAP-E-rev5-sm.pdf
206 S. FELDMAN
limited success in enhancing women’s wage employment, especially in the

non-agricultural sector, and there has been far too little attention given to
violence against women, trafficking, dowry deaths, and forced prostitu-
tion, which are rooted in structural and systemic discrimination that are
constitutive of the national establishment (GoB, 2015; Rozario, 1998;
Zaman, 1999; Naved & Persson, 2010). Moreover, the second report
reiterated the criticality of implementing the initiatives of CEDAW since
there continues to be a need for family court reform and reform of dis-
criminatory personal laws, as well as for the systematic investigation and
adjudication of religious violence against women, among a host of other
challenges to providing adequate security for women.
Donor demands and NGO programs focused on improving the lives of
women garnered the support of the military regimes of Zia Rahman
(1977–1981) and Mohammad Ershad (1983–1990), as these interven-
tions showcased how modern ideas and practices, revealed in support for
women’s programs, contributed to legitimating their rule. Such programs
provided resources for rural activities which were important in building a
rural power base and securing power. As Naila Kabeer (1988, p. 115) sug-
gests, Zia and Ershad ably balanced “conflicting gender ideologies implicit
in different aid packages,” support for madrassa education, which prohib-
ited family planning, while also supporting demands for population con-
trol and increasing women’s representation in paid employment and
politics.” As she concludes, despite the weakness of the women’s move-
ment in Bangladesh, it has achieved some success in negotiating state-level
policy changes (see also Ahmed, 1985).
In the long view, NGO programs and projects were important vehicles
for subsidizing the national budget in terms of allocations for schools,
health care, and family planning, while also meeting the demands of the
international aid community to address “women’s issues,” focused almost
solely on women’s roles as mothers. Such initiatives contribute to recon-
stituting women as independent and self-sufficient, as model neoliberal
subjects. Even providing women with skills and opportunities for collec-
tive forms of organizing, such as women’s cooperatives under the
Integrated Rural Development Programme in Population Planning and
Rural Women’s Cooperatives/Bangladesh Rural Development Board
(IRDP/BRDB) or credit groups under the Grameen Bank Project (GBP),
have not challenged the neoliberal development model, nor led to collec-
tive action since their focus has been to porvide training, short-term credit,
and technologies to build toward sustainable income generating activities.
In these ways, these early projects contributed to constructions of subjects

as individual workers. Evidence for the construction of new subjectivites is
the shifting discourse which initially focused on income-generating
schemes as “pocket money”for women to women as credit-worthy indi-
viduals engaged in small-scale micro-credit projects and, eventually, as
wage workers responsible for their own subsistence. In these ways, such
activities helped to facilitate the shift from import substitution to export-
led growth, and from family-based, often subsistence, production to mar-
ket-driven wage employment, as women increased their participation as
agricultural workers, and in the informal and formal labor market. The
goal of this transition is to secure women’s individual wage employment,
increasingly necessary to sustain family life, and, significantly, to provide
the labor for an export sector which is central to the country’s economic
growth and its position in the world economy. For these reasons, women’s
projects have also enjoyed the support of governments since the 1991
turn toward democratic elections and the conflagrations that shape con-
temporary politics.
Situating Discussions of Women, Gender Relations,

and Development
A number of social and economic developments have shaped policies, pro-

grams, and research that has been conducted on gender and develop-
ment.3 Coinciding with a growing international women’s movement and
donor interest in framing the development project in the 1970s, the
Women in Development (WID) approach emerged among researchers
that presumed, erroneously, that because women were not included in
processes of development, efforts had to be made to include them.4 In this
effort, research and intervention strategies viewed women as objects of
3
In 1977, the World Bank appointed a Women in Development Adviser and in 1984 man-
dated that its programs consider women’s issues. Reflecting the shift from WID to GAD, a
1994 policy paper sought to question policy and institutional constraints that maintained
gender disparities and limited the effectiveness of development programs.
4
WID scholars and practitioners, for example, pressured US policy makers to include
women in their activities, which resulted in the 1973 Percy Amendment to the US Foreign
Assistance Act, requiring USAID’s programs to support efforts to integrate women into
their respective national economies. To be clear, this presumed that integration meant, first,
recognizing women as members of the body politic, and, second, neither understanding
their exclusion nor challenging the development approach that excluded them.
208 S. FELDMAN
welfare policies, who lacked agentic capacity and whose position was
determined by patriarchal norms and relations. Not surprisingly, early
WID research in Bangladesh, while acknowledging women as responsible
for household activities, focused on women’s marginalized status which
excluded them from contributing fully to economic growth (e.g.,
Lindenbaum, 1974; Jahan, 1975; Sobhan, 1978; Ahmed & Chaudhury,
1980; Chen et al., 1981). An implicit human capital approach, which gen-
erally imagined women instrumentally, framed these early discussions and
projects in Bangladesh, as elsewhere. For example, most population con-
trol programs viewed women merely as vehicles for reducing fertility rates,
even as some programs included functional literacy, maternal and child
health, and credit opportunities. Without critiquing the development
project and what modernization theory contributed to the marginaliza-
tion of women, the contribution of the WID perspective was to recognize
that women, indeed, had a role to play in realizing the goals of mainstream
development. But such a focus did not theorize domestic labor or infor-
mal work as central to social reproduction, nor did it challenge the treat-
ment of women as objects, rather than subjects, in the development
project.
Ester Boserup’s (1970) pathbreaking publication Women’s Role in
Economic Development helped to expand this view to include women as
agricultural producers as well as household laborers, thereby calling atten-
tion to the sexual division of labor. Although her ideas did not challenge
modernization theory and trickle-down development strategies, they drew
the attention of development agencies, NGOs, and political actors in
Bangladesh. And, internationally, they animated the first 1975 UN World
Conference on Women in Mexico which concluded by recognizing
women not only as recipients of assistance and welfare, but also as partici-
pants in the development project. Three UN conferences followed, in
Copenhagen (1980), Nairobi (1985), and Beijing (1995), as did the
United Nations Decade for Women (1976–1985)5 and the establishment
of INSTRAW and UNIFEM, each focused on identifying and responding
to gender inequalities across the global south. Coinciding with these ini-
tiatives, Development, Crises, and Alternative Visions: Third World Women’s
5
During this period, academic women formed Women for Women, a research and advocacy
group that examined women’s education (Islam, 1982), health and medical practices (Islam,
1980, 1985), gender violence (Jahan, 1983, 1988a, 1988b), and women’s economic posi-
tion (Huq et al., 1983; Jahan, 1975).
Perspectives (Sen & Grown, 1988)6 critically engaged popular ideas at the
time. Conceived and elaborated by women of the global south, this work
questioned underlying assumptions about processes of development and
set a broader agenda than one that homogenizes women, rather than dif-
ferentiates among them. Crucially, this work exposed and emphasized the
critical importance of the colonial and postcolonial experiences of the lives
and livelihoods of women from the global south. Bangladesh was well
represented in these initiatives by Dr Hameeda Hossain, a founding mem-
ber of DAWN and of Ain o Salish Kendra.
Alongside these international meetings, academic interest in women
and gender, and a dramatic increase in programs for women, challenged
tenets of the WID approach. A Women and Development (WAD) approach
emerged which acknowledged the differential effects of development for
women and men. However, while acknowledging women as bearers of
particular forms of knowledge grounded in their experience, this approach,
too, failed to challenge the development paradigm or the treatment of
women instrumentally, focusing instead on support for small-scale proj-
ects, including micro-credit. Unsurprisingly, such initiatives not only fit
with the institutionalization of neoliberalism that, in Bangladesh, contrib-
uted to the shift from import substitution to export-led growth, but also
contributed to the identification of women as a cheap source of labor for
the world market. In the rural areas, emphasis was placed on women-only
projects, assuming that patriarchy and relations of subordination could be
mediated by separate women’s spaces, and arguing that working within
the system was an appropriate way to respond to purdah and cultural prac-
tices of female seclusion (Schuler et al., 1995; Schuler et al., 2010).
As increasing recognition was given to feminist inquiry that empha-
sized the importance of relational thinking and the criticality of differen-
tial markers of identity, including gender, class, race, sexuality, and social
location, the Bangladesh women’s movement and researchers began to
highlight differentiation among women as well as between women and
men. This Gender and Development (GAD) approach recognized that
women were not an isolated or autonomous social category, drawing
attention to the social construction of the gender division of labor as well
as to gender as a relation of power embedded in institutions, including the
family, the workplace, and politics, Nonetheless, much of this research
6
This was written for Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN).
210 S. FELDMAN
continued to assume women could only be examined through the lens of

their role as child bearers and mothers. This is evident not only in evalua-
tions of family planning initiatives (Amin et al., 1998) but also in credit
programs such as the GBP (Schuler et al., 1995) and cash transfer pro-
grams (Hossain, 2010; Gelb et al., 2019), which assume that women are
better managers of resources, will use their resources to support the family,
and are more likely than fathers to send their girl children to school. But
such assumptions are based on project evaluations that prioritize the real-
ization of end goals (e.g., lower fertility, higher rates of repayment, and
gender parity in primary school). It is thus not surprising that such studies
fail to address family planning as a means of population control or credit
as a relation of debt, and, importantly, either of these as sites of potential
conflict. In other words, viewing these programs through a development
lens, including maintaining the neo-Malthusian assumption of resource
scarcity and overpopulation, generally fails to expose the use of force and
new forms of violence in realizing their goals, including the use of incen-
tives schemes deployed by government to sterilize women in efforts to
prioritize the goal of reducing fertility over any concern for women’s
rights (Feldman, 1983; Hartmann, 1995).
Significantly, the focus on power relations by GAD researchers turned
attention to programs that contributed to empowering women. This
emergent framework addressed women’s ability to exercise agency despite
gender inequalities. Moreover, this literature exposed the multiple “con-
ceptualizations of empowerment and the cultural meanings and social
acceptability of different kinds of paid work” and other activities (Kabeer
et al., 2017, p. 235; Nazneen et al., 2010; Nazneen et al., 2011). But
while NGO programs and the research focused on them sought to chal-
lenge the structures and discourses that maintained gender inequalities
and hierarchies, they instead contributed to producing better mothers and
workers by focusing on women’s acquisition of resources, such as credit
and employment. As a consequence, many initiatives were recognized as
contradictory in their effects, the benefit garnered from access to paid
employment, while paying the cost of workplace inequalities and the need
to balance domestic and wage labor.
Much of the GAD-informed research on empowerment has been
inspired by Naila Kabeer’s review essays (Kabeer, 1999, 2005; see also
Azim & Sultan, 2010) and her long-term gender research on this theme
(Kabeer, 1994, 1998, 2000; Kabeer et al., 2017). However, notwith-
standing the change from WAD to GAD, and an increasing focus on
power relations, this shift has not often included a critical engagement
with moral regulation and everyday practices of rule7 or a broader critique
of the development project itself, even as some acknowledge that struggles
for power ought not be an end in themselves (Nazneen et al., 2019).
Instead, GAD research has generally sought to push governments, multi-
and bilateral institutions, and UN agencies to be more responsive to the
particular needs and interests of women. These studies have largely empha-
sized more equitable sharing of resources, putting an end to violence
against women, including acid throwing and dowry deaths, and increasing
the institutional representation of women by setting quotas for political
and government appointments. Significantly, each of these reforms focuses
on demands that improve women’s indicators of human capital formation
and fulfill the demand for new sources of labor and capital (McCarthy &
Feldman, 1983; Feldman, 2010). As indicators of progress and hallmarks
of development, improvements in such indicators, when the focus of
development projects, expose the ways in which some feminist-inspired
interventions are actually complicit in the interests of the neoliberal devel-
opment project.
As I will elaborate below, shifts in understanding the relationship
between gender and development find a parallel in the critical literature
addressing the deepening of the neoliberal development project. These
include tied aid agreements and structural adjustment lending that give
lenders a say in national development planning, even with reductions in
the development budget. NGO funding, likewise, builds on donor inter-
ests that constitute selective calls for proposals about the issues they are
willing to support. But, importantly, as well, Bangladeshi NGOs have
secured funding for innovative programs for women that include mobiliz-
ing around collective capabilities and rights, where poverty is interpreted
not simply as a lack of resources–food, shelter, and health care, but also as
a lack of agency, voice, and rights (Khushi Kabir and Nijera Kori). Other
innovative programs include Gonoshasthaya Kendra, BRAC, and the
GBP, although, unlike Nijera Kori, the latter two programs do not directly
address the structural changes that would be required to realize social
emancipation that is free from exploitation.
7
In moral regulation and rule I include critical engagements with the symbolic and practi-
cal work that purdah or credit, among other practices, produce, enable, and constrain.
212 S. FELDMAN
A Very Brief History of Gender

and the Development Projects in Bangladesh8
With formal government policies as a framework, Bangladesh has been a

leader in development programs and projects that target women or address
their needs and interests. But, perhaps surprisingly, projects that address
women’s place in Bangladesh began even prior to independence, when
Bangladesh was a colony of Pakistan and interest in women focused pri-
marily on women as “objects through which fewer births can be realized”
(McCarthy, 1977, p. 363; Stoeckel & Choudhury, 1969). One innovative
program at the time was the women’s program at the Bangladesh Academy
for Rural Development (BARD) (Westergaard, 1983). While focused on
family planning, it offered training in health care, childcare, kitchen gar-
dening, poultry raising, and functional literacy, each intervention orga-
nized around women following the norms of purdah. But, despite
sustaining a normative view of women and the activities for which they
were responsible, the program also introduced women to cooperative
societies and savings, which created opportunities for village women to
meet and learn from each other. Such meetings offered a dramatic depar-
ture from the isolation that many women experienced at the time, with
meetings often limited to those who lived in or visited the family com-
pound. Attendees at these meetings would become what Florence
McCarthy referred to as mediators of social change, a mediation between
extant social norms and “new knowledge, techniques, and behavior”
(McCarthy, 1977, p. 365). This program provided the blueprint for a
national program, the Integrated Rural Development Program in
Population Planning and Rural Women’s Cooperatives (IRDP), which
similarly focused on family planning as part of a World Bank initiative
(Feldman et al., 1980). One important innovation in the IRDP that is
often left unrecognized was its hiring of women program officers, usually
the first woman in their family and the community to secure employment.
These women became important role models for other village women
seeking to secure government employment as teachers and health-care
workers.
8
The focus of gender and development in Bangladesh is largely centered on the data
and evaluation studies available from NGO projects that have benefited from international
funding, including support for research by project evaluators as well as scholars.
In the 1960s and 1970s, poor women secured employment as house-

hold workers in the homes of more secure village households and, before
the commercialization of rice processing, as rice processing laborers, which
was more lucrative than domestic work. With mechanization, however,
only men were viewed as appropriate workers in processing plants, a move
that undercut one of the more lucrative opportunities for poor women
and the change from in-kind to wage employment (McCarthy, 1978,
1980, n.d.; McCarthy & Feldman, 1983; Begum, 1985). Moreover, with
mechanization, households also lost access to the rice chaff which now had
to be purchased for poultry rearing, an activity for which women held
primary responsibility (McCarthy, 1981a, 1981b). More rarely, in the late
1970s and early 1980s, poor women could be found gleaning the fields
for what might remain after the harvest. However, there were few other
employment opportunities for women in these early years.9 Today, as ear-
lier, a majority of women work in agriculture and largely lack rights to
homestead property and agricultural land. This, coupled with widow-
hood, separation, and abandonment, means that women may also be
deprived of development assistance that depends on the security of place.
Research on women during this period documented women’s experi-
ences through ethnographic encounters and village studies or focused on
projects and program evaluations (e.g., Aziz & Maloney, 1985; Rozario,
1992; White, 1992). Significant about the former was recognition of the
heterogeneity of women’s everyday lives, including exploring marriage
practices, kin and family relations, household responsibilities, the life
course and fertility, and women’s participation in credit and small business
(Aziz & Maloney, 1985; Amin, 1995, 1997; Amin & Cain, 1997; Rozario,
1998; Naved & Persson, 2010). A critical theme explored in these studies,
particularly the early studies, was the normative environment shaping
women’s marginalization and exclusion, where research on purdah and
veiling offered culturalist explanations (Pastner, 1972, 1974; Papanek,
1982) or explored the changing practices and meanings that village
women gave to purdah (Feldman & McCarthy, 1983). These studies were
important for showcasing women’s capacity to creatively manipulate their
9
This historicization of gender and development highlights the long-term process of
women’s engagement in in-kind and wage work, a concern elided in most research on
women yet central to critiques of the assumptions of the WID/WAD/GAD approaches to
understanding gender relations. It is also noteworthy that these studies were supported by
the Ministries of Agricultural and Local Government and Rural Development and funded
with external financial support.
214 S. FELDMAN
environments and increase their room for maneuver (Kabeer, 1990;

Feldman, 2001).
NGOs, many of which began in response to the needs that followed the
independence struggle, famine, and floods of the early 1970s, focused on
building the country’s educational and health infrastructure, including
addressing the needs of women and girls. Programs for women often
included conscientization and mobilization for functional literacy, skills
training, and credit. Most such interventions sustained a traditional under-
standing of women where, for example, skills training was seen to provide
women with pocket or pin money rather than preparation for waged
employment. Other programs, such as food-for-work programs, made vis-
ible the particular plight of poor women, but saw them as objects of wel-
fare. Thus, it was not surprising that such women and their children could
be seen breaking bricks in the countryside and urban centers for road and
infrastructure development. This latter program epitomizes the limits of
welfare initiatives that do little, if anything, to improve the status or skills
that women could subsequently employ elsewhere.
Significantly, NGO programs began to expand women’s training
opportunities, not only with regard to social reproduction such as in areas
of health care, nutrition, and traditionally female activities including poul-
try raising and cow rearing, but also functional literacy and non-traditional
skills. A few NGO programs also offered training in rights-based advocacy
and disaster management (Nijera Kori, Naripokkho, Ain o Salish Kendra).
Gonoshasthaya Kendra (GK), BRAC, and the GBP, the three most well-
known NGOs, are notable for their size, reach, and creativity in pushing
the margins of opportunity for women while also providing community
and institutional services. GK, for example, challenged normative roles for
women by offering them training and employment in nontraditional
trades from which they had previously been excluded, such as welding,
carpentry, plumbing, and driving, as well as training as health profession-
als. BRAC’s provision of primary schools and women teachers throughout
the country contributed to meeting the educational goals set for village
communities and, in the heath sector, taught rural women how to respond
to diarrhea using an Oral Rehydration Solution that became central to
saving the lives of young children.
The GBP is perhaps best known for decentralizing banking services and
opening opportunities for women not only as credit-worthy but as money
managers with extremely high repayment rates, and, significantly, as a pro-
gram that has been central to the making of the neoliberal subject. In her
extensive and critically important studies on the GBP, Lamia Karim (2008,
2011) explores this transformation to show how its organizational struc-
ture is one that is more driven by financial viability than by a commitment
to the welfare of poor women clients.10 Moreover, evidence confirms that
microcredit contributes to wealth extraction driven by financialization, the
renegotiation of the social contract, and a transformation in social repro-
duction (Keating et al., 2010), showcasing its importance to instantiating
the neoliberal project and institutionalizing it more as parastatal than as
part of civil society.
However, there are notable exceptions to programs that focus on
resource distribution or training, including Ain o Salish Kendra,
Naripokkho, and Nijera Kori, whose research and advocacy work sustain
movements for rights and social justice and advocate for democratic rule
which includes respect for human rights and the freedom of speech.11 In
so doing, they struggle for policy reform, mobilize against crimes against
women, such as acid throwing, provide legal aid and social support,
demand government transparency, and work toward creating social and
gender justice. These organizations each help to create the conditions in
which women and men are not seen as people in need of services; instead,
they mobilize people to claim their entitlements and rights. As distinctive
members of civil society, rather than as service providers who often partner
with government, these initiatives have been influenced by socialist femi-
nist analyses which combine a critique of patriarchy with an understanding
of exploitation. This relation also undergirds analyses of violence against
women, which is linked to economic exploitation and deprivation, a view
that offers a dramatic departure from the WID, WAD, GAD focus of gen-
der research. Concentrating on rights and entitlements, these programs
are activist in character and directly address government and policies in
realizing the goals of equality and democratic freedoms. As Shireen Huq
(2003) aptly argues, “[o]ur standpoint on violence has evolved partly as a
critique of the way the issue has been handled by the mainstream women’s
10
There is a vast literature on micro-credit and finance, far too broad to elaborate here,
taking multiple sides in the debate on its value for empowering women or indebting women,
focusing on credit or on patriarchy, and examining whether credit decreases or increases
domestic violence against women. See, for example, Kabeer (1998), Karim (2008, 2011,
2014), Nijera Kori (1990), Goetz and Gupta (1996), Hashemi et al. (1996) and
Rozario (2007).
11
Other NGOs also advocate for such freedoms but do not work as women’s or feminist
institutions (see, e.g., Odhikar, Bangladesh).
216 S. FELDMAN
movement and partly as a response to the specific instances that have come
onto our agenda”. Naripokkho, for example, challenged the framing of
the mass rape of women by the Pakistan army as “the loss of honour” of
Bangladeshi women, proposing, instead, that such atrocities are war crimes
against women who were central to the struggle for independence (see
also Mookherjee, 2008). Naripokkho is also one of the very few NGOs
that addresses the question of sexuality and body politics as it struggles “in
solidarity with sex workers” (Huq, 2006). These struggles alongside
women, whether poor, marginalized, ill, or threatened, continue after
more than twenty years of activism for recognition, rights, and transpar-
ency. What is critical to our discussion thus far is the relationship between
patriarchy and exploitation, which, if only implicitly, recognizes the co-
constitution of reproductive and productive labor and the constitutive
role of gender relations in securing both rule and the strategy of economic
growth, and that gains credibility in the discourse and practices of
development.
Work in the Garment Sector: An Explosion

of Opportunities and Sites of Exploitation
Beginning in the 1980s and continuing today, research in the area of gen-
der and development has focused largely on changes in the labor market
and urban growth. This focus is prompted by the dramatic increases in
women’s waged employment which challenge the assumed fixity of cul-
tural norms, especially under conditions of dramatic social and economic
reorganization. This change is expressed in women’s presence on the
streets of Dhaka—in buses, “baby taxis” or autorickshaws, rickshaws, and
on foot—on their way to and from work, stopping at the bazaars along the
way, and living in urban bustees (shanty towns). While now common-
place, in the 1970s these scenes were unimaginable, as few women felt
comfortable traveling alone on the streets of the city and fewer still could
find work there. First-generation women workers either had to stay with
relatives or, eventually, live in “messes” with other women without the
protection of guardians and an urban infrastructure that could support
their needs (Feldman, 1990, 1992, 1993; Kabeer, 1991; Ahmed, 2004;
Rock, 2001, 2003). Recruitment was informal, as first-generation factory
owners actually went to their natal villages to encourage families to allow
their daughters to come to Dhaka, with the promise that they, with kin
from wealthier families of the village, would serve as their guardian. Not
surprisingly, these women faced sexual harassment and mistreatment at
the workplace and were often confronted by the malek (factory owner)
who expected them to act as snitches against their coworkers on the shop
floor (Feldman, 1992, 1993; Feldman & Hossain, 2020; Rock, 2003).
As studies of garment workers expanded, they generally focused on
examining changes in family relations (Kibria, 1995; Kabeer, 1997;
Dannecker, 2002), the gender division of labor (Absar, 2001; Ahmed,
2004; Feldman, 2009), tensions between so-called productive and repro-
ductive work (Feldman, 2001; Zaman, 2001; Kabeer & Mahmud, 2004),
sexual harassment (Begum et al., 2010), including domestic and work-
place violence (Kabeer, 1997; Naved et al., 2018), working conditions
(Rock, 2003; Hossain, 2010), employment as a source of empowerment
(Hossain, Jahan, & Sobhan, 1990; Zaman, 2001; Hossain, 2011, 2012;
Karim, 2014; Mahmud & Kabeer, 2003; Kabeer et al., 2017), and female
labor in global market exchanges (Kibria, 1998; Kabeer & Mahmud,
2004a, 2004b; Mahmud & Kabeer, 2006). These studies did not usually
open to scrutiny development as a project of orchestrated change but,
instead, highlighted the critical place of new modes of production in offer-
ing women opportunities to access and control wage employment and
income while also experiencing new relations of marginalization.
A second body of research has addressed labor struggles and contesta-
tion over unions, including the harassment of union organizers (Dannecker,
2002; Anner, 2015; Feldman, 2015; Alamgir & Banerjee, 2019; Siddiqi,
2020), wage inequalities (Kabeer & Mahmud, 2004), and the effects of
globalization, including the role of value chains and migration, on the sec-
tor and on workers (Naved et al., 2001. The focus of much of this research
has been on discerning a way to “straddle economic growth and human
development” (Barrientos et al., 2004, p. 21). To be sure, improving the
lives of women is clearly crucial, yet such studies often leave unaddressed
the limits of such a change. Indeed, struggle over wages, with localized
protest movements occurring, if sporadically, for more than three decades,
often remains outside the spotlight of global value chain research (Khan,
2001; Mahmud & Kabeer, 2006; Rahman & Langford, 2012; Feldman,
2015; Siddiqi, 2017a, 2017b). This framing of gender and development
thus elides a critical engagement with the neoliberal model of economic
growth. Thus, in addition to reform efforts that acknowledge women’s
responsibilities for social reproduction and workplace discrimination and
seek “to ensure that women participate in the global economy on more
218 S. FELDMAN
equal terms,” a critical engagement would also explore imbedded patriar-

chies, class interests, and the structural and institutional constraints that
set limits on equality for women of the global south (Barrientos et al.,
2004, p. 21).
The Rana Plaza12 disaster involving the collapse of a building that led to
the death of more than 1100 people, and the post-disaster period, also
reveals the veritable impossibility of realizing such a goal when the policies
and conditions in the garment manufacturing sector remain largely under
the purview of a weakly regulated industrial elite and unregulated sub-
contractors. For example, despite the response of government and foreign
buyers, expressed in the acceptance of the Accord and the Alliance, two
regulatory initiatives implemented to improve the work environment and
safety of Bangladesh factories, contestation led to their eventual termina-
tion (Saxena, 2020; Huq, 2020; Ashwin et al., 2020; Kabeer et al., 2020;
Siddiqi, 2020; Rahman & Rahmanur, 2020), while tensions remain over
the question of who should hold authority over factory conditions. Such
conflicts arise in a context in which factory owners compete in a global
marketplace in which there is a growing concentration among buyers giv-
ing them an increasing ability “to compel their suppliers to meet the com-
petitive pressures generated by the fast fashion model” (Ashwin et al.,
2020, p. 1391). These conditions, in turn, have shaped opportunities for
workers who are forced to work shorter hours while continuing to meet
their daily targets. Exploring gender relations that emerge in the context
of these new forms of production exposes new areas of scholarly interest
that provide the opportunity to further elaborate gender relations within
a deepening crisis of the global development project. This neoliberal,
global context, however, is not only important for understanding the
effects of such changes on workers and the gender division of labor; it also
offers a space to theorize the constitutive role of women’s labor in this
project, as well as a point of entry for exposing the limits of neoliberalism
in realizing the goals of gender equality.
12
Two excellent collections responding to Rana Plaza are Saxena (2020) and a special issue
of Development and Change, Volume 50, Issue 5.
Conclusion
In this brief chapter, I have addressed the relationship between gender and
development through an examination of forms of activism, NGO activity,
and research to expose the reconstitution, as well as continuity, of gender
relations that has occurred in the context of liberal and neoliberal aid
dependency. I have argued that this relation constitutes not only forms of
social sustenance but also forms of research and the goals and desires for
change by state actors, NGOs, and activists. While the commitment to
gender equity and improvements in the lives and livelihoods of women has
shaped how we understand and work to change relations of inequality and
marginalization, most policies, programs, and research have merely offered
or focused on a way to better “balance” domestic and wage labor or
growth and human development. This focus has obscured the importance
of interrogating the limits of the liberal/neoliberal development project in
struggles for gender equity. The purpose and import of such an interroga-
tion is not simply to offer a critical voice in the ongoing discussion about
development. Rather, it promises to suggest alternative programs and
policies based on what we might learn from imagining alternative ways of
organizing work and subsistence so that the lives of the women and men
who contribute to feeding and clothing the world’s population might also
benefit from their efforts in doing so.
This is important because, despite a long history of development inter-
ventions, growing inequalities between global regions and populations
continue, especially as exemplified in crises of social reproduction and rela-
tions of gender inequality. Moreover, doing so might offer a way to explain
the presumed paradox of economic growth against the backdrop of
inequality and the failures of democratic rule and political transparency
(Hossain, 2017). Karim’s (2018, p. 106) insight is extremely relevant
here, arguing for the specificity of Bangladeshi neoliberalism, which,
rather than following the Western model of the decline of the state, draws
attention to the “specific relationship between the state, donors, and
NGOs.” The focus on gender and development exposes the criticality of
this relationship during pre-independence Bangladesh, under military
rule, and under various forms of democratic practice. It also is evident in
the nexus between NGOs and the state wherein some NGOs serve as
parastatals, providing resources and new institutions (e.g., micro-credit)
to communities. By contrast, NGOs serving as voices of civil society sup-
port projects which challenge forms of discrimination and the
220 S. FELDMAN
marginalization of communities based on an understanding and critical

engagement with the constitutive relation between forms of patriarchy
and production. While the former provide resources to communities and
contribute to improving the lives and livelihoods of some citizens, their
activities are complicit in the social construction of the liberal individual
subject in ways that interrupt community solidarity. Alternatively, NGOs
and activist groups that advocate for rights and justice, often around gen-
der issues, support marginalized communities to build solidarity and insti-
tutions that creatively meet their diverse interests and do not make them
dependent on the distribution of resources or services that requires their
working together.
In short, despite the achievements showcased by the fact that Bangladesh
has met many of the Millennium Development Goals, evidence shows that
notwithstanding some improvements, the majority of women in
Bangladesh have yet to be empowered to participate equitably in social,
cultural, economic, and political life. Gender discrimination and harass-
ment remain widespread in all spheres of life and across class hierarchies,
as indicated by official statistics on health, nutrition, education, employ-
ment, and political participation. And, perhaps surprisingly, the policies
and programs of the Government, some NGOs, and other institutions,
while actively addressing these inequities, continue to engage a “welfarist”
analytic, an approach that assumes, if only implicitly, that women are ben-
eficiaries of resources rather than contributing partners who constitute
how the development project unfolds. Thus, it is not surprising that bilat-
eral and multilateral donors and their NGO partners tend to design poli-
cies and program interventions that highlight women’s efficiency and
equity, rather than voice and agency, as the grounds for emancipation.
Acknowledgment This chapter is part of a project that has received funding from
the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the
Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 665958.
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Livelihoods and Food Security
of the Indigenous Peoples of the Chittagong
Hill Tracts of Bangladesh: Factors of Change
and Future Prospects
Shapan Adnan
Introduction
This chapter analyses the causal factors shaping the changing livelihoods
and food security of the indigenous peoples (IP) of the Chittagong Hill
Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. It specifies the key factors driving these
changes mediated by institutions of the state and the market, within
a framework of recent historical change from the 1960s to the 2010s.
Comments from Bruce Currey and Lelung Khumi on an earlier draft and support
from Zuam Lian Am Lai, Ranajit Dastidar, Uchacha A. Chak and Fahmid al Zaid
during fieldwork are acknowledged with thanks.
S. Adnan (*)
Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies
(SOAS), University of London, London, UK

230 S. ADNAN
It also takes into account the short- and long-term consequences of these
processes, tracing them from the devastating impacts of the Kaptai
Hydroelectric Project, commissioned in the early 1960s (Adnan, 2004).
This case study delineates the structure of causation underlying the chang-
ing livelihood options and food security of the IP, popularly known as the
Paharis. In particular, the roles of political domination, ethnic discrimina-
tion and forms of direct and structural violence are indicated. The resil-
ience and resistance of the Pahari peoples are also factored into the analysis.
Background
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) lies in southeastern Bangladesh adjoin-
ing the country’s international borders with India and Myanmar.
Administratively, it consists of three districts: Rangamati, Bandarban and
Khagrachhari. Much of the terrain of the CHT is hilly and forested, inter-
sected by river valleys and lakes, with scattered and isolated paras or village
settlements. A central element of the regional landscape is the Kaptai ‘lake’
or reservoir, constructed for the Karnafuli hydroelectric project during
1957–63, leading to the submergence of vast amounts of fertile valley
lands and massive displacements of the Pahari population (Sopher, 1963;
Adnan, 2004, 2006). Large Reserve Forests (RF) are located in the
Kasalong, Reinkhyong, Matamuhuri, Sangu and other river basins. While
road and water transportation have developed considerably over the years,
many settlements in the rural interior continue to remain isolated, lacking
easy access to the towns and marketplaces (bazaars).
The CHT has been historically inhabited by around a dozen Pahari t
ethnic minority groups or indigenous peoples (IP), which have been
also termed the Jumma or Hill peoples.1 These include the Chakma,
Marma, Tripura, Mro/Mru, Tanchainghya, Bawm, Khiang/Khyang,
Pangkhua, Lushai, Chak and Khumi.2 The Pahari ethnic groups follow
several different religious faiths—primarily Buddhism, followed by
Hinduism and Christianity (Adnan, 2004, pp. 10–15, Table 1.1,
Figures 1.1 and 1.2).
1
The total numbers and ethno-religious composition of the CHT population have under-
gone drastic change during the last 70 years (Adnan, 2004: 10–15, Table 1.1 and Figures 1.1
and 1.2; 2006).
2
In addition, the ethnic group termed Reyang is a clan or sub-group of the Tripura. The
term ‘Murang’ is used by Bengalis to denote the Mro/Mru; alternatively, the Marmas use
it to refer to the Tripura (personal communication from Lelung Khumi).
LIVELIHOODS AND FOOD SECURITY OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES… 231
The other major population group in the CHT is constituted by

Bengalis. While they were numerically insignificant in the past at less than
10% of the total population, there has been rapid increase in their numbers
through state-sponsored transmigration during 1979–85, which brought
in 300,000–400,000 settlers from the plains of Bangladesh (Adnan, 2004,
pp. 11–13, 47–53; Adnan & Dastidar, 2011). The overwhelming majority
of Bengalis in the CHT are Muslims, supplemented by much smaller num-
bers of Hindus (divided by caste or jati) and Buddhists.
The region experienced decades of counter-insurgency warfare between
the state security forces and Pahari rebels (Adnan, 2006, 2008). During
this period, the CHT was subjected to massive demographic engineering
involving transmigration of Bengali settlers, eviction of the IP and forced
redistribution of their land to Bengali settlers, plantation owners and influ-
ential elites (Roy, 1997; Mohsin, 1997; Adnan, 2004; Adnan & Dastidar,
2011). The conflict formally ended with the signing of a Peace Accord on
2 December 1997 (Adnan, 2004, 2008). Unlike the rest of Bangladesh,
the CHT thus presents a post-conflict landscape. However, despite the
formal cessation of hostilities over twenty years ago, the region continues
to be convulsed by sporadic ethnic and political conflict among Pahari fac-
tions, as well as between them and Bengali settlers supported by the secu-
rity forces and the civil administration (Adnan & Dastidar, 2011).
There has been continuing in-migration of Bengalis during the post-
Accord decades (1998–2020), as well as a trickle of Rohingya refugees
from Arakan (Rakhine) state of Myanmar.3
In addition to religious segmentation, the CHT population is charac-
terized by internal differentiation, ethno-religious discrimination and dis-
parities, emergent class divisions, as well as gender differentials cutting
across ethnic groups and classes.
Issues Addressed
In order to understand the livelihood options and food security of the
Pahari ethnic minorities, it is necessary to take into account the concrete
conditions of their situation within the CHT and the nation-state of
Bangladesh. A prime feature of this reality is the domination of the IP by
Bengali interest groups and the civil and military apparatus of the state
3
Settled mostly in the Naikkhongchhari and Alikadam Upazilas of Bandarban dis-
trict (Adnan et al., 2019).
232 S. ADNAN
under their control. This is manifested in systematic discrimination and

persecution of the vast majority of the Paharis, except elite groups
which enjoy the protection of influence and wealth. The operation of this
coercive regime is underpinned by various forms of direct and structural
violence (Galtung, 1969; Farmer, 2004). While the operation of direct
violence through use of civil and military agencies is usually self-evident,
the operation of structural violence against the Pahari groups takes place
indirectly and ‘invisibly’ through varied forms of exclusion, othering, dis-
crimination, restriction and exploitation.
This chapter provides a brief analysis of the complex determinants of
changes in livelihood options and food security of the IP in the CHT as
well as their critical consequences over the preceding decades (1960–2020).
The first section deals with the food security of the IP as well as their cop-
ing mechanisms when confronted with food scarcity and starvation. Next,
the economic and social-institutional factors affecting the livelihoods and
food security of the Pahari groups are examined. Finally, the structure of
causation underlying these factors of change are postulated, along with an
assessment of the critical long-term implications for the livelihood options
and food security of the IP. The analysis is based on both primary and
secondary sources, including fieldwork in the CHT over preceding decades
up to October–December 2018, interviews and group discussions with
Pahari and Bengali communities in the CHT, as well as documentary
analysis.
Food Shortages and Insecurity

The CHT population as a whole suffers from chronic food insecurity and
malnutrition. The region is characterized by one of the highest rates of
extreme poverty, food insecurity and chronic malnutrition in Bangladesh
(HKI, 2015, p. I; UNDP, 2015).
In 2016, the Integrated Phase Classification (IPC, 2016, p. 5) assessed
the food security situation in Bandarban to be at ‘Level 4’, indicating a
state of Severe Chronic Food Insecurity (CFI), while Rangamati and
Khagrachhari were ranked at ‘Level 3’, corresponding to Moderate
Chronic Food Insecurity. The stunting rates of children in selected Unions
of the CHT covered in a study by Helen Keller International (HKI) were
well above the very high country prevalence rate of 40%. Indeed, these
rates were symptomatic of a state of public health emergency in terms of the
classification used by the World Health Organization (HKI, 2013, p. 10).
Food insecurity varies among different parts of the CHT due to local
and circumstantial factors (for example, WFP, 2011). A study conducted
in 2012–2013 (HKI, 2013, pp. 9–10; WFP, 2012, pp. 14) highlighted
Sajek union of Rangamati and Thanchi Upazila of Bandarban as among
the worst-off sites of the CHT in terms of food insecurity.
The food shortages observed in the CHT can be categorized as episodic
or periodic, depending upon their features and underlying causal factors,
as follows.
Episodic food shortages result from one-off or episodic disasters
such as landslides or flash floods due to excessive rainfall. Occasional
ravaging of food crops by packs of wild boars (shukor bonna) and other
animals has also been reported in villages of the Sangu valley upstream of
Thanchi.
Periodic food shortages, by contrast, can be recurrent with a roughly
regular periodicity. Such recurrent food shortage takes place almost
every year during the lean season of the harvest cycle, when the food
stock retained from the preceding harvest of jum or swidden cultiva-
tion has been consumed while the next harvest in August–September is
some time off. This seasonal food shortage affects the most vulnerable
rural households among the IP, particularly because they also lack
alternative sources of employment and income during the lean period.
Some cycles are markedly longer: the region suffers an approximate
50-year cycle of acute food shortage as a result of the devouring of
food crops and stocks by explosive increases in the rodent population
(indur bonna) due to over-abundance of seeds, following the flowering
of certain species of bamboo every half century (Brauns & Loffler,
1990; HKI, 2008).
Types of Disasters in the CHT and their Causal Factors

A variety of factors give rise to different kinds of disaster situations in the
CHT. First, these can include extreme climate events, such as high precipi-
tation, cyclones, droughts and hailstorms, as well as flash floods in hilly
areas, particularly when submersible embankments are overtopped by
early river flooding, causing damage to standing crops prior to harvest.
Crops and stored foods can also be damaged by wild pigs, monkeys and
other animals from adjoining forested areas. Second, disaster situations
result from landslides triggered by heavy rainfall, combining with invasive
234 S. ADNAN
house construction on hill slopes, typically by Bengali settlers.4 Third, the

most critical man-made disasters in the CHT result from ethnic conflicts
and political violence involving various state and non-state agencies as well
as political parties and factional groupings.5 The typical case in recent years
has been that of burning down of village settlements and homesteads of
the Pahari ethnic groups by Bengali settler mobs, sometimes with the tacit
collaboration of the administration and security forces. When accompa-
nied by blocking of food supply to the affected Pahari settlements, such
man-made disasters can lead to acute food insecurity and starvation.
The impact of both episodic and periodic food insecurity on rural
households can be exacerbated by the adverse outcomes of market mecha-
nisms and state assistance mediated by poweful agencies (WFP, 2011).
These can lead to spikes in food shortages and prices, resulting in periods
of non-availability and non-accessibility of food, sometimes leading to
starvation conditions. In such situations, taking loans from trader-
moneylenders with exploitative rates of interest and contractual stipula-
tions can lead to cumulative indebtedness and recurrent interest payments,
if not eventual loss of the land rights pledged as collateral (Adnan, 2004,
70–71). Such outcomes of market transactions can reduce the stock of
food retained for self-consumption by the concerned households, result-
ing in eventual starvation, if not near-famine conditions. Disaster situa-
tions can also provide scope for distortion and manipulation of food
distribution processes, such that the intended beneficiaries are deprived
of their due allotments, while the food stocks allocated to them are
diverted to market traders as, for example, reported during a food crisis in
Baro Modok bazaar of Thanchi Upazila (Adnan et al., 2019).
Strategies for Coping with Food Shortages

Pahari communities in rural CHT have coped with food shortages in tra-
ditional ways based on their material culture and indigenous knowledge
4
These now affect not only Bengali in-migrants to the CHT but also indigenous Pahari
villagers who are no longer able to build houses in their traditional styles due to lack of access
to adequate timber and bamboo, resulting from destruction or privatization of forests
(Brauns & Loffler, 1990; Loffler, 1991; Sopher, 1964; Adnan, 2004, 79, Box 5.1).
5
These are not to be equated with riots or communal conflicts between Bengalis and
Paharis, because the violence is not two-sided; rather, the Paharis are typically the victims of
violent actions of Bengali Muslim mobs, backed by a partisan civil and military administra-
tion (Adnan & Dastidar, 2011).
systems. The most commonly practised survival strategies are family-

based, involving adjustments within the family and extended kinship
networks.
Such coping measures include reducing the size and/or number of
meals and changing the composition of the diet. For instance, the Paharis
search for ‘wild’ foods collected from forests and other ecological reserves,
such as bamboo shoots (banshkurul), roots, wild potatoes (ol) and cassava
(Adnan et al., 2019). In addition to gathering such emergency food, pres-
ervation of certain types of foodstuff for the lean season is also practised.
For instance, vegetables, fruits, meat and fish of different kinds are dried
and kept in the household store to be used in times of need.
However, such survival options of the Hill peoples are under increasing
stress since sources of wild food such as open-access forests and ecological
reserves in the CHT are being continuously destroyed or degraded by
ongoing processes of deforestation and land grabs, taking place through
private encroachment and state acquisition. Combined with growing pop-
ulation pressure through natural growth and in-migration, these processes
are undermining the very strategies of survival to cope with food short-
ages by vulnerable Pahari groups of the CHT.
Another desperate family-based strategy in the face of starvation is to
temporarily split up the household and send its individual members to
places where they can get access to food (cf. Adnan, 1990, 163–165). For
instance, parents may send their children to stay with better-off relatives or
work in hotels and commercial establishments. In limiting cases, these sur-
vival strategies can lead to child labour and sexual services being provided
by Pahari women and children. For instance, such cases were reported in
the villages adjoining Rui Lui para of the tourist resort of Sajek in
Rangamati (Adnan et al., 2019).
However, people’s choice of coping strategies and livelihood practices
is not necessarily appropriate or rational and can even aggravate their ini-
tial situation of food insecurity and undernutrition. Faced with hunger,
vulnerable households of all ethno-religious groups among the IP buy
food by selling their labour or crops in advance through exploitative dadon
(interlocked market) contracts (see next section). For instance, the coping
mechanisms used by participating households of an agricultural develop-
ment project included advance sale of labour, or borrowing from money-
lenders and NGOs providing micro-credit (UNDP, 2018, p. 60). Such
contracts could potentially lead to the constrained sale of land for debt
settlement. Indeed, some project participants reported selling livestock,
236 S. ADNAN
trees and other assets to deal with food shortages—constituting forms of

dissaving, as contrasted to asset formation (UNDP, 2018, p. 60).
There are thus multiple causal processes generating food insecurity in
the CHT, subsuming natural, social, economic and cultural factors.
Changes in rights to land, forests, water bodies and other natural resources
constitute structural factors determining livelihoods in terms of access to
resources that make economic activities feasible. Correspondingly, access
to adequate medical facilities and educational institutions affects current as
well as intergenerational livelihood options and food security (Osmani
et al., 2016; Adnan et al., 2019). These distinct strands of causation are
taken up in the sections below.
Economic Activities, Livelihood Options

and Food Security
Trends in Land—Population Relationships

The population of the CHT is projected to rise to 1.9 million in 2021,
reaching 2.4 million by 2051 (UNDP, 2018, p. 44). These estimates are
based on natural growth of the pre-existing population and do not take
into account net in-migration to the region. Consequently, the actual
increase in the CHT population is likely to be greater. Moreover, the
urban population is expected to exceed 50% of the total CHT population
by the mid-2030s.
These projected trends in population growth and urban-rural composi-
tion will exacerbate the already intense pressure on the arable lands, forests
and natural resources of the CHT, adversely affecting the livelihood
options, food security and nutritional status of its vulnerable groups.
Paradoxically, decline in per capita land availability will be accompanied by
rise in the demand of the growing urban and rural population for food,
water, housing, utilities, health, education, social infrastructure and
employment.
Superimposed upon these aggregate trends are the adverse distributive
impacts of land grabs and other ongoing poverty-generating processes in
the CHT (Adnan, 2004, 140–162). The latter include population dis-
placements caused by social and political conflicts, counterproductive
development interventions and natural disasters.
The Pahari ethnic groups are being continuously impoverished by take-

over of their lands and forests through state acquisition and forcible cap-
ture by Bengali settlers, influential businesses and political interest groups
(Adnan & Dastidar, 2011). The resultant reduction in the area available
for cultivation, forestry, hunting and gathering, and other land-based live-
lihoods has particularly adverse impacts on the survival mechanisms, food
security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable households.
The IP have been subjected to repeated displacements by violence and
intimidation by security forces as well as land grabbers and settler mobs.
The newer habitations of Pahari internally displaced persons (IDP) evicted
from their settlements over the last six decades are to be found in the deep
rural interior, situated inside or adjoining the Matamuhuri, Sangu,
Reinkhyong, Kasalong and other Reserve Forests (Adnan et al., 2019).
These ecological niches presently constitute the last refuges of the Pahari
IDPs inside the CHT and, indeed, the borders of Bangladesh.
Economic Activities and Livelihood Avenues

Economic activities that depend upon having access to land and other
necessary inputs delimit the feasible livelihood options of the IP in the
CHT. Correspondingly, the contractual relations of production including
wage rates determine the share of the product that they receive and hence
their access to food. These conditions vary in terms of the different sectors
of the CHT economy, as follows.
Jum or swidden cultivation: Undertaking jum or swidden cultivation
(‘slash and burn’ farming, in which land is cleared and used for a few years
and then left fallow, while shifting to new plots in a periodic cycle) with
multiple crops provides the primary means of subsistence of many of,
though not all, the Pahari ethnic groups of the CHT. However, the
yields (land productivity) of the various jum crops have been spiralling
downwards in recent times because of the increased frequency of cultiva-
tion on the same plot, entailing shorter fallow periods. Such changes in
agricultural practices have also led to soil erosion and degradation in the
CHT. However, the root causes of these adverse trends are not necessarily
inherent in the practice of jum cultivation per se. Rather, these are driven
by exogenous factors, particularly land grabs, privatization and agro-
ecological degradation, which have relentlessly shrunk the arable area
available to Pahari swidden farmers, constraining them to increase
238 S. ADNAN
frequency of cultivation on fewer plots and intensify pressure on the fragile

soils of the CHT.
Agricultural crop production: In addition to swidden farming, wet-
rice cultivation using the plough is practised by certain ethnic groups,
particularly the valley-dwelling Chakma, Marma and Tripura peoples.
They also grow many other crops, including vegetables, fruits and cash
crops. Pahari farmers produce fruits such as oranges and pineapples, as
well as spices. However, they find it difficult to market their produce
because of the low prices fixed by colluding buyers in the market (Adnan,
2004, 139). Correspondingly, the transportation of agricultural produce,
particularly perishable goods, to larger urban markets is controlled by an
oligopoly of transport owners. Most of these commercially dominant
agents are Bengali Muslim businessmen and sowdagars (wholesale traders)
based in towns like Chittagong outside the CHT. This is also symptomatic
of the ethno-religious differential and power relations inscribed within the
sphere of market transactions in the CHT.
Foremost among the cash crops of the Paharis is tobacco, which is
grown through contract farming based on cash advances from national
and transnational tobacco companies (Adnan, 2004, 117–118). Typically,
these involve dadon (interlocked market) contracts tying the credit
advanced with the delivery of cured tobacco. Despite its high earnings,
tobacco production has adverse consequences for the health of the pro-
ducers as well as the environment. In particular, it leads to deforestation
due to large-scale burning of firewood for curing, as well as diseases caused
by the smoke inhaled during the process. Tobacco growing has in certain
cases been banned because of its adverse consequences by the Parbatya
Chattagram Jana Samhati Samiti (PCJSS), one of the major Pahari
political parties, in areas under its influence, for example the banks of the
Chhoto Harina river upstream of Barkal in Rangamati (Adnan et al., 2019).
Livestock farming and fisheries: Pahari communities in the CHT keep
poultry and raise livestock including pigs, cows and goats. These provide
sources of nutrient-rich meat, particularly for the extreme poor. Fishing is
carried out by Paharis in the rivers, hill streams, lakes and other water bod-
ies of the CHT, providing non-market access to protein. These self-
provisioning activities constitute a key element of the survival strategy of
the poor by contributing to their food security and nutritional requirements.
Hunting and gathering in forests and other ecological reserves: The
use of forests, wetlands and other ecological niches for hunting and gath-
ering has traditionally been a cornerstone of the food security of the Pahari
ethnic groups in the CHT. Typically, they have collected vegetables, herbs,

roots, fruits, animals, fish and shrimp from these ecological reserves for
familial consumption. However, the avenues of survival through hunting
and gathering have been shrinking over time as the reserve forests and
wetlands of the CHT are grabbed or degraded through a variety of pro-
cesses. These include the expansion of rubber, timber, horticulture and
other commercial plantations, combined with logging and deforestation.
Rubber plantations and their impacts: Establishment and expansion of
rubber plantations in the CHT has in many cases involved forcible land
grabs by the state and private sector agencies (Adnan 2004, 126–128, Box
7.6; Adnan & Dastidar, 2011). These have had adverse impacts on the
environment, livelihoods and food security of the Pahari populations. The
plantations have encroached into forested areas and other ecological
reserves, undermining the biodiversity of local ecosystems and habitats.
These have also resulted in the destruction of sources of ‘wild’ foods, con-
stituting critical elements of the material culture and food security of the
Pahari peoples (Adnan et al., 2019). For example, in the Baishari Union in
Naikkhongchhari Upazila of Bandarban, rubber plantations have destroyed
the bulk of the pre-existing forested areas as well as displacing Chaks and
other Pahari groups from their ancestral settlements.
Commercial tourism and its impacts: The continuing growth of com-
mercial resorts and associated services in the CHT, ostensibly for the pro-
motion of tourism, has generated intense stresses on the livelihoods and
food security of vulnerable groups among the IP (Adnan et al., 2019).
These have resulted in gross commoditization of the ethnicity and culture
of the Pahari groups, accompanied by the ruthless grabbing of their pri-
vate and common lands, including forested areas. One of the critical con-
sequences has been increased demand for hunting or extraction of Pahari
food items (e.g. deer meat or herbs) for consumption in tourist hotels and
restaurants. Such facilities have sprung up in tourism sites such as Rui Lui
mouza (the basic territorial unit of land revenue administration) in
which the luxurious Sajek resort is located, as well as in the towns of
Rangamati, Bandarban and Khagrachhari (Adnan, 1990, 35). These
tourism-induced practices are threatening to result in the excessive extrac-
tion of Pahari food items from the local ecosystems, making these non-
sustainable and hence increasingly unavailable to Paharis for coping with
food shortages.
240 S. ADNAN
Employment Generation
The major form of labour deployment of the IP in the CHT is self-
employment, followed by wage work to a lesser extent.
Self-employment: This is the predominant mode of income-earning
among Paharis, reflecting the limited scope for wage employment due to
the relatively low development of labour-absorbing economic activities in
the CHT. Most of these activities correspond to petty self-employment,
which typically involves use of family labour to operate small production
units and businesses. While the self-employed can be self-financed, more
often than not they work on the basis of loans advanced by trader-
moneylenders. These typically involve dadon (interlocked market) con-
tracts which provide credit while stipulating advance sale of products at
lower prices. Consequently, behind much of the appearance of petty self-
employment in the CHT lies the operation of market-based surplus extrac-
tion mechanisms of merchant and usurious capital. This results in reduction
of the real incomes of these petty producers, with adverse consequences
for their food security and nutritional levels.
Wage employment: While Bengalis in the CHT are accustomed to being
employed as hired labourers, the Paharis have been culturally averse to
working for others, given their historical tradition of self-provisioning.
However, faced with growing displacements and loss of land rights threat-
ening their subsistence, the Paharis have been systematically constrained
to enter the labour market for sheer survival.
However, they are generally unable to access skilled/better-paying
jobs because of their lack of education and technical training. Instead, the
Paharis seek low-paying wage employment in various economic sectors of
the CHT, inclusive of rice cultivation, fruit and vegetable gardening, com-
mercial plantations and boat transportation. A study of three Upazilas of
Khagrachhari found that a high proportion of inhabitants undertook
unskilled or low-skill wage labour as their primary source of income (HKI,
2013). For instance, Paharis tend vegetable and groundnut farms on the
banks of rivers such as the Kasalong, Sangu and Matamuhuri, but typically
as hired labourers employed by Bengali farmers, rather than being opera-
tors in their own right.
Apart from receiving payment of wages after completion of their work,
some Marma and other Paharis reported taking cash from employers
through advance sales of their labour. These constituted credit-labour
interlocked market (dadon) contracts in which the Paharis were con-

strained to take lower rates compared to the open market wage.
Wage differentials between women and men: Pahari women across the
CHT are systemically paid a lower wage compared to men for daily labour,
even if they are involved in the same economic activity (Adnan et al.,
2019). However, there can be gender-based differences in the intensity of
physical labour, with men being involved in relatively ‘heavier’ tasks.
Significantly, however, when employment is based on a piece rate, with
payment being made in proportion to the number of units of produced
items or work done, this gender disparity disappears because men and
women are paid wages on the same basis. For instance, such cases were
reported for those working in the rubber plantations of Baishari Union
in Naikkhongchhari Upazila of Bandarban (Adnan et al., 2019).
Sources of Financial Credit Accessible to Vulnerable Groups

in the CHT
The credit-providing financial services in the CHT that can be accessed by
Pahari groups are restricted to micro-finance agencies consisting mainly of
NGOs and the mahajan or trader-moneylender in the informal
credit market.
Experience of micro-finance among Pahari ethnic groups: Although
micro-finance programmes have been considerably successful in the plain-
lands of Bangladesh, their achievements have been relatively limited
among Pahari ethnic groups of the CHT. An evaluation of the UNICEF-
supported Integrated Community Development Programme (ICDP) in
the CHT found that around 30% of households borrowed from micro-
credit agencies (UNICEF, 2012). Staff members of several NGOs
recounted being faced with debt default by Pahari groups, resulting in
termination of these micro-credit programmes. A critical reason for this is
that the micro-finance agencies try to impose the strict discipline of weekly
(or periodic) repayment in cash on borrowers (Adnan, 2004, 135–136).
Such institutional rules and discipline are largely incompatible with the
traditional culture and lifestyles of the Pahari groups, who typically obtain
incomes in kind, rather than cash, from agicultural and extractive activi-
ties. Their real incomes are based on subsistence production and extrac-
tion of forest resources, carried out largely within non-market frameworks
of the family and the para or village community. Moreover, members
of most Pahari households do not receive regular salaries or wage
242 S. ADNAN
payments that can provide ready and regular cash flows for making peri-
odic loan repayments (Adnan et al., 2019).
Loans from mahajans or trader-moneylenders: In contrast to micro-
finance, the loans provided by trader-moneylenders or mahajans in the
CHT are of two broad types. The first involves advances and repayment in
cash alone, with exorbitant compound interest rates (60–120% per annum).
The second involves exploitative dadon (interlocked market) contracts,
which stipulate loan repayment through advance sale of the borrowers’
products or labour (services), at prices lower than those prevailing in the
open market. In some cases, dadon loans involve mortgage contracts in
which the borrowers’ rights to land (or other assets) are pledged as col-
lateral, which can potentially lead to ‘distress’ sale of such land (or assets)
in the event of debt default (Adnan, 2004, 135, Box 7.10).
Social identity of moneylenders: Although Bengalis dominate the credit
market in the CHT, Pahari moneylenders have now emerged among
wealthier groups with access to ready cash, such as salaried job-holders,
traders and owners of large plantations producing for the market (Adnan
et al., 2019). The interest rates charged by them are reported to be com-
parable to those by the Bengali mahajans. These Pahari moneylenders
thus belong to a different social class compared to the traditional jum
cultivators.
Indebtedness drastically impacts the livelihood and food security of
Pahari households. In extreme cases, debt default can lead to loss of col-
lateral in the form of land or other assets. Such outcomes of loan transac-
tions have accentuated the poverty, food insecurity and undernutrition of
vulnerable Pahari households of the CHT.
Social-Institutional Factors Affecting Livelihoods

and Food Security
Education and Literacy
Access to education and literacy is a critical factor in providing skills for
increasing labour productivity and income levels, and can enhance poten-
tial livelihood options and food security. For the Paharis of the CHT, it
can serve as a mechanism of intergenerational upward mobility, by enabling
families to break out of long-standing cycles of poverty, food shortage and
undernutrition (Osmani et al., 2016; Adnan et al., 2019).
Level of education and literacy: The level of educational attainment

among the people of the CHT is lower than the national average for
Bangladesh (HKI, 2013). Educational levels are particularly low among
the smaller Pahari ethnic groups such as the Khyang, Khumi and Mro,
who typically live in remote rural areas inclusive of the Reserve Forests of
the CHT (Adnan et al., 2019). In many cases, the younger and potentially
productive age groups lack literacy and basic education. The dismal state
of education and literacy in the region can be attributed to a complex set
of factors, outlined below (UNICEF, 2012; UNDP, 2013; 2015).
Lack of proximate schools and inadequate teaching facilities: In many
of the remote Pahari settlements of the CHT, there are simply no primary
schools in the vicinity, making it necessary for children to travel daily to
schools at a distance from their homes (Adnan et al., 2019). In some cases,
the ‘commute’ time and transportation costs render access to distant
schools impossible. Even when there are primary schools within accessible
distance, these do not always have adequate teaching staff, proper class-
rooms or learning materials.
Language barriers faced by Pahari students: Even in areas well-served
with schools and transportation, the number of students from Pahari
groups is often disproportionately low. This is partly attributable to the
language barrier faced by students from ethnic groups who can speak their
own mother tongue but are not proficient in Bengali, the official medium
of instruction in primary and secondary schools.
High cost of providing for children attending schools at a distance: In
some parts of the CHT, the time to walk to a school may be too long,
while travelling by road transport or boat to school every day may be too
costly. Pahari parents attempt to resolve this dilemma by sending away
their children to live in distant locations where they can attend schools
(Adnan et al., 2019). However, for poor households, it is often difficult to
meet the additional costs of boarding and lodging for students living far
from home. Families have to find ways of overcoming this constraint if
they want their children to have further education. In many cases, this can
be done only if these families cut down on their own food and essential
consumption and/or borrow from moneylenders at exorbitant rates.
Priority given to children’s education as a means of intergenerational
upward mobility: Indeed, it is striking to find that even the poorest Pahari
families in the CHT were prepared to take high-interest loans from mon-
eylenders to finance their children’s education. There were also instances
of collective action by Pahari households in remote locations which made
244 S. ADNAN
contributions to raise common funds for building and repairing school-

houses in their village, as well as employing and paying the salaries of the
schoolteachers. Given the crisis in livelihoods resulting from shrinking
access to land, forests and open-access ecological reserves, educating chil-
dren constituted a crucial long-term strategy of intergenerational upward
mobility for many Pahari households of the CHT (Adnan et al., 2019).
Healthcare and Medical Facilities

Modern medical facilities: The availability and degree of access to medical
facilities affects the level of fitness of the labour force among the IP and
their capability to work productively and earn adequate incomes to ensure
food security (UNICEF, 2012; CHTDB, 2018). However, in govern-
ment medical facilities in the CHT, the numbers of traned staff including
doctors were often insufficient because such posts had not been duly filled
with appointed personnel. Even where the posts were formally ‘occupied’,
many doctors and medical staff typically remained absent from their work-
places for long periods, particularly those in remote locations in the rural
interior (Adnan et al. 2019). While there are privately run modern medical
facilities in the CHT, these are not only sparse but also highly expensive.
Consequently, these are usually beyond the reach of the majority of the
Pahari population, particularly the poorest and most vulnerable eth-
nic groups.
People’s responses to illness and medical emergencies: Access to modern
healthcare among Pahari groups in the CHT is generally low, given poor
service delivery of the public health system and the lack of adequate trans-
portation in many remote areas. Those who speak only their mother
tongue also face a language barrier when engaging with the modern health
system run largely by Bengali-speaking personnel. Consequently, Pahari
people in remote areas of the CHT tend to seek treatment from the mod-
ern medical system only in cases of emergency and serious health prob-
lems (UNDP, 2013; 2015). Women face the additional problem of social
disapproval if they see doctors and medical staff unaccompanied by a male
relative. Serious illnesses require referral to specialized medical facilities
and fast transportation through road or water ambulances, but such ser-
vices are not usually provided by the public and private medical facilities in
the CHT (Adnan et al. 2019). At times of medical emergency, such as
complications during childbirth, it may prove impossible to transport the
afflicted patient to a qualified treatment facility, typically located in urban
centres at a considerable distance from remote and outlying Pahari

settlements.
Medical practitioners without formal qualifications: traditional heal-
ers and quacks: These limitations of the public and private modern health
systems in the CHT have provided scope for the widespread operation of
unqualified medical practitioners, including traditional healers and quacks
(UNDP, 2013, p. 29). Services of these groups are in great demand in
remote rural areas (see the chapter by Durga et al. in this volume) where
there are no qualified doctors or standard medical facilities. Typically, they
are found to practise in and around pharmacies in bazaars, prescribing
medicine and providing medical treatment, inclusive of even small-scale
‘surgical operations’.6 Pahari ethnic groups living in remote rural areas of
the CHT also seek treatment from traditional healers or shamans known
as boiddyo. The widespread operation of these unorthodox healthcare
practices can be partly attributed to their lower costs and easier accessibil-
ity compared to the modern health establishments (Adnan et al., 2019).
However, their continued presence also reflects the prevalence of a
mass culture which accommodates superstitious belief in supernatural
cures and miracles, making ordinary people prefer to go to faith healers
and quacks rather than qualified doctors at modern hospitals and clinics
(UNICEF, 2012).
Concluding Remarks
This final section provides an overview of factors shaping and constraining
the livelihood options and food security of the indigenous peoples of the
CHT, as well as reflections on the overall structure of causation underlying
these detrimental processes.
A critical factor has been the aggregate decline in the means of produc-
tion or resources essential to meet the livelihood and food security needs
of the Pahari ethnic groups. Traditionally, they have depended upon access
to land, forests and water bodies through a combination of customary,
collective and private property rights. These resources had already been
subject to a chain reaction of agro-ecological degradation since the disrup-
tive impacts of the Kaptai hydroelectric project in the 1960s (Sopher,
6
For instance, such unlicenced surgeries run by non-qualified medical personnel were
observed in 2018 in Kurup Pata bazaar, a remote area located close to the Matamuhuri
Reserve Forest in Alikadam Upazila of Bandarban (Adnan et al., 2019).
246 S. ADNAN
1963, 360–361; Brauns & Loffler, 1990; Adnan, 2004, 45–46). This pre-
existing trend was further aggravated by continuing land grabs and agro-
ecological degradation in the CHT during the subsequent six decades,
resulting in the displacement of the IP from their private and common
lands, inclusive of open-access forests, water bodies and grazing areas.
(Adnan & Dastidar, 2011). Paradoxically, these processes intensified after
the Peace Accord of 1998, which was supposed to have ushered in a period
of stability and strengthening of rights of the IP. Instead, with the formal
cessation of Pahari resistance, the floodgates of in-migration by settlers
and land grabs by state and private agencies have been thrown open with-
out adhering substantively to the relevant provisions of the peace treaty
signed by the government.
The loss of access of the IP to land, forests and other ecological
resources has been driven by antecedent structural conditions of political
domination, ethnic discrimination, and massive in-migration of Bengali
settlers into the CHT. These trends have been reinforced by the virtually
unassailable control over factor and product markets by Bengali traders
and moneylenders and the restrictive practices used by them to exploit
Pahari producers and wage workers.
These processes of adverse redistribution have resulted in not only the
continuing impoverishment of the bulk of the Pahari peoples but also the
erosion of their traditional mechanisms of coping with food crises and
near-famine conditions. As accessible ecological reserves such as common
jum lands, forests and water bodies have shrunk due to forcible acquisition
and degradation, Paharis households have faced continuing loss of liveli-
hood options as well as the reservoir of wild foods that they had tradition-
ally depended upon to cope with episodic and periodic food
shortages (Adnan et al., 2019). These processes accord with the notion of
ongoing primitive accumulation through which direct producers are sepa-
rated from their means of production such as land and forests, which are
then taken over by the state and private agencies for profit-making activi-
ties under capitalist production relations, for example rubber plantations
and tourist resorts in the CHT (Adnan, 2004, 2013).
Apart from loss of natural resources, the social capability to cope with
food shortages and insecurity had historically depended upon the
customary solidary organization and egalitarian redistributive norms
among the Pahari ethnic communities of the CHT (Brauns & Loffler,
1990; Adnan, 2004). However, the social bases of such resilience have
been undercut by loss of common lands and resources, as well as the
emergence of individuated self-interest and market-based profit-making

amongst status-holders and elite groups of the IP, for example a section
of the traditional Headmen and Karbaris, as well as wealthy professional
groups (Adnan, 2004, 153; Adnan & Dastidar, 2011). This is also illus-
trated by the growth of Pahari moneylenders who are in the business of
exploiting fellow members of their own ethnic groups, as noted above.
Access to livelihoods and levels of food security of the IP also depend
upon the extent to which they can benefit from educational and medical
facilities (UNICEF, 2012; UNDP, 2013, 2015). The limited spread of
education and literacy among the Pahari groups of the CHT partly explains
their relative inability to acquire new and better-paid skills, as well as some
of their critical deviations from healthy behavioural practices (IPC, 2016,
p. 3). Correspondingly, the lack of effective access of Paharis to the mod-
ern medical system, as well as their traditional dependence upon non-
qualified medical practitioners, serves to undermine their health and
productivity, also reducing their incomes and food security.
The structure of causation determining the changing livelihoods and
food security of the IP is multi-factorial, with interactions between politi-
cal, economic, cultural and social forces. As noted above, these relation-
ships can be complex and counter-intuitive, for example coping measures
against food shortage that turn out to be even more harmful or counter-
productive. Nonetheless, in broad terms, political domination, ethnic dis-
crimination, and direct and structural violence constitute the key
antecedent determinants shaping the feasible livelihood options and levels
of food security available to Pahari ethnic groups. The causal linkages with
these antecedent determinants are mediated by state agencies, private
businesses, and markets with restrictive practices and varying degrees of
monopoly. Despite erosion in the solidary organization and redistributive
ethic of Pahari communities, their continuing social and political resis-
tance to domination, exploitation and land grabs plays a critical role in
determining the remaining options in terms of livelihood activities and
attainment of food security.
Nonetheless, given the current balance of forces (as of March 2021),
the crises of livelihoods and food security impacting the Pahari ethnic
groups of the CHT are unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future.
While they have been faced with continuing loss of access to lands, forests,
water bodies and other common resources, the prospects of further loss
and displacement cannot be ruled out. As noted above, the Reserve
Forests of the CHT are the remaining ecological niches that constitute the
248 S. ADNAN
last refuges of the Pahari IDPs evicted from other parts of the region. If
the IP communities now living in these areas are displaced yet again
because of further land grabs and campaigns of ethnic violence, there will
be little room to move anywhere else within the CHT. Consequently, they
may well be compelled to once again cross international borders into
adjoining areas of India and Myanmar, as has repeatedly happened over
the preceding decades. If this prognosis were to prove correct, then it
would corroborate the apprehensions expressed by Lorenz Loffler (Brauns
& Loffler, 1990; Loffler, 1991) and other concerned scholars regarding
the future prospects of the Pahari ethnic groups of the CHT.
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(WFP) Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping Unit (VAM).
The Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh
Amena Mohsin
The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) located in the southeastern part of

Bangladesh occupy a physical area of 5,093 square miles, constituting 10
per cent of the total area of Bangladesh. The region comprises three dis-
tricts: Rangamati, Khagrachari and Banderban and is strategically located,
surrounded by the Indian states of Tripura to the north, Mizoram to the
east and the Chittagong district to the west. It is home to thirteen ethnic
groups: Chakmas, Marmas, Tripura, Khumis, Mro, Murang, Lushai,
Bawm, Pankhos, Kukis, Tanchangya, Chak, and Riang (Mohsin, 1997,
pp. 5–11). The CHT has witnessed over two and a half decades of armed
insurgency beginning in the mid-1970s and formally ending on 2
December 1997, with the signing of an accord, popularly known as the
CHT Accord between the Government of Bangladesh (GOB) and the
Parbattya Chattogram Jana Shonghoti Samity (PCJSS), the political body
which had carried on the movement for autonomy of the CHT within the
state of Bangladesh. Although a peace accord was signed, peace remains
elusive in the region. This chapter is an attempt to analyze the political
dynamics in the CHT. It is divided into two major sections, one examining
the pre-accord period, and the other the landscape of the post-accord CHT.
A. Mohsin (*)
Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh

252 A. MOHSIN
The Pre-Accord CHT

The preamble of the first Constitution of the state of Bangladesh adopted
on 4 November 1972 incorporated nationalism, secularism, democracy
and socialism as state principles. Arguably, the principles were the logical
outcome of the intensely nationalist basis of its liberation movement and
the genocidal birth of the country. However, nationalism as it emerged in
Bangladesh had an alienating impact on the Hill people, and for that mat-
ter the proportion of non-Bengali population within the state. Nationalism
as adopted by the Bangladesh constitution in 1972, however, was a reflec-
tion of Bengali language, culture and history which had formed the bases
of Bengali nationalism as it crystallized through many struggles and move-
ments within the semi-colonial rule of Pakistan, from 1947 to 1971.
It may be noted that during the drafting of the constitution, the Hill
people felt it necessary to have constitutional safeguards for their protec-
tion as a separate community incorporated in the document. There was a
historical basis to this claim (discussed below). On 15 February 1972, a
Hill people’s delegation led by Manobendra Narayan Larma (Larma was
the lone elected representative from the CHT to the Bangladesh parlia-
ment) called on the Father of the Nation, Bangobandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, and placed the demands for the retention of the 1900 CHT
Manual in the Constitution of Bangladesh, and thereby retention of the
special character of the CHT (Haq & Haque, 1990).
But the demands were unacceptable to the then ruling elite of
Bangladesh. The new Constitution of Bangladesh made no special provi-
sion for the CHT. Article 1, Part 1 declared Bangladesh to be a unitary
state. M.N. Larma protested the imposition of Bengali nationalism upon
the Hill people. He made it explicit that while he was a Chakma, not a
Bengali, he was a citizen of Bangladesh: he was Bangladeshi. Bangladeshi
politics changed in 1975, following the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman along with most of his family members, on 15 August 1975 by a
group of military officers.
Following a sequence of coups, Major General Zia ur Rahman (Zia)
assumed power with Bangladesh politics taking a turn. From Bengali
nationalism the state moved toward Bangladeshi nationalism. Religion was
an important component of this model of nationalism. Islamic ideals were
incorporated into the Constitution. By the proclamation of Order No.1 of
1977, Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim (in the name of Allah, the Beneficent,
the Merciful) was inserted at the beginning of the Constitution, before the
THE CHITTAGONG HILL TRACTS, BANGLADESH 253
preamble. The principle of secularism set forth in Article 8 as one of the

state principles was dropped from the Constitution. Article 12, through
which communal political parties were banned in Bangladesh, was also
dropped. Article 9, which stressed the lingual and cultural unity of Bengali
nationalism, was omitted. Through Article 6, Clause 2, citizens of
Bangladesh were to be known as Bangladeshis, in place of Bengalis. These
changes were put into effect through the Fifth Amendment to the
Constitution on 5 April 1977 (Barman, 1991, p. 31).
Zia too was assassinated in May 1981 by a group of army officers, and
the following year, in March, General H.M. Ershad assumed power
through a bloodless coup. Ershad retained the Bangladeshi model of
nationhood but gave it a completely Islamic orientation. Through the
Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of Bangladesh on 7 June 1988,
Islam was declared the state religion (Article 2, Clause A). The Hill people
of the CHT failed to identify themselves with models of either nation and
nationalism, since they are neither Bengalis nor Muslims.
It should be noted that this politics of exclusion has a colonial legacy.
The CHT Manual of 1900, which is commonly referred to as a protective
device for the Hill people by the British to save them from the exploita-
tions of Bengalis, contained many elements, but on closer examination it
was a document that took away most of the powers from the chiefs and
vested these in the state. The CHT Manual laid down detailed rules and
regulations for the administration of the CHT. The Regulation main-
tained the traditional institutions of the Circle Chiefs and Headmen. But
all powers—executive, judiciary and financial—were vested in the role of
the Deputy Commissioner (DC). The powers of Circle Chiefs were lim-
ited to the collection of taxes and dispensing of justice in traditional courts.
Rule 34 of the Regulation restricted possession of land by outsiders in the
CHT. Under Rule 52, no non-indigenous people could enter or reside in
the CHT without obtaining permission from the DC. More importantly,
under Rule 51, the DC had the power to expel anybody from the CHT
within 24 hours if he or she was found to be undesirable, and such orders
were enforceable (Bengal Government, 1942). The Manual, though
seemingly favourable to the Hill people at that point of time, was in actu-
ality a legal document that ensured the erosion of the Hill people’s sover-
eignty and also kept them excluded from the political turmoil occurring in
the Indian subcontinent.
The first Constitution of Pakistan in 1956 retained the special adminis-
trative status of the CHT as an ‘Excluded Area’. The Constitution of 1962
254 A. MOHSIN
changed the status of the CHT from an ‘Excluded Area’ to that of ‘Tribal
Area’. A recognition of its distinctiveness was given but the CHT could
not remain excluded. A major blow to the Hill people came in the 1960s.
It was decided to harness the water resources of the CHT to accelerate the
industrialisation of then East Pakistan. The construction of the Kaptai
Dam submerged 40 per cent of the prime land of the Hill people in
Rangamati and made 100,000 homeless. About 50,000 people crossed
over to India while the rest became internally displaced. A section of the
Hill people, however, opined that the construction of the dam and its
ramifications had sparked a political consciousness among the Hill people.
This partly triggered a shift to education. The resultant educated middle
class gave leadership to the autonomy movement of the Hill people in the
CHT. This movement, in turn, took the form of an armed insurgency and
militarisation of the region (Mohsin, 1997, pp. 163–188).
The Parbattya Chattogram Jana Shonghoti Samity (PCJSS) was formed
under the leadership of M.N. Larma on 7 March 1972. The party added
a military wing, the Shanti Bahini (SB, or Peace Force). Following the
assassination of the Father of the Nation, and the army taking over the
reins of government, the PCJSS was outlawed. Larma crossed over to
India. The latter’s attitude also became favorable toward the PCJSS, as the
political equation between the post-1975 Bangladesh regime and India
began to shift. The SB set up its headquarters in Tripura, India. In 1977,
the SB attacked a convoy of Bangladesh army in the CHT. Following this
incident, the Ministry of Defence took over the CHT from the Ministry
of Home Affairs. The CHT underwent full-scale militarisation, with the
24th Infantry Division of Chittagong in charge. Apart from being physi-
cally present, the military was also in total control of the administration of
the CHT. At the political level there was no freedom of expression or right
of association. The military controlled the economic life of the region
through its control of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Development Board
(CHTDB). As a counterinsurgency measure, the CHT also witnessed the
establishment of a large-scale Bengali settlement in the CHT. In 1979, the
government, through an amendment to Rule 34 of the CHT Manual, did
away with the restrictions to the settlements of the CHT lands by the non-
residents. The objective was to bring about a demographic shift in the
region, which has indeed taken place. Where in 1947 the Hill people con-
stituted more than 98 per cent of the CHT population, the Bengalis
accounted for 50 per cent of the population in the CHT in 1991 (Amin,
1992, p. 118). The Bengali settlements created the ‘settlers’ issue and the
land issue in the CHT with long-term implications for the region. It was
in essence a divide and rule policy of the Bangladesh state. The military
also committed gross violations of human rights in the region, including
rape. It was reported that between 1991 and 1993 over 94 per cent of
sexual assaults of Hill women were by security personnel. Over 40 per cent
of victims were under eighteen years of age (CHT Commission,
1997, p. 9).
Due to Bengali settlements, by the mid-1980s around 400,000 Bengalis
were settled in the CHT. This led to widespread land alienation among
the Hill people. The move was strongly resented by the Hill people as land
was allotted to the Bengalis by evicting the Hill people. The government
claimed that it had settled the Bengalis in Khas land, that is, land owned
by the government. But what the government claimed as Khas land the
Hill people had traditionally regarded as their communal land. This move
again rendered about 100,000 people homeless, with a further 54,000
crossing over to India as refugees and the rest becoming interanlly dis-
placed persons. The refugees provided the main pool of human power to
the SB, thus defeating the very objective of counterinsurgency by the
government.
By the mid-1980s the PCJSS began using the term Jumma nationalism
to counter the hegemony of the Bangladesh state and unify the different
groups in the CHT. The Bangladesh state had started the process of creat-
ing the ‘other’ through its nationalisms; the Hill people internalised this
through the creation of Jumma nationalism.The Bangladesh government
had opened up peace negotiations in the late 1970s with the PCJSS, and
finally in December 1997 a peace accord was signed between the GOB
and the PCJSS. By this time the international and national environment
hade changed. The Awami League, which for historical reasons has good
relations with India, had come to power. India consequently withdrew its
support from the PCJSS; the latter too had developed war fatigue by this
time. The accord, however, is an unequal one and has sown the seeds of
polarisation and conflict among the Hill people. The post-accord CHT
continues to attest to this.
The Post-Accord CHT

Much of the discord in the post-accord period in the CHT emerged due
to the gap between the demands of the PCJSS and the accord on the one
hand, and the very slow pace of accord implementation on the other. The
256 A. MOHSIN
accord has, however, been successful to the extent that it has put an end
to more than two decades of armed insurgency in the Hills. With the sign-
ing of the accord, a second and very different phase of conflict has started
in the region. This conflict is more protracted and is being fought between
and within the communities—the Hill people as well as Bengalis. The
flaws within the accord have major implications for the region. The accord
makes no mention of the Bengali settler issue, though a resolution of the
land issue for which a Land Commission has been constituted through the
accord is inextricably linked to the settler issue (Mohsin, 2003).
The accord has created several new administrative bodies in the CHT,
the Regional Council (RC), the Hill District Councils (HDC), and the
Ministry of CHT Affairs. Parallel to it runs the civil administration and
traditional administration. The military also remains. Given these multiple
layers of administration it is difficult to locate where power lies in the
CHT. On the positive side one may argue that the different bodies have
the potential to ensure a checks and balances system if a truly democratic
spirit evolves at the national and local level. Howevern the current political
atmosphere of deep polarisation and intolerance makes this only a remote
possibility. The accord is not constitutionally recognised, nor is there any
time frame for its implementation. Additionally, despite a record of viola-
tions against women and girls, the accord remains completely silent on
gender violence.
Despite its limitations, the accord had raised the hopes of providing a
framework for laying the foundations of peace and stability in a region and
upon a people marred by violence for over two decades. The post-accord
situation in the CHT has, however, belied the general expectations of the
Hill people. Political empowerment through political autonomy has been
one of the major demands of the Hill people. The process of political
empowerment, however, is a complex one and involves politics organised
at multiple levels. The accord, through the creation of the RC, strength-
ening of the three HDCs, and the Ministry of CHT Affairs, sought to
devolve political and economic powers to the Hill people and thereby
empower them. Apart from these institutions, the pre-existing four-layer
administrative system in the Hills, in place since the British colonial period,
persists.
There is not only lack of coordination among the different structures,
but also the opportunity for personality clashes among the leadership of
the various entities. The government had neither framed rules and regula-
tions for the new bodies, nor devolved full powers to them as per the
accord. On the contrary, it has led to the govermentalisation of adminis-

tration and over-centralisation through the Ministry of CHT affairs.
Political empowerment of the Hill people through decentralisation of
power makes it imperative that the CHT Manual be amended to curtail
the powers and functions of the DC. The CHT Ministry is a part of the
government machinery.The above situation is largely the byproduct of the
government’s failure to frame rules and regulations for the functioning of
the different administrative bodies, and to devolve power and responsibili-
ties to the newly created bodies.
The accord had provided that the military be withdrawn to the canton-
ments and that its temporary camps be withdrawn. But the military pres-
ence remains very visible in the region and temporary camps are spread
throughout the region. Following the accord, the political and security
situation in the CHT has been complicated due to the emergence of
unidentified armed groups. The polarisation that took place within the
Hill people following the accord is also responsible for the loss of human
security. A section of the Pahari Chhatra Parishad (PCP), the Hill Women’s
Federation (HWF) and the Pahari Gono Parishad (PGP) rejected the
CHT Peace Accord as a “compromise accord”. Later this group formed
the UPDF (United People’s Democratic Front). Today the PCJSS is
divided into groups, as is the UPDF. Polarisations have deepened between
the Hill people and the settlers following the accord. There have been
several incidents of violence between the two communities, ranging from
cases of land grabbing to rising incidence of rape. The Hill people blame
this on the settlers and security personnel and allege that a culture of
impunity reigns in the HT. According to the Hill people, the unstable
situation and violence provides a pretext for the military to stay on.
Land has been identified as the crux of the problem in the CHT. The
Land Commission has remained ineffective because of differences in the
conception of land ownership between the Hill people and the state. The
latter refuses to recognise the special rights of the Hill people on their
communal land. For the indigenous people, it may be noted, land is sac-
rosanct and is integral to their identity and culture, not a commodity. On
the other hand, the Hill people allege that tourism has emerged as a big
business in the HT. The Parjatan (tourism) Corporation and the military
are seizing control of land through the eviction of Hill people and are
building tourist resorts. Land grabbing remained a major issue in
2019–2020. The Mro community (at the time of writing) is protesting
the construction of a 5-star hotel on their land. They allege that about 500
258 A. MOHSIN
acres of jhum (slash and burn mode of cultivation) land has been lost.1
The Land Commission also remains non-functional as the settler issue is
not even mentioned in the accord. At present around 22,000 land dis-
putes are pending with the Commission.2 The settlers, on the other hand,
allege that they are victims of poverty and live on rations.
Concluding Remarks
This chapter has examined the process of the incremental erosion of the
Hill people’s autonomy and rights, with a particular focus on the role of
land as an instrument of exploitation. It has further argued that peace
accords unless premised on the principle of justice are no guarantee for
sustainable peace. The implementation of an accord as an instrument of
resolving the issue has led to a proliferation of complex government infra-
structure that has, if anything, weakened the ability of the Hill people to
regain control of their destiny. The plight of the Hill people leads one to
interrogate the process of nation and state crafting.
References
Amin, M. N. (1992). Bangladesher Jatishottar Shomossha ‘O Shangbidhanik
Shomadhaner Onushondhan (Problems of National Identity in Bangladesh and
the Quest for a Constitutional Resolution). In E. Ahamed (Ed.), Bangladesher
Shongshodiyo Gonotantra: Prashongik Chinta Bhabna (Parliamentary Democracy
in Bangladesh: Relevant Reflections and Thoughts). Karim Book Corporation.
Barman, D. C. (1991). Shongbidhan Shongshodhoni ebong gonotantra
(Constitutional Amendments and Democracy). Samaj Nirikkhon.
Bengal Government. (1942). CHT Manual. Chittagong Hill Tracts Manual.
Government of Bengal Board of Revenue. Alipore, Bengal Govt. Press.
(The) Chitagong Hill Tracts Commission. (1997). Life is Not Our's Land and
Human Rights in the Chittagong Hill Tracts Bangladesh. Copenhagen:
International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs.
Haq, S., & Haque, E. (1990). Disintegration Process in Action: The Case of South
Asia (pp. 44–46). BILIA.
Mohsin, A. (1997). The Politics of Nationalism, The Case of Chittagong Hill Tracts,
Bangladesh (pp. 5–11). UPL.
Mohsin, A. (2003). The CHT, Bangladesh: On the Difficult Road to Peace. Lynne
Rienner Publishers.
1
Interview with Ilira Dewan, coordinator, CHT Commission International on 15
December 2020.
2
Interview with Ilira Dewan on 15 December 2020.
Climate Change and Displacement: Locating
the Most Vulnerable Groups
Tasneem Siddiqui
Notions of ‘Climate Migration’ in general, and climate change and

disaster-induced displacement in particular, are becoming central to global
climate negotiations. The last three reports of the Inter-governmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) make extensive reference to the impact
of climate change on human displacement.1 In the 2018 COP24,2 the
state parties accepted the recommendations prepared by the task force
that was created by the Paris Agreement (under Loss and Damage) to
avert, minimize and address the adverse impacts of climate change and
disaster on displacement. The Cancun Adaptation Framework (2010), the
Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (2015–2030) and other
1
The IPCC Oceans and Cryosphere report, the IPCC land report and the IPCC 1.5-degree
C special report.
2
Decision 10/COP24.
T. Siddiqui (*)
Department of Political Science, University of Dhaka, Dhaka, Bangladesh
RMMRU, Dhaka, Bangladesh

260 T. SIDDIQUI
international instruments have also emphasized the need to tackle this

daunting challenge at both the national and international level.
This chapter examines climate-linked displacement in Bangladesh. It
mostly draws from a collection of recently conducted empirical studies on
Bangladesh. Key studies include the Climate change related migration in
Bangladesh project,3 the DEltas, Vulnerability and Climate Change;
Migration and Adaptation study (DECCMA)4 and Safe and the Sustainable
Cities work.5 Lying in the path of the three major rivers of South Asia and
with only 10 per cent of its land area above one metre of the mean sea
level, Bangladesh is often cited as one of the world’s most exposed coun-
tries in terms of potential and realized impact of climate change. Climate
shocks and stresses are predicted to result in increased flooding, drought,
riverbank erosion and salinization of water resources in the country. In the
aftermath of these events the number of persons displaced will also
increase. This chapter attempts to understand the current nature and
extent of climate-related displacement in Bangladesh. It tries to locate
which groups amongst the affected communities will be more vulnerable
and what types of services would be required to support them.
The chapter is divided into eight sections. Section 1 briefly deals with
the concepts and terminologies used. Section 2 presents recent facts and
figures on displacement at the global level and in Bangladesh. Section 3
highlights regional variations in the climate vulnerability of Bangladesh.
Section 4 concentrates on the vulnerability of different population groups
in the origin area during the pre-displacement and displacement periods.
Section 5 identifies the vulnerabilities of the displaced groups during the
post-displacement period, particularly of those who move to cities. Section
6 explores the vulnerability of poor people to irregular migration and traf-
ficking from areas which are facing negative effects of climate change.
Section 7 reviews the existing policies. Finally, Section 8 draws conclusions
and identifies some policy agendas for future reforms to protect the rights
of those who are being forcibly displaced.
3
A joint study by RMMRU and SCMR on climate change-related migration in Bangladesh
(2012–2014). This study looks into the effects of climate change in intensifying vulnerabili-
ties of people affected by flood-, cyclone- and drought-prone districts. The findings are
presented in Martin et al., 2014, 2017.
4
DECCMA: DEltas, vulnerabilities and Climate change (2013–2018). Findings on
Bangladesh is available in De Campos et al., 2019.
5
Joint research of Exeter University and RMMRU on Safe and Sustainable cities: Securities,
Migration and wellbeing, 2017–2019. Findings are available in Siddiqui et al., forthcoming.
CLIMATE CHANGE AND DISPLACEMENT: LOCATING THE MOST… 261
Overview: Climate as an Amplifying Factor

in Vulnerability
This chapter is based on the understanding that climate change does not
displace people directly; rather it exacerbates various forms of vulnerability
which contribute to displacement (Kolmannsskog, 2012). It also draws
from Jayawardhan’s (2017) studies that demonstrate anthropogenic cli-
mate change affects most of the habitants of a community, yet socio-
economic inequalities make marginalized groups more vulnerable to it.
When the vulnerability of affected persons reaches a threshold point where
life and livelihood in origin areas become unsustainable, then the persons
concerned are forced to decide to leave their habitual residence. Individuals
and communities displaced due to effects of climate change or other envi-
ronmental and natural disasters not only have to abandon their habitual
residences, but also succumb to loss of life and livelihoods. Their social
and economic wellbeing is compromised substantively.
This chapter uses the definition of the draft Bangladesh National
Strategy on the Management of Disaster and Climate Induced Internal
Displacement (NSMDCIID). It defines displaced persons as “Persons,
group of persons, households, or an entire community who have been
forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of habitual resi-
dence temporarily or permanently or who have been evacuated as a result
of disasters caused by sudden and slow-onset climatic events and processes,
and who may or may not have crossed an internationally recognized State
border”.6 The IPCC defines vulnerability as “the degree to which a system
is susceptible to, and unable to cope with, adverse effects of climate
change, including variability and extremes”.7 This chapter follows the UN
definition that humanizes vulnerability. It defines vulnerability as “the
characteristics and circumstances of a community, system or asset that
make it susceptible to the damaging effects of a hazard.8 A hazard, in turn,
is defined as a potentially damaging physical event, phenomenon or human
activity which may cause the loss of life or injury, property damage, social
and economic disruption, or environmental degradation. This study
includes weather- or climate-related hazards such as change in
6
Draft National Strategy on the Management of Disaster and Climate Induced Internal
Displacement in Bangladesh.
7
IPCC AR4, 2007.
8
Terminology from the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction.
262 T. SIDDIQUI
precipitation or rainfall pattern, temperature rise, cyclones, drought and

flooding, and environmental hazards such as landslides, deforestation and
riverbank erosion. Adaptation is defined as adjustment in natural or human
systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects,
which moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.9 The defini-
tion includes both autonomous and planned adaptation actions.
The Global and Bangladeshi Situations: Facts

and Figures
Over the last decade, human displacement due to the effects of climate
change has shown a manifold increase. The mean of the last 11 years’ dis-
placement data of the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC)
shows that around 23.5 million people a year are being internally dis-
placed because of extreme weather conditions (IDMC, 2019). In 2017,
18.8 million people were displaced internally due to sudden-onset disas-
ters across 135 countries and territories. Of these, 8.6 million were dis-
placed due to floods and 7.5 million due to sudden-onset processes, chiefly
tropical cyclones. In 2017, six of the top ten countries which experienced
displacement due to disaster were in Asia. These Asian countries are China,
Philippines, Cuba, United States, India, Bangladesh, Somalia, Vietnam,
Ethiopia and Nepal. In 2018, sudden-onset hazards, particularly storms,
triggered the displacement of 17.2 million persons in 144 countries and
territories. No estimate is available on the extent of displacement due to
slow-onset disasters worldwide. Therefore, the total number of displaced
population all over the world should be much higher than this. The World
Bank estimates that 140 million people across sub-Saharan Africa, South-
Asia and Latin America will be forced to move within their countries
by 2050.
The threat in Bangladesh is particularly severe. A recent estimate on the
extent of displacement in Bangladesh suggests that by 2050, one in every
7 people in the country10 will be displaced due to the effects of climate
change. A UNDP (2013) study shows that population growth in environ-
mentally fragile areas, especially coastal, have experienced low population
growth over the last two decades compared to the national average. Based
on the state of population movement within the census of 2001 and 2011,
9
IPCC AR5, 2018.
10
CDMP II, 2014.
the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit (RMMRU) and

the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) (2013) joint research
projects show that even if the population movement trends remain the
same, by 2050 as many as 16 to 26 million people will be compelled to
move from their place of origin due to rapid-onset climate hazards.11
These flows will include both internal displacement and other forms of
labour migration predominantly within the country.
The IDMC data on past displacement in Bangladesh indicate that
between 2008 and 2014 more than 4.7 million people, around 3 per cent
of the population, had to move from their place of origin due to disas-
ters.12 In 2017, in the global count of displaced population Bangladesh’s
position was 6th among 135 countries. The same organization records
that in 2018, about 1.7 million people were evacuated across 23 districts
in Bangladesh, mostly coastal areas such as Bagerhat, Barguna, Bhola,
Chandpur, Chattogram, Cox’s Bazar, Gopalgong, Khulna, Laxmipur,
Noakhali, Patuakhali, Pirojpur and Satkhira.13
In 2014 Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme (CDMP)
II conducted a nationally representative survey on the extent of displace-
ment due to riverbank erosion, tidal flood, waterlogging, salinity, cyclones
and storm surge. The study covered 14 districts facing rapid-onset climate
disasters. It found that 12 per cent of the population of those districts had
experienced permanent displacement, 46 per cent had experienced tem-
porary displacement, 29 per cent swung between temporary and perma-
nent displacement, and only 13 per cent had never experienced any form
of displacement.
11
Kniveton, D. Rowhani, P. Martin, M. (2013). Future Migration in the Context of cli-
mate change, Climate Change Related Migration in Bangladesh. Climate Change Related
Migration in Bangladesh Briefing Paper No 3, Brighton: Sussex Centre for Migration
Research, Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit: Dhaka.
12
IDMC. (2015). Global Estimates 2015: People Displaced by Disasters, IDMC: Geneva.
13
IDMC. (2019). Mid Years Figures: Internal Displacement from January to June 2019,
IDMC: Geneva.
264 T. SIDDIQUI
The Nature of Climate Change-Related

Vulnerability in Bangladesh
Climate change effects are experienced differently in various parts of
Bangladesh. Displacement Solutions14 identifies that the key driver of dis-
placement in the coastal regions of Bangladesh is the increasing tidal water
height (leading to tidal flooding), while tropical cyclones and storm surges
are found to be secondary causes of displacement in the coastal areas. Sea
level rise (SLR) due to climate change is anticipated to worsen many of
these processes and to subsume up to 13 per cent of Bangladesh’s coastal
land by 2080. The most critical and foreseeable impact of SLR is the salin-
ity intrusion of cultivable land, soil and water affecting agro-based liveli-
hoods of coastal populations. This is therefore one of the key triggers of
displacement in the coastal areas. On the other hand, riverbank erosion
and river flooding are the key drivers of displacement in the mainland
regions. Eighty per cent of the land area consists of floodplains of the
major rivers including the Ganga, Brahmaputra and Meghna, which are
highly prone to flooding. In catastrophic years such as 1988, 1998 and
2004, more than 60 per cent of the country or an area of approximately
100,000 square kilometres was inundated for a duration of nearly 3 months
(CEGIS, 2013). In many parts of the country, such events led to wide-
spread displacement of affected people.
Northwestern districts of Bangladesh face severe seasonal drought,
which can force the displacement of populations dependent on agricul-
ture.15 Droughts are expected to be more frequent and severe due to cli-
mate change. Many factors are attributed to drought conditions, including
long-term changes in rainfall patterns, over-pumping of ground water,
and diversion of water upstream. The intensity and duration of drought
has been increasing over recent years, putting major stress on the liveli-
hoods of the people of this region, who have traditionally been over-
whelmingly dependent on agriculture. A large section of the land cannot
be cultivated in all seasons, and the cost of cultivation has also risen as
irrigation has become expensive.
While it is not plausibly linked to climate change, it is worth pointing
out that Bangladesh is also at significant risk of major earthquakes as it is
14
Displacement Solutions. (2012). Climate Displacement in Bangladesh| The Need for
Urgent Housing, Land and Property (1HLP) Rights Solutions, DS: Geneva.
15
Habiba et al., 2013.
geographically proximal to several active faults. The country stands at the

northeastern corner of the Indian plate.16 Given that the country’s seismic
risk may be higher than previously recognized, with an active subduction
zone and mega-thrust fault placing the region at risk of an earthquake,
earthquakes would also lead to major displacement in both the urban and
peri-urban areas.
The following two sections look into how different socio-economic
groups experience the effects of climate change and what types of condi-
tions make some sections of the population more vulnerable to displace-
ment than others. Vulnerabilities are assessed in the light of ethnicity,
Vulnerable Groups in the Origin Areas

As noted earlier, people from inland areas tend to lose housing and arable
land to riverbank erosion and floods, whereas people from coastal areas
such as Satkhira and Bagerhat suffer losses due to cyclones and tidal surges.
In the coastal Chattogram area, flash floods play a key role in land loss.
Further inland in regions such as Chapai Nawabganj and the Chittagong
Hill Tracts, drought plays a role in displacement, but does not result in
absolute loss of land. However, people from these areas face major diffi-
culties in cultivating their arable land due to water shortage and depletion
of ground water. RMMRU and SCMR (2013) find that economic status
has a direct bearing on experience of homestead loss. Those who are eco-
nomically better off have other lands to reinstate their houses, and some
could avoid losing their homestead by raising the plinth of their house. It
is the relatively poor people who mostly reside in areas close to disaster
risk, be it tidal flood or river erosion. They are the ones who become virtu-
ally landless due to loss of land as well as home. When responses are com-
pared between men and women, it appears that home and homestead land
loss was seen as the major problem by women, whereas men highlighted
loss of arable land as the critical impact (Martin et al., 2014).
Qualitative data from the RMMRU and SCMR surveys have also cap-
tured the changes in livelihood of the respondents over the last 40 years.
They show that before 1980 most of the interviewee households were
subsistence farmers, sharecroppers, agricultural labourers, fishermen,
boatmen, potters, ironsmiths, wood cutters, or engaged in other
16
There are two major structures relative to the plate boundary, namely the Dauki fault
and the Indian-Burma plate boundary fault.
266 T. SIDDIQUI
forest-based livelihoods such as honey or leaf collecting. Over the years,

many of these professions have become extinct. Those living in relatively
better economic conditions have diversified their livelihoods and income
sources, whereas poorer households, particularly those who became land-
less, enjoy fewer opportunities to diversify their income sources. In the
water-logged areas of Khulna and Satkhira the rich farmers can afford to
buy seeds of salt-tolerant rice varieties that poor farmers cannot. Rich
farmers can irrigate their land in drought-prone Chapai Nawabganj by
paying higher prices, something their poor counterparts cannot afford.
Gendered differences in experience in respect to facing the effects of
climate change are pronounced when it comes to access to potable water
and health services. Women across all economic classes identified carrying
potable water from far areas as a problem during and in the aftermath of a
disaster. They also identified waterborne diseases and skin diseases as a
major problem during and after disasters such as floods and cyclones. Lack
of access to loans/finance, however, both during and in the aftermath of a
disaster, was identified by men as the major hindrance in their process of
rehabilitation, whereas women identified access to relief and food as their
major problem. Perhaps for this reason Jayawardhan (2017) argues that it
is the marginalized groups who cannot adjust to the effects of climate
change on their lives. Similarly, Siddiqui et al. (forthcoming) find that the
challenges faced by households once they have been displaced also show
gender differences.
Vulnerability of the Displaced in the Cities

A University of Exeter team and the RMMRU conducted a survey on the
state of climate-induced new migrants in the slum areas of Chattogram
city. It shows that vulnerability of new migrants varies on the basis of geo-
graphic location, ethnicity, gender and age (Siddiqui et al., forthcoming).
Chattogram is the second largest city in Bangladesh and is an important
business centre. Employment opportunities attract new migrants to this
megacity as it hosts a port, garment and other manufacturing industries,
and export processing zones (EPZs). Low-income migrants are concen-
trated in impoverished slums in both the low-lying areas and the hill slopes
of Chattogram. The survey covered 450 new migrant households in five
areas of the city by using the serpentine method of household listing, with
the sample areas including these slum and hill slope zones. In the urban
setting, they are still exposed to environmental hazards, face low access to
urban services and endure sub-standard work conditions. The new inter-
nal migrants who have moved to different parts of Chattogram city both
from the plains and hill districts identified a number of challenges. These
include inadequate and inhumane housing conditions, lack of access to
safe drinking water and sanitation, high rents and fear of eviction from
illegal settlements. The fragility of livelihoods and income is an overarch-
ing threat, which defines the experiences of all migrants, male and female,
from the plain or hill areas. More importantly, all groups of migrants feel
powerless and unable to make their voices heard by the municipal
authorities.
Lack of privacy while bathing, long queues for using toilets and inci-
dents of sexual harassment are prominent amongst the concerns of female
migrants as well as female members of male migrant households. Long
working hours is a major concern of female garment workers. Migrant
women, particularly those working in the formal sector, complained about
lack of childcare facilities. They feel that they have compromised the health
and safety of their children for work.
Issues related to housing and sanitation were not on the priority list of
concern for the male migrants. For men, work-related anxieties were
prominent. Men working in the formal sector including factories were
concerned about lack of tenure and fluctuating income. Men who work as
street hawkers identified police harassment, demands for bribes and fre-
quent eviction from roadsides and footpaths as their major concerns.
Those who work in waste collection suffer from skin diseases and breath-
ing problems. Primary and secondary education is free in Bangladesh yet
children face problems in going to school as the roads are waterlogged for
several months of the year. Children themselves identified absence of a
playground, power cuts during study time and inclement weather while
commuting to school as characteristic of their school experience.
Migrants residing in established slums in low-lying areas of Chattogram
experience regular waterlogging, water-borne diseases and low quality of
civic services such as safe drinking water, cooking gas and sanitation facili-
ties. Both male and female migrants living in unauthorized settlements on
hill slopes are more worried about landslides during the monsoon season.
There is a distinct difference between migrants who come from the hills
and those from the plainlands. Plainlands migrants face no problem in
accessing existing religious and spiritual sites in new urban locations, be
they Hindu or Muslim. In contrast, finding places for religious
268 T. SIDDIQUI
congregation is a major problem that the Buddhist hill community faces

in a new urban location due to the relative sparsity of Buddhists in the
plains area.
Vulnerability to Irregular Migration

An interesting case that illustrates the potentially pervasive indirect effects
of climate on migratory patterns has emerged recently in relation to inter-
national labour mobility. Bangladesh has a long history of participation in
short-term international contract migration to the Gulf, and other Arab
and Southeast Asian countries. The majority of Bangladeshi workers (as
noted elsewhere in this volume) are low skilled. Up to the year 2010,
people from climate change-affected districts hardly participated in this
market. This is due to factors such as absence of government institutions
and private recruiting agencies that facilitate international migration in the
climate-affected districts. Lack of resources to bear the high cost of inter-
national migration and lack of access to social networks also hinder partici-
pation of poor people (Siddiqui, 2017). Based on empirical evidence, a
number of studies (CDMP II, 2013; RMMRU and SCMR, 2014;
International Organization For Migration (IOM), 2010) have identified
that the majority of migration flows from the areas which face the effects
of climate change were internal.
Since 2010, a section of the persecuted Rohingya population from
Myanmar have been attempting to flee Myanmar to Malaysia through
irregular maritime routes of Bay of Bengal and the Andaman Sea. These
informal journeys soon culminated in the development of a syndicate of
human smugglers of Thai, Bangladeshi, Malay and Burmese origin.
Gradually, the syndicate also targeted the Rohingya refugees residing in
Bangladesh. Within a very short span of time, these human smugglers also
started luring poor Bangladeshis who aspired to migrate for work but
could not do so for reasons of high cost. They targeted adult males from
those regions of the country that are not exposed to short-term interna-
tional contract migration and consequently have little knowledge about
the pitfalls of movement through the irregular routes. Climate change-
affected regions fall into one of the major catchment areas. At that point
in time, the average cost of migration to different Bangladeshi labour mar-
kets varied from BDT 200,000 to BDT 400,000 (approximately $2500 to
$5000)17. However, the smugglers offered aspirant migrants a cost that

was as low as BDT 10,000 to BDT 15,000, a fraction of the formal cost.)
This offer enticed many Bangladeshis to fall prey to human smugglers.
The discovery of illegal detention centres and mass graves on the Thai-
Malaysia border in 2014 brought to the fore the worst cases of human
trafficking of Bangladeshis and Rohingya refugees. Based on the newspa-
per reports from districts of the Bangladeshis who returned from the
detention camps of smugglers, as well as the dead, RMMRU found that
66 per cent of these victims were from the 19 climate-hit districts of
Bangladesh. This demonstrates that if the right kind of adaptation mea-
sures are not in place, the effects of climate change can create opportunity
for trafficking and irregular migration.
Policies and Laws
The major policies that deal with climate change and migration in
Bangladesh include the National Adaptation Action Plan (NAPA) 2009,
the Bangladesh Climate Change Strategy and Action Plan (BCCSAP)
2009, the Standing Orders on Disaster (SOD) and the National Strategy
on the Management of Disaster and Climate Induced Internal Displacement
(NSMDCIID). The first two policies have not addressed the issue of dis-
placement directly. SOD provides instructions to different actors at
national and sub-national level on managing displacement. However, the
focus is overwhelmingly on initial emergency shelter during a disaster. The
other two phases of displacement, pre-displacement and post-displacement,
are absent in the SOD. The Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief
(MoDMR) has drafted a National Strategy on the Management of Disaster
and Climate Induced Internal Displacement on the basis of the UN Sendai
Framework, the UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement as well
as the 2030 agenda of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It is a
rights-based document which covers all phases of displacement-prevention,
protection during displacement and durable solution. In 2021, as this vol-
ume goes to press, the strategy is going through an inter-ministerial scru-
tiny process and is expected to be adopted soon.
The majority of the urbanization polices continue to view rural—urban
migration as a problem of development and treat it as the cause of wide-
spread urban poverty, rather than focusing on the climate-change induced
17
RMMRU, 2013.
270 T. SIDDIQUI
component. Some of these policies even call for relocation of the displaced
back to their origin areas (National Housing Policy 2016). The draft
National Urbanization Policy 2014 is more open to rural—urban migra-
tion. However, urban experts see very little scope for adoption of the draft
policy. The policymakers who deal with climate change are yet to absorb
the reality that Bangladesh is rapidly becoming urbanized. By 2030, 44
per cent of the population will be living in cities and by 2050 it is antici-
pated that more than half the population will be living in cities (GED,
2016). This is not only due to push factors such as climate change and
poverty in rural areas; it is also due to pull factors such as demand for
labour in urban growth centres. Therefore, urbanization policies have to
accommodate the need of the new migrants to attain SDG 11-inclusive
safe and sustainable cities.
Conclusions and Policy Consideration

This chapter demonstrates that the effects of climate change are already
contributing to a wave of forced displacement in Bangladesh. Relatively
better off families can diversify their family income sources, rely on credit
and access to social networks, relocate to safer ground, and generally adapt
to changes brought on by climate change-related events, but for the poor,
softening the impact is often impossible. The relatively poorer population
initially attempts to relocate within the village nearby, placing them on the
front line for future climate impacts. When income sources disappear, the
entire family or income earners as ‘ambassadors’ to the family migrate to
distant places, usually Bangladesh’s urban centres.
Along with economic status, the effect of displacement is experienced
differently by men, women and children. Women from poorer communi-
ties who end up in slums are more worried about the situation of housing,
access to sanitation, sexual harassment, insecurity of their young children
and lack of childcare in their new workplaces. Men are more concerned
about the precarity of their job conditions, fear of eviction and exposure
to drug problems. The experience of displacement also varies according to
ethnicity and place of origin. Climate stresses that contribute to displace-
ment are different for the people of the hill community of Chattogram
compared to the people of the mainland.
The Path Forward

Displaced populations are not a homogenous group; they experience a
host of different social, economic and environmental risks depending on
their gender, ethnicity, place of residence and type of employment. More
nuanced policy is required to incorporate all voices in a way that is reflec-
tive of their experience. There is a clear need for a current practice of
concentration of climate adaptation programmes only at local and rural
areas to be expanded, and climate change adaptation funds should be allo-
cated for the wellbeing of the displaced population who are working in
cities. In other words, the impact of climate change clearly spreads beyond
the ‘front line’ (e.g. low-lying coastal regions) and policy needs to be
more all-encompassing to recognize that the impact zone is national. The
almost exponential growth of Dhaka, for example, is part of the climate
change equation, and efforts to ensure decentralization of services and
populations are an important part of the mitigation measures required to
tackle climate change. As new iterations of policies on climate change
(NAPA, BCCSAP and Delta Plan 2100) emerge, a greater focus on the
displaced population needs to be developed, and an all-government
approach to responding to the displaced population crisis is required.
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Retracing Accountability in the Bangladeshi
Public Administration
Quamrul Alam, Shibaab Rahman, and Julian Teicher
Introduction
The fledgling Bangladeshi state has made remarkable progress, but the
absence of effective accountability mechanisms remains a threat to that
progress. Accountability mechanisms which ensure that individuals, public
agencies and different arms of government are answerable for their actions
is the cornerstone of modern governance (Peters, 2007) and a fundamen-
tal requirement for any democracy (Hughes, 2012). Accountability exists
for a wide variety of reasons including ensuring public organizations con-
duct themselves fairly, as a check against abuse of power, as an assurance of
performance, and to monitor whether public officials conduct themselves
in accordance with codes and standards. Systems of accountability are
Q. Alam (*) • J. Teicher

School of Business and Law, Central Queensland University, Melbourne,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
S. Rahman
School of Business, UNSW Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia

274 Q. ALAM ET AL.
what essentially tie the administrative part of government to the political

part, and ultimately to the public who have entrusted politicians to form a
government and govern on the public’s behalf.
That Bangladesh has faced massive challenges in establishing an
accountable public administration is no exaggeration. Public administra-
tion scholars largely agree that accountability has been relatively absent in
Bangladeshi public administration (Huque, 2011; Sarker & Zafarullah,
2019; Zafarullah, 2013; Zafarullah & Huque, 2001). Lack of account-
ability is evident across government, from the parliament to the civil ser-
vice. Notably the Parliament has struggled to exert its responsibility to
hold the Executive to account (Ahmed, 1997; Alam & Teicher, 2012) and
in the process has been “reduced to a subordinate agency of the executive
with no bearing on the administration and the control of government”
(Siddiquee, 1999, p. 90). The judiciary has not fared any better, with
some scholars (e.g., Ahmed, 2006; Mollah, 2012) claiming that its inde-
pendence has been compromised through political appointments and
arguing that it has failed to consistently apply the rule of law (IGS, 2015).
There have been some changes that have addressed the lack of account-
ability, for example initiatives such as the National Integrity Strategy 2012
and the establishment of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC).
Annual Performance Appraisal (APA) in the post-2014 elections and the
Citizens Charter are also notable initiatives designed to improve
accountability.
The failure of public accountability in Bangladesh is not for lack of rules
or measures designed to ensure accountability, but rather forces that have
acted to undermine these rules. In order to understand this situation, we
undertake a historical analysis of the events that have shaped the nature of
accountability in the Bangladeshi public administration in the first part of
the chapter. In the second part, we attempt to explain the reasons behind
the current nature of accountability in the Bangladeshi public administra-
tion and how it might progress in the future.
Retracing Accountability in the Bangladeshi

Public Administration
In this section, we revisit the historical events that have shaped the
Bangladeshi public administration through the lens of institutionalism,
which holds that institutions are simply “social rules that structure social
RETRACING ACCOUNTABILITY IN THE BANGLADESHI PUBLIC… 275
interaction” (Hodgson, 2006, p. 2). These ‘rules’ that constrain human

behaviour can manifest through formal laws and regulations (Hindriks &
Guala, 2015) and also social norms, values and practices (Scott, 2014).
Most relevant for present purposes are the latter form of institutions,
essentially “settled habits of thought”, which over time become internal-
ized within and take the form of social norms. In this way they gain legiti-
macy, that is, “ a generalised perception or assumption that the actions of
an entity is desirable, proper, or appropriate within some socially con-
structed system of norms, values, beliefs and definitions” (Suchman, 1995,
p. 574). Legitimacy thus ensures that members of society are shaped by
institutions because of the need to show and demonstrate that their actions
adhere to accepted and appropriate ways of doing things. The purpose of
this section is to present those events that are the result of institutional
reality and hold specific implications for accountability. We do this by
embedding our discussion in three different time periods, the immediate
post-independence phase (1971–1975), the period of military-bureaucratic
regimes (1975–1990), and the democratic phase (1991–present).
The Post-Independence Phase (1971–1975)

At the time of Independence, Bangladesh adopted a multi-party demo-
cratic system of government. This was achieved through contested elec-
tions in 1973, the outcome of which resulted in the Awami League (AL)
forming the government, led by Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The elected
government was further legitimized by the establishment of the first par-
liament in 1973 and the enactment of the first Constitution, which was
the first sign of commitment to principles of accountability inspired by the
spirit of the Liberation War to establish a Westminster-style political sys-
tem. The first political government declared nationalism, socialism,
democracy and secularism the fundamental principles of the Republic of
Bangladesh, envisaging the establishment of a new set of institutions to
govern society.
The nine-month war of independence had destroyed the physical infra-
structure and changed the character, pace and prospects of economic life
in Bangladesh. When it ended, the economy was left prostrate and much
of the capital stock was destroyed or in disrepair. The newly elected gov-
ernment was faced with a myriad of challenges. Poverty, hunger, famine,
unemployment and an overall weak economy demanded most of the gov-
ernment’s attention. There was also a need to implement a stable structure
276 Q. ALAM ET AL.
of governance, but this was complicated by the fact that under Pakistani
rule there was only a provincial government and the administrators had
little experience with running a national government.
In addition, the administrative system that Bangladesh inherited from
the pre-Independence period featured strong colonial legacies in terms of
its organizing principles. The bureaucracy was perhaps the most estab-
lished sector at the time, owing to its colonial history and dominance in
shaping the governance and politics of Pakistan. Under British and
Pakistani rule, the administration structured around Weberian rules-based
principles was crucial in aiding the colonial agenda. Colonial patterns
included plundering wealth and resources through coercion, establishing
unequal trading relationships, and cementing western hegemony through
the introduction of capitalism in an agrarian society. In this way, the
bureaucracy was effective in both organizing itself and implementing colo-
nial policies.
Subsequently, however, under post-colonial Pakistan, public adminis-
tration assumed a dominant role in society. The bureaucracy’s ascent as a
determining societal force was largely catalysed by the absence of a strong
indigenous capitalist class, lack of industrialization, and low levels of tech-
nology. Under such unpropitious circumstances, the newly formed state
aided by the bureaucracy assumed the mammoth task of spearheading
economic and industrial growth through effective allocation of resources,
controlling capital, and engaging in state-sponsored capitalist endeavours
(Alavi, 1972; Dwivedi & Nef, 1982).
Post-independence, Bangladesh’s continuation of the state-led growth
strategy positioned the bureaucracy as an important state actor, affording
it significant power as a decider, appropriator and controller of capital
(Alam, 1991, 1993). Perhaps most significantly, the bureaucracy during
that period is best remembered as participating in and commanding strong
influence in the political process. Zafarullah and Huque (1998, p. 1477)
recount that civil servants “took to politics and significantly influence[d]
constitution making, formation of governments, the policy process and
administrative reorganization”.
The elevation of public administration in society during Pakistani rule
had only reaffirmed its position as an established body in post-independence
Bangladesh. This served as a double-edged sword for the incoming AL
government. The experience and expertise of the civil servants could
potentially serve as an effective vehicle through which the government
could exercise control over public affairs, including fundamentally in the
running of the country. But it was also no secret that the AL government
harboured a distrust of the bureaucracy stemming from the administra-
tion’s overreaching political engagement during Pakistani rule.
Recognizing the potential of the bureaucracy while maintaining a level of
suspicion towards its motives, active measures were taken to ensure con-
trol over the administration. This mistrust translated into interference in
the management of the civil service, including in the recruitment process
by hiring party loyalists and freedom fighters and in the process bypassing
recruitment procedures such as tests and interviews (Jahan &
Shahan, 2008).
Such practices, which are well known to have become sedimented as
social norms in the Bangladeshi public administration today (Sarker &
Zafarullah, 2019), severely undermine the formal rules that embody prin-
ciples of merit, performance and integrity as important organizing princi-
ples. Instead, it has become apparent that nepotism and favouritism are
dominant institutional features in public administration (Alam & Teicher,
2012). These elements, mimicking a ‘spoils system’ (Huque & Rahman,
2003), became broader features of the institutional context in the
Bangladeshi public administration. As such, politicization became a mech-
anism of the distribution of spoils, which was a combination of compul-
sion and a deliberate attempt to ensure the loyalty of the bureaucracy and
bring it under control of a newly established politically elected govern-
ment. Politicization as an institutional reality raises doubts about an
accountable public administration today. Politicized civil servants are likely
to prioritise fulfilling duties of loyalty and allegiance towards political par-
ties which provide them with preference in their appointments, in the
process trivializing their constitutional responsibilities.
Politicization of the bureaucracy under the first AL government did not
mean the bureaucracy was completely at its mercy. There was still a need
to pay heed to the advice of senior bureaucrats who were commissioned
under the Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), and as repatriated officers from
Pakistan in the newly independent Bangladesh assumed senior leadership
roles in the Bangladeshi public administration. The former CSP officers
were keen to play a more prominent role in the newly independent state.
One of the key areas in which they demonstrated their ascendency within
the power configurations of the newly formed state was public sec-
tor reform.
Two broad categories of reforms prevailed during the immediate post-
independence phase. First, there was a focus on the reorganization of the
278 Q. ALAM ET AL.
civil service, including establishing a unified integrated civil service struc-

ture and abolishing different cadre services to reduce the hierarchies in the
civil service. These changes could not be fully implemented despite the
recommendations from the reform commission considered to be substan-
tial and indispensable at the time. CSPs categorically resisted these changes
fearing erosion of their seniority and elite status in the bureaucracy.
Instead, they preferred a hierarchical system, choosing continuity of colo-
nial institutions as guiding principles. In terms of a model of accountabil-
ity, the hierarchical system ensured that CSPs could arbitrarily decide for
what and to whom junior civil servants were accountable. For example,
Siddiqui (2012), describing the colonial hangover in the Bangladeshi pub-
lic administration, characterizes a senior civil servant as the ultimate “boss”
who holds all junior civil servants subservient to him or her and whimsi-
cally decides what to hold the junior civil servant accountable for. This
level of arbitrary application of administrative rules remains a key part of
institutional life in the Bangladeshi public administration.
Changes to the pay structure was the second category of reforms. The
National Pay Commission (NPC) was established to update the pay struc-
ture of the civil service to be more in line with wider economic trends, but
also in terms of attracting talent and incentivizing work. Pay structure
reforms were only partially implemented, with the majority of the recom-
mendations rejected by the powerful CSPs as the proposed changes were
not particularly beneficial for them. In short, while some reforms were
welcomed and necessary to establish the administration to run the newly
independent country, there were indeed fissures that were emerging
between the bureaucracy and the politically elected government that cre-
ated a fractured governance system.
What issues of accountability can be gleaned from the immediate post-
independence period? Undeniably, the priority of the government was
ensuring a working bureaucracy that could serve the immediate needs of
the nation. Reforms such as reorganization and pay structures were inher-
ently focused on establishing the fundamental pillars for an efficiently
functioning public administration. However, accountability, in a formal
sense, did not emerge as a priority in that it did not feature in the wider
reform dialogue or in conversations within politics; the focus was on
nation building largely sparked by the spirit of the Liberation War. There
was a simplistic belief that the political commitment of the entire nation
would gradually reconstruct the institutions of governance and establish
an accountable administrative system (Alam, 1993). The politicians for the
most part believed that the inherited administrative structure and accom-
panying rules-based principle that promulgates hierarchical forms of inter-
nal accountability would be sufficient (Huque, 1997; Khan, 2013) In
hindsight, that belief was misplaced (Khan, 1989). Instead, the lack of
accountability supported by continuity of colonial institutions, politiciza-
tion and arbitrary forms of hierarchical accountability were being gradu-
ally sedimented as social norms in the Bangladeshi public administration.
Military-Bureaucratic Regimes and Authoritarian Rule

(1975–1991)
Following the tragic assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in a coup
d’état in 1975, Bangladesh entered a prolonged period of military-
bureaucratic authoritarian rule. This new chapter in the political history of
Bangladesh saw a shift to a presidential system of government, emergence
of a military-bureaucratic oligarchy, administrative reforms, and major
macroeconomic and governance-related initiatives. In this section, we
examine how these changes in the wider public sector and the Bangladeshi
economy in general shaped accountability in the Bangladeshi public
administration.
Following the 1975 military coup, General Ziaur Rahman assumed
control of the government as the de facto military ruler and subsequently
became the president of the country. The presidential referendum in 1977
based on a ‘yes/no’ vote was key in legitimizing Zia’s presidency, as were
the presidential elections in 1978 and the parliamentary elections in 1979
which he successfully contested under the banner of his newly formed
party, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). These rapid political
reforms grossly violated administrative and political accountability mecha-
nisms owing mostly to the authoritarian nature of the regime. Beyond
such violations what was perhaps most characteristic of the Zia regime was
a strong proclivity to position the army as the defender of national interest
and security and the pursuit of pro-market economic policies. While there
were indeed other significant developments such as enshrining Muslim
traditionalism within statecraft, including by amending sections of the
constitution that referred to secularism, it is the role of the army and the
so-called private sector led growth strategy riddled with patronage politics
that we believe shaped the accountability discourse in the Bangladeshi
public administration.
280 Q. ALAM ET AL.
The term military-bureaucratic oligarchy (Alavi, 1972) is often used to

explain the alliance or the marriage of convenience that existed between
bureaucracy and the military in Bangladesh. It was born out of the rise of
the military as a political force that overthrew a democratically elected
government and the dominance of civil service in statecraft. Zia was astute
in recognizing that the support of the bureaucracy was indispensable in
legitimizing his authority. He solicited the support of the bureaucracy by
appointing bureaucrats to key positions in the policy and implementation
agencies, all the while ensuring that army officers were provided with simi-
lar privileges (Alam, 1993). Zia also undertook other measures during this
period, including reforming the pay structure for both the civil bureau-
cracy and the armed forces, which resulted in significant pay increases for
senior officials. Another administrative reform was amending the civil ser-
vice structure by creating 28 cadres. A senior service pool for civil servants
above joint secretary level was also created, which catalysed a powerful
policymaking strata within the bureaucracy.
The military and bureaucratic elites dominated Bangladeshi politics
during this period, embedding themselves firmly in the decision-making
structure of the state apparatus. Perhaps the most prominent example of
this was the degree to which military and bureaucratic personnel estab-
lished control over the state’s resources and their allocation and distribu-
tion (Alam, 1993). Bureaucrats frequently engaged in patronage
distribution benefiting friends, relatives and in particular the private sector
including traders, industrialists and elites who sought favour from the gov-
ernment (Zafarullah, 1987; Sarker, 2008). Alam (1993) argues that this
type of patronage distribution was one of the important political means
through which the private sector could be accommodated within the legal
framework of the state structure. He argues this was born out of necessity
where the state assumed a dominant role in spearheading capitalist activi-
ties due to the lack of an entrepreneurial and capitalist class in the rela-
tively young country. In such a case, the state distributed resources
through patronage to members of the private sector, which put the
military-bureaucratic oligarchy in a powerful and controlling position.
This type of patronage distribution was consistent with Zia’s growth strat-
egy that required private sector participation in the economy. The political
coalition between the military, bureaucracy and the private sector was
largely facilitated by an unprincipled political settlement.
Unsurprisingly, during these developments, accountability again fell by
the wayside. This complete disregard for holding the bureaucracy to
account facilitated the control of the state machinery by bureaucrats,

enabling them to dispense patronage as a basis for expanding their power
over the polity and in the process acquiring material benefits from the
dispensation of patronage. Any form of good governance that would
uphold the element of accountability was not a priority. Instead, the gov-
ernment’s uncompromising focus was on a growth strategy, which tended
to encourage unscrupulous business practices and a disregard for the gov-
ernment’s own rules and regulations. For example, Zia’s focus on promot-
ing a capitalist system entailed providing benefits and favours to certain
classes of the population (i.e. traders, industrialists, and rich and middle
peasants) who enjoyed strong links to the state. Unsurprisingly, the vast
majority of the civil and military officer mainly belonged to this class, the
rich and middle peasants, confirming their interest in exercising their state
power to benefit their families. At that point, traditional forms of hierar-
chical accountability in the administration still existed, but few believed in
such fair and legal processes. Instead, an unsustainable and glorified
agenda of growth, which in any case did not come to fruition, shrouded
corruption and a further degeneration of the principles of accountability.
After the assassination of Zia in a military coup and the installation of
General Ershad in 1981, another military leader turned president, there
was little progress on the accountability front. Ershad adopted an attenu-
ated version of the growth-oriented policies of Zia. This manifested in the
form of large-scale privatizations, withdrawal of subsidies from the agricul-
ture sector, liberal industrial policies, and a liberalized financial sector with
an increased number of private financial institutions as part of increasing
the capital flow to the private sector. This growth agenda was supported
by the continuation of the military-bureaucracy oligarchy; for example,
the regime appointed civil and military bureaucrats as chief executives of
various state-run corporations. To appease civil servants, a policy to
increase salaries of the public servants was implemented. Gradually, the
public servants accumulated more executive power in alliance with the
military government. There were, however, some useful reforms such as
decentralizing the administration and providing greater autonomy to
local-level government officials and elected bodies to plan and implement
development projects (Alam, 1993). This perhaps stands as a key reform
enabling better governance, at least in terms of increasing the number of
actors participating in the process.
Despite some beneficial reforms, the military-bureaucracy oligarchy
under the direct command of the president carried out its work with little
282 Q. ALAM ET AL.
accountability. There were subdued attempts to hold the administration

to account for its unscrupulous private dealings with the elites, the exten-
sion of favours using state resources, and the wider impact of less than
accountable government on weakening the already struggling economic
base of the vast majority of poor people in Bangladesh.
Some consider that the downfall of Ershad through an urban-based
mass movement was mainly because of the regime’s lack of accountability
and widespread corruption and patronage politics. Irrespective of what
may have been the reason, two decades on from Independence, account-
ability remained a peripheral concern for the government and the bureau-
cracy. Administrative personnel in concert with the military were embroiled
in pursuing their political ambitions, but administration does not operate
in a vacuum. Rather, it is embedded within a wider societal system from
where it takes signals about appropriate and legitimate ways to functions.
In a society in which the central bodies, including the Executive and the
judiciary, have relinquished their responsibilities of being held to account
or holding to account, it is hardly surprising that the administration also
does not recognize that it as a core functional principle.
The Democratic Phase (1991–Present)

The end of 15 years of authoritarian military rule was followed by a transi-
tion to democracy, with the 1991 election being contested by two major
political parties, BNP and AL. While the validity and fairness of this and
subsequent elections have been the subject of debate on both the domes-
tic and international front, there is broad acceptance of the legitimacy of
the electoral outcomes. Despite the return to parliamentary democracy,
some scholars describe the political arena as being rampant with confron-
tational politics, with each major party expressing violent opposition
towards whichever party holds office (Alam & Teicher, 2012). Rahaman
(2007) notes that opposition parties often engage in strikes, parliamentary
boycotts and political violence that have contributed to the overall desta-
bilization of the political environment in Bangladesh. The nature of con-
frontational politics is perhaps best captured by the World Bank’s (2002)
assessment that confrontational politics, defined by a culture of mistrust,
vengeance and intolerance of political difference among parties, has failed
to foster democratic norms and values in the political arena.
In the current democratic phase, both the military and the civil bureau-
cracy have generally refrained from any meaningful forays into the political
arena, and have remained largely subordinate to the elected government.

While the bureaucracy is purportedly apolitical, it has not been able to
resist pressures of politicization from the different political parties. This is
attributed to what scholars term the ‘winner takes all’ political system that
exists in Bangladesh (Osman, 2010; Shahan & Jahan, 2014). In other
words, political practices are guided by the belief that the winner of the
election assumes complete control of public resources, with the ability to
utilise and even distribute rewards to party loyalists unimpeded.
The bureaucracy under these circumstances has succumbed to political
interreference, compromising the elitist character that it previously fos-
tered. Political interference manifests in routinely influencing appoint-
ments, recruitment, promotion and transfer to different positions (Sarker
& Zafarullah, 2019). It is widely acknowledged that civil servants often
display political partisanship as a demonstration of their loyalty to political
parties in exchange for lucrative promotions or transfers (Zafarullah,
2013). These practices clearly undermine the formal rules of the civil ser-
vice that embody merit, performance and integrity as organizing princi-
ples. Instead, it is apparent that nepotism and favouritism are dominant
features that influence administrative practice (Alam & Teicher, 2012).
It is difficult to conceive that the accountability practices in a politicized
administrative environment would be any different despite the adoption
of democratic principles during this period. According to Government
rules, the Bangladesh administration is subject to both external and inter-
nal forms of accountability. External forms refer to the parliamentary over-
sight of the bureaucracy in effectively implementing and fulfilling policy
mandates and upholding the principles of public interest and the welfare
of citizens. It would be naïve to suggest that the bureaucracy has fulfilled
these obligations to a substantive extent (Osman, 2010). Neither have
internal forms of accountability fared any better. Despite the existence of
complex institutional and procedural arrangements regarding account-
ability within public administration, these are rarely implemented. For
example, time limits for the disposal of files are hardly followed, effective
supervision is virtually non-existent, and the Annual Confidential Report
(ACR), which is intended to assess the performance of civil servants, has
become both ceremonial and a largely subjective process based on the
supervisor’s arbitrary assessment of their subordinate (Siddiquee, 1999).
In short, while the democratic phase and the entailing changes to gover-
nance could have potentially enhanced accountability, it remains neglected
284 Q. ALAM ET AL.
and is held hostage to the politico-bureaucratic nexus who have become

interdependent in pursuing private interest over the public good.
Accountability and Governance: Challenges

in Bangladesh
In this section, we further unpack the reasons as to why accountability

evolved the way it did in the Bangladeshi public administration. More
precisely, we move beyond empirical accounts and present higher-order
themes that explain the persistence of weak accountability in Bangladesh.
We present three compounding reasons for the lack of accountability.
First, we argue that accountability was glossed over repeatedly by different
governments in favour of other national priorities; second, the position
the bureaucracy established for itself in the state structure put it in an
advantageous position to negotiate its answerability and accountability to
the Executive; and last, the nature of the societal structure in Bangladesh,
including wider class interests, had taken precedence over the principle of
an accountable public administration.
The Immateriality of Accountability

Few will discount the seemingly insurmountable challenges Bangladesh
faced after its independence, whether these were economic, social inequal-
ity, health, infrastructure or class struggles. The task of the government
was made even more difficult by resource constraints, including financial
and human resource capacity to craft effective strategies to steer the coun-
try to prosperity. In light of these issues, it is understandable that account-
ability was neglected.
Under the first post-independence democratically elected AL govern-
ment, institutional building and social policies were clear priorities. This is
best encapsulated in the socialist agenda of the AL, denouncing capitalist
ideology and instead embracing a state-led growth strategy. For example,
in the First Five Year Plan (FFYP; GOB, 2–4), the government was explicit
about the need for “removal of a capitalist system of income distributions
[…] and private ownership of the means of production” as an important
precondition for the social transformation of the country. Policies that
targeted the agricultural sector with high levels of subsidies and the nation-
alization of industries became characteristic of the government’s vision of
emphasizing the ascendency of the public sector in running and managing

the economy. Such a strategy demanded a large public sector and with it
the bodies that could ensure that this public sector could be run effectively.
Despite being subject to politicization, bureaucrats benefited from the
nationalization policy of the AL government, which effectively put increas-
ing state control of the country’s resources under their supervision. For
example, Alam (1993) reports that a significant number of the heads of
nationalized industries were civil servants. This created opportunities for
bureaucrats to consolidate their dominance and exercise more control
over the instruments of patronage distribution. The empowering of the
bureaucracy was indeed necessary for the AL to support its public sector-
led growth strategy and to pursue its socialist agenda. But this was mostly
undertaken at the expense of neglecting other governance-related bodies
that would be critical in ensuring the accountability and efficacy of the
public sector. The economy of Bangladesh during the era of nationaliza-
tion and the state-led growth strategy was steeped in corruption, black
money, and slow and uneven growth. The culture of patronage became
dominant, divorced from the premise of accountable administration and
good governance practices.
A similar trend followed under military-bureaucracy oligarchy in the
subsequent years. Under the leadership of civilianized military rulers
including Zia and Ershad, nation building projects and a private sector-led
growth strategy took precedence. The Zia and Ershad regimes were
nuanced in their own ways but shared similar strategies in supporting a
private sector-led growth model for social and economic transformation of
the country. The civil-military bureaucracy crafted the strategies to sup-
port industrialization, infrastructure development projects and rural
development programmes. Indeed, a private sector-led strategy, mainly
fuelled by patronage distribution, gained precedence among all priorities.
Infrastructure development, divestment, large-scale privatization and
withdrawal of subsidies from the agriculture sector were prominent during
this time. Trying to create an accountable public administration in hind-
sight appeared to have been problematic, given that the bureaucracy
enjoyed a significant amount of power under Zia and Ershad and led many
of these initiatives.
The Zia and Ershad regimes also sought to appease the bureaucracy.
For example, under Ershad, administrative reforms were undertaken to
afford greater executive power to civil servants and also to increase their
salary. The nexus that had been created between the civilianized military
286 Q. ALAM ET AL.
government and the bureaucracy would have likely impeded any real effort
to enforce accountability in the public administration. It understandably
would have impinged on the interest of both the parties. The Executive
needed a loyal and functioning bureaucracy, while civil servants in return
for their loyalty would be empowered to pursue their material interests
through the significant power they exercised through control and distri-
bution of the state resources.
Accountability was undeniably inconsequential during the first two
decades of independence, with little interest shown by successive govern-
ments; rather, accountability was a flexible concept reflecting the hierar-
chical nature of the bureaucracy. After the return to parliamentary
democracy, accountability continued to be neglected, but this time due to
politicization of the relations of bureaucracy and politicians, as we dis-
cuss below.
Cycle of Dependency
The largely unrestrained power of the bureaucracy in Bangladeshi politics
is more than apparent. Its alliance with past military governments and its
ability to negotiate with democratically elected governments are a testa-
ment to its reach and participation in the governing of the country. In the
current landscape, the bureaucracy enjoys an institutionalized dominance.
We argue that because of the bureaucracy’s monopoly on technical and
administrative expertise, rather than capable politicians and a political—
administration relationship that is embedded within a patronage-ridden
institutional environment, there remains a cycle of dependency between
the Executive and the bureaucracy which dissuades the former from
enforcing any meaningful measure of accountability on the Bangladeshi
public administration.
Politicians in Bangladesh have diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
Records (Alam, 1993) show that the parliamentarians’ occupations
included businessman, traders, former civil and military personnel, and
some technocrats. This composition has largely remained constant,
although Alam and Teicher (2012) show that the number of businessmen
and civil and military personnel with connections to political parties has
been increasing. For example, during the 8th Parliament, 40 percent of
parliamentarians were businessmen compared to just 10 percent in 1991.
Similarly, the number of ex-military parliamentarians increased from 4
percent in 1991 to 5.5 percent in 2001. More importantly, the percentage
of career politicians dwindled from 46.5 percent in 1991 to 18 percent

2001 (Alam, 1993).
These shifts in the composition of the Parliament help explain why the
cycle of dependency has been perpetuated. First, it is apparent that in
recent years, the rise of the newly elected parliamentarians has not been
through an open or fair political process. Instead, the vast majority climbed
the political ladder through corruption, lobbying, donating to party funds
and vote-buying. What is perhaps even more alarming is the corruption
and criminal track records of parliamentarians. For example, 43 percent of
Members of Parliament belonging to the AL alliance elected during the
2008 elections previously had criminal charges against them, while charges
were pending for a further 28 percent. The figures were similar for MPs in
the BNP alliance. Scholars have rightly correlated the controversial back-
ground of the parliamentarians to an increased proclivity by political
incumbents to pursue individual interests (Jahan, 2015; Moniruzzaman,
2009). Much of this continues to be facilitated by the institutionalized
patron—client relationships where the politicized bureaucracy is open to
influence (Sarker & Zafarullah, 2019). Thus the pursuit of self-interest has
made politicians dependent on the bureaucracy to fulfil their egre-
gious needs.
The second reason for the cycle of dependency is that lack of experience
and deficient technical knowledge of parliamentarians have enabled
bureaucrats to enjoy more equal power in policy delivery, implementation
and resource allocation. The inexperience of parliamentarians translates
into an increased reliance on bureaucrats to access various types of state-
funded development projects and activities, including understanding how
policy might be formulated and implemented. Bureaucrats have seized
and exploited these opportunities to fortify their alliance with politicians
and relinquished the values of public service neutrality. In return for such
cooperation, bureaucrats have often received promotions and sought-after
transfers in the public service, again a result of pervasive patron—client
relationships.
In short, there has emerged a mutually beneficial relationship between
the political parties and the bureaucracy, making both parties reluctant to
enforce any type of formal accountability in the public administration.
Instead, a predilection for prioritizing self-interests over duties to create
publicly valued outcomes has become the order of the day, with limited
signs of any abatement that could allow normative values of accountability
to feature as guiding principles.
288 Q. ALAM ET AL.
Social Structure and Accountability

Thus far, we have discussed accountability mainly from a political and
administrative development point of view. It represents a meso-level per-
spective, which is mainly the public sector. What is missing from these
discussions is a more macro-level view: that issues of governance and
accountability are inherently embedded in and influenced by wider social
structures. The argument we advance is that the formation of the social
structures and their development holds implications for how accountabil-
ity in public administration has evolved. More precisely, we examine how
civil servants and their class association with the rich peasantry, the landed
classes and the new rich in Bangladesh have enabled them to escape forms
of accountability.
The new trading and industrial groups had mainly emerged as the dom-
inant class in Bangladesh after Independence. Prior to Independence,
most of the industries were owned by the zamindars who were of Pakistani
origin, but as they departed after partition, most factories were left aban-
doned. It was the rich and middle peasantry who took the place of the
zamindars and emerged as the economically and politically powerful elite.
This social group were often described as petty landlords (Abdullah, 1976)
from the rural areas where the vast majority of the population resided.
Political parties recruited from this particular group to ensure political
support and that the vast rural areas remained tranquil without the spark
of any political upheaval.
The most distinctive feature of this class reconfiguration was that civil
servants of Bangladesh primarily belonged to the rich and middle peas-
antry. A study by Ahmed (1980) revealed that 32 percent of the civil ser-
vants came from landed families and the rest from professional families
who had links with land or landed families in the context of Bangladeshi
society. After independence in 1971, even while the urban middle class got
the upper hand in the state structure, the rich and middle peasantry
became one of the important groups. The social groups that came to
power in government were not interested in changing the social structure.
The political necessity not to alienate the landowning class and the com-
patibility of interest between the urban middle class and the landowning
class, the emergent trade and commercial class and the state bureaucracy
acted as a ‘crutch’ for non-capitalist relations of production (Westergaard,
1985, p. 157).
The above discussion demonstrates that the state in Bangladesh is not

acting in the interest of a particular group or class. The dominant internal
economic, social, bureaucratic and political groups have manipulated the
state to create the conditions they require to exert power by manipulating
governance mechanisms and accountability practices. These relationships
between the state and various groups are the key to understanding the
challenges of accountability and governance that a nascent democratic
state requires.
As one of the key social groups with a significant amount of influence
in the state apparatus, the bureaucracy was able to consolidate its power
and dictate the accountability arrangements. In a country like Bangladesh
where there has been an absence of strong parliamentary control over the
executive branch of the state, it became easy for the civil bureaucracy to
maintain their dominant role. They had the authority to allocate resources
in various sectors of the economy. This is the point of intersection between
the bureaucrats and the other social groups involved in economic activities.
Conclusion
The story of Bangladesh is one of great perseverance and hope. As a rela-
tively young nation that has undergone severe political and economic tur-
moil, it has persevered to achieve the status of middle-income country.
The economic development and growth of manufacturing sectors, includ-
ing the readymade garments industry, are some of the main factors behind
its success. Surprisingly, this success has been achieved while continuing to
deal with governance problems, including lack of accountability.
Public bureaucracy in Bangladesh is neither autonomous nor neutral in
disposing its responsibility. The problems of accountability need to be
understood in the context of Bangladesh’s journey from a less developed
aid-dependent country to a nearly self-sufficient almost middle-income
country. The reforms, politicization process and rise of clientelism have
allowed public bureaucracy to develop a mutant form. Clientelism in par-
ticular undermines good democratic practices and blocks democratic
accountability. A strong political democracy will gradually build institu-
tional capability and new state market relationships that will demand an
accountable public bureaucracy. To face the challenge of good gover-
nance, Bangladesh needs to formulate and effectively implement oversight
mechanisms.
290 Q. ALAM ET AL.
However, it should be stressed that Bangladeshis can also be proud of

events that occurred in the 1990s when peaceful political protest rejected
military and authoritarian rule and ushered in a new era of democracy. It
is now time to live up to the promises of a democracy and a complete
democratic polity where accountability features strongly. We can indeed
find hope in recent reforms that have gone beyond purely superficial
changes to make the public administration more accountable. These
changes, however, are not widespread or sustained. There needs to be
systemic and institutional change that can ensure that accountability is
established as a prominent organizing principle in the public administra-
tion and wider society.
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Zafarullah, H., & Huque, A. S. (2001). Public Management for Good Governance:
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Zafarullah, H. M., & Huque, A. S. (1998). Public Management in South Asia:
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The Changing Role of the Bangladesh
Military: 1971 to 2020—The Evolving
Bangladesh Defense Policy
Mahmud Ur Rahman Choudhury
Introduction
In the system of sovereign states, every state considers itself to be autono-
mous in both its internal functions and its external relations with other
similar entities. With each state deciding for itself what it can or cannot do,
the system of sovereign states presents a picture of anarchy. This Hobbesian
view of international relations implies that the chief concern of every state
is security and security can only be attained through the use of force to
credibly threaten negative sanctions against other states and actors who
would or could threaten a state’s security. Thus the traditional ‘Power
Base Theory’ holds that the most significant element of a state is power
and the most significant power base element is military strength—the sum
M. U. R. Choudhury (*)
RAOWA Review, Dhaka, Bangladesh

294 M. U. R. CHOUDHURY
total of all national capabilities (Goldman & Sjostedt, 1979, pp. 15–22).1

Therefore, in every state there exists a central authority with an absolute
monopoly on the legitimate use of force, both within and beyond the
geographical boundaries of a state.
Armed Forces2 are thus an institution inherent in all socio-political for-
mations/entities, even the most primitive ones. Otto Hintze, perhaps the
greatest of the German historians of the early twentieth century, conceived
of the society and military organization as one indivisible whole of the pol-
ity called the state. Hintze goes on to state, “all state organization was
originally [a] military organization, organization for war. This can be
regarded as the assured result of comparative history. Larger groups of
people united in the more solid structure of the state, primarily for defen-
sive and offensive purposes…the assembly of warriors was the political
assembly; the supreme commander became the head of the state; whoever
was not a warrior had no place in the political community…” (Gilbert,
1975, p. 181).3 Hintze’s analysis of the organization of the state led him
to believe that “…in the foreseeable future matters will remain as they
have throughout history: the form and spirit of the state’s organization
will not be determined solely by economic and social relations and clashes
of interests but primarily by the organization of the army and warfare….”4
Otto Hintze was a German historian, perhaps far too impressed by the
rise of German power under the Prussian king Frederick the Great
(1712–1786) and the formation of the militaristic German state by Otto
von Bismark (1771–1845), Chancellor of Germany under Wilhelm I.
But consider what Marxist intellectuals had to say, in the 1970s, about
the military and its relations with the state. The analysis of the armed
forces and the broader, in some respects, notion of military power usually
focuses on the particular aspects of their uses and social role: as an instru-
ment of war, as a means of deterrence, as a tool of international pressure
1
Goldman, Kjell and Sjostedt, Gunner (Ed), Power, Capabilities, Interdependence, Sage
Publications, London (1979), pp. 15–22.
2
I use the terms ‘Armed Forces’ and ‘Military’ interchangeably to denote the Army, the
Navy and the Air Force taken together. The traditional military was considered to consist of
the Army and the Navy, but since the First World War, the Air Force has also been considered
to be a component of the military. In some militaries, today, there are more components than
the three cited here.
3
Gilbert, Felix (Ed), The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze, Oxford University Press, NY
(1975), pp. 181–215.
4
Op Cit., p. 215.
THE CHANGING ROLE OF THE BANGLADESH MILITARY… 295
and coercion or as a factor of internal structure and functioning of society.

In combining all these aspects one might advance a general theory which
views armed forces as a social institution. This involves three correspond-
ing components of the theory in question: the theory of the nature of
armed forces as an instrument of social action and of its impact on social
development; the theory of the structural relationship between armed
forces and other elements of the social structure, in particular other organs
of the state; and the concept of the function of the armed forces in the
conduct of internal and external policy in peace as well as in war time
(Lider, 1981, pp. 1–2).5
The role of military force therefore depends on the general politico-
military conditions prevailing in any given era; it changes with shifts in
domestic and international situations. Some, like Otto Hintze, would see
the military as being the very basis of a state; Marxists might see the mili-
tary as instruments of social change domestically and as agents of political
power for the maintenance of national interests internationally.
Whatever viewpoint one may take, it seems clear that ‘security’ appears
to be a prime concern of every state, but security is a relative and all-
encompassing matter, and since the mid-twentieth century the concept
has come to encompass the entire gamut of national interests—economic,
social and political. The maintenance of the territorial integrity of a state
against both external and internal threats by either or both state and non-
state actors/entities is now being seen as falling within the purview of
defense policy, which forms a part of the National Security Policy.
The narrative in this chapter is the history of the Bangladesh Military
from 1971 to 2020. Sources are both primary and secondary, such as
memoirs/books by participants in the many events enumerated here;
available official papers and documents; and observations of the author. It
is through a perusal of this narrative that the reader may be able to gain a
grasp of the defense policy of Bangladesh as it evolved over a period of
almost five decades.
5
Lider, Julian, Military Force, Gower Publishing Co Ltd, UK (1981), pp. 1–2; and
Marxism on War and Army, Soviet Publication (1980).
The Beginning: Liberation War 19716

The political, social and economic background leading up to the Liberation
War of 1971 has been covered elsewhere in this volume, and so I will dis-
pense with this otherwise essential preliminary. In this section, I shall
restrict myself to the formation and activities of the Bangladesh Military
forces, disregarding other equally important matters such as politico-
diplomatic efforts, the informational-propaganda warfare aspects and the
refugee crisis. Also I shall not go into any detail on military operations,
focusing instead on higher organizational, policy and strategic aspects.
Since January 1971, massive political mobilization, agitation and pro-
tests against the Pakistani Military Junta had spiraled downward into tur-
moil and imminent chaos. Instead of seeking a political solution to a
political problem the Junta unleashed its military forces to control the
situation. The Liberation War of Bangladesh could be considered to have
started from the night of March 25, 1971, when the Pakistani military
mounted ‘Operation Searchlight’ essentially targeting the entire populace
of East Pakistan. Coming under armed attacks from their erstwhile West
Pakistani comrades and suffering heavy casualties, most of the serving
Bengali members of the Pakistan military, East Pakistan Rifles (EPR, a
para-military with the primary responsibility of guarding borders) and
police stationed in East Pakistan revolted. Four battalions, that is, 1st,
2nd, 3rd and 4th of the East Bengal Regiment, along with other Army,
Naval and Air Force personnel revolted from various parts of East Pakistan
and were soon joined by revolting groups of para-military and police.
These were lightly armed and could offer only slight resistance to the
heavily armed Pakistani forces. Facing an untenable situation where they
would be completely wiped out, these scattered forces sought refuge in
6
In writing this part, I referred to the three sources given below:
1. Khandker, A. K, 1971 Bhitoray Bahiray, Prothoma Prokashon, Dhaka (2014). Group
Captain A.K Khandker was the senior-most serving officer to join the Liberation War
and was appointed as the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Liberation Forces. After the War
he was promoted to Air Vice Marshal and served as the first Chief of Staff of Bangladesh
Air Force
2. History of Bangladesh Army, Vol. 1–7, Education Directorate, Army Headquarters,
Bangladesh Army (2015)
3. Bangladesh Liberation War, Asia Publications for the Education Directorate,
Bangladesh Army, Dhaka (2008)
India in mid-April, moving through the various porous borders. They

were welcomed in India, though initially with some trepidation.
The revolt of the Bengali military personnel was led by a remarkable
group of relatively junior officers, of the rank of Major and below. The few
Bengali officers of the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel and above did not
revolt, except for two, one of whom was killed and the other incarcerated
by the Pakistan Army.7 The most senior serving officer who joined the war
was Group Captain A K Khandker.
Also by mid-April 1971, refugees in their hundreds of thousands were
fleeing to India, among them many politicians, including those of the
Awami League, the political party that had been spearheading and leading
the Bengali political movement for the last decade. Eventually, these refu-
gees would exceed 10 million souls.
On April 4, 1971, a few of the most senior of the revolting Bengali
officers met in Telipara tea garden in Habiganj sub-division of East
Pakistan. Present at this meeting were Colonel M. A. G. Osmani (Retd),8
along with some civilians and a few Indian representatives. The military
officers strongly and quite forcefully suggested that the politicians imme-
diately form a Bangladesh Government-in-Exile, for without such a step
nothing could be done in the chaotic prevailing conditions, let alone could
they fight a war for the independence of Bangladesh (Khandker, 2014,
pp. 62–63). In effect the Bangladesh Government was formed on April
10, 1971, in Baidyanathtala in the present Meherpur District of
Bangladesh.9 Baidyanathtala came to be known as Mujibnagar, in honor of
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the undisputed leader of
Bangladesh, then incarcerated in West Pakistan. This had the full support
of the Indian Government, particularly the Prime Minister (PM) Indira
Gandhi, who assured Mr Tajuddin Ahmed, the Prime Minster of the
Bangladesh Government-in-Exile, that all possible Indian help would be
7
Lieutenant Colonel M. R. Choudhury was killed by the Pakistan Army on the night of
March 25–26, 1971, at Chittagong Cantonment; monuments at Chittagong Cantonment
bear testimony to his contribution to the independence of the country. Brigadier Mozumdar
was taken from Chittagong Cantonment on March 23, 1971 to Dhaka, and then to Pakistan,
where he was incarcerated for the duration of the War and repatriated to Bangladesh in 1974.
8
The retired Colonel was then an Awami League Member of the National Assembly and
arguably the senior-most Bengali officer present in Bangladesh in 1971. Later he would be
appointed the Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) of the Liberation Forces and Defence Minister
of the Bangladesh Government-in-Exile and of the Independent Bangladesh Government.
9
From here on, I use the name Bangladesh to refer to what was East Pakistan.
forthcoming, when Ahmed went to meet the Indian PM, sometime in

early April (Khandker, 2014, p. 64).
Once the Bangladesh Government-in-Exile (BGE) was formed and
announced through the vast Indian mass media system, the people of
Bangladesh took some heart and began to offer overt and covert resis-
tance to the Pakistanis in numerous ways. By the end of April 1971, led by
serving and retired military and para-military officers, junior commis-
sioned and non-commissioned officers, various armed bands began to
harass not only Pakistani military forces but also law enforcement and
public administration as well, all along the India-Bangladesh bordering
regions. But these were uncoordinated and sporadic efforts.
By early May 1971, the Indian Government represented by its para-
military and intelligence services began to set up training camps. Tapping
into the youth in the teeming refugee camps, the Indians began to recruit
and train Bangladeshis. With rudimentary military training lasting about
six weeks, the youth armed only with light weapons were organized into
small groups of 20 to 40 and sent into the interior of Bangladesh to ‘fight.’
They suffered heavy casualties. All this was done without the acquiescence
or even the knowledge of the BGE. The BGE only came to know about
these covert Indian efforts when Bangladeshi military officers, endeavor-
ing to bring a modicum of organization and order to diverse and dis-
jointed efforts, complained to the BGE. On June 28, 1971, the BGE
issued a Top Secret Directive to all its military commanders responsible for
various areas of operations inside Bangladesh (Khandker, 2014,
pp. 219–223). This was the first clear directive from the highest political
level as to how the war was to be organized and prosecuted. Its main pro-
visions can be summarized into five key components:
1. The Directive organized forces into Regular and Irregular. Regulars

were all those who were part of the erstwhile Pakistani military, para-
military and police and had revolted and joined the Liberation War.
Irregulars were all civilians who were receiving training in guerilla
warfare and bearing arms.
2. The Directive clearly laid down lines of Command and Control.
3. The Directive laid down operational policies which included both
conventional operations by Regular forces and irregular guerilla war-
fare by both Regular and Irregular forces.
4. The Directive laid down measures for operational communications,

coordination and support between different sectors, organizations
and forces.
5. The Directive laid down measures for coordination for combat and
logistic support from Indian Military and para-military formations
and entities.
Disorganization still continued to plague the war effort. To sort this

out, a conference of all sector commanders was organized from June 11 to
17, 1971, which was chaired by the PM himself with Colonel Osmani, the
Commander-in-Chief (C-in-C) in tow. The whole of Bangladesh was
divided into 11 sectors, with each sector being divided into 3 to 5 sub-
sectors. Commanders for each sector and sub-sector were nominated or
confirmed. Debates about command and control, policy, strategy, opera-
tions and tactics were held and it was decided that guerilla warfare was the
way forward. It was also decided that depending on the progress of the
war and the availability of resources, brigade-size regular forces would be
formed to fight the war in its closing stages.10
With the BGE and Bangladesh forces struggling to organize them-
selves, operations inside Bangladesh had come to a virtual standstill during
June 1971. Irregular forces, ill organized, ill armed, ill trained and ill led,
suffered heavy casualties. With organizational matters sorted out, both
regular and irregular forces, from early July, started coordinated and effec-
tive operations throughout Bangladesh.
Bangladesh being a land of rivers and marshes, it was deemed necessary
that appropriate naval forces be formed to carry out both regular and
irregular warfare along the waterways, which during the monsoons formed
the major routes of communication throughout the country. So, on May
13, 1971, a naval force was formed consisting of some 500 personnel,
mostly comprising Bengal naval personnel who had revolted against
Pakistan, but it also included civilians trained in underwater demolitions.
These small forces began operations against sea and river ports of
Bangladesh and achieved success much beyond their small numbers.
Also, on July 7, 1971, the first brigade-sized force with limited combat
and combat service support was formed. This was named the Z Force after
10
List of Liberation War Sectors and Sector Commanders of Bangladesh (Gazette Notification
No.8/25/D-1/72-1378), Ministry of Defence, Government of Bangladesh, December 15,
1973, and History of Bangladesh Army, Vol III.
its commander Lieutenant Colonel Ziaur Rahman. In the first week of

September two other brigades called K and S forces were formed. These
too were also named after their commanders, respectively Lieutenant
Colonel Khaled Musharraf and Lieutenant Colonel Shafiullah.
On September 28, 1971, with the support of the Indians, a small con-
tingent of the Bangladesh Air Force was raised. It had two propeller-driven
aircraft and a helicopter. Except toward the very end in December, this
force made little contribution to the war effort, although many air force
personnel attached to ground forces continued to fight in the land warfare.
Meanwhile, the Indian intelligence services, without the knowledge of
the BGE, recruited, trained and armed two forces. One, inside Bangladesh
in Tangail and Mymensingh called the Kader Bahini, was led a young man
by the name of Kader Siddique. The other, inside India called the
Bangladesh Liberation Force or more popularly Mujib Bahini, was led by
young student leaders such as Tofail Ahmed, A. S. M. Abdur Rab, Abdur
Razzaq and Sirajul Alam Khan. These forces were well trained, well armed
and well led but were controlled by the Indian intelligence services.
Despite efforts made by the BGE, these forces still remained outside the
purview and control of the BGE. While the Kader Bahini made life unbear-
able for the Pakistani forces in Tangail and Mymensingh, the Mujib Bahini
did little in the way of fighting. As to why the Indians formed these forces
and kept them under their control, this remains unclear.
By late October 1971, the war had reached its culminating point.
Bangladeshi forces controlled the entire rural, semi-urban areas and water-
ways of the country; the Pakistani military was restricted to the few town-
ships, and even there they were under constant attack by bands of urban
guerillas. Meanwhile, the Indian military forces, in particular its Army
under the very able leadership of its Chief of Staff Field Marshal Sam
Manikshaw, was preparing for operations inside Bangladesh, should such
an opportunity present itself. Very foolishly, the Pakistanis provided the
pretext by a pre-emptive air strike on Indian air bases on December 3,
1971. The Indians rapidly deployed three Army corps ably supported by
the Indian Air and Naval forces. Within less than a fortnight joint
Bangladesh-Indian forces were in Dhaka (the capital of Bangladesh)
accepting the unconditional surrender of all Pakistani forces on December
16, 1971. Bangladesh was independent and the world quickly came to
terms with it. Some three million Bangladeshis had lost their lives due to
the war and its immediate aftermath, most of them victims of genocidal
atrocities carried out directly by Pakistani military forces and their local
armed Bengali collaborators.
The ideal of Bangladesh was a political-social one and those who took
part in it, including military personnel, were immersed in that ideal. The
Bangladesh Military arose out of the revolutionary need to create a new
state through a war. These ideals, which led to the emergence of
Bangladesh, remained with military personnel and were to play a signifi-
cant role in the subsequent history of both the country and its military, as
we shall see in subsequent sections of this chapter.
The Bangladesh Military: 1972–197611

The Pakistanis surrendered on December 16, 1971 and they numbered
about 90,000. Most of them were military, para-military and police per-
sonnel but this number also included some families and dependents, as
well as a whole host of civilian government officials. The Indian Army
took the responsibility of guarding and feeding these prisoners but the
Indians were as much guarding as protecting them against the populace
who had so grievously suffered during the last one year. Very quickly the
Indians transported the Pakistanis to India, out of reach of Bangladesh.
A week after the surrender, the entire BGE was in Dhaka and was now
the official Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh (GOB).
The list of things to be done was endless. Millions of destitute refugees
were flooding back to the country. Bangladesh had suffered a three-fold
destruction: once, by the Bangladeshi forces who blew up as much of the
physical infrastructure as they could lay their hands on in order to deny it
to the Pakistanis; the Pakistanis then blew up whatever was left over to
deny this to the advancing Bangladesh-Indian forces; and lastly, the
Indians bombed, shelled and blew up whatever was left standing. Amid
this destruction of a land and a people, the GOB was left with the task of
11
Besides the references cited in endnote 6, I referred to the following books in order
to write this section:
1. Alam, Anwarul, Rakkhi Bahinir Shotto Mithay, Prothoma Prokashon, Dhaka (2013)
2. Hossain, Sakhawat, Brigadier, Bangladesh: Roktaktto Odhay 1975–81, Palok

Publishers, Dhaka (1997)
3. Shahaduzzaman, Kracher Kornel, Mowla Brothers, Dhaka (2012).
4. Ahmad, Mohiuddin, Jasoder Utthan Poton: Osthir Somoyer Rajniti, Prothoma
Prokashon, Dhaka (2015)
sheltering, feeding and caring for 70 million traumatized and destitute

people. Imminent famine was staved off by the response of the UN and
the international community in immediately providing food aid. The
Indian Military, some 130,000 strong, were still deployed throughout
Bangladesh to help the newly formed state. The Indians repaired the most
essential infrastructure and services; got the railways and inland shipping
functional and running; repaired the airports at Dhaka, Chittagong, Sylhet
and Jessore; and with the help of the Soviet Union were repairing and
making functional the major sea port of Chittagong.
In the last week of December 1971 and the first week of January 1972,
the GOB took three important decisions regarding the armed forces:
1. The vast irregular guerrilla forces would be disbanded and surrender

their weapons and ammunition to the GOB.
2. The Z, K and S forces would be stationed in the three cantonments
of Dhaka, Comilla and Chittagong and would convert themselves
into infantry brigades. All regular Army uniformed personnel from
all sectors would report to and be absorbed in these brigades. Naval
personnel would report to naval bases at Dhaka and Chittagong and
Air Force personnel would report to bases at Dhaka, Chittagong
and Jessore.
3. A National Militia would be immediately formed and would absorb
freedom fighters willing to serve in the militia. On January 3, 1972,
a GOB notification formed a ten-person Central Regulating Board
of the Militia headed by the PM and consisting of politicians of
all stripes.
Meanwhile, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was released from

Pakistani custody and arrived at Dhaka on January 10, 1972, flying via
London and New Delhi. While at New Delhi, he met with the PM of
India, thanking her for India’s unstinting support for the independence of
Bangladesh and requesting her to call back all Indian forces from
Bangladesh. The Indian PM acceded to this request and all Indian combat
forces moved back to India within a few months, except for some technical
personnel who remained at the request of Bangladesh.
On January 12, 1972, Bangabandhu resigned from the post of presi-
dent. Taking on the responsibilities of the prime minister he formed a new
cabinet, relegating Tajuddin Ahmed to the post of finance minister. Also
on December 15, 1972, the Constitution of the People’s Republic of
Bangladesh was promulgated, creating the institutional structures for the

new nation-state.
On formation of the government, Bangabandhu, now the PM of
Bangladesh, endorsed the decisions taken by the previous government
regarding the armed forces. The formation of the National Militia was
deemed to be of particular urgency, considering the terrible law and order
situation of the country.
Disbanding and disarming hundreds of thousands of Irregulars was not
as easy as it sounded. Some sector forces did surrender their weapons but
most did not, simply disappearing into the villages, all over the country. Of
particular concern were the two India-linked groups, Kader and Mujib
Bahinis, 10,000 strong each, who not only refused to surrender their
weapons but maintained their organizational integrity. All of these armed
individuals and groups were committing various atrocities, taking a heavy
toll on human lives right up to March 1972. Eventually, on instructions
from Bangabandhu, most armed groups surrendered their weapons, while
willing members of Kader and Mujib Bahinis were absorbed in the para-
military forces and in other government jobs. In addition, there were
10,000 to 15,000 armed Pakistani militias; these were Bengalis collaborat-
ing with the Pakistanis and in January 1971 still roaming around in the
cities and countryside. The Pakistani collaborators were mostly hunted
down and killed by the Irregulars; some escaped retribution by becoming
members of political parties. Retribution did eventually catch up with
them all, when the Awami League government in 2012–2013 brought
many of them to trial for crimes against humanity and hanged them.
The Higher Control of regular military forces rested with the Ministry
of Defence. M. A. G. Osmani, now promoted to General, was both the
Defence Minister and the Commander in Chief of the forces. As for
defense policy, no structures, processes or mechanisms were formalized.
Neither did the Constitution lay down the role and purpose of military
forces. In three short articles—61, 62 and 63—the Constitution merely
mentioned that the President shall be the Supreme Commander of the
defense services; that the Parliament shall by law provide for the raising of
military forces and reserves, commissioning of officers, and fixing appoint-
ment and salaries of Chief of Staff of the defense services; and provide for
discipline and other matters of the defense forces. And finally, that only the
Parliament had the authority to declare or participate in any war.
Although during the Liberation War we see military forces forming and
then successfully fighting the War, after the War, due to a combination of
factors, the Military’s role, purpose or goal was not seen in the same light
as during the War.
First, the experiences of successfully fighting a war with a rapidly raised
and organized citizen guerrilla army convinced many in the government
and the public that perhaps Bangladesh could dispense with large conven-
tional armed forces to satisfy its security and defense needs.
Second, the devastated economy of the country precluded any signifi-
cant financial layout for at least two decades.
Third, many were of the firm conviction that surrounded on all sides
with a friendly and supportive India and with a 25 Years’ Peace and
Friendship Treaty in place, Bangladesh was extremely unlikely to fight a
war in the foreseeable future or indeed face any threat to its territorial
integrity. Thus, it was hardly necessary to maintain large standing forces.
Fourth, internal security and chaotic law and order conditions could be
tackled by well-organized, equipped and trained para-military forces such
as the National Militia.
We shall see in subsequent paragraphs that the above viewpoints were
to survive until 1975, after which radically and sometimes diametrically
opposite views were to prevail. Nonetheless, the military was not allowed
to languish in complete neglect. In April 1972, the GOB decided that the
Army, Navy and Air Force should each have its own Headquarters (HQ).
The office of the C-in-C was allowed to lapse and separate Chiefs of Staff
(CAS) for each Service were appointed.
Army personnel who participated in the War belonged to combat
(armor and infantry), combat support (engineers, artillery and signals)
and combat service support (Army Services, Army Medical, Ordnance,
and Electrical and Mechanical Engineers). Besides the three Infantry
Brigades, all of these separate branches of the Army were organized and
set up along with the organization of the Army Headquarters. The bare
minimum of an Army was now in place. After the Simla Agreement of
June 1972, signed between India and Pakistan, the 90,000 Pakistanis in
India were repatriated to their country and around 40,000 Bangladeshis
were returned to Bangladesh in 1973–1974. Of these returnees around
25,000 were military and para-military personnel, all of whom were
absorbed into the fledgling Army, Navy and Air Force. The Army was now
in a position to raise three more infantry brigades, stationed at Jessore,
Rangpur and Dhaka. The Army also raised a number of training institu-
tions including the Bangladesh Military Academy at Comilla for training
officers (in early 1976 this was shifted to Bhatiary, Chittagong, its
permanent location), the East Bengal Regimental Center at Chittagong

for training infantry soldiers, and the Combined Arms School at Jessore
for weapons and tactical training of all officers. By the beginning of 1975
the Army had disposed of six infantry brigades with necessary combat sup-
port and combat service support. The most essential training institutions
were also in place.
We have previously noted the condition of the Bangladesh Air Force
(BAF) during the Liberation War. On independence, the BAF was in pos-
session of three air bases at Dhaka, Chittagong and Jessore and nothing
else. In April 1972, with the formation of an Air HQ and the appointment
of a CAS, the BAF was in a better position to move forward. Luckily, in
early 1973, the GOB managed to obtain a squadron of ten MiG-21 com-
bat aircraft and two MiG-21 trainers from the Soviet Union at no cost.
The BAF sent some of its pilots and maintenance crew to the Soviet Union
for training. The BAF also established a training institution at Jessore,
several ground-based radar stations and several logistic bases. By the
beginning of 1975, the BAF not only had some high-end combat aircraft
but also a surfeit of trained personnel, made possible by returnee
Bangladeshi personnel from Pakistan.
At the end of the War, the Bangladesh Navy (BN) had neither man-
power nor combat ships at its disposal, except for several hundred sailors
and half a dozen officers, although it was in possession of a small naval
base at Chittagong and an administrative base at Dhaka. In 1974, its ranks
swelled just like the Army and BAF due to Bengali returnees from Pakistan.
By then, the BN had modified a number of rivercraft, of various tonnages,
and commissioned them as gunboats. Nonetheless, the GOB and the HQ
BN were actively exploring the possibility of procuring refurbished sea-
faring naval combat vessels, which were to bear fruit after 1975.
After providing this short resume of the development of conventional
military forces, we must now look at the GOB’s attempts at forming the
National Militia and its eventual outcome. On January 24, 1972, a gov-
ernment press note, published in various newspapers, informed the public
that a National Militia would be immediately formed and that all freedom
fighters (civilian participants in the Liberation War), who wished to, could
join the Militia. The GOB decided that the East Pakistan Rifles (EPR)
would be disbanded, its members incorporated into the Militia and its HQ
at Pilkhana at Dhaka taken over by the National Militia (NM). Colonel
Nuruzzaman, a sector commander during the War, was appointed as the
Director General of the force. In the first week of February 1972, the
Colonel, with some of his staff, had taken up their offices at Pilkhana, but
rumors soon spread that the government was planning to sack all those
EPR personnel who had continued to serve and collaborated with the
Pakistanis during the War. In fact, a Screening Committee was formed a
few days earlier to screen and recruit members for the NM.
EPR collaborators were a majority at Pilkhana and on February 15,
1972, they turned riotous, physically attacking and injuring the Colonel
and a few of his staff. The freedom fighters (FFs), hearing of the commo-
tion, rushed to protect the victims. Both sides now picked up arms and
began firing on each other. General M. A. G. Osmani, the Defence
Minister, came to Pilkhana, but, hearing the firing, kept a safe distance
outside the gates. Bangabandhu rushed to Pilkhana and directly entered
it, after which the firing and much of the nascent ‘mutiny’ ceased.
Bangabandhu assured everyone that nobody would lose their jobs and left.
The formation of an NM ended but the law and order situation had
deteriorated still further and the GOB had to act rapidly. On March 7,
1972, a Presidential order known as ‘Jatiyo Rokkhi Bahini Act, 1972,
President Order no.-21’ was issued with retrospective effect from February
1, 1972. Its members would be recruited from the FFs, in effect mostly
from Kader and Mujib Bahinis. Its functions would be threefold: (1)
assisting civil authority in maintaining internal security, (2) assisting the
armed forces when called upon to do so by the government and (3) per-
forming other functions as directed by the government.
The Jatiyo Rokkhi Bahini (JRB) was directly under the PM’s office,
reporting to the PM through his Political Secretary, Mr Tofail Ahmed. In
short order, an Indian military advisory team was in Dhaka to organize,
equip and train the force, and some of the Bangladesh Army’s better offi-
cers were deputed to it. The JRB was organized, equipped and trained like
a regular infantry battalion. By early 1975, the JRB had 12 battalions,
with two others being trained, and deployed in every district in Bangladesh.
The JRB operated outside the normal law of the land and was ruthless and
brutal in its operation particularly against the leftists, who had by then
taken up arms against the government. Estimates of deaths at the hands of
this force range from 3000 to 30,000 persons, with an equal number
being injured and maimed for life. Eventually, after the August 1975 coup
d’état, the entire JRB was absorbed into the Army, the Army instantly
gaining some 12,000 well-armed and trained soldiers.12
The extremely chaotic conditions of the country and the Awami League
government’s inability to maintain order led to the 4th Amendment to the
Constitution on January 25, 1975, establishing a one-party government,
with civil and judicial rights significantly curtailed. This belied everything
the Nation and the Liberation War stood for. Suddenly and most unex-
pectedly a portion of the Bangladesh Army revolted, murdering almost
the entire political leadership along with their families on August 15,
1975. This included Bangabandhu and his entire family, except his two
daughters, both of whom were abroad. From August 1975, the country
faced a continuous cycle of violence unleashed by the military and a leftist
political party called the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (JASOD), until Major
General Ziaur Rahman, the senior-most and most popular and charismatic
of the three Liberation War force commanders, wrested control and
imposed Martial Law on November 29, 1976. These events significantly
altered the country’s conditions, especially of its military. In the subse-
quent sections we shall look at these altered conditions of the Bangladesh
military. As to why this brutality was unleashed by some members of the
Army, this is still not clear today, although much has been written about
these events of 1975.
The Military under the Two Martial Law Regimes:

1976 to 199113
I will start this section with a few observations about policy. As has already
been stated, the first government of an independent Bangladesh did not
see any need to establish an institutional process for the studied, measured
and rational formulation of defense policy. As a result, military forces,
perhaps the most important component of national power, were left in
limbo. Nobody in or out of the government, nor the military, knew what
strategy, what doctrine and what organization the military ought to have
or what roles various components of the military were to play in peace
and in war.
12
In December 1976, this author was commissioned into 20 Mortar Regiment, Artillery.
This unit was converted from a JRB battalion, the 8th JRB.
13
Most of this section comes from my experiences with the Bangladesh Army
from December 1976 to December 2000.
Under the martial law regimes of General Ziaur Rahman and General
Hussain Mohammad Ershad things remained much as they were as far as
defense policy was concerned. However, General Ziaur Rahman created
institutional measures to ensure firmer and greater governmental control
of the military. In mid-1976, President Ziaur Rahman created the
Commander-in-Chief’s Secretariat (C-in-C’s Sect) under the office of the
President, consolidating central authority dealing with all national security
issues. The Secretariat was headed by a Principal Staff Officer (PSO) of the
rank of Major General/Lieutenant General. In effect, the C-in-C’s Sect
took all organizational, operational and administrative decisions regarding
the three services, while the Ministry of Defence was left with the task of
drafting letters, memos and gazettes. The President retained the post of
both the Defence Minister and Supreme Commander of the armed forces.
Under General Ershad, this organization was renamed the Supreme
Command HQ in November 1986 but its responsibilities remained the
same as before.
From 1976 to 1991 and beyond, the three services expanded exponen-
tially not as a result of any studied policy regarding the strength, purpose
and role of military forces but as an outcome of the following factors:
(1) The services demanded expansion, along with a massive increase in

pay, allowances and perquisites. If the martial law regimes were to
survive, they had to cater to the demands of the military.
(2) The foreign policy of Bangladesh changed. Bangladesh broke out
of the India—Soviet Union nexus and leaned instead more heavily
toward China, the Middle East and the West (USA and Western
Europe). India was now considered an adversary rather than a
benign and supportive friend.
(3) The Bengali returnees from Pakistan—both civilian and military—
were senior to and more experienced than the freedom fighters,
and gained increasing prominence in politics, in government ser-
vice and in the military. These officials were anti-Indian and pro-
Chinese and pro-Western. To a very large extent these officials were
behind the changes taking place in the period from 1976 to 1991.
I will not go into specifics as to strengths, types and numbers of arma-

ments, and numbers of different types of military formations/units (which
are all available in Jane’s Defence of 1990–1991), but by 1991 training
institutions of every sort were established, logistic installations grounded,
and bases and cantonments founded in different parts of the country. The
three services were equipped with modern conventional weaponry,

although not the most up-to-date or the most effective. Most military
armaments and equipment, including navel vassals and combat aircraft, at
this time were of Chinese origin. The services trained throughout the year,
for every seasonal condition and all types of military operations. The total
man-power of military forces was pegged at 130,000 and the military
received budget allocations exceeding 10 percent of the national budget.
Starting from 1976–1977, the ethnically separate population of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in the southeast of the country started an
armed insurgency. The Army deployment expanded until five infantry bri-
gades, along with other para-military units, were fighting a counter-
insurgency war. The BAF provided logistic support but were not involved
in combat. A peace treaty in 1996 ended the insurgency. This counter-
insurgency war was the only war-fighting business of the Bangladeshi mili-
tary during this period.
The two martial law regimes pulled the military into myriad activities
under the rubric “Nation Building.” These tasks included anti-smuggling
duties; disaster management and food movement operations to stave off
food shortages during annual floods and cyclones; supervision of canal
digging, road construction and infrastructural development in rural areas;
assisting the civil administration in maintaining law and order; running
martial law courts, which had taken over much of the criminal jurisdiction
of the judiciary; and supervising elections at various levels. In fact, the
military was running and governing Bangladesh. Officers and soldiers,
both retired and serving, were seconded to every public organization from
the foreign ministry to the police. Military officers were key to raising two
political parties: the Bangladesh Nationalist Party for General Ziaur
Rahman and the Jatiyo Party for General Ershad.
On May 30, 1981, a mutiny at Chittagong Cantonment led to the
assassination of President General Ziaur Rahman. The fallout from the
mutiny claimed the lives of a dozen senior and mid-level freedom fighter
officers; a dozen others were sacked. This mutiny was seen as a reaction
against Ziaur Rahman’s increasing favoring of non-freedom fighter offi-
cers in the military and the government. More importantly, the legitimiz-
ing and legalizing of the politics of Jamaat-e-Islam, by the General, was a
sore point in both the military and civil society. The Jamaat was not only
vehemently opposed to the concept of Bangladesh but had also raised
armed militias, from its youth and student cadres, to fight against
Liberation forces. These militias were responsible for the mass murder of
an entire generation of people of the country. Almost five decades after

independence, mass graves are still being discovered. Several months later,
General Hussain Mohammad Ershad, the CAS, declared another martial
law and took over the government.
In 1988, a small UN Observer Mission was sent from Bangladesh to
monitor the conclusion of the Iran-Iraq war. These were two Islamic
countries and Bangladesh, being a member of the Organisation of Islamic
Cooperation, felt that it ought to play some role in peacekeeping efforts
between the two belligerents; it would, it was felt, enhance the image of
the country. In 1991, during the first Gulf War, Bangladesh sent an infan-
try brigade for the UN-sanctioned war. These UN commitments would in
the coming decades significantly increase and alter the complexion of the
Bangladesh Military. By 1991, the Bangladesh Military, an organization
and an institution meant solely for fighting wars, was involved in three
different fields: (1) the military was governing the country, which appeared
to be its chief reason for existence; (2) it was training for war as and when
its commitments to its nation-building activities permitted; and (3) it was
fighting a counter-insurgency war in the CHT and executing all develop-
mental activities there, from running schools to dispensaries, to building
roads and settlements, to getting the local populace to change their way
of life.
The Bangladesh Military under Civilian

Governments: 1991 to 2020
What the disenfranchised politicians thought of the Bangladesh military
could well be gauged from the mass upsurge organized by the major polit-
ical parties to oust the regime of General Ershad. General Ershad was
ousted and the military was seen as a major threat to the establishment of
democratic dispensation in Bangladesh. Great efforts were exerted to
cleanse the civil administration of military personnel and the military was
told in no uncertain terms to stick to their barracks. However, these
changes were cosmetic, the military retaining much of their overt and
covert influence in the politics of the country. In 2007–2008, the military
once again intervened to put in place a new version of government called
the Emergency Government. Once again the politicians took recourse to
mass agitation to get the military back to their barracks or, to use an apt
metaphor, “to put the genie back into the bottle.” The civilian Awami
League government which followed this Emergency pushed through

three amendments to the Constitution—14th to 16th—declaring illegal
the martial law regimes and all their ordnances, as well as making it illegal
to attempt to oust civilian elected governments. As of 2020, it remained
to be seen how effective these legislative and other administrative mea-
sures were to curb the propensity of the military to engage and intervene
in politics.
The demise of martial law regimes did not bring about any qualitative
changes as far as defense policy was concerned. In October 1994, the
Supreme Command HQ was renamed the Armed Forces Division (AFD),
becoming a part of government administrative machinery under the PM’s
office, with the PM retaining the portfolio of the Defence Minister. The
AFD continued to perform the same functions that they did prior to this
change of nomenclature.
The three services continued to formulate their own policies and strate-
gies regarding organization, armaments, logistics and operations. The ser-
vices also sought separate yearly budgets and other special allocations from
the government. As an example, the case of the Defence Services Command
and Staff College (DSCSC) producing two documents at their own initia-
tive in 1994–1995 could be cited. These documents were Operations of
War (Non-Nuclear Operations) and the Joint Warfare Doctrine.14 Both of
these were purportedly ‘doctrines’ and their focus was entirely on joint
operations (i.e., all three services planning and operating together) at the
tactical and operational level of war. The Joint Warfare Doctrine went to
great lengths in laying down procedural and organizational aspects of
command, control, coordination and communication of joint warfare in
the twenty-first century. These documents were sent to the services HQs
and the AFD. For the next three years the documents went through a
review and revision process whereby the services and their formations
went to great lengths in giving their comments, opinions and views. The
documents collected dust until 2007–2008 , when the Army published
the documents giving them official sanction. To the best of my knowl-
edge, the BN and the BAF never published any official doctrines.
In 2009, the AFD took in hand a document titled “Forces Goal 2030.”
This was a classified document, unavailable to the public. Nonetheless,
perusal of bits and pieces of information in the mass and electronic media,
14
The author of this paper was one of the coauthors of both these document, while serving
in the DSCSC as a Directing Staff (in civilian terms, a teacher at college levels).
including the open source forum Wikipedia, could provide one with an
idea of what this document is all about. The Forces Goal 2030 is not
policy, nor is it doctrine or even a strategy; all it contains is a few pages of
prosaic platitudes followed by dozens of pages of tables showing the rais-
ing of new formations and units of the three services over time extending
up to 2030, all of which are nothing but changes in the Table of
Organization and Equipment (TO &E) of the three services. The docu-
ment did not address the all-important issue of the role, the purpose or
the goal of the military forces—separately and collectively. Military forces
continue to be employed in as many and as varied roles and functions as
set during the period 1976–1991.
The Forces Goal 2030 was revised in 2017, and no doubt it will go
through a number of other revisions, as the realities of time and circum-
stances force themselves on the decision-makers now and in the future.
But the Forces Goal 2030 was a definite break from the past in the sense
that for the first time a tri-service approach was taken at the higher levels
of both the military and the government for the development of all three
services.
Turning now to the TO & E of the services, I will very briefly discuss
each service separately as they stand today in mid-July 2020.
The Army disposes of 10 infantry divisions and five specialized inde-
pendent brigades, with necessary and appropriate combat, combat sup-
port and combat service support. These formations and their units are
largely equipped and armed with Chinese weaponry, along with a smatter-
ing of Eastern European and even Western equipment and weapons all
manufactured or fielded in 2000 or after. Three new commands are
expected to be set up soon: Western, Eastern and Central. These com-
mands will group formations in corps in three geographical regions of the
country, which clearly indicates that the Army is thinking in operational
terms. New garrisons have been established in various parts of the country,
and new training and even educational institutions have been set up. The
development will continue until 2030.
The BAF disposes of three squadrons of combat aircraft of mainly
Chinese and Russian origin; a squadron of transport aircraft of Western
origin; three squadrons of combat and transport helicopters of Western
origin; and three squadrons of training aircraft of mixed Chinese, Russian
and Western origin. More armaments and aircraft are in the pipeline. The
BAF now has 10 bases and installations spread around the country.
Training institutions for all levels and categories have also been established.
The BN has seen the greatest intensity of development and expansion

in the last two decades. It has eight frigates with a mix of different capa-
bilities and origins; some are refurbished with advanced Western commu-
nication and surveillance equipment. In addition, there are 12
Corvette-type crafts; five minesweepers; an air-wing with several maritime
surveillance aircraft and helicopters; several diesel-electric Chinese subma-
rines; and a host of other combat support and logistic ships. The BN’s
procurement will continue until 2030. The BN today comprises ten bases
and training institutions of various types.
I will end this section by describing the Bangladesh Military’s involve-
ment in two functions: one, the UN missions, and the other, the military’s
involvement in ‘big business.’
As mentioned earlier, the UN involvement started in 1988. To date,
Bangladeshi soldiers, sailors and airmen have participated in over 30 mis-
sions in 25 different countries and regions. At any one time there are
around 10,000 personnel engaged in these activities. UN involvement is
in most ways directly opposite to conventional military functions; UN
missions are for peacekeeping and peace-making rather than war-fighting.
Indeed, these activities are directly debilitating to military functions.
Bangladesh is in this business because in some ways it brings the country
to the positive notice of the international community; it also generates
considerable economic activity (procurement of equipment, vehicles,
logistics, transportation, etc., and contributes a significant amount of for-
eign currency to the national exchequer and to the purse of individuals
engaged for such missions (thus boosting morale among officers and
enlisted personnel).
In truth, the Military’s involvement in certain types of commercial
activities is unavoidable. Besides pay and allowances, the rest of the
Military’s yearly budget is consumed in the procurement of food, cloth-
ing, healthcare and housing (basic needs); and procurement or manufac-
ture of arms, armaments, ordnances and equipment. These commercial
activities have been the norm since modern armies were formed in the
sixteenth century. Usually these activities are controlled at the level of the
Ministry of Defence (MoD), by civilian officials, but this is not the case in
Bangladesh; these commercial activities are controlled by military person-
nel in organizations, some of which are ostensibly under the MoD, but
most are under service control through various directorates and branches
in HQs. Since 1991, successive governments of Bangladesh have quietly
allowed the armed forces to get involved in such businesses as banking,
real estate, infrastructure development, healthcare, education, logistics

and supply of consumer goods, hospitality and leisure industries, and
medium and large manufacturing enterprises. All of these economic activi-
ties have given rise to many new organizations within the services, none of
which are even remotely connected to military functions. Military person-
nel deputed to these organizations are subjected to temptations and turn
corrupt; their mind-sets also change from a military ethos and values to
those of traders and businesspersons.15 This is all done in the name of
national development and nation-building, a trend set in motion by mili-
tary dictators to keep their armed forces busy and materially satisfied.
Concluding Remarks
Armed forces, in theory, are inherent in every polity to perform two func-
tions: one, deterrence and two, when deterrence fails, to fight wars. In the
advanced polities of the West, as also in communist/socialist countries,
the military have well-defined roles and functions and are under strict
institutional control of governments. Such states and their governments
have institutions and processes in place to ensure that the functions and
roles of their militaries, in the form of defense policies and strategies, are
reviewed, updated and published from time to time. These publicized,
periodical reviews keeps the citizenry informed of what their militaries are
up to because it is the citizenry which provides the personnel and the
funding for the military. Additionally, it keeps the allies and adversaries
informed of the capabilities of the military of a particular state, thus pro-
viding reassurances to allies on the one hand and deterrence against adver-
saries on the other.
In developing countries and even more so in less developed countries
the armed forces, in practice, are called upon to perform functions well
outside the purview of their classical roles and functions. This is so because,
in such countries, state and government institutions are weak, ineffective,
corrupt and lack resources; their armed forces on the other hand are rela-
tively well organized, disciplined and a measure of legitimate monopoly of
violence. Thus, in such countries coup d’états, mutinies, military interven-
tion in politics and military dictatorships abound; in certain cases armed
forces have initiated civil wars, leading to the dissolution of states and the
15
Choudhury, Mahmud ur Rahman, Colonel, The Changing Role of Bangladesh Army,
Bangladesh Defence Journal, Issue 72, March 2014, Dhaka, pp. 17–25, contains a whole list
of such business organizations. Limitations of space prevent me from reproducing this
list here.
formation of others. All of these have been well studied and documented
since the 1950s in an academic discipline called Civil—Military Relations.
From beginnings rooted in the ideals of a revolutionary war of inde-
pendence, the developments of the Bangladesh Military to its present state
has been continuous albeit non-linear, that is, the development has not
been in any one particular direction over time. Many of these develop-
ments have not been in the classic military mold, and what I have stated
about militaries in developing and less developed countries applies to
Bangladesh. In this chapter I have shown the development of the
Bangladesh Military from its inception right up to the present, and this
could be taken as a case study of the failure of a nation-state to develop
national institutions of such importance as the Military.
References
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Prokashon.
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Bangladesh Liberation War. (2008). Asia Publications for the Education
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Choudhury, Mahmud ur Rahman. (2014). The Changing Role of Bangladesh
Army. Bangladesh Defence Journal, (72), March, Dhaka. https://www.bangla-
deshdefencejournal.com/defence-journal-all-content/bangladesh-army-
the-end-of-an-era
Gilbert, F. (1975). The Historical Essays of Otto Hintze. Oxford University Press.
Goldman, K., & Sjostedt, G. (Eds.). (1979). Power, Capabilities, Interdependence.
Sage Publications.
History of Bangladesh Army, Vol. 1–7. (2015). Education Directorate, Army
Headquarters, Bangladesh Army.
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Publishers.
Khandker, A. K. (2014). 1971 Bhitoray Bahiray. Prothoma Prokashon.
Lider, J. (1981). Military Force (pp. 1–2). Gower Publishing Co Ltd.; and
Marxism on War and Army, Soviet Publication (1980).
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Shahaduzzaman. (2012). Kracher Kornel. Mowla Brothers.
The Evolution of Education Policy
in Bangladesh: Past and Present
Mak (Chanchal) Khan
Since the independence of Bangladesh, the education sector has been a

subject of citizens’ core expectations, criticisms and debates. The country
is 50 years old (or new) now, but the land is many centuries old. Tracing
education policies for Bengal, from the colonial era to the present-day,
reveals, not surprisingly, visions and promises emanating mostly from the
political (and often religious) ideals, but weaved within the hemstitches of
social, and economic landscapes. Thus, the policies gained their societal
and political acceptance despite the absence of the full realization of the
outcomes of the policies in terms of infusing an education culture,
learning results, and practices that are consistent with the four core found-
ing principles on which the country called Bangladesh was born.1
1
The Constitution of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh.
The writer is an international development specialist with a focus on public policy

and governnace.
M. (Chanchal) Khan (*)

Faculty of Social and Political Science, University of Melbourne,
Melbourne, VIC, Australia

318 M. (CHANCHAL) KHAN
This chapter traces the development of education practices from ancient

Mughal times and policies during the British colonial era n to the present
in Bangladesh, as it celebrates its Golden Jubilee of independence. It also
looks at the continued relevance of the country’s first education policy
(1974), and the education vision of the two great Bangalis, Rabindranath
Tagore and the founding father of Bangladesh Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman. The discussions in this chapter are limited to the various
education policies.
The Mughal Era

With the arrival of the Mughals on the subcontinent, educational and
cultural activities received a great lift.2 Babar, the first Mughal ruler, was a
man of literary taste and possessed linguistics knowledge of Persian, Arabic
and Turkish. He embarked on repairing a number of derelict schools and
colleges, as well as setting up several new educational institutions. His rule
lasted only four years, followed by his son Humayun (1530–1556 AD)
who was also a patron of education, art and literature. Humayun rendered
valuable services to the cause of education and established a college at
Delhi. He was fond of the company of scholars and litterateurs and spent
time in scholarly pursuits. Sher Shah Suri, who ruled India when Humayun
was in exile, was also a great patron of education and learning. He estab-
lished a madrasah at Narnaul which became a prominent centre of educa-
tion; interestingly, it was a secular education that began at that time, albeit
on a rudimentary scale (we will discuss the concept of secular education in
a subsequent section). He was the first Muslim ruler who made provisions
for the education of ordinary Muslims and Hindu communities too.
Akbar’s reign marked the beginning of a new chapter in the history of
education in Muslim India. During his reign, subjects like philosophy, his-
tory, literature, astronomy, accountancy, agriculture and arts made signifi-
cant progress, as he introduced these subjects to the existing curriculum of
educational institutions. These additions provided a secular flavour to the
educational system and opened the door for a holistic and modern
approach to education and learning. The formal practice of education
through creating infrastructure and resource arrangements also began
during Akbar’s time, and in addition he emphasized the elementary school
2
Features of Muslim education in the medieval age. Article shared by Purnima P. in
https://www.historydiscussion.net. 2019.
THE EVOLUTION OF EDUCATION POLICY IN BANGLADESH… 319
system as the foundation of the education system in the region.

Interestingly, his education practices embraced a wide variety of learning
and teaching techniques that were modern and inclusive, even by today’s
standards. Keeping secular values at the core of education and learning,
Akbar liberalized education and encouraged Hindus and students from
other religions to study in maktabs and madrasahs.3 These maktabs and
madrasahs of the Muslims and the pathshalas and vidyapiths of the Hindus
were managed privately, but the contribution of the Mughal emperors was
also significant in the progress and development of these schools and col-
leges, as they were themselves interested in the development of educa-
tional institutions. As a result, in the course of time, certain Hindu scholars
and historians learnt Persian and made valuable contributions to the cause
of education. This gained momentum during the last century in Bengal
(including East Bengal, or East Pakistan, now Bangladesh). The author of
this chapter traced the history of 100 schools in Bangladesh and with a
handful of exceptions all were founded and funded by the educated Hindu
social and cultural philanthropists.
Education practices during Akbar’s time featured teaching of subjects
on morality, social cohesion, rules of government, social values, medical
logic and arithmetic, alongside literacy and numeracy, as core areas of
learning. During Akbar’s time a number of Sanskrit works were translated
into Persian for the benefit of the Muslims. Jahangir, Akbar’s successor,
and also a great lover of learning, gave his patronage to artists and littera-
teurs. Jahangir issued a decree that the property of wealthy people after
their death in the absence of any heir would be taken over by the state and
the proceeds spent on the construction and maintenance of educational
institutions. This remains a major example of educational reforms, com-
bining education, finance and social change on the subcontinent, although
there is no evidence of such practices being followed through in any form
by modern government on the subcontinent.
Shah Jahan was also educated and gave patronage to scholars towards
the spread of education. He set up a madrasah near Jama Masjid at Delhi,
3
In the Arabic language, the word ‫( ةسردم‬madrasah) has the same meaning as ‘school’ in
the English language, whether private, public or parochial school, as well as for any primary
or secondary school whether Muslim, non-Muslim or secular. Madrasah essentially means
schools which provide regular education, while maktabs are community schools, often
attached to mosques, that provide religious education to children who attend other schools
to get ‘mainstream’ education. Thus, maktabs provide part-time religious education and are
complementary to the formal educational institutions.
and demonstrated mastery in Arabic, Persian as well as Sanskrit—yet

another example of his openness to secular learning in the region he ruled.
Unfortunately, during the time of Aurangzeb, secular education was
stalled, although he reformed existing curricula to make the education
more practical and useful. Notwithstanding his personal interest in educa-
tion, his time witnessed neglect towards Hindus due to the introduction
of liberal grants to poor children belonging to Muslim families only.
Aurangzeb held in contempt learning pursuits by Hindus, and in place
tried to foster Muslim erudition.4 Aurangzeb’s patronage was limited to
Muslim scholars.
The later Mughal rulers also paid attention to education to varying
degree. Rulers like Bahadur Shah I, Mohammad Shah, Shah Alam II and
Bahadur Shah II were all great patrons of education and were noted for
their literary knowledge. During the later Mughal period most of the new
madrasahs were set up by private efforts, and rendered great service to the
advancement of learning. Historian Will Durant quite aptly sums up
Mughal-era education practices as follows:
When the Mughal s ascended the throne they brought a high but narrow
standard of culture with them; they loved letters as much as the sword and
knew how to combine a successful siege with poetry. Among the Muslims,
education was mostly individualistic, through tutors engaged by prosperous
fathers for their sons. It was an aristocratic conception of education as an
ornament—occasionally an aid to a man of affairs and power, but usually an
irritant and a public danger in one doomed to poverty of modest place.5
In summary, although the Mughal system of education gradually took

a holistic approach to learning with the instruction of science, numeracy
and literacy, education for women was restricted, except for the female
members of the royal families who received reading, writing and numeracy
trainings from matrons. Interestingly, during Mughal rule, Banaras,
Mathura, Allahabad, Nadiad, Ayodhya, Srinagar and Mithila gradually
emerged as prominent centres for education of the Hindus. Theology,
geography, medicine, grammar and mathematics were popular subjects. At
the age of five children were sent to the Pathshalas, which were attached
to the temples, and after completing their primary education, they were
Basu, B.D. (1934)

4
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5
Muslim-education-medieval-age.
admitted to the vidyapith for higher education. Thus secular education,

albeit with varying degrees of patronage, found a place in the education
landscape during the Mughal period.
The British Period

After the defeat of the last sovereign ruler Nawab Siraj ud-Daulah in 1757,
the British ruled the subcontinent for nearly 190 years from 1757 to
1947.6 Education in the Indian subcontinent began from an indigenous
educational system in ancient times, continued through an Islamic style of
education in the Mughal period, and the transitioned to imperialistic edu-
cation delivered during British colonization. It is fair to say that the East
India Company and the British Crown were generally indifferent to edu-
cation on the Indian subcontinent until the early nineteenth century.7
This is not to say that there were no developments of note during this
long period. Throughout the last decades of the eighteenth century and
beginning of the nineteenth century, European missionaries and the East
India Company established several schools and colleges (Mukerji, 1957).
Warren Hastings (1773–1744), the Governor General of the East India
Company, was sympathetic to Indian traditions, and encouraged their
inclusion in the education system in India, alongside the British system of
learning and teaching. In 1781, Calcutta Alia Madrasah, the first govern-
ment college on the Indian subcontinent, was set up to produce officials
well versed in Islamic laws. This was complemented by the setting up of
Banaras Sanskrit College in 1792 (Chatterjee, 1976). But the colonial
officials had differences of opinion among themselves regarding the pur-
pose of educating the people of the subcontinent, about the medium of
education, management of schools, and the method of expanding educa-
tional facilities to the whole country (Ali, 1986; Mukerji, 1957;
Viswanathan, 1989).
The East India Company first recognized their responsibility towards
education in British India in the Charter Act of 1813 where they high-
lighted the need to promote and uplift oriental languages and literature,
as well as increase the knowledge of Western sciences among the Indian
population (Kumar, 1991). Thomas Macaulay (1800–1859), a member of
6
During that period, the territory which is now Bangladesh was a part of the British Indian
provinces of Bengal and Assam.
7
Basu, B.D. Op. cit. (1934)
the Governor General’s Council, in his influential minute in 1835, articu-

lated the supremacy of Western culture and the English language; sup-
ported the education of the upper classes, and made a vigorous plea for
spreading Western learning through the medium of English (Ghosh,
1993; Mukerji, 1957). Consequently, in 1837, English was made the lan-
guage of administration, and thus the East India Company officially
entered into the education field of the subcontinent. As a result of the new
policy, there was rapid growth in English schools and colleges (Mukerji,
1957; Seal, 1968), and English as the medium of instruction was intro-
duced in the entire educational sector (Ghosh, 1993).
However, at the beginning of the nineteenth century a system of liberal
English-language schools based on the British model was also instituted in
the region that now constitutes Bangladesh (Ali, 1986; Nurullah & Naik,
1962). Giving attention and importance to the secondary education sys-
tem and its expansion, the British established 12 Zila schools and 3 col-
legiate schools (public schools) in the land area including the nation of
Bangladesh during 1832 and 1855. In this context, the celebrated Wood’s
Educational Despatch of 1854, resulting from an enquiry about education
in India by the Select Committee of the British House of Commons, pro-
vided the legal foundation for modern public education in Bengal (Bhatt
& Aggarwal, 1969). The major outcomes of Wood’s Despatch were the
establishment of educational departments in every province; establish-
ment of universities; introduction of a supervision system; establishment
of graded schools; grant-in-aid private schools; teachers’ training institu-
tions; and a comprehensive secular system of education for the diffusion of
practical knowledge using both English and the vernacular languages
(Nurullah & Naik, 1951). Advocating formal education for girls in Bengal
was an important element of Wood’s Education Despatch. In that docu-
ment, significantly, ‘female education’ was discussed and promoted
because it enhanced the educational and moral tone of the people
(Jalaluddin & Chowdhury, 1997).
The universities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay were established in
1857, and had a far-reaching effect especially on the content, range and
scope of higher-level education in the region, and only much later, in
1921, did the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh’s oldest tertiary education
institution, open its doors. In 1882, Lord Ripon appointed the first Indian
Education Commission with William Hunter as its Chairman (Nurullah &
Naik, 1962). They suggested leaving secondary education to private
enterprise through a system of grants-in-aid, school-end ‘entrance
examinations’ and appointment of trained teachers at secondary schools.

Following the ‘All Indian Education Conference’ at Simla in 1901, Lord
Curzon published his education policy in the form of a government reso-
lution in 1904, which contributed to the increased practice of vernacular
at high school level, especially in public schools, catering for the masses
(Ali, 1986). But elite schools, European or convent schools, used English
as medium of instruction, which excluded most Indians on grounds of
birth or poverty. The pedagogical content of schools were prescribed by
the British Crown; even colonial officials exercised the right to reject text-
books used in private schools, such as madrasahs (Bhatt & Aggarwal,
1969). The schools strictly followed learning exercises and schedules, or
regulations directed by the British rulers.
Under the reforms of 1919–1921, elementary education was made free
within municipalities and rural unions and in Bengal, and the first steps
towards universal primary education were taken through the Bengal
Primary Education Act 1930 (Memmi, 1957). A provincial department of
education was established in 1930, and thus began the process of central-
ization and bureaucratization of education. Consequently, the enactment
of the Bengal Education Code 1931 was a landmark legislation that cre-
ated the ‘District School Board’ as the administrative body for primary
and secondary education. A Central Advisory Board was established in
1935, for policy formulation in education recommended by the Hertz
Committee 1927. In 1945, a separate Education Department was estab-
lished under the Central Government and its responsibilities were
entrusted to a member of the Central Executive (Nurullah & Naik, 1951).
Although the British rulers at the time took initiative to reform the
education system on the Indian subcontinent, the education imparted by
them did not contribute to developing practical skills or technical knowl-
edge. It rather emphasized classical, humanistic curricula in schools to
perpetuate the aristocratic tastes and manners of the upper class to create
an exclusively dependent elite (Ilon, 2000; Mukerji, 1956; Seal, 1968).
This elite class, who had job prospects and social upward mobility at a
certain level (Roy, 1993; Basu, 1934), provided clerical and administrative
support to the colonial administration, which encompassed areas of
immense linguistic and cultural variety and became faithful consumers of
British goods (Chatterjee, 1994). Thus, the new elite became alienated
from the general masses, who had no access to the new education system
(Bhattacharya, 2005; Robb, 2002). The caste-allied socio-religious restric-
tions were imposed upon the poor to prevent them from gaining
knowledge. The cost of education was another important factor that

denied the poor access to education. The direct cost of schooling, expen-
ditures such as books, fees and uniforms, and indirect costs in terms of
forfeited earnings while children were at school were key economic factors
for the poor. Instead of aiming for the upliftment of the poor, the colonial
government introduced the education policy based on “filtration theory”
(Bray, 1993), which placed the ‘higher classes’ in a position of pedagogical
influence. Nurullah and Naik (1951) were also critical of the British for
not having developed a truly national system of education; for failing to
evolve a synthesis of Eastern and Western cultures; for neglecting indige-
nous education, and for the absence of any overall plan or consistent drive
to reach a pre-determined goal.
The Pakistan Period

With the end of British rule in 1947, Bangladesh became one of the prov-
inces of Pakistan, named East Pakistan. There was a general awareness of
the need to restructure the education system to meet the needs of the new
nation. The country was founded on the basis of Islamic ideology. Urdu
was adopted as its national language, despite Bengali being the language
of the majority on the basis of headcounts in East Pakistan. Urdu was
made the medium of instruction in most public schools. However, at the
time of independence there was a considerable presence of missionary
schools and colleges where the medium of instruction was English. The
experiments with Urdu in education during that period were linguistically
and philosophically defensible from a narrow patriotic, Islamic or nation-
alistic point of view. Muhammad Ali Jinnah espoused his vision to build up
the ‘character’ of the future generations, mostly from the Islamic religious
and cultural standpoint. The First Education Conference was convened in
November 1947 at Karachi, which was to reassess the colonial education
system, and to restructure the then existing educational system with due
regard to ideological and literacy considerations, although the second
major consideration was the training and development of scientific and
technical manpower. With this in mind, successive policies attempted to
build coherence between spiritual, social and vocational education and to
promote Islamic values. However, emphasis was given to universal pri-
mary education, by making education free and compulsory, initially up to
Class 5 and eventually up to Class 8. Madrasah education was brought
into the fold of formal school education.
In 1949, the Maulana Akram Khan Committee on education was estab-

lished, and in 1951 the Second Education Congress was held at Karachi.
Following the reports of the Akram Khan Committee and Ataur Rahman
Khan Commission of 1957, the united front government promised a uni-
versal single-stream primary and secondary education system for all, based
on scientific knowledge. In 1956, the constitution of Pakistan eventually
recognized Bangla as one of the national languages. In the successive five-
year plans and other national economic policy documents, the need for
modern science education was also articulated. The subsequent Sharif
Commission on Education (1958) and the Curriculum Committee for
Secondary Education (Classes VI-XII) under military rule also articulated
a need to shift the focus of school education from rote memorization to
expanded facilities for scientific and technological education and critical
thinking. The Curriculum Committee for Secondary Education (Classes
VI-XII) produced a policy report that was an outcome of the political
agenda of the government of that time. Its mandate was to evolve a
national system of education that would reflect the spiritual, moral and
cultural values of independent Pakistan based on Islamic principles, and at
the same time to enable the system to meet the growing needs of the
nation in the fields of agriculture and technological development.
The various educational policy prescriptions during the Pakistan period
were largely more aligned with Islamic sentiments than with any inclusive
value. The difficulty lay in their general incommensurability. Thus, while
the policy pronouncements on the surface seemed relevant to the needs of
the new state, they failed to provide a clear-cut strategy to attain them,
especially in the more religiously diverse, culturally astute and secular-
minded East Pakistan. The rulers and military dictators were more eager
to gain political recognition by creating short-term economic gains
through increased employability of the younger generation of graduates,
and fast GDP growth. Although the Sharif Report was relatively compre-
hensive in recommending universal primary schooling and eradicating
illiteracy, and reforms to educational governance, it paid little attention to
the realities in East Pakistan, especially with regard to the use of vernacular
in schools. While Urdu was taught in the East, Bengali remained out of
the mainstream in the total Pakistan education system.
The student movement (1962–1964) against the Sharif Commission
demanded a pro-people education policy. As a result, in 1964 a new
Commission on Student Problems and Welfare was appointed, headed by
Justice Hamoodur Rahman (Bangla Pedia, 2005). The Commission
report criticized the elitist educational institutions which did not align
with principles of equality and social justice. The commission reported:
“The idea of superior and inferior schools does not fit in with our socio-
economic pattern and principles of equality and social justice as enunci-
ated by Islam which have been declared as the avowed policy of the state
in the preamble of our Constitution”.8 In short, the Pakistani education
system was elitist, with virtually no emphasis on educating the general
masses. In other words, the policymakers and the governments in the West
were not attending to the realities of the Eastern wing. In 1969, General
Yahya’s government again appointed a committee with Air Marshal Nur
Khan as head. The rationale behind yet another educational policy was
that there was an increased realization by the rulers that the then existing
education system had failed to promote national cohesion, especially given
the rising separatist feelings amongst the people of East Pakistan. There
was also a realization that the education system was not able to play its
proper role in the process of national development, as unemployment
remained high among educated youth, with academic standards
remaining low.
The education policies in Pakistan perpetuated the promotion of a
common set of cultural practices and rituals based on the precepts of
Islam. However, the Nur Khan Committee emphasized creating a literate
society and developing a vocational and technical education system. The
Committee recommended integrating madrasahs into the regular school
system and bringing the latter in line with ideological demands. It also
recommended integration of primary and middle schools with elementary
schools and undertaking a massive programme of adult education, in addi-
tion to the establishment of the University Grants Commission. This com-
mittee also recommended Urdu and Bangla, instead of English, as the
mediums of instruction in Pakistan by 1975.
In summary, the successive education policies in Pakistan show that
these were largely stopgap measures, suiting the political needs of the mili-
tary rulers. Ideologically, little recognition was given to the cultural, multi-
faith ethos and linguistic nuances of the Bengali population of East
Pakistan. Largely, the education system was exclusive to elite Pakistanis
following the legacy of colonial education, ignoring the mass rural agrar-
ian population. By contrast, whereas the Committee on Rural Education
1957 in India recommended greater focus on agriculture education in
8
Bangla Pedia, 2005
secondary schools for better performance of the sector (Kaur, 2003), in

Pakistan the majority living in the rural areas of the country had little or
no access to education.
Bangladesh in 50 Years

The government led by Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman at the
inception of Bangladesh was mindful that the four state principles as
enshrined in the Constitution should be the main guiding forces in all
policies and strategies of the new government. The education policy of
Bangladesh, as a People’s Republic, should thus be people-oriented,
socialistic in approach, democratic in terms of people’s participation, and
secular, reflecting inclusivity and allowing access to education for all citi-
zens, regardless of their religious practices and ethnicity. The education
system should be holistic, values- and morality-driven, and should eventu-
ally create a ‘knowledge nation’. In this regard, section 17 of the
Bangladesh Constitution confirms that the State shall adopt effective mea-
sures for the purpose of (a) establishing a uniform, mass-oriented and
universal system of education by extending free and compulsory education
to all children; (b) relating education to the needs of society through
properly trained and motivated citizens and (c) removing illiteracy.
The outlook of Bangabandhu regarding mass education—‘Education
for All’ in his own words—was meaningful, practical and a befitting politi-
cal pronouncement in the context of the extremely low literacy rate inher-
ited at liberation (17.3 per cent averaged across the country). Bangabandhu
considered education as an important investment, one he mentioned in
most of his speeches and deliberations.
During the election campaign of 1970, Bangabandhu’s speech to the
nation over radio and television (28 October 1970) featured education as
a key element in the election manifesto of the Awami League. He talked
about the continuing disparities in education. The key concerns were: (i)
there was no alternative to capital investment in the education sector to
form a sound social system; (ii) after 1947 due to decreasing the number
of primary schools in then East Pakistan, the number of illiterate people
had increased; (iii) over 80 per cent of the population remained illiterate
and every year more than 1 million illiterate people were being added to
the country; (iv) more than 50 per cent of the nation’s children were
deprived of primary education of any sort; (v) only 18 per cent of boys and
6 per cent of girls were getting the opportunity of primary education; vi)
a minimum four per cent of the GDP should be invested in the education
sector; (vii) the salary of college and school teachers, especially primary
teachers, should be increased markedly; (viii) illiteracy must be erased; (ix)
a ‘crash programme’ should be undertaken to introduce compulsory free
primary education for children from five years of age; (x) the door of sec-
ondary education should be opened to all sections of society; (xi) medical
and technical universities including new universities should be established;
and (xii) attention should be focused on ensuring that higher education
for meritorious students should not be hampered by their poverty (Anu
Mahmud ed. ‘Bangabandhu Bhashon’: National publications, 2015,
page 45).
During the post-liberation period, the government of Bangabandhu
took different initiatives to implement his vision of a ‘knowledge nation’
and the election pledges, despite various resource and infrastructural limi-
tations the nation faced after its liberation. Major steps taken in the pro-
cess of educational reforms included nationalization of all primary schools
of the country, and establishment of 11,000 new primary schools. Despite
being a financially impaired country, the highest allocation was given in
the education sector in the first budget. The first Education Commission
in Bangladesh was constituted in July 1972, only a few months into the
country’s independence. This was an initiative of Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman to appoint a distinguished scientist, Dr Qudrat-e-Khuda,
to lead the commission (QK Commission). Following a long process of
public and internal consultation, the Commission submitted its report in
May 1974. As expected, the report emphasized secular education at all
levels, future work-relevant technical and vocational education, an
improved assessment system, letter grading in the assessment of student
performance at all stages of education, and making primary education
from Grade 1 to 8 and secondary from Grade 9 to 12 (GoB, 1974).
The QK Commission’s report emphasized women’s education to equip
them with employment opportunities, as well as to assist them in their
domestic life. It also suggested that girls should be encouraged into voca-
tions ‘suitable’ to them, such as primary school teaching and nursing
(Jalaluddin & Chowdhury, 1997). In stating the goals and purposes of
education, the commission asserted, “…based on and adding to the four
fundamental principles of the Constitution, education must serve the
goals and purposes of nationalism, socialism, democracy, secularism, patri-
otism and good citizenship, humanism and global citizenship, moral
values, and be the tool for transforming society” (Commission Report,

p. 4). The 36 chapters of the report laid out how the purposes could be
realized.
The report gave significant importance to creativity, innovation and
critical thinking among children, as well as among teachers who would
carry out the task of infusing creativity among the students, as future gen-
erations to lead the nation. After many decades, this report still enjoys
continued relevance to the evolving education sector reforms in
Bangladesh. Regarding the great personal contribution of Bangabandhu,
the report noted: ‘This gigantic work was not possible to complete with-
out the desire, interest and assistance of the Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman. We are grateful to him’ (Introduction: Qudrat-i-Khuda
Education Commission Report 1974). Bangabandhu’s response can be
summed up as follows: It was the job of the educationists to examine the
report’s pros and cons—his job was to see what could be done to realize
the goals of the policy proposed by the educationists.
Bangabandhu’s remarks showed his understanding of the respective
roles of political leadership and expertise and specialized knowledge, as
well as his typical humility. The QK Commission report was an expression
of the spirit and philosophy that had inspired the birth of the new nation.
This ideology was enshrined in the Constitution of the country formu-
lated and adopted in record time under Bangabandhu’s vigilant watch,
and guided by his vision of the new state and the nation (Manzoor, 2021).
The political change after the assassination of the Father of the Nation
in 1975 put an end to any action on the QK report. The nation was virtu-
ally without an education vision or policy. During this period attempts
were made to change the character of the people-oriented policies across
all sectors. The various regimes that followed—the authoritarian military
ones until 1990, and the democratic ones afterwards—set up at least eight
bodies to look into education reforms. The two successive military regimes
of General Zia (1975–1981) and General Ershad (1982–1990) changed
the secular and ethnic Bengali identity to state-based and pseudo-Islamic
‘Bangladeshi’ identity to build their political legitimacy. Education was
used as a vehicle for promoting ‘Bangladeshi’ nationalism instead of
Bengali nationalism. The two regimes made constitutional changes to
erase secularism by ‘absolute trust and faith in Allah’ and Islam as the state
religion in 1979 and 1988 respectively. Therefore, during General Ershad’s
rule and afterwards there has been unplanned mushrooming of madrasahs/
religious schools in Bangladesh. The Ershad regime made Islamic studies
compulsory up to the secondary level amid strong opposition from all

secular parties. The regime patronized madrasah education from primary
to higher secondary level with government recognition.
At the beginning of the 1990s, a number of reform measures were
taken in the education sector, mainly in the secondary area. New teaching
posts were created, a stipend programme for female students (FSP) was
introduced and the Monthly Pay Order (MPO) scheme was introduced
for private schools, as a government subsidy. The MPO scheme has under-
gone some changes to expand its coverage, and the FSP has been extended
during 2019 to students of both genders and to students of marginalized
communities. During the mid-1990s, the secondary school curriculum
was revised and continues to be revised (2019–2020). At the end of the
1990s, Shamsul Haque Education Commission 1997 was formed during
the Awami League government, followed by the Moniruzzaman Miah
Education Commission in 2003 during BNP rule. These two commis-
sions’ recommendations could not be implemented immediately with the
change in the governments.
The Awami League government headed by Sheikh Hasina formed a
16-member committee to formulate a new Education Policy 2010, headed
by National Professor Kabir Chowdhury. The new education policy was
formulated in the light of the Qudrat-e-Khuda Commission report of
1974 and Shamsul Huq Education Commission Report of 1997. The
National Education Policy (NEP) was approved by Parliament in
December 2010. The salient features of the recommendations of the com-
mittee include mandatory inclusion of certain compulsory subjects under
all streams of education, making education more needs-based and includ-
ing formation of a permanent education commission. The Policy paper
recommended extending compulsory primary schooling to Class 8, with
final primary-level examinations at the end of Class 8. The new policy also
recommended that secondary-level studies extend over four academic
years, that is, 9–12, and the government scholarship exams would be taken
at the end of Class 10, instead of the SSC examinations. Final secondary-
level exams were recommended to be held at the end of Class 12. Some
fundamental subjects including Bangla, moral education, Bangladesh
studies, mathematics, natural environment, social studies, IT and science
were made compulsory in different streams of primary- and secondary-
level curriculum, following the new policy. The policy also called for tech-
nical and vocational education to be introduced at all secondary-level
institutions, which has been under implementation from 2019. Madrasah
education was restructured by including information technology and

vocational training among compulsory subjects. In addition, a number of
institutional changes were recommended, such as creation of the
Department of Inspection and Audit, a reformed continuous assessment
system, a new recruitment system for teachers, and reorganization of the
secondary and primary education directorates.
With the hindsight of over a decade, the NEP 2010 strayed from the
QK Commission on several counts, opting for compromise on some basic
points. Some compromises were consequences of the political shift and
the lingering influence of the post-1975 political legacy, rather than being
a response to the changing contexts of educational needs (Manzoor, 2021).
NEP 2010 unfortunately compromised on the education philosophy of
the Bangabandhu government, and worked on the basis of the political
realities of post-1975 Bangladesh. A new category—Qawmi madrasahs
outside the scope of any government regulations—had also emerged and
mushroomed in number. Over a third of secondary-level students now
attend these madrasahs. They do not prepare young people for life and
work in a modern society. The way to resolve the dilemma of faith-based
education and a secular system could be to improve the outcomes and
attractiveness of the mainstream so that students and parents will make a
choice in favour of the mainstream (Manzoor, 2021). This, however,
remains a hard call for political governments that largely need to rely on
populist choices and support.
As this chapter traces the evolution of education policies and practices
in Bangladesh, it is pertinent to bring briefly to the fore the education
philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore, alongside the discussion that pre-
cedes the education principles enunciated by Bangabandhu Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman, thus giving completeness to the discussions. Largely
trained at home, and more importantly self-trained, the genius
Rabindranath’s initial Asram, known as Shantiniketan, in Bolpur became
the Vishwa Bharti University (meaning communion of the world with
India, formally established on 23 December 1921), which aimed to bring
about a synthesis of the East and West. Tagore’s philosophy of education
conforms to his philosophy that education must be rooted in home envi-
ronment, love for nature and love for the nation. The origin of Tagore’s
educational theory was his own home life and the freedom he had experi-
enced within it. This essentially meant infusion of creativity, innovation
and critical thinking, all that the global education principles of today
emphasize. Education prevalent in the days of Tagore was rigid and in his
own words ‘lifeless’, that it did not conform to the needs of the individual
and the demands of society. He insisted that education should acquaint
the child with the voice and mission of individual as well as international
life and achieve a harmonious balance between all the factors, free from all
compulsions and restrictions.
Tagore recommended that education should be provided in the com-
pany of nature, which would strengthen the ties between man and the
natural world, as he considered nature a powerful agent for the moral and
spiritual development of the child, exerting a healthy influence upon the
heart, mind and body of the child. Within this natural and healthy envi-
ronment, pupils could find a natural outlet for their capacities and oppor-
tunities for their development. He was of the firm belief that education is
a vehicle of social reform. Hence, it should act as a life-giving current to
modern society serving in various ways. He advocated that education
should be according to the realities of life. Hence, any plan of education
should involve both nature and human needs in a harmonious programme
(Personality, 1917).
Believing in harmonious relationships of human beings, with surround-
ings and international relations, Tagore advocated that a person through
the process of education should be able to come out as a harmonious
individual in tune with the social setting of life. In Tagore’s own words:
“The regular type of school is a manufactory and is a mere method of
discipline specially for grinding out uniform results. The highest education
is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in
harmony with all existence”. Indeed his philosophy of education is life-
encompassing. Tagore was not in favour of mere intellectual development.
He stressed that education should promote creative self-expression that
can be promoted through subjects of life crafts, music, drawing and dra-
matics. The environment of freedom given to the learner and then cre-
ation of situations for him will automatically make the learner do something
original (Creative Unity, 1922).
Tagore gave an important place to the teacher. He assigned a significant
role to him in the education of the child, believing that only a person can
teach another person. To him, a teacher must stimulate and guide, but it
is the child who is to choose and react according to his natural inclina-
tions. Believing in the purity and innocence of a child, the teacher should
behave with him with great love, affection, sympathy and consideration.
Tagore also stated that teachers and students are considered to be learners
together, seeking truth and following the right path of pure simplicity as
well as renunciation. The teacher should always be engaged in motivating

the creative capacities of children so that they remain busy with construc-
tive activities and experiences (Towards Universal Man, 1961). Tagore did
not approve of the traditional methods of classroom teaching, and recom-
mended those methods which provide knowledge of concrete situations.
He favoured frequent excursions and tours, during which the pupils with
their senses alert might observe and learn various facts of interest.
Education must be given in geographical, historical, economic and cul-
tural perspectives. In order to enable children to learn new things, it is
necessary to maintain an educative atmosphere where children are not
compelled to learn things from textbooks, but from the natural surround-
ings which are most educative (Doctrines of the Great Indian Educators,
2004). Tagore’s educational philosophy was much ahead of what some of
the contemporary global educational principles and policies dictate. The
cardinal principles of Tagore’s educational philosophy were freedom,
active communication with nature and humans, creative self-expression,
and morality and ethical values. Tagore felt that education divorced from
the streams of life and confined within the four walls of institutions
becomes artificial and loses its value. Tagore believed in self-imposed dis-
cipline which is not imposed from outside but drawn from within
(Foundations of Education, 1987). In short, according to Tagore, there
are three sources of knowledge: nature, life and teacher. There should be
a close coordination and harmony among these sources.
As a humanist, Tagore talked about human brotherhood and spiritual
bondage of the universe that can develop all aspects of human personality,
that is, physical, intellectual, and spiritual. As an individualist, Tagore
talked about the inborn abilities of all children, which make them unique,
and only with human interactions and enhancement of creativity would
one be able to achieve a state of perfection. As an idealist, he talked about
tapasya and sadhana.9 As a naturalist, he believed that students should be
taught to harness the various elements that nature presents.
An ardent follower of Tagore’s work and educational philosophy,
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman similarly gathered knowledge
9
Tapasya means self-discipline, meditation, simple and austere living, or any means of
inner self-purification. Thus a student’s life is expected to be simple and austere, dedicated to
learning. Sadhana refers to any effort/action to achieve a specific goal. The word is derived
from the root word ‘sadh’ (to accomplish) and refers to any means or instrument to accom-
plish a desired objective (hinduism.stackexchange.com).
from his interactions with the people, nature, environment, and situations
around his political life. His other source of acquiring knowledge was
books. As an avid reader, he read books in multiple areas to learn opinions
and history, and developed his own educational philosophy. The following
sentiment sums up the similarity between his and Tagore’s educational
philosophies: “We do not learn things only in the classroom, institutions
and from the teachers. We learn from the nature, from our surroundings,
even from little creatures” (Karagarer Rojnamcha, Bangla Academy, 2017).
Conclusion
I imagine after the discussion on the educational philosophy of Tagore
and Bangabandhu, reverting to the mundane academic discussion on
where we stand with the current state of education may be somewhat dis-
appointing. The education policies throughout the 50 years of Bangladesh’s
life enjoyed varying degrees of political will. They were not linear and
lacked the fundamental ethos of Bangladesh’s foundation. The period was
besieged by attempts by the military rulers to bring about pseudo-Islamic
elements in the education system and policies, essentially for political and
populist gain. The first education policy by the QK Commission, as men-
tioned earlier, enjoys continued relevance even after 46 years of its prepa-
ration in many aspects that blend into the four pillars of the Constitution
of Bangladesh, and the philosophy and commitment of Bangabandhu,
and turns the fundamental wheels of building a knowledge nation.
Unfortunately, after the 50 years of Bangladesh’s independence, not-
withstanding many institutional reforms, the education system is largely
dependent on donor funding and project-led initiatives. Often, there
remain contradictions, duplications of efforts, and governance processes
that have neither resulted in sustainable capacity in the education manage-
ment practices nor been able to create a critical mass of educators, or
champions in the system. The resultant impact has been poor-quality stu-
dentship and a less than satisfactory level of teaching quality. The educa-
tion budget is about 14.4 per cent of the national budget, representing
only 2 per cent of GDP, even after 50 years of independence, and half of
what Bangabandhu envisaged. The Sustainable Development Goal 4—
Quality Education is far from being achieved, although the statistics dem-
onstrate an impressive set of indicators that adequately fulfil the quantitative
goals of the erstwhile Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). It appears
that the governance system of education at all levels is aiming to heighten
the gross enrolment and net enrolment and to decrease the dropout rates
at the school level.
Year Gross enrolment rate Net enrolment rate Dropout %

(GER) % (NER) %
Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls Total Boys Girls
Primary 2019 109.49 106.15 113.2 97.74 97.65 98.01 17.9 19.2 15.7
Secondary 2019 75.62 67.83 83.36 67.3 60.11 74.47 36.73 35.52 37.67
Source: Bangladesh Education Statistics (BES) (2019), Bangladesh Bureau of Educational Information
and Statistics (BANBEIS), Ministry of Education, Government of Bangladesh
These numbers look impressive, but do not truly follow the continuous
focus of the education projects in terms of their emphasis on access, equity,
quality and governance improvement (Secondary Education projects—
SESIP and SEDP, 2014, 2018). The Primary Education Development
Programme (PEDP) is in its fourth stage, with a Sector-wide approach
(SWAp) reflecting the following result areas: participation, learning out-
comes, reducing disparities, decentralization of school-level planning,
effective use of budgets, and programme planning and management.
There have been significant reforms and change management over the
last few decades related to decentralization, infrastructure, ICT for educa-
tion, gender parity from both student and teacher perspectives, decentral-
ization of planning at both primary and secondary level, curriculum
development and institutional arrangements related to continuous assess-
ment, and improvement in teacher training. There have also been positive
changes in the increase of students’ enrolment and significant decreases in
dropout rates in both the primary and secondary education sectors.
Despite these remarkable achievements, declining quality in the secondary
education system, reflected in public examination results, remains a major
concern. The major challenge lies in improvement in the quality of educa-
tion alongside its efforts for creating equitable access to education. The
issues of access, equity and quality, however, are intertwined, and must be
looked at in totality in an integrated manner, and the strategies to address
them must also look at the key areas simultaneously, not in a piecemeal
fashion. More investment in this sector is needed (at least 4 per cent of
GDP) as propagated in all the major education policies so far.
New thinking about teachers’ professionalism, status, role and means of
attracting the brightest into the profession is yet to become a national
agenda. Alongside the issue of secular curriculum, a common uniform for

boys and girls of all religions, as has been the case over decades in
Bangladesh, and an emphasis on graded creative subjects (music, art and
craft), together with compulsory excursions linked to students’ creative
thinking, health and hygiene issues, moral and ethical values, and exten-
sive training of teachers in these fields need to be institutionalized at all
levels of education.
On the occasion of Bangladesh’s 50th year of independence, the imper-
ative is to rededicate the educational endeavours of the country to the four
fundamental principles of the constitution—the ideals of nationalism,
socialism, democracy and secularism—and to fulfilling the fundamental
aim of the State to realize through the democratic process a socialist soci-
ety, free from exploitation, a society in which the rule of law, fundamental
human rights and freedom, equality and justice, political, economic and
social, will be secured for all citizens (The Constitution, 1972).
Fulfilling these principles reflecting Bangabandhu’s vision remains a
continuing challenge for the education system.
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Success and Its Consequences: Bangladesh’s
Health Report Card at 50
Olav Muurlink, Pratima Durga, Nabil Awan,

and Andrew Taylor-Robinson
Startling Progress
The only accurate snapshot we had of Bangladesh’s demographics at the
point of the nation’s birth was already almost a decade old: the census of
1961. The turmoil of the coming years meant that the next census would
not take place until well after the Liberation War, in 1974. The picture in
O. Muurlink (*) • P. Durga

N. Awan
Institute of Statistical Research and Training, University of Dhaka,
Dhaka, Bangladesh
A. Taylor-Robinson
College of Health Sciences, VIN University, Hanoi, Vietnam

340 O. MUURLINK ET AL.
1974 in the census was grim: Bangladesh was among the poorest nations
in the world, with poor capacity to spend where it needed the most, on
building its health infrastructure. With per capita income of roughly
$US144 (in 1985 dollars, according to World Bank figures) and a popula-
tion density of around 1400 per square mile (i.e. 2.6 square kilometres)
and 90% of the nation’s economy propped up by a system of subsistence
agriculture, survival rather than health was the question occupying the
minds of administrators. Half the nation was undernourished, life expec-
tancy was estimated at 40 for men and 45 for women (World Bank fig-
ures), and 15% of Bangladeshi children died in their first five years (Quddus
& Becker, 2000).
This level of uncertainty in Bangladeshi demographics has not entirely
disappeared, despite the British imperial legacy of painstaking bureaucracy
and record-keeping. Tracking what happened over the following 50 years
is at times an exercise that combines guesswork and stretching credibility.
Guesswork because a decade separates each formal census, and in the cru-
cial decade following 1961, the gap was stretched by circumstances, mean-
ing numbers were arrived at by statistical imposition rather than from
population surveys. In addition, with age limits set on entry to coveted
public service positions, parents engaged in the deliberate misrecording of
birth dates to ensure their offspring had a ‘longer youth’ in which to try
for public service exams. Even the records that are kept regarding some-
thing as definite as population thus need to be taken with a grain of salt.
Equally, the relatively reliable figures that do emerge from careful
record-keeping and research stretch credibility—such is the collective suc-
cess the nation has achieved on the health front. In five decades,
Bangladesh’s health system has undergone a wide range of reforms, achiev-
ing remarkable improvements in population health status by meeting sev-
eral targets of the Millennium Development Goals, notably the reduction
in the under-five mortality rate, containment of HIV infection, and detec-
tion and treatment rate of tuberculosis. The country has also made impres-
sive advancements in decreasing the prevalence of underweight children,
reducing the infant mortality rate and maternal mortality ratio, improving
coverage of immunisation and lowering the rate of communicable diseases
(UNDP, 2021).
During the mid-1970s, the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) for Bangladesh
hovered very close to 6 (Sirageldin et al., 1975); the latest figures from the
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics suggest that TFR has fallen to 2.1 (Lutz,
2013). However, other estimates put the value of TFR at 2.3 (NIPORT,
SUCCESS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES: BANGLADESH’S HEALTH REPORT… 341
2013). Notwithstanding the question mark about the exact values of the
summary fertility estimates, the consensus is that Bangladesh has reached
close to replacement-level fertility in a remarkable rush, dropping by
approximately a single child per family per decade. Life expectancy has
gone almost as rapidly in the opposite direction, rising from around 45
years of age when the nation was founded. These remarkable numbers are
both an important symptom and a source of economic growth—and of
structural strain. Dhaka division’s population had been growing at a
healthy rate—around a million a decade in the years prior to 1961—but
suddenly accelerated to around six million a decade (BBS, 2015).
These numbers also make Bangladesh a remarkable case study of what
can be achieved by the parallel implementation of public health interven-
tions, the broad embrace of modern medicine including contraceptives,
improvements in nutrition, food security and the education of women, as
well as the education of the population in general. Despite these striking
improvements in health outcomes, diseases of poverty, including malaria,
diarrhoea, dengue and tuberculosis, persist, along with malnutrition and
neonatal mortality (Bangladesh Planning Commission, 2015).
A Flexible Health System with an Inflexible Problem:

Human Resources
The Bangladeshi health system has expanded rapidly to cope with rapid
change: in 1973, 308 hospitals with just 10,449 beds could be counted,
and 40 years later, the number of hospitals more than doubled to 678, and
just short of 50,000 beds were available (WHO, 2015), more than keep-
ing pace with population growth. The Bangladeshi public health system is
highly centralised, with planning components handled by the Ministry of
Health and Family Welfare, like all other ministries based in Dhaka—and
with little real authority delegated to district let alone local level. The
Health Information System includes the Directorate General of Health
Services and the Directorate General of Family Planning. There is a divi-
sion of power when it comes to registration of doctors, dentists and nurses,
but their real authority over the destinies of medical providers is quite
weak (WHO, 2015). Real formal power is relatively difficult to exercise in
Bangladesh, and, as we shall see, one striking aspect of the nation’s medi-
cal care services is the chaotic informality with which they are delivered.
The exponential improvements of the past 50 years drive ambition

looking forward. In view of their commitment to achieving universal
health coverage (UHC) by 2032, policymakers in Bangladesh are consid-
ering options to increase coverage and enhance service quality by reform-
ing service delivery systems and governmental systems. One of the crucial
systemic hurdles to achieving UHC is the critical shortage of health work-
force, and thus human resource management, including retention of tal-
ent inside Bangladesh, is a focus of any initiative to achieve UHC
(El-Saharty et al., 2015). Around 10,000 new medical students enter
medical school each year (Islam et al., 2014), but graduates do not spread
evenly throughout the system to meet health needs. Instead, they cluster
in the cities, and service the middle class and wealthy to a disproportion-
ate degree.
The funding of medicine partially explains the puzzle, with a rapidly
emerging private healthcare sector, with its performance sensitive to finan-
cial incentives. According to the most recent Bangladesh National Health
Accounts, total spend on health stands at around US$ 2.3 billion, or US$
16.20 per person per year, of which almost two-thirds (64%) is drawn
from out-of-pocket expenses (WHO, 2015). Despite the great poverty of
the majority of the population, user-pay is thus a significant element of
Bangladeshi health. Uptake of health insurance is very low, with our
research showing that this is in part because health insurance providers are
not trusted to deliver at a time of personal health crisis.
Unorthodox Healthcare Innovation

The chronic shortage of qualified healthcare providers at point of need
thus presents a major challenge for the lower socioeconomic groups in
their capacity to prevent ill health and to seek appropriate healthcare
(Ahmed et al., 2013). The shortage to some degree drives the cost of
accessing the formal healthcare system. Furthermore, the World Bank
(2014) has underlined the critical impact of the lack of qualified and
trained medical personnel in rural areas—which, considering that
Bangladesh remains predominantly rural, is of particular concern. Our
research shows that for the health consumer, ‘remote’, if not ‘rural’, may
mean as little as a few kilometres between the consumer and the health
service they need to access. For those living close to a subsistence level,
even short distances offer a serious hurdle to access.
The Bangladeshi health system suffers from medical pluralism (Bhardwaj

& Paul, 1986; Mahmood et al., 2010; WHO, 2015), with four main par-
ticipants defining the structure and function of the system: the govern-
ment, private sector, nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) and donor
agencies (WHO, 2015). In this system, a formal health sector comprising
professionally trained healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses, mid-
wives, dentists and allied professionals such as chemists and physiothera-
pists (World Health Organization, 2010) coexists with an informal health
sector consisting of a significant cadre of providers comprising semi-qual-
ified practitioners (e.g. community health workers, medical assistants and
midwives), unqualified allopathic practitioners (i.e. those using conven-
tional medicines or surgery) medical providers (e.g. chemist shops retail-
ers, village doctors) and traditional healers (providers of homeopathic and
Ayurvedic treatment).
The formal health force crisis is characterised not just by acute short-
age, but also issues of unbalanced skill mix and inequitable distribution
(WHO, 2015). Proposed interventions and strategies to increase attrac-
tion and retention of health workers in remote and rural areas have lacked
effectiveness and viability in the long run (Dolea et al., 2010).
Despite the inflow of 10,000 new graduates to practise medicine each
year (Islam et al., 2014), this cohort often resists assignments to rural
postings. In cases where rural assignments are accepted, absenteeism is rife
(Chaudhury & Hammer, 2004; Joarder et al., 2018; Sadiq & Ahmed,
2020). Rural and remote locations are therefore underserviced by quali-
fied healthcare practitioners despite strong government intervention, con-
trol and even incentives in conducting graduate geographical assignments.
The dearth of qualified medical professionals, including allied health pro-
fessionals and nurses, creates a major challenge for the lower socioeco-
nomic groups to seek appropriate healthcare (Ahmed et al., 2013).
The low retention of qualified medical professionals coupled with high
levels of absenteeism in rural clinics and health centres exacerbates the
challenges of accessing regulated health services in the underserved regions
(Darkwa et al., 2015). While the national vacancy rate for doctor-level
positions is 39%, the rate climbs to 58.5% in rural health facilities. This
problem is aggravated by the high rate of absenteeism—58.75% country-
wide (Sadiq & Ahmed, 2020). Monitoring of doctors’ activities at the
rural level is difficult, and the policing of postings is often circumvented by
corruption, and monitoring and enforcement is patchy (Rawal et al., 2015).
In response to the inadequate provision of formal health services, the

‘village doctor’ or palli chikitshok fills the vacuum. These are not a minor-
ity group of healthcare practitioners, but a veritable army serving on the
front line of healthcare in rural and remote regions. It is difficult to estab-
lish the exact numbers of Rural Medical Practitioners (RMPs) dispensing
their services, diagnosing patients, prescribing and selling prescription
medicine in unlicenced and unregistered pharmacies, but research (2013)
suggests the figure is around 185,000. These unregistered medical practi-
tioners represent 95% of the country’s health workforce (Billah et al.,
2018) and this situation is unlikely to change in the near future as the
RMPs have become culturally entrenched in the rural communities and
are increasingly gaining in popularity (Ahmed et al., 2013; Billah et al.,
2018; Mahmood, 2012; Mahmood et al., 2010).
While formally Bangladesh has a strict regulatory structure not unlike
the developed world, it is clear that in remote regions, where doctors, let
alone regulators, are rare, the regulations are simply ignored, with little
fear of retribution. The country has a comprehensive set of strategies to
promote UHC; however, there are barriers on the ground to the imple-
mentation of the policies, namely human resources issues, health systems
governance, political interference, and lack of monitoring and supervision
(Joarder et al., 2019). These shortfalls on the supply side of healthcare
services are coupled with issues on the consumer demand side as well:
social and cultural mores, the legacy of traditional care systems, and the
high trust of the rural population in the unqualified but entrepreneurial
village doctor (Ahmed et al., 2013; Joarder et al., 2019; Mahmood et al.,
2010). Results from a previous study show that RMPs are the first choice
of treatment in most cases and, in some cases, the only choice for the rural
people irrespective of socioeconomic status (Mahmood et al., 2010).
In addition to science-based medicine being dispensed by these RMPS,
homeopathy, Ayurvedic/Unani, herbal medicine and spiritual healing are
also common, not only in rural areas where access is a driver of consumer
preference (Karmakar et al., 2012), with patients often seeking alternative
medicines in addition to pharmaceuticals (Hasan et al., 2019). Studies
which analyse the reasons behind the satisfaction of the community with
village doctors reported the round-the-clock availability of the rural doc-
tors as the main reason for their choice, followed by the provision of home
visits, lower or no consultation fees, and the convenience of “one-stop
service for treatment and medicine”, among others (Cockcroft et al., 2007).
This is a remarkable result, considering that our research shows that

these practitioners have no more than a few weeks of medical training, but
find themselves armed with a significant arsenal of modern medical tools—
namely pharmaceuticals. ‘Western’ medicine is being exercised by ama-
teurs working in an almost entirely unregulated market. That they are able
to ‘safely’ do so, year after year, often in the poor rural and remote com-
munities where they were born and reside, is testament to the background
patterns of ill health that their clientele suffer from. Patients in poor com-
munities generally have a fatalistic attitude, which allows RMPS to be
rarely blamed or held accountable for their low standards of care (Ahmed
et al., 2009).
Potential Dire Consequences of Deregulation

The lack of enforcement may stimulate growth and innovation in the pro-
vision of healthcare services inasmuch as the regulatory authorities are
turning a blind eye to practices in remote regions, thereby passively con-
ferring a degree of acceptability. A village doctor’s practice in rural
Bangladesh does not take place behind closed doors, but is positioned in
public, literally in the market streets of villages.
Although the importance of unqualified informal practice in meeting
market needs is recognised (Ahmed et al., 2009; El Arifeen et al., 2013;
Parkhurst et al., 2006; Salim et al., 2006), researchers have identified real
health risks in this laissez faire system. Research conducted by the authors
and additionally by Rasu et al. (2014) raises questions of quality of care
provided by unqualified practitioners and the potential for iatrogenesis.
While village doctors are ready to ‘refer’ patients presenting with more
serious symptoms to the formal medical sector, their income and status
seem to depend on their willingness to prescribe allopathic medicine,
including controlled or restricted prescription medicines, and, perhaps
most importantly, antibiotics. The risky practices include overprescribing,
multidrug prescribing, use of unnecessary drugs and misuse of antibiotics
(WHO, 2015). A majority of RMPs carry the dual role of prescriber and
dispenser of allopathic medicine and they have almost unlimited access to
prescribing and selling medicine, including antibiotics(Ahmed & Hossain,
2007). Our research shows that the majority are dependent on the sale of
drugs for their income: they offer their ‘professional’ services for free.
WHO numbers suggest that there are approximately 70,000 unlicenced
‘pharmacies’ enabling irrational drug use, for example the
overprescription of medication and misuse of antibiotics (WHO, 2015).

However, our research and research conducted in partnership with the
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh
(ICDDR,B) shows that in rural and remote areas, over 90% of RMPS sell
pharmaceuticals—and indeed draw on pharmaceutical sales representa-
tives for their ‘training’.
Antibiotics are a particular focal point for concern, with prescribing or
overprescribing problems exacerbated by patients completing only a par-
tial course of antibiotics. Ninety-five per cent of the RMPs we interviewed
admitted to prescribing antibiotics but dispensing only a few tablets or
capsules instead of a whole course because of consumers’ limited ability to
pay. A pair of scissors is often one of the most visible tools of trade in an
RMP’s ‘clinic’, used to cut off whatever quantity of pills the consumer can
afford to buy. Previous studies have drawn attention to the dire conse-
quences of the overuse and misuse of antibiotics (Afari-Asiedu et al., 2020;
Ahmed et al., 2019; Ahmed & Hossain, 2007; Ahmed & Islam, 2012;
Mahmood et al., 2010).
The Triumph of Public Health in Bangladesh

With life expectancy now at highly respectable levels thought to be in
excess of 70 years of age for men and women, the question becomes how
Bangladesh has managed to achieve such remarkable improvements. Our
research (Khan et al., 2018, 2020a, 2020b) matches the work done by
many other teams showing the interlinked power of education and socio-
economic status in determining health outcomes, and as the economy
strengthens, the ability to access better health in what is a remarkably
unregulated market will improve.
It is arguable, however, that targeted public health expenditure, less
glamorous than building either new hospitals or new schools, has been the
real driver of change. Public health expenditure is often used as a marker
of the resolve of policymakers in their goal to reduce health disparities
(Barlow, 2020). Considering the distance the nation has come, the spend-
ing patterns then sound a note of concern. Between 1997 and 2007, pub-
lic spending on medicines and medical goods out of the public purse
increased almost seven-fold in absolute terms, and relative to total public
expenditure on health more than doubled from 5% in 1997 to 14% during
that period, while the figures on public health merely doubled as an abso-
lute amount, and as a share of total public health expenditure decreased by
8% (WHO, 2015). Considering that the platform of the nation’s success

was built not through medical practitioners or grand hospitals but through
a revolution in sanitation and the provision of safe and arsenic-free (Brinkel
et al., 2009) water, this trend is worrying.
The tragic conditions suffered by Bangladeshi refugees expelled during
the Liberation War ended up being a turning point in the nation’s public
health triumph. Oral rehydration therapy, developed by the ICDDR,B,
was used in the worst cases observed in the 350,000 refugees living in the
camp in West Bengal. When the medical team led by Dr Dilip Mahalanabis
ran out of intravenous fluids, oral glucose-salt packets were substituted,
with dramatic, life-saving results. Cholera, driven by faecal-oral infec-
tions—still a key vector of disease burden in low-income contexts—is no
longer a death sentence in Bangladesh, but this is not to say the work of
ensuring access to good sanitation is complete. A recent study conducted
in Bangladesh (Foster et al., 2021) shows the potential for further improve-
ment and the need to maintain this most basic of public health infrastruc-
ture. Foster and his team estimate that comprehensive coverage of septic
tanks reduces the disease burden in disability-adjusted life years (DALYs)
by 48–72%, while ensuring that septic systems are anaerobic and com-
pletely covered reduces DALYs by 67–81% (Foster et al., 2021). The
COVID crisis reinforced the importance of improving in another very
basic form of preventative health, handwashing, which is still less common
amongst the very population most vulnerable to diarrheal disease (Luby
et al., 2009). Bangladesh is not free of the threat of diseases such as typhoid
or leprosy that are almost considered diseases of another century in the
developed world. Food shortages continue to be linked to the outbreak of
clinical manifestations of leprosy in the nation’s northwest, and these pop-
ulations would benefit from targeted nutritional supplements (Feenstra
et al., 2011). These are the ‘easy wins’ of public health, where low levels
of investment can be leveraged into significant achievement in wealth.
Even the rise of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) associated with
wealth (such as diabetes and heart disease) may on the surface mask the
value of public health investment in achieving further improvements in
health outcomes, but chronic non-communicable diseases are increasingly
beginning to undermine social and economic development in much of the
developing world, including Bangladesh, and increasingly, lower socioeco-
nomic groups are implicated in NCD statistics. The lower socioeconomic
status community experience greater prevalence of comorbidities com-
pared to wealthier communities (Biswas et al., 2016).
The Future: Growth in Private Health

and a Continuing Shortfall in Public Investment
In the background of Bangladesh’s dynamic healthcare sector another

revolution is taking place, less dramatic than those that characterised the
first 50 years, but with major implications nonetheless. Private healthcare
expenditure has been increasing while public healthcare expenditure (in
proportional terms) has been decreasing. Private healthcare expenditure in
Bangladesh, measured as a proportion of GDP, is positively correlated
with total healthcare expenditure and healthcare expenditure per capita
(Mahumud et al., 2015), so the growth of the sector has positive implica-
tions for the overall strength of the sector. The United Nations in its reso-
lution adopted by the General Assembly (2015) declares that it is essential
that governments in developing countries increase the national health
budget in order to tackle major health issues; however, this is not happen-
ing in Bangladesh. Furthermore, in a study on the impact of health spend-
ing on life expectancy, Obrizan and Wehby (2018) established that
increasing government spending on health budget expenditure has signifi-
cant effects on reducing inequalities. To actualise inclusive social develop-
ment, it is necessary to safeguard people’s rights to health access. It is
therefore imperative for governments to invest adequately in healthcare
systems in order to “close the gaps in human capabilities that help per-
petuate inequalities and poverty across generations” (UN System Task
Team on the Post-2015 UN Development Agenda, 2012, p.32).
The COVID crisis illustrated the strengths and weaknesses of
Bangladesh’s health system, showing that strong government control over
the population in times of crisis can serve to moderate the impact of public
health catastrophes. There are a range of reasons, including cultural and
social ones, as to why Bangladesh appeared to be shielded from the worst
of the first and second waves of the virus (Muurlink & Taylor-Robinson,
2020), but Bangladesh’s strong public health system, and the high degree
of trust that individuals, even in rural and remote regions, display in mod-
ern medicine has reaped rewards during this crisis. The other ongoing
health challenge is likely to be the Rohingya crisis. The Rohingya peoples
are the world’s largest displaced population. The crisis is in some senses a
health snapshot of Bangladesh compressed into less than five years, with
hunger, funding shortfalls, communicable diseases and high population
density combining to create a significant human tragedy. Bangladesh has a
relatively skeletal mental health system, although increasingly one can
observe counsellors and psychologists assigned to district hospitals to deal

with acute mental health challenges. The Bangladeshi system is not set up
to deal with mental health trauma on the scale presented by the Rohingya
catastrophe. The experience in the camps appears to be amplifying the
residual trauma caused by displacement, with PTSD, depression and func-
tional impairment higher than at comparative camps in Malaysia (Khan &
Haque, 2021). The camps are characterised by lack of access to safe water,
sanitation (UNCF, 2017) and hygiene, clearly a set of challenges the host
country has faced before, but not one it was previously asked to tackle on
behalf of the global community. Children make up a disproportionate per-
centage of the camp population, with the associated challenges of vac-
cines, nutritional support and even education not being adequately met.
The camps lack the capacity to deal with the challenges of maternal health,
sexual violence and health (Islam & Nuzhath, 2018) despite an outpour-
ing of international aid and attention. In a sense, then, the Rohingya crisis
and the associated health challenges represent a return to the challenges
that characterised the early years of Bangladesh, as recorded elsewhere in
this volume.
These challenges need to be added to the structural challenges that
remain in Bangladesh despite the startling success embedded in the ‘head-
line numbers’ of life expectancy, infant mortality and fertility rates
remarked on earlier. In fact, the kernel of potential catastrophes lies buried
inside these successes. We have touched on the threat of antibiotic abuse,
for example. In addition, due to the success in extending life expectancy,
population growth or decline in Bangladesh will continue well beyond the
time at which replacement-level fertility has been achieved, a phenomenon
referred to as population momentum. The simplest explanation for why
population momentum occurs is that adults commonly live beyond their
child-bearing years. Bongaarts (1994) has estimated that momentum
accounts for nearly one-half of the projected future population growth in
the developing world over the next century, but the two key components
of population momentum, age composition and fertility rate, are in rapid
flux in Bangladesh, representing an extreme case of demographic transi-
tion (Coale, 1989) in the world’s seventh most populous nation.
Our research suggests that the age profile of Bangladesh will be dra-
matically restructured as the country achieves stationarity in population.
Current higher density in younger age groups will contribute to a long-
term substantial growth in raw numbers of Bangladeshis despite achieve-
ments in reducing fertility.
As a result, in proportional terms the number of females in Bangladesh

in the 0–14 category, for example, will decrease sharply, and those over 65
will rise even more sharply—in fact this sector will rise in proportional
terms by almost five-fold. The increase in retirees will greatly outstrip the
increase in the population of those who are typically thought to support
them—those of ‘working age’—by around 4.25 times. While ‘working
age’ according to labour law in Bangladesh is set at 14, around 1.3 million
children between the age of 5 and 14 are estimated to be working in
Bangladesh (USDOL, 2012). The population of those in this extended
‘working ‘category is also not going to expand rapidly, and thus the bur-
den on those working will undoubtedly substantially increase, adding
pressure on Bangladesh to improve labour productivity, address social
security and reorder its tax system, which currently relies on a very narrow
base of taxpayers both amongst SMEs (Faridy, 2012) and individual tax-
payers, with less than 1% of the population paying income tax (Karim,
2013). This has clear and serious implications for the provision of the kind
of health care system that Bangladesh is aspiring to as it moves out of Least
Developed Country status. Bangladesh will need to be agile and innova-
tive in bringing its army of informal health care providers into the fold, by
offering flexible training to those already showing remarkable aptitude
and willingness to work with science-based medical systems. The informal
health care system is the first port of call for the majority. The minority can
hope to access a new breed of ambitious, well-equipped hospitals follow-
ing the Indian model, emerging in key centres like Dhaka and Chittagong.
These hospitals are designed to attract and serve wealthy Bangladeshi
patients/clients currently choosing offshore options in India, Singapore
and Thailand. They are staffed by internationally trained specialists, and
equipped with all the paraphernalia of modern medicine. Their business
models are partly shaped around attracting international clientele, but
they may well form a more important part of Bangladesh’s economic suc-
cess than its remarkable health care story.
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The Emerging Diaspora of Bangladesh: Fifty
Years of Overseas Movements
and Settlements
Nazli Kibria
Migration and displacement are integral to the history of the Bengal

region. The end of British rule over South Asia in 1947, accompanied by
the partition of India, spurred one of the largest mass migrations in his-
tory, involving an estimated fifteen million people. As violence along reli-
gious lines exploded, displaced Hindus and Muslims moved between
India and Pakistan. Movements across national borders are thus part of a
regional history that predates Bangladesh as an independent state in 1971.
However, it is only after 1971 that we see the development of distinctively
Bangladeshi international migration flows and settlements, defined by
their relationship to and identification with Bangladesh as a nation-state.
In this chapter I examine the emergence of the diaspora of Bangladesh
over the fifty years since the country’s independence in 1971. I focus on
the growth of Bangladeshi-origin communities in three major destina-
tions—the UK, the US and the GCC (Gulf Cooperation Council) states.
N. Kibria (*)
Boston University, Boston, MA, USA

356 N. KIBRIA
The notion of “diaspora” suggests the movement and dispersal of people

who affirm a shared identity based on place of origin (Cohen, 2008;
Safran, 1991). In my analysis I draw on Brubaker’s (2005) interpretation
of diaspora as a “category of practice…used to make claims, to articulate
projects, to formulate expectations, to mobilize energies, to appeal to loy-
alties” (12). I explore the diaspora of Bangladesh, not as a stable forma-
tion and identity but as an ongoing and contested political project that is
shaped by state policies and shifting community identities.
From Sojourners to Settlers: The Emergence

of a British Bangladeshi Diaspora
From 1947 to 1971, during the period of Pakistani rule, movement

abroad was limited for the Bengalis of East Pakistan, present-day
Bangladesh. The central government of Pakistan, tightly controlled by the
West Pakistani elite, pursued policies of political and economic dominance
of West over East Pakistan. In essence, East Pakistan came to operate as an
“internal colony,” providing raw materials such as jute, tea, and paper to
West Pakistan-controlled corporations and receiving little investment in its
own infrastructure. The Bengalis of East Pakistan were constrained in
their ability to pursue international migration opportunities by these con-
ditions of economic underdevelopment as well as discriminatory state
practices such as the routine denial of passports for travel (Adams, 1987).
Despite these constraints, the Pakistani era did see the development of
a migration circuit between the region of Sylhet (Northeast Bangladesh)
and Britain. The roots of this circuit lay in the nineteenth-century history
of young men from Sylhet who found work as lascars or sailors on British
ships that carried goods from the region. Some of them left their ships in
London and other British seaports, where they took up work as peddlers,
or as cooks and cleaners in restaurants and hotels. The experiences of these
pioneering seamen created a culture of migration in the region with
enduring social networks between Sylhet and Britain. This culture nur-
tured migration flows from Sylhet to Britain in response to the opportuni-
ties provided by the 1948 Nationality Act in Britain. Passed at a time of
labor shortages, the Act allowed unrestricted entry to the citizens of for-
mer British colonies.
The Bengalis who went to Britain in the post-World War II years tended
to be young men from rural Sylhet with relatively low levels of education.
THE EMERGING DIASPORA OF BANGLADESH: FIFTY YEARS OF OVERSEAS… 357
Their numbers in Britain rose from 2000 in 1951 to 6000 in 1961. The
decades that followed saw rapid growth (from 22,000 in 1971 to 65,000 in
1981) as the community began to sponsor family members (Kibria, 2011).
The expansion coincided, somewhat ironically, with a period of tightening
immigration laws in Britain. The Commonwealth Immigration Act of
1962 rescinded the unrestricted entry previously allowed Commonwealth
citizens and also introduced a system of vouchers whereby those already in
Britain could sponsor others to come in by obtaining guaranteed jobs for
them. The Immigration Act of 1971, coinciding with the birth of
Bangladesh, brought further restrictions, limiting sponsorship to family
members and eventually only to those of the immediate family. Besides the
sponsorship of family members by British citizens of Bangladeshi origin,
movements from Bangladesh to Britain in the late twentieth and early
twenty-first centuries have primarily involved students going abroad for
higher education (Anthias, 2008).
In 2011, the UK Census recorded nearly half a million residents of
Bangladeshi ethnicity. The Bangladeshi origin community has changed in
important ways over time, from one composed largely of men who saw
themselves as temporary labor migrants to families with multiple genera-
tions of British settlement. However, intergenerational socioeconomic
disadvantage has been persistent, with continuing high levels of poverty
and concentration in less skilled service sector jobs among British
Bangladeshis (Kibria, 2011, p. 90). Almost half of the expatriate popula-
tion live in London, especially in the East London boroughs. The practice
of families arranging the marriages of their British-born children to young
men and women from Bangladesh has been one means by which the com-
munity has maintained its distinctive identity. In the face of restrictive
British immigration laws, these marriages have offered a means for the
community to replenish its ranks, as young men and women have entered
the UK from Bangladesh through marriage to British citizens. However,
these transnational marriages have also been a focus of controversy and
scrutiny by British officials for evidence of “forced marriage” or marriages
arranged against the will of those involved (Kibria, 2012).
The 1971 independence of Bangladesh brought crucial developments
in political identity and orientation for the community in Britain. In
essence, the birth of Bangladesh nationalized the British Bengali commu-
nity and transformed its relationship to the homeland state. During the
postwar era of undivided Pakistan (1947–1971), the resources of the
homeland state were largely inaccessible and bereft of value as arenas of
358 N. KIBRIA
protection and affirmation for migrants. The struggles of 1971 drew on

these grievances, and gave powerful meaning and expression to them
through a framework of nationalism. The community rallied to support
the liberation forces and forged a history tied to the emergence of
Bangladesh, moving away from the exclusively regional conceptions and
loyalties of the past. The diaspora gained a connection with a distinct
nation, rather than just districts, towns, and villages.
Along with an identification with Bangladesh as a nation-state, the
1970s were a period of integration into British politics. Grassroots organi-
zations working to ensure the community’s access to adequate public
housing and other resources proliferated. Led by politicized Bangladeshi-
origin youth, these groups mobilized the community to participate in the
broader anti-racist movement of the time, forged in response to the rise of
the British National Front, a right-wing political movement. These devel-
opments paved the way for an enduring pattern of community participa-
tion and leadership in local British politics. In 2010 Lutfur Rahman, of
Bangladeshi descent, was elected mayor of Tower Hamlets. And in 2019,
four British Bangladeshi women (Tulip Siddiq, Rushanara Ali, Rupa Huq,
and Apsana Begum) representing the Labour Party were elected to
Parliament.
Participation in British politics has been accompanied by political
involvements in Bangladesh, especially since the restoration of democracy
in Bangladesh in the early 1990s following a long period of military rule.
This change has been important for British Bangladeshis, enabling them
to play a greater political role in Bangladesh, especially in Sylhet. They
have done so through support and funding of candidates for elections at
both the national and local level and in some cases by running for office
themselves.
To summarize, identification with the nationalist project of Bangladesh,
enduring ties with communities of origin, and participation in local British
politics are all important features of the British Bangladeshi diaspora.
However, the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries have also been
a time of transition, especially with respect to the community’s identifica-
tion with Bangladesh. This reflects a shift in the British Bangladeshi demo-
graphic profile toward greater proportions of people born and raised in
the UK and with less attachment to Bangladesh. In addition, the commu-
nity has experienced religious and political movements that emphasize
belonging and loyalty to the global community of Islam over national
ones. Those growing up in the post-9/11 British political landscape, with
its War on Terror policies, Islamophobia, and rising British-Muslim orga-

nizations, may see their identification with Bangladesh as less meaningful
than their membership in the Islamic Ummah—a transnational supra-geo-
graphical community of fellow Muslims that transcends nationality and
other bases of community (Kibria, 2011).
Middle-Class Migrations and the Bangladeshi

American Diaspora
The independence of Bangladesh in 1971 generated an expansion in the
ranks of the middle class due to a new growth of employment opportuni-
ties in the public administration sector. Since that time, the Bangladeshi
middle class has grown and stratified to include professionals, business
owners, and white-collar workers in the financial and retail industries as
well as the burgeoning NGO sector. Like their counterparts in China,
India and South Korea, middle-class Bangladeshis have sought educa-
tional credentials abroad with the goal of enhancing status, earnings and
the potential for obtaining overseas employment. Besides the UK,
Australia, Canada, Japan, Malaysia and the US have been important edu-
cational destinations (Anthias, 2008).
Closely entwined with these trends of educational migration, middle-
class Bangladeshis have sought to take advantages of opportunities for
migration and settlement in the Global North. In a “brain drain” that is
widespread in the developing world, Bangladeshis holding professional
credentials and skills that are valued in the global market have migrated in
response to lucrative and attractive employment opportunities in the
developed world that are far superior to what is available to them in
Bangladesh. Unlike during the era of Pakistan, these efforts have not been
stymied by state efforts to discourage these movements through the denial
of passports and thus the right to travel. Besides the possibility of better
employment opportunities for themselves abroad, family migration to the
developed world has been driven by the goal of acquiring globally recog-
nized educational credentials for their children. Also of relevance is the
growth of middle-class consumption in early twenty-first-century
Bangladesh that is oriented toward the global market. As is the case in
neighboring India as well as in other parts of the world, this “new middle
class,” as it is often called, is defined by its taste for globally branded goods,
whether electronics or fast food. Under a neoliberal global regime,
360 N. KIBRIA
migration and settlement in the developed world has been informed by

goals of upward mobility through a lifestyle that satisfies emergent con-
sumption standards.
With the growth of Bangladeshi-origin communities in the developed
world, the Bangladeshi state has faced questions of how best to engage
with these expatriates in order to leverage their resources and energies in
service of the development of the country. This concern has drawn inspira-
tion from the much-heralded diaspora role in two of the world’s most
important growing economies—China and India. Like “NRI” (Non-
Resident Indian) in India, “NRB,” or “Non-Resident Bangladeshi,” has
emerged as an official category of identification, suggesting a particular
connection and attendant privileges with respect to the Bangladeshi state.
These range from special NRB eligibility for certain kinds of foreign cur-
rency bank accounts in Bangladesh to the official waiver of Bangladeshi
visa fees and requirements for NRBs who are traveling to Bangladesh on a
foreign passport. The official designation of “Commercially Important
Person” (CIP) has been awarded to some highly prominent NRBs, giving
them public recognition as well as access to the privileges that are normally
reserved for high-level government officials in Bangladesh, such as police
protection. The Dual Nationality policy of Bangladesh, which allows those
who are foreign citizens of Bangladeshi origin (as well as the children born
to them) to become citizens or to affirm their citizenship, has also institu-
tionalized NRB status. Here it is important to note that many of these
developments have stemmed from the demands of NRBs themselves. As
the Bangladeshi presence abroad has grown, so too have expatriate
demands for greater, easier and more meaningful involvements with
Bangladesh. For example, since the early 2000s, segments of the diaspora
have vigorously lobbied for the extension of voting rights to expatriates
for elections in Bangladesh.
The Bangladeshi diaspora in the US has seen significant growth since
the 1980s. In 1990 there were 21,749 foreign-born Bangladeshis in the
US, rising in number to 188,000 in 2015 (PEW, 2015). Besides taking
advantage of employment-based immigration entry laws, Bangladeshi
migration to the US has been driven by family sponsorship and the
Diversity Program. Popularly known as the Green Card Lottery, the
Diversity Program offers a certain number of US entry slots to citizens
(randomly selected) of countries that have sent fewer than 50,000 people
to the US in the past five years. The largest concentration of Bangladeshis
is in New York, followed by the Washington D.C., Detroit, and
Dallas-Fort Worth regions. From “Little Bangladesh” in Los Angeles,

California, to “Bangla Town” in Hamtramck, Michigan, visible Bangladeshi
neighborhoods with stores, restaurants and businesses have emerged in
metropolitan areas across the US.
Bangladeshi American ethnic enclaves in Jackson Heights and Elmhurst
in New York, “Little Bangladesh” in Los Angeles, California, and “Bangla
Town” in Hamtramck, Michigan, stand out with their spicy and aromatic
foods, colorfully decorated shops and restaurants, and high volume of
deshi music.
Bangladeshi Americans form varieties of community organizations
including political parties aligned with major political parties in Bangladesh,
cultural organizations, hometown associations, professional associations,
and religious organizations. The Federation of Bangladeshi Associations
in North America (FOBANA) represents these community organizations
and associations in the US. It celebrates Bangladeshi Americans’ success
and introduces their vibrant culture to the multicultural US. It organizes
grand cultural conventions annually in different cities with large multi-
ethnic populations. Celebrity singers, musicians, intellectuals, and other
notable figures from Bangladesh come and perform at these conventions.
In addition, the community organizations celebrate International
Mother Language Day on February 21 in commemorating the Language
Movement in Bangladesh, the Independence Day of Bangladesh on March
26, Bengali New Year on April 14 and Victory Day on December 16. The
community organizations and associations also host various other cultural
events regionally and locally year-round. In addition, the Muslims among
Bangladeshi Americans join other Muslims and Hindus with other Hindus
around the world to celebrate major religious events like Eid and Puja
respectively.
Bangladeshis are known for political activism. Political debates are
essential elements in their daily public conversations as well as leisurely
community engagement. Thus, almost every city in the US with notable
Bangladeshi Americans has branches of the mainstream political parties in
Bangladesh. The celebration of Bangladeshi national days is often observed
separately by these competing factions. Notable political leaders of
Bangladesh often visit them. Their transnational engagement in Bangladesh
politics is so strong that several Bangladeshi Americans have been elected
as members of parliament in Bangladesh and became ministers in the gov-
erning cabinet.
362 N. KIBRIA
Reflecting its largely middle-class origins, 48% of Bangladeshis in the

US hold college degrees, higher than the rate reported for all Americans
(30%) and slightly lower than for all Asian Americans (51%). PEW (2015)
shows the 2015 median household income for Bangladeshi Americans to
be $49,800, far less than the figure of $73,060 reported for Asian
Americans. Rates of poverty are also higher—24.2% for Bangladeshis com-
pared to 12.1% for Asians and 15.1% for all Americans. Underlying these
figures are widespread experiences of downward occupational mobility for
immigrants. In the context of the US, some college-educated Bangladeshi
immigrants find themselves unable to reap rewards from their education
and experience due to weak English-language skills, the devaluation by US
employers of educational credentials from Bangladesh, and employment
discrimination.
Since the 1980s, a variety of Bangladeshi organizations have mush-
roomed across the US. By affirming a sense of Bangladeshi community
and identity, these groups support the emergence of a Bangladeshi
American diaspora. Even though they are typically marked by multiple and
evolving goals, the organizations can be broadly categorized by their pri-
mary stated mission. Those with the longest history in America are the
cultural associations based in different parts of the US (e.g., Bangladesh
Association of Chicagoland) that aim to facilitate and encourage the prac-
tice of cultural traditions as well as foster a sense of community among
Bangladeshis in the area. They often organize social and cultural events,
such as annual picnics, Bangladesh Independence Day celebrations, and
cultural shows featuring celebrity singers and performers from Bangladesh.
They may also hold Bengali language classes for children on the weekends
and conduct fundraisers for charity and disaster relief efforts in Bangladesh.
While the emphasis is on social gatherings and cultural activities, some also
work to establish ties with local US political representatives and authorities
in an effort to gain recognition and support for their projects. In 1987,
the Federation of Bangladeshi Associations in North America (FOBANA)
was established as an umbrella organization for Bangladeshi organizations
across the US. FOBANA’s trademark event is an annual convention that is
a multi-day event showcasing Bangladeshi culture and businesses.
Another type of community association is the HTA (Hometown
Association) which brings together those from a specific locale in
Bangladesh with the goal of fostering social ties among them and collec-
tively engaging in good works back in the home community. There are
also alumni associations based on affiliation with schools and universities
in Bangladesh, as well as occupation-based groups such as the American

Association of Bangladeshi Engineers and Architects. The activities of
these associations typically include annual meetings, newsletters, internet
chat groups, and fundraising for scholarships in Bangladesh. Perhaps the
most controversial groups are those that are affiliated with the political
parties in Bangladesh (e.g., Awami League of New England). At various
times since the 1990s, political leaders in Bangladesh (especially when they
are in power) have expressed concern about the activities of these overseas
branches and chapters and their role in strengthening the political opposi-
tion and fomenting political conflicts in Bangladesh.
Religion has played an important role in the immigrant experience in
the US, often serving as a vehicle of integration and assimilation into the
mainstream dominant society (Williams, 1988). For Bangladeshis, reli-
gious attendance in the US, whether at mosques, temples or churches, has
been a vehicle of integration into broader multi-ethnic religious commu-
nities. Concurrently, Muslims (the majority religion of the population)
have built religious institutions that are specifically focused on Bangladeshi
membership. These formations range in scope and size. The national-level
association NABIC—North American Bangladeshi Islamic Community—
holds annual conventions with seminars on such topics as education in
Islamic schools and the concerns of Muslim youth in the US, featuring
speakers from such major Islamic American associations as CAIR (Council
on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North
America). Activities dedicated to Bangladesh, such as projects to provide
eye care for the poor and safe drinking water for rural families, are another
major focus of NABIC. In New York, Bangladeshi Americans have devel-
oped the Jamaica Muslim Center, a multifaceted organization that includes
a mosque, religious academy, youth groups and a school. Beyond these
large-scale developments, “storefront” mosques, prayer rooms and infor-
mal religious study groups held in private homes are part of Bangladeshi
Muslim American life. Prior to the increasingly stringent immigration
policies that followed 9/11 (the 2001 terrorist attacks on the US), the
formation of Bangladeshi mosques was facilitated by the R1 visa, a non-
immigrant US visa that allows ministers and other specified categories of
religious workers to work in religious institutions in the US for a period of
up to five years and eventually to apply for permanent residence.
As in the case of the UK, the Bangladeshi diaspora in the US has seen
the growth of pan-Muslim identities, especially among the younger gen-
erations who have grown up in the US. As among other Muslim
364 N. KIBRIA
immigrant groups, there has been a trend toward “Muslim first” whereby
ethnic and national origin identities are given secondary importance to
that of Muslim. The notion of being “Muslim American” gains form,
meaning and significance through a synergy of conditions, from anti-
Muslim racism and the growth of Muslim American politics to the dimin-
ishing attachments to Bangladesh among those growing up in the US.
Labor Migrations and Bangladeshi Communities

in the GCC States
Starting in the 1980s, national and global forces converged to usher in an

era of expanding international migration for Bangladesh. The major com-
ponent of these movements is labor migration directed toward the oil-
producing GCC states—Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates (UAE). In 2015–2018, an estimated 4.2 mil-
lion Bangladeshi nationals were residing in the GCC states, many in Saudi
Arabia (Sorkar, 2020). Although the GCC states, especially Saudi Arabia,
remain the major destination, since the 1990s labor migration flows have
expanded to include a wider range of countries, such as Malaysia,
Singapore, Jordan and Lebanon. These movements have been supported
by regimes of neoliberalism that affirm the interdependence of national
economies and support policies of free trade and movements of interna-
tional capital.
In 2019, remittances were the second largest source of foreign earnings
for Bangladesh, after the garment exports industry. The country received
US $18.3 billion via remittances sent via formal channels in 2019, 73% of
which came from the GCC countries (Sorkar, 2020). Reflecting these
trends, successive Bangladeshi governments have actively encouraged
labor migration flows. In 2002, the Ministry of Expatriates’ Welfare and
Overseas Employment was created with the goal of facilitating labor
migration, exploring new labor markets and ensuring the welfare of
Bangladeshi migrant workers. More broadly, labor migration has been an
important focus of foreign policy as Bangladesh has engaged in diplomatic
negotiations to ensure that overseas labor markets remain open to their
citizens. At various times, receiving countries have placed bans on the
entry of less skilled workers from Bangladesh, citing irregularities in the
recruitment and placement pipeline and the growth of an undocumented
Bangladeshi population. Concurrently, the Bangladeshi government has
faced intense criticism for its failure to protect its labor migrant citizens
from the abuses of the system, especially from mistreatment by employers
and exploitation by recruiting agents.
The majority of labor migration out of Bangladesh has involved work-
ers who are recruited on temporary contracts for low-skilled jobs in agri-
culture, construction and domestic service. In 2018, less skilled and
semi-skilled workers constituted 55% of labor migrants (Siddiqui et al.,
2018). Along with professionals (estimated at 2%), such as doctors, engi-
neers, teachers, and nurses, skilled workers including manufacturing and
garment workers, computer operators, and electricians made up the
remaining outflow. Reflecting a history of government policies restricting
the labor migration of women, the overwhelming majority of Bangladeshi
labor migrants have been men. From 1997 to 2003, women made up less
than 1% of the labor migrant outflow from Bangladesh. Since then, the
share of female migrants going abroad to work, often in domestic service,
has risen steadily. By 2015, women made up almost 19% of all Bangladeshi
migrant workers (Shamim & Holliday, 2018).
Bangladeshi migration to the GCC states has a generally transitory
character. The temporary nature of foreign worker stays is enforced by the
kafala system in which migrants are under contract to their kafeel or spon-
soring employer for specific jobs and periods of time. Organized around
the legal dependency of migrants on their sponsors, kafala facilitates
access to a labor force that is flexible and readily adjustable to market
shifts. Employers are given responsibility for the surveillance and policing
of their migrant workers to ensure that they perform their job and return
home at the specified time.
Besides the prevalence of short-term labor contracts, the GCC states
have restrictive receiving state policies toward the settlement and integra-
tion of foreign workers. For the most part, naturalization in these coun-
tries is limited to the foreign wives of nationals and citizenship is not
automatically granted to those born in the territory. Foreign workers are
not allowed to marry or have sexual relationships with locals (Jamal,
2015). With the exception of some professional and skilled migrants, most
are granted entry without their families, thereby ensuring that primary ties
and loyalties remain with the country of origin. In 2019, several GCC
states launched permanent residency schemes but limited them to “excep-
tional” expatriates, thereby excluding the vast majority of foreign workers.
Five major Bangladeshi industrialists and business owners were granted
366 N. KIBRIA
the UAE’s “gold card” permanent residency due to their significant invest-
ments in the country (Nagraj, 2019).
Under these restrictive conditions, it is labor migration circuits and
institutions that organize Bangladeshi diaspora communities in the GCC
states. In other words, the network of organizations that generate and
support Bangladeshi labor migration flows—from migrant recruiting and
travel agencies to grocery stores and welfare groups that cater to migrant
needs—form an institutional arena of community and anchor of stability
for Bangladeshis in the GCC states. The significance of this arena has been
bolstered by the growth of commercial, political and religious ties between
Bangladesh and the GCC states that go beyond labor migration. In the
case of Saudi Arabia, for example, there is a dense network of businesses,
charitable NGOs and religious exchange programs with Bangladesh
(Kibria & Zakaria, 2021). Even as labor migrants travel in and out of the
GCC states, these organizations remain part of the community structure.
They are furthermore supported by the presence of a segment of the
Bangladeshi expatriate population in the GCC states, including many pro-
fessionals and entrepreneurs, who use their resources to extend their visas
for prolonged periods of time and, in some cases, to bring family members
to live with them (Rahman, 2018). These long-term migrants produce
and anchor the institutional arena of community for Bangladeshis in the
GCC states.
To summarize, the Bangladeshi diaspora in the GCC states is character-
ized by a fluidity born of the transitory character of labor migration. The
diaspora is structured around the labor migration circuit and the busi-
nesses, government and non-governmental institutions that sustain and
service the circuit. The limited possibilities for permanent settlement,
available only to the “exceptional,” mean that migrant identities remain
oriented toward Bangladesh and local home communities. However,
drawing on their experiences abroad, those who return home from
sojourns in the GCC states often seek out further opportunities abroad,
especially those that enable long-term settlement.
Conclusions
Over the course of fifty years of independence, Bangladesh has shifted,
from a region of limited transborder movement to a zone of great fluidity.
With nearly 8 million of its 160 million residents living abroad, Bangladesh
has one of the world’s largest emigrant populations (Sorkar, 2020). The
political project of the Bangladeshi diaspora, of producing and sustaining

expatriate Bangladeshi communities, has grown and matured over time.
The rise of neoliberalism in the late twentieth century foregrounds the
increasingly important role of migrant remittances in the Bangladesh
economy. For the Bangladeshi state, managing labor migration flows to
ensure the continued flow of remittances into the country has become a
critical task.
Robust ties and identification with Bangladesh are a shared characteris-
tic of Bangladeshi diaspora communities. Nonetheless, as discussed in this
chapter, Bangladeshi movements and settlements abroad have divergent
histories and challenges. In the GCC states where most Bangladeshis are
temporary workers, the political project of the Bangladeshi diaspora has
been about ensuring continuous labor migration flows, facilitating remit-
tances and reducing the abuses faced by Bangladeshi labor migrants. In
the US and UK where there are long-term settlements of Bangladeshi
families, a major challenge is the growing intergenerational divides. In
both of these Western societies, the younger generations growing up in
there may feel distant from Bangladesh compared to their elders. They are
also increasingly likely to emphasize an identity of “Muslim” rather than
“Bangladeshi,” thereby challenging a defining feature of the Bangladeshi
diaspora, of identification with the nation-state of Bangladesh.
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Bangladeshi Mediascape: Political
and Corporate Power
Asif Bin Ali and Olav Muurlink
Introduction
Media as the fourth pillar of the state plays a watchdog role over the work
of the executive, the legislature and the judiciary. With that in mind, this
chapter presents a brief analysis of the media landscape in Bangladesh by
providing an overview of the evolution of news media in the country. It
moves on to discuss the ‘politico-commercial nexus’, a nexus that goes to
the heart of the viability of media, not just in Bangladesh, but, as has been
seen recently, elsewhere in the world. We analyse this nexus with regard to
media ownership and policymaking. This chapter analyses television media
ownership, in particular, and the National Broadcasting Policy 2014.
Despite the emergence of social media such as Facebook, Twitter and
A. Bin Ali (*)
Department of History and Philosophy, North South University,
Dhaka, Bangladesh
O. Muurlink

370 A. BIN ALI AND O. MUURLINK
YouTube, television continues to dominate the media landscape in

Bangladesh, certainly insofar as its ability to set a news agenda. It remains
the principal source of news and entertainment with 80% viewership
among a 165 million population in Bangladesh (Azad, 2019), although
these numbers have to be offset against an understanding that the vast
majority of the population does not have personal access to a television set:
instead televisions in public settings such as tea shops are the access point.
Nevertheless, television media presents a complex case study of
Bangladesh’s neoliberal transformation, capital integration, wealth con-
centration and class inequality (Muhammad, 2015; Rahman, 2020). This
chapter concludes by highlighting the importance of institution building
in the media landscape, and, perhaps not surprisingly, concludes by argu-
ing that the Bangladeshi media landscape is dominated by the political and
economic powers (Rahman, 2020) rather than the other way around.
This chapter will draw on Political Economy of Communication (PEC)
theory in conducting its analysis. PEC sees mass media as almost indivisi-
ble from the context in which it emerges, a creature of the social context
in which it manifests itself (Mosco, 2009, pp. 2–3). The PEC framework
focuses on structural factors such as media ownership but also studies the
role and active influence of media ownership, management, support sys-
tem (such as advertising revenue), and state policy on media behaviour
and content (McChesney, 1998, pp. 2–3). In sum, the central point of the
PEC analysis includes growth of media, extension of corporate reach,
commodification, universalization of citizenship and state intervention
(Murdock & Golding, 2005, pp. 64–67).
Although PEC is a well-studied model, it has an analytical bias. This bias
is the outcome of its Anglo-American roots and Western epistemological and
methodological orientation. For instance, PEC, to support its claim, often
stipulates selective empirical evidence from Western history, and we will apply
it to the Bangladeshi case with caution. Consequently, such Western-centric
biases focus on the role of the state, not the nature of the state (Zhao, 2011,
p. 561). This limitation then leads to a theoretical “blind spot” (Zhao, 2011,
p. 561) and produces a generalized and predictable analysis based on a state
versus market framework. In order to avoid this limitation while studying a
post-colonial state turned neoliberal such as Bangladesh, this research will
not only focus on the role of the state in the media landscape but will also
consider the nature of the state. Hence, to avoid a generalized and predict-
able analysis of the Bangladeshi media landscape, this chapter will look into
state nature and interaction of formal and informal economic and political
arrangements in the Bangladeshi media landscape.
BANGLADESHI MEDIASCAPE: POLITICAL AND CORPORATE POWER 371
Print Media
There is compelling evidence that modern print and the origin of the
Bangladeshi media industry can be traced back to the early years of ‘British
India’ (Rahman, 2020; Roy, 2020; Yousuf et al., 2019; Rahman et al.,
2017). The first English-language weekly was in fact James Augustus
Hicky’s Bengal Gazette. It was published from Kolkata (Calcutta) in 1780
(Mukherjee, 1990). In The Black Hole of the Empire, Partha Chatterjee
(2012) records that the publication at first remained in safe territory,
reporting commodity prices and the arrival and departure of ships, but
when the publisher tried to spice up the content, printing stories alleging
that senior British officials were engaging in bestiality, for example, his
press was seized. Hicky ended up first in prison and then ‘free’ in abject
poverty, dying on board a ship en route to China (Gilding, 2019).
All newspapers in British India were published in English until 1818.
However, by the mid-eighteenth century, newspapers started to appear in
current Bangladeshi territory (Khurshid, 1971), in the indigenous lan-
guage. For instance, the first Bengali newspaper was published in 1818
(Mahmud, 2013). There was one monthly newspaper, Digdarshan (1818),
and one weekly newspaper Samachar Darpan (1818) (Haider, 2010;
Genilo et al., 2016, p. 128), aimed at the entertainment, if not the enlight-
enment, of the elite. In fact, typically these early newspapers were con-
trolled by the British, the wealthy, or both. By 1863, at the latest, there
were attempts to break the control of the elite over the press, with a
Kushtia school teacher, Kangal Harinath Majumdar, launching a weekly
aimed at raising awareness and rousing opposition to oppressive practices
by zamzidars, or landowners, against their staff (Raha, 2013).
Unsurprisingly, the partition of the Indian subcontinent complicated
the picture of the press. There were few newspapers in the newly minted
Pakistan (Genilo et al., 2016, p. 128). However, newspapers which were
primarily aimed at Muslim readers in British India moved to Pakistan and
started operating either in Dhaka or in West Pakistan. For instance, Dainik
Azad, which claimed to speak for Indian Muslims, relocated from Kolkata
to Dhaka immediately after Partition in 1948 (Yousuf et al., 2019). The
first English newspaper published from Dhaka was the Pakistan Observer
(1949). Later this newspaper become the Bangladesh Observer, after 1971.
In the same year Dainik Sangbad (1949), a Bangla newspaper, was pub-
lished from Dhaka. Another major newspaper of East Pakistan was Ittefaq
(‘unity’) that started publishing in 1953, linked by ownership to the key
political group, the Awami League. Finally, the three Bangla newspapers
(Dainik Azad, Dainik Sangbad and Dainik Ittefaq) and one English
newspaper (the Pakistan Observer) together dominated the East Pakistan
political landscape from 1949 to 1971. Consequently, they became the
pioneers of the national press system in independent Bangladesh (Genilo
et al., 2016, p. 128; Mahmud, 2013).
Post-independence Bangladesh saw significant growth in news media,
particularly in print. In addition, from 1972 to 1975, Bangladeshi print
media exercised significant media freedom (Genilo et al., 2016, p. 129);
however, the halcyon days of media freedom faded fairly rapidly with the
consolidation of government power. With time, the leadership of indepen-
dent Bangladesh became increasingly intolerant of press criticism.
As noted elsewhere in this volume, Bangladesh shifted from a
Westminster-style parliamentary system to a one-party presidential system
in 1975, and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s government immediately placed a
ban on all newspapers minus four state-owned titles, namely Dainik
Ittefaq, Dainik Bangla, The Bangladesh Observer and The Bangladesh
Times (Bhuiyan, 2011). It could be argued that this was the first decisive
move against media freedom in the newly formed Bangladesh (Ahsan,
2018, p. 234), but obviously in synchronicity with a pattern that had been
in place for centuries. Though the ban was lifted following violent coups
in August 1975, nothing closely resembling media freedom returned to
Bangladesh until 1990. Media was under the strict control of military
dictator General Ziaur Rahman (1978–1981) and General Hussain
Muhammad Ershad (1981–1990) (Genilo et al., 2016, p. 129; Yousuf
et al., 2019, p. 108). Hence, the period from 1975 to 1990 can be marked
as the era of explicit censorship and state regulations, as opposed to the
patterns of self-censorship that can be seen to emerge in developing coun-
tries with nascent democracies.
As a consequence of the end of military rule in 1990 and the emergence
of parliamentary government and democracy, print media again went
through a spurt of growth. Some major new titles, such as the Daily Star
and Prothom Alo, started publishing immediately after the return of
democracy. The Daily Star, a notable English newspaper, was the first to
emerge, published in January 1991 (Yousuf et al., 2019, p. 108). Similarly,
the Financial Express, dedicated to business reporting, was published in
1993, and the Independent began circulation in 1995 (Yousuf et al., 2019,
p. 108). These newspapers were privately funded and focused on urban
areas. This era can be marked as an era of relative media freedom since at
that time media in general started reporting criticisms of the government,

something previously absent in Bangladesh since 1974 (Anam, 2002,
pp. 267–268). Finally, media received freedom with the emergence of the
democratic government. However, print media received greater freedom
compared to electronic media (Rahman et al., 2017, p. 113).
In summary, what has been briefly established so far is that the geneal-
ogy of Bangladeshi print media can be traced back to British India: four
newspapers, namely Dainik Azad, Dainik Sangbad, Dainik Ittefaqf and
the Pakistan Observer, became the pioneers of the national press system in
post-independence Bangladesh; after having strict regulation and censor-
ship from 1975 to 1990, finally Bangladeshi media received press freedom
with the emergence of democracy. In a sense, what came next with the
expansion of electronic media was an evolution that still favoured both
publishers/media owners and a readership/viewership of the elite.
Centuries earlier, a ‘town crier’ armed with just a voice and a drum was
likely to be the sole source of ‘authoritative’ news amongst the illiterate
poor. In the twenty-first century, illiteracy has not disappeared, and the
town crier has been replaced by a man on a tricycle armed with a battery
and loudspeaker. In rural and remote districts where there is no formal
postage system and no network electricity, and even a transistor radio is
not a universal staple of every home, these simple forms of spreading a
message remain significant.
Broadcasting Media
The colonial public broadcasting of undivided India, dominated by the
British, was reconstituted as the state broadcasting of Pakistan (Rahman,
2020; Roy, 2020; Yousuf et al., 2019). The same model continued in
post-independence Bangladesh. Following the BBC model of public ser-
vice broadcasting, All India Radio (AIR) was established in 1937. Unlike
BBC, AIR was a non-centralized service. And as a part of AIR, a radio
station was established in Dhaka in 1939. This was the first radio broad-
caster in East India. Subsequently, this became Pakistan Radio after the
partition of India in 1947. However, broadcasting media was not as devel-
oped and vibrant as print media in Pakistan, and here there was no multi-
plicity in ownership, let alone diversity in voices. There were one national
television station and one radio station in Pakistan. After the indepen-
dence of Bangladesh, the former (all) Pakistan Radio station become
Bangladesh Betar (Rahman et al., 2017), and between 1975 and 1996,
Radio Bangladesh.
Turning to television, General Ayub Khan, a military dictator, estab-
lished Pakistan TV (PTV) in 1964. It was a public channel of the Pakistan
Television Corporation, which was considered an example of moderniza-
tion in Pakistan. It played a significant role in Ayub Khan’s political com-
munication, and was clearly a political mouthpiece, and yet claimed to be
inclusive (Roy, 2020).
After independence, the first Awami League government changed the
status of the Pakistan Television Corporation from a public corporation
into state-run television, with control placed in the hands of the Ministry
of Information (MoI). After this, PTV was named Bangladesh Television
(BTV) (Rahman, 2016a). BTV, as a state broadcaster, was the only televi-
sion channel in Bangladesh and remained the only source of news and
entertainment for almost three decades until the advent of cable television
in 1992 (Rahman, 2020; Roy, 2020).
Bangladesh Betar (BB) and Bangladesh Television (BTV) are publicly
funded broadcasters. They have been controlled by bureaucrats, who in
turn answer to political masters, which has hamstrung BTV and BB in
fully executing their public service and reaching their full potential
(Rahman, 2020, Rahman et al., 2017). The politicization of the adminis-
tration and polarization among journalists have reduced their capability to
execute tasks independently (Rahman, 2016a). However, in the post-1990s
democratic era, political parties have repeatedly promised to guarantee
independence for Betar and BTV. This promise remains unkept.
The advantage of post-1990s transformation, however, was that the
Bangladeshi media system became significantly deregulated, and commer-
cial (Rahman, 2020). At least in terms of the sheer number of media
options, this was a period of market expansion. There were significant new
players, if not new voices, in the cable and satellite television industries.
Besides, new investment from cell phone companies via media advertising
and branding massively sponsored the growth (Rahman et al., 2017,
p. 112; Rahman, 2016b, p. 326). From 1992 to 1995 there were at least
10 foreign satellite cable channels aired in Bangladesh. These channels
were for news, sports and entertainment shows. As a result of the popular-
ity of foreign satellite channels, state-run BTV faced a great threat to
retaining its viewership. Because BTV, with traditional content and pro-
government news, could not control the viewers’ choice, it found itself
struggling to compete with satellite channels.
There is nevertheless compelling evidence that successive authoritarian

regimes in post-independence Bangladesh maintained firm control over
the media landscape (Rahman, 2020; Roy, 2020). In contrast, post-1990s
neoliberal (and quasi-democratic) governments opened up ways to reduce
state control over the media industry (Rahman, 2020). Therefore, a sys-
tem was developed where private ownership, both online and on air, could
exist in parallel to BTV. The initial steps were taken by the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP)-led government, who opened up the market for
private investment in print media, with the Awami League government
later opening up access to ownership of private television channels.
Ekushey Television (ETV) was the first Bangladeshi private television
channel, established in 2000. ETV used BTV’s terrestrial facilities to air
countrywide and people were able to watch ETV without a cable connec-
tion (Roy, 2020, Rahman et al., 2017). Because of its content and quality
news, ETV become popular among viewers and consequently challenged
its ‘foster parent’ directly. One of the successes of ETV was telecasting
news. British journalist Simon Dring supervised ETV and also developed
a full-fledged news team (Roy, 2020). As a result, the ETV news team
were able to broadcast field reporting, introducing a new style of news
presentation while focusing on social and political issues. News consumers
were able to compare and contrast BTV’s news with privately owned chan-
nel ETV’s news. The new option provided a sharply different offering in
terms of news production, news framing and distribution (Roy, 2020).
Following the success of ETV, ATN Bangla and Channel i also started
broadcasting news and talk shows. However, the first exclusives news
channels were 24/7 news channels offered by Chronus Satellite Broadcast
(CSB), founded in 2007 (Roy, 2020). While there were only four news-
based channels during the period 2009 to 2013, now Bangladesh has
more than 40 television channels (Roy, 2020). This is the outcome of the
relatively democratic as well as neoliberal nature of the state. However,
there is a flipside to this growth. There are restrictions and controls
imposed by the state to regulate the media landscape, content production
and distribution (Rahman, 2020; Rahman et al., 2017). Moreover, the
closure of media houses, fear of litigation, and self- and institutional cen-
sorship are some common phenomena in the Bangladeshi media land-
scape (Rahman, 2020 p. 1155; Roy, 2020, p. 68).
The India Factor

There is evidence that Bangladeshi media industries have distinct political
economic roots (Rahman, 2020; Rahman et al., 2017). Although
Bangladesh is deeply integrated in global trade, such as garments export,
the country has resisted foreign investment in its media sectors. This is an
interesting phenomenon. Classic supply and demand relationships suggest
there would be adequate opportunity for foreign investment…unless the
‘India factor’ is taken into account.
As a result of 24 years of the nationalist movement and the Liberation
War, Bangladesh developed a cultural identity which was bound up in
separation, and kept itself at a distance from (in particular) India and
Pakistan. Bangladesh is geographically surrounded by neighbouring India,
an aspiring super power not only with ‘hard’ power elements such as eco-
nomics and a (nuclear-armed) military force but also with soft power ele-
ments such as Bollywood. In that endeavour, the Indian broadcasting
market has gone through a successful liberalization (Chakravartty & Roy,
2013). Moreover, Bollywood productions have been distributed through
television channels and these programmes have been accessible to
Bangladeshis (Rahman, 2020). Consequently, Bangladesh has experienced
Indian cultural hegemony through, for example, Indian drama serials. In
this context, the governments of Khaledia Zia and Sheikh Hasina main-
tained similar policies designed to stimulate domestic media industries.
While BTV was cumbersome in its response to the Indian ‘threat’, the
private players were more agile, and in time have come to create products
that challenge Indian hegemony in the cultural arena.
An alternative argument could be made as well. Bangladesh’s politics
have always been influenced by regional politics and the ‘India factor’.
Media is difficult to disentangle from regional politics (Rahman, 2020,
p. 1156). British and Pakistan experience shaped the exterior of the
Bangladeshi media industry, its structure and media policy. Similarly, in
post-independence Bangladesh, class struggle and cultural politics have
shaped the media industry’s interior, that is, media ownership (Rahman,
2020, p. 1156). Moreover, the Bangladeshi ruling class and cultural elites
consistently maintained a distinct identity separate from Indian cultural
hegemony (Rahman, 2020)—but with limitations. During the 1990s the
then existing broadcasting model was dependent on BTV but BTV was
not able to maintain dominance over satellite channels mostly aired from
India. The government adopted policies to promote domestic media
ownership and simultaneously block foreign investment in the media

industry so that a domestic media that reflected local culture could
develop.
There were only four television channels (BTV, ATN, Channel i, NTV)
in 2001. In the following 13 years, 44 additional television channels
emerged. Sheikh Hasina’s government (1996–2001) established policies
to allow domestic satellite television, offering not only an alternative to
BTV but also an alternative to foreign satellite channels, particularly those
aired from India. Alternatively, some may argue that this behaviour was
the byproduct of economic globalization rather than one of the state
steering the strategy (Shoesmith & Genilo, 2013). However, if we add the
‘India factor’, the narrative changes. Without opening up the market,
there was no way to create the creative energy, the content and the infra-
structure to challenge and counter Indian hegemony and maintain a dif-
ferent cultural identity. Hence, we can argue that although the Bangladeshi
media industry has been influenced by Indian media behaviour, state
nationalist policy has allowed the nation to culturally push back.
State Nature, Privatization and Deregulation

After 1990 Bangladesh was able regain a semblance of democracy by over-
throwing a military dictator, although arguably at best it is now a ‘hybrid
democracy’ (Riaz, 2005). Neoliberal policies were extensively introduced,
and Bangladesh was given the label of the most liberal FDI regime in
South Asia (Rahman, 2020). This means that the state has allowed foreign
equity and an unrestricted exit policy for foreign businesspeople and inves-
tors. Although, Bangladesh allowed foreign television broadcasting, the
domestic media market was only reserved for domestic private investment.
Private content producers were given permission to telecast on the state-
owned platform BTV. In sum, deregulation and privatization aided by the
development of live broadcast technologies provided important structure
for Bangladeshi media industries to expand exponentially (Rahman, 2020,
p. 1156). However, the media lost its political mission while transforming
into a highly market-oriented platform (Rahman, 2020, p. 1156).
It could be argued that neoliberalism in Bangladesh worked differently.
It did not curb the state power in the media industry, but rather helped
the state to integrate the media system through the advertising and tele-
com industries (Rahman, 2020, p. 1157). As a result, a system has emerged
where local political-business elites control the media landscape. In this
case we can refer to the Indian case where informal politics and ‘backroom
deals’ often lead to a lack of accountability (Chakravartty & Roy, 2013).
Likewise, in Bangladesh these ‘backroom-deals’ have been more powerful
than well-structured institutional arrangements for media management.
The result of this model is that it ensured political and business elite con-
trol over the media, and thus over information flow.
Politico-Commercial Nexus
What has been established so far is that Bangladesh has made considerable
progress in making broadcast policy, opening up the media market and
bringing in dynamism by allowing participation of multiple stakeholders.
However, a critical look at the Bangladeshi media landscape suggests that
political business elites are dominating the industry. It is not an exaggera-
tion to describe this as a “politico-commercial nexus” (Rahman, 2020;
Roy, 2020; Rahman et al., 2017; Andaleeb & Rahman, 2014).
This nexus is informal but complex. It involves a network of power and
business relationships among high-profile political leaders, media owners
and commercial conglomerates such as advertisers and business giants
(Rahman et al., 2017, p. 110; Rahman, 2020, p. 1158). They mutually
serve their independent business and political interests through interwo-
ven informal networks. Moreover, they receive advantages not only by
influencing media licensing practice but also guiding the broadcast policy-
making process (Rahman et al., 2017, p. 110). It could be argued that
they work beyond the rigid political divide of the Awami League and BNP
in favour of an ‘invisible party’ of the elite.
Political Control Over Media

It could be argued that television is the most popular source of news and
entertainment in Bangladesh (Rahman, 2020). Hence, both ‘sides’ of
Bangladeshi politics aspire to control television channels (Rahman, 2020;
Roy, 2020). Therefore, licensing television channels has become a power-
ful tool of regimes to exercise influence, and hence we often observe, not
entirely coincidentally, the approval of new media houses just before
national elections (Rahman, 2020).
Licensing and shutting down television channels are two ways that
regimes maintain their control. Media houses which focus on news tele-
casting face greater political interference and pressure than
entertainment-based media houses. For instance, the first 24/7 news

channel was shut down (Roy, 2020). Similarly, in 2010 Channel i and
Jamuna Television and in 2013 Diganta and Islamic TV were shut down
by regulatory bodies (Roy, 2020). We could argue that although the gov-
ernment in its defence mentioned reasons of national security concern to
shut down these television channels, in these cases the channels that were
shut down were pro-opposition channels (Roy, 2020; Rahman et al.,
2017). The government thus showed its teeth, regardless of the point of
incision. Since 2008, Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League has been generous in
handing out (or rather selling) licences for new channels (Rahman, 2020;
Roy, 2020). This has led to the emergence of new television channels, but
media houses remain extremely careful in telecasting any ‘sensitive’ news
that may not be favoured by the ruling party (Roy, 2020).
There is no publicly available document or report that describes the
television licensing process (Rahman, 2020, p. 1158). Political party affili-
ation and loyalty to party leadership are among the most important factors
behind receiving media approval. A close look at the licensing process of
television channels could provide a glimpse into that process. First, we
need to divide the television licensing process into three phases. This divi-
sion is based on the time period of the approving governments. First, the
Awami League-led government (1996–2000) gave the authorization to
the first batch of private television channels. Second, the Bangladesh
Nationalist Party (BNP) and Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami coalition gov-
ernment (2001–2006) gave licences to a second batch of television own-
ers. Third, the second AL government was given permission for a third
batch of television owners after 2008.
Considering that approval of the prime minister is the most decisive
factor behind receiving a licence (Rahman, 2020), it could be argued that
approval comes from the fact that the future owner is already part of the
“politico-commercial nexus”, with significant amount of wealth, sup-
ported by lobbies from political and business elites and has clear lines of
allegiance to the ruling party (Rahman, 2020, pp. 1161–1163). There is
no public hearing or committee meeting regarding the licensing process.
Thus, it is easy to argue that there is an “authoritarian nature of power”
(Riaz, 2019) that governs the media landscape in Bangladesh.
The first AL-led government (1996–2001) granted permission to ATN
Bangla, Channel i and Ekushey Television (Khan, 2013, pp. 82–83). The
ATN Bangla chairman is a garments business tycoon with strong political
lobbying capacity within the ruling party. On the other hand, the BNP-led
government (2001–2006) only took three days to provide a licence for

NTV. The managing director of NTV was Mosaddak Ali Falu who was a
member of parliament and adviser to Khaleda Zia, the then prime minis-
ter. Falu founded and led the Association of Television Channel Owners
(ATCO) for five years. We can argue that NTV was the first role model to
show how an owner’s political interest and business network could repro-
duce the capital accumulation, news production and framing. Moreover,
between 2001 and 2007 the BNP government permitted some television
to operate (NTV, Boishakhi, Channel i, RTV, Bangla Vision, Diganta TV,
Islamic TV, CBS) (Rahman, 2020; Roy, 2020). In addition, it had revoked
the licence of ETV, which received their licence under the AL government
(1996–2001). Moving to the second AL-led government (2009–2011),
there was a rush of approvals: 12 channels, including Ekattor (71),
Channel 9 and Independent TV. In the third round, from 2013 onward,
the AL government approved 12 more television channels just before the
national election (Rahman, 2020, p. 1165).
Having considered the details of licence-giving, we can argue that the
Awami League and BNP relentlessly attempted to establish and re-establish
their hegemonic and counter-hegemonic power. However, with regime
changes some owners received privileges while some did not. But political
affiliation of owners alone does not explain the whole situation, unless we
consider the unity and role of ATCO across contesting political narratives.
Despite regime changes, the “politico-commercial nexus” maintained its
shared business interests through family networks (Rahman, 2020). To be
explicit, the board of directors of many Bangladeshi media houses benefit-
ing from licences granted by the BNP (such NTV and RTV) as well as the
Awami League (such as Maasranga and Somoy TV) share the same family
address and come from the same family (Rahman, 2020, p. 1165).
What has thus been established about the Bangladeshi media landscape
and politico-commercial nexus is that media ownership is organized
around political power, family networks and identities, not necessarily
market efficiency and profit maximization. Therefore, owners engage in
business despite their political differences, and the pattern of journalism,
the treatment of news and the framing of agendas may change as regimes
change, but ownerships continue to protect business interests.
Media Ownership Model and Control

What has been established thus far is that media ownership in Bangladesh
has been controlled through strict political conditioning; it is not depen-
dent on market forces. Media ownership operates following an “extra eco-
nomic logic” and “mixed capitalist institutions” (Chakravartty & Roy,
2013). Although Chakravartty and Roy (2013) used these two terms to
explain media ownership models in India, they can very easily be applied
to the Bangladeshi context. In a system where “extra economic logic”
dictates the work of “mixed capitalist institutions” the emergence and sur-
vival of media houses is mostly dependent on their relationship with politi-
cal power and kinship (Rahman, 2020, p. 1154). In such arrangements,
flexible political affiliation with the ruling party is more important than
political partnership.
At present, Bangladesh Export Import Company (BEXIMCO), Square,
Bashundhara and the Jamuna group lead the media landscape. For
instance, the BEXIMCO group owns independent television, the Bangla
daily Muktakhantha and the English daily The Independent. The
Bashundhara group in turn owns several media entities such as News24
(TV), Kaler Kantho, Bangladesh Pratidin (Bangla newspaper), the Daily
Sun (English newspaper), Banglanews24.com (online newspaper) and
Radio Capital (FM radio) (Rahman, 2020, p. 1116). These are large
industrial conglomerates in their own right, with Square, for example, not
just powerful in media but the largest of the pharmaceutical giants in
Bangladesh. It could be argued that Bangladesh has developed a corpora-
tion ownership model in the media industry. This model of ownership was
developed from 2005 to 2015 because of neoliberal deregulation and
privatization. On the other hand, the state enforced its power through
licensing. Most of the television houses out of 40 television channels (Roy,
2020) received their permission from the Awami League-led government.
As a result, the AL has unique political commercial power over the media
landscape to maintain their “hybrid regime”: an authoritarian government
wearing some of the garb of a democratic government (Riaz, 2019).
Politico-Commercial Nexus and ATCO

Some authors (Khan, 2013; Shoesmith et al., 2013) present their analysis
based on the political affiliation of media house owners. Such analysis
overlooks the extent of shared power, and unity beyond political division
of the “politico-commercial nexus” and the degree to which media own-

ers are able to traverse both sides of the political landscape.
The Association of Television Channel Owners (ATCO) is a relevant
example with regard to the politico-commercial nexus. Private television
channel owners founded ATCO in 2014 with the aim of presenting a
united front in negotiations with the government on business interrup-
tions (Rahman, 2020). The threat of regime change for their licensing
tenure would have motivated their willingness to organize. Although
ATCO drew members from both sides of the political spectrum, they pro-
moted the interests that united rather than divided them (Rahman, 2020).
Mosaddak Ali Falu, a top political leader of the BNP, was the founding
managing director of ATCO. He is also the managing director of the
BNP-supported television channel NTV. Falu chaired ATCO for five
years, although the BNP has not been in power since 2007.
The ruling Awami League has of course blessed a new batch of owners
to invest in the media market, establishing channels such as Ekattor TV
and Desh TV since 2008. In 2017 there was a shift in leadership at ATCO
with the election of Salman F. Rahman, owner and chairman of
Independent Television, and owner of the Bangladesh Export Import
Company (BEXIMCO). In addition, he is the advisor to Prime Minister
Sheikh Hasina. With the ascent of Rahman, ATCO’s leadership was firmly
aligned with the government and the AL-linked media house owners who
were pro-Awami (Rahman, 2020). Nevertheless, pro-BNP television
channels such as NTV, RTV, ETV, Boishakhi and Bangla Vision retained
links with ATCO’s top management. The popular binaries of AL versus
BNP and pro-liberation versus anti-liberation narratives do not apply at
this level of media ownership (Rahman, 2020, p. 1160).
While the government clearly has influence over ATCO, ATCO has
managed to nudge the direction of the government towards changing the
Private Television Channel Establishment and Operation Policy 2012
(2012) (Rahman, 2020). This change had allowed political party mem-
bers such as Salman F. Rahman and Mosaddak Ali Falu to own television
stations. ATCO’s united front also led to the ban of local advertisements
on foreign TV channels aired in Bangladesh. Moreover, any cable operator
failing to observe the ban would be penalized with the withdrawal of their
operation permit. It is clear that ATCO can exert political muscle without
weakening its negotiating ‘opponent’, the government, the ultimate testa-
ment to the politico-commercial nexus.
The Nexus and National Broadcast Policy

Sound policy and state regulatory control for the public good is a must to
ensure a sustainable media sector (Raboy, 1994, p. 6). Media operators
navigate in an environment that leaves them exposed to socio-cultural,
institutional and technological challenges, but unsurprisingly, the policy
frameworks in Bangladesh are sensitive to the politico-commercial nexus.
The Ministry of Information (MoI) released a National Broadcast
Policy in 2014 (Rahman, 2020). The AL government claimed the docu-
ment would serve the interests of the public by ensuring pluralism. They
also asserted that it would underwrite accountability. Closer scrutiny of
the policy suggests that it has left the power of the “politico-commercial
nexus” largely untouched. The policy permits hyper-commercialization,
deregulation and political ownership of media business (Rahman et al.,
2017). As noted earlier, Salman F. Rahman is owner and chairman of
Independent Television as well as being owner of the Bangladesh Export
Import Company (BEXIMCO) and advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh
Hasina. The boundaries between media, industry and politics are clearly
blurred.
There are other limitations to the policy as well. For instance, although
the NBP claims to establish equality and equity in all social spheres, it
privileges market-centric urban discourses. A liberalized media market
tends to concentrate on where advertising dollars and audiences are con-
centrated, leaving the margins underserviced. In addition, the policy is
silent on ensuring secure wages for journalists, let alone ensuring gender
equity in wages (Rahman et al., 2017, p. 121). It could also be argued that
the NBP has only ‘ensured’ the independence of private television indus-
tries by simply stating its independence, rather than inscribing measures
that ensure independence (Andaleeb & Rahman, 2014, p. 3).
Conclusion
Although Bangladesh has branded itself as one of the most liberal business
hubs in South Asia, this liberalism does not translate in the media sector
into complete freedom to express or invest: the politico-commercial nexus
was able to block policy intervention regarding foreign investment in the
domestic media market (Rahman et al., 2017), and censorship in the mass
media can best be understood by the diversity in opinion expressed rather
than an observable mechanism for suppression The National Broadcast
Policy 2014 was closely aligned with the interests of this nexus (Rahman,
2020, p. 1169). Irrespective of licence approver and political party, in a
‘hybrid regime’ (Riaz, 2019) major media policies and their formal power
relations are conducted through ‘informal politics’ and are kept hidden
from public documentation and parliamentary scrutiny. The nexus results
in a form of unity beyond rigid ideological or political party division.
To summarize, liberalization allowed the substantial transferal of media
ownership from the government to private political commercial hands
(Andaleeb & Rahman, 2014; Rahman et al., 2017). Liberalization did not
see the real diversification of media ownership or the empowerment of
small or independent investors in the media market. The sector expanded
in absolute size and number of media offerings, however, in part because
it has proven to be an influential tool to enhance power and influence the
discussion in the public sphere (Rahman, 2020, p. 1159). Neoliberalism
did not end state power over the media landscape but ensured a new type
of dominance aligned with other stakeholders.
Foreign investment, however, is completely absent from the sector, an
irony because there is no bilaterality to the India—Bangladesh media
exchange: Indian channels are widely run and consumed in Bangladesh,
but no parallel opportunity exists for Bangladeshi channels in India.
Nevertheless, there is exclusive access to investment opportunities in the
Bangladeshi market for domestic operators This has created a safe haven
for the political-commercial nexus in which to influence policy intervention.
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Changing Mediascape (pp. 237–255). Bristol: Intellect.
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Film in Bangladesh: Cultural Transformation
of a National Cinema within and beyond
the Nation-state
Zakir Hossain Raju
Introduction: A Tribute and a Question

The title, and the agenda of this chapter—film in Bangladesh, pays hom-
age to the very first book written on Bangladeshi cinema culture.1 This
monograph was authored by late filmmaker and film teacher Alamgir
Kabir who pioneered cinematic modernity in Bangladesh. This was also
the first book in English that narrated the genealogy of the film medium
in this land. The book was published in 1979, just eight years after
Bangladesh became an independent nation.
Why am I beginning a chapter on the cinema in Bangladesh and its
development during the five decades alongside the growing nation-state
called ‘Bangladesh’ with a short tribute to Kabir, and to his book and
1
Kabir, Alamgir (1979), Film in Bangladesh, Dhaka: Bangla Academy.
Z. H. Raju (*)
Department of Media and Communication, Independent University, Bangladesh,
Dhaka, Bangladesh

388 Z. H. RAJU
films? Kabir, with his films, books and vision, led the modernist film cul-
ture in 1970s–1980s Bangladesh, and after his untimely departure in
1989, many of his protégés (including the author) mapped and expanded
the cinema culture of Bangladesh during the previous three decades. The
cultural transformation of Bangladeshi cinema, which is the focus of this
chapter, was not fully seen by Kabir, but was envisaged by him after
Bangladesh became independent.
Thus, in this chapter I aim to bring in both a genealogy and an itinerary
of five decades of Bangladeshi cinema. At the outset, one might ask: What
is ‘Bangladeshi cinema?’ Or, is there a national cinema which may truly be
called ‘Bangladeshi’? While there is no direct answer to these apparently
simple but utterly complex questions, I will forward my replies to these
through the two major sections of this chapter that follow. In order to do
this I begin with an endeavor to align as well as to differentiate the
Bangladeshi cinema culture in terms of the earlier East Bengal/Pakistan
film culture. The first, critical task that I attempt here is to define the cin-
ema culture of Bangladesh. I ask: How can we really frame a definite way
to locate a national cinema called ‘Bangladeshi cinema?’ The chapter that
follows is a response to this question.
When Bangladesh as a new nation emerged in 1971, unlike many other
newly independent nation-states, it already had a cinema culture of its
own. Filmmaking began here in the early part of the twentieth century, a
period when the possibility of Bangladesh being a state was just starting to
be imagined. Exhibition and circulation of foreign films started here even
earlier—in the 1890s–1900s—much before the advent of local filmmak-
ing. Thus, a homegrown East Bengali culture of film production and
appreciation can be located here by the 1950s, which of course was devel-
oped in confluence and conflict with various social and political discourses
of the time. The discourses that converged in the cinema culture of early
to mid-twentieth-century East Bengal/Pakistan therefore range from
Bengali nationalism and East Bengali cultural ethos to pan-South Asian
visual aesthetics as well as European cinematic modernism.
What happened to these transcultural discourses of the 1950s–1960s
that helped shape a certain local film culture after Bangladesh emerged as
an independent nation-state? What was the role of the new state in assert-
ing and expanding a ‘national’ film culture? In raising and addressing these
questions, this chapter outlines the development of film culture of/in the
nation-space of Bangladesh during the past five decades. It traces the
growth of Bangladeshi cinema as a national cinema alongside (and as
FILM IN BANGLADESH: CULTURAL TRANSFORMATION OF A NATIONAL… 389
influenced by) the political and economic transformations of/within the

Bangladeshi nation-state, as well as the palpable global and transna-
tional forces.
Alongside the global/local duality, another binary that I am exploring
here needs to be registered here. The localization of film culture in East
Bengal/Pakistan and then in Bangladesh gave rise to two separate—often
conflicting—cinemas. These two cinematic discourses are normally identi-
fied as popular cinema and art cinema. The local connotations for these
are ‘commercial’ cinema and ‘alternative’ cinema. The ‘commercial’ films
are star-studded, genre-based entertaining films that are produced within
an industrial system that used to take place within the state-run FDC (Film
Development Corporation) studio and were then shown in cinemas all
around the country. ‘Alternative’ films are narrative-based art films that
are produced in a semi-artisanal mode operating outside or within the
margins of the industrial system. These films enjoy very limited or no
release in local theaters, and are mostly circulated in non-theatrical venues
(e.g., educational institutions and film festivals) and—in recent years—first
as DVDs and through private satellite television channels and more
recently on web platforms. The demarcation of the two discourses is
somewhat flawed as these are not really separate blocs. For example, the
majority of ‘commercial’ films are unsuccessful here in terms of commerce
while an ‘alternative’ film is not necessarily a non-commercial venture.
They may even bring large audiences to theaters and do well at the box
office. Recent films like Aynabaji (2016) and Guerilla (2011) are good
examples of how ‘alternative’ films may also be quite popular. The binary
between these two cinemas is therefore a constructed one. In following a
two-part story of Bangladeshi cinema, as I interact with some larger dis-
courses contesting and converging in the Bangladeshi mediascape, I also
merge and blur this duality of Bangladeshi cinema.
In this chapter I dissect the ways in which the cultural transformation
of film in Bangladesh happened over the last fifty years in two parts.
Audiences in cinemas in South Asia watch movies (which are normally
three hours long) with a short break in between. Quite often the two
halves—before and after the break—can be identified as two different films
altogether. Let me present my journey over five decades of Bangladeshi
cinema here in/through two such ‘films’: ‘film one’ looking at the first
twenty-five years, and then ‘film two’ glancing at the second twenty-five
years. At the outset, I must admit that I am aware that such a demarcation
of five decades into two exact halves is not an entirely scientific method.
390 Z. H. RAJU
However, given the limitation that I am sharing a very long narrative in a

short passage here, I am inclined to do this for now. More importantly, I
locate the two versions of Bangladeshi cinema in these two time blocs
separately. ‘Film one’ is thus an in-depth look at the vernacularization
process of Bangladeshi cinema through a conservative-nationalist frame-
work during the 1970s–1990s. Through ‘film two,’ I proceed to present
the contemporary transformations of Bangladeshi cinema within a global-
ized nation-space under rapid commercialization.
Film One (1970s–1990s): Bangladeshi Cinema

as Vernacular Culture
The first twenty-five years of Bangladesh’s film culture can be described as

a period of vernacularizing. This vernacularization process of the ‘Western’
medium of film becomes most visible as Bangladeshi cinema during the
1970s–1990s came to be the most vibrant Bengali film culture in the
world, easily leaving behind the much older, ‘other’ Bengali film industry
based in Calcutta.
The process of localizing film language for and by the East Bengalis
began more than a century ago. The beginning of Bangladeshi cinema can
therefore be located in a number of different starting points. These may
range from 1898 (the first film exhibition in East Bengal) and 1913 (the
first film theater) to 1927 (the first silent short film made in East Bengal)
and 1931 (the first silent feature film). While most of our film historians
have shown little interest in these early events, I consider these as impor-
tant milestones in the indigenization process of the film medium in the
religious-agricultural Bengal delta of the early twentieth century (see Raju,
2000, 2012a for details).
However, most film historians are united on the beginning of the film
production industry in Bangladesh. The film industry started here when
the then East Pakistani government founded the Film Development
Corporation (FDC) studio in Dhaka during 1957–1958. This happened
after the making of the first sound feature film—Mukh O Mukhosh (The
Face and the Mask)—by East Bengali playwright Abdul Jabbar Khan in
1956. During 1957–1958, the provincial government took steps to estab-
lish the film production studio that was the East Pakistan Film Development
Corporation (EPFDC, now called BFDC) in Dhaka (Hayat, 2000,
pp. 58–76; Quader, 1993, pp. 120–135). Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur
Rahman, then the industries minister of East Pakistan in the United Front
cabinet, introduced the necessary bill in Parliament (Kabir, 1979, p. 25).
EPFDC served as the center for developing an East Pakistani modernist-
realist cinema in the 1960s. Dhaka’s film industry based at EPFDC—by
producing a group of feature films linked with the literary-modernist tra-
dition of the time—soon started to assert its place as the second Bengali-
language cinema in the 1960s, while the first one (i.e., Calcutta’s)
developed in the 1920s–1930s. After the 1947 Partition, Dhaka, the capi-
tal of East Pakistan, became the site where the emerging East Pakistani
middle classes (most of whom were Bengali Muslims) started defining a
definitive cultural identity for themselves. The vernacularization of cin-
ema, alongside homegrown theater, music, art and other media and cul-
tural forms, was utilized by middle-class Bengali Muslims to construct a
new identity that eventually gave rise to Bengali nationalism as a strong
anti-Pakistani political force. In that sense, the Dhaka film industry of the
1960s served as a National Cinema before the birth of the Bangladesh
nation-state.
Fateh Lohani’s Aasiya (1960), Kakhano Aseni/Never Came (1961)—
the first attempt of the veteran director Zahir Raihan—and Salahuddin’s
Surjosnan (Sunbath, 1962), all made at Dhaka FDC, represent this mod-
ernist cinema culture with nationalist zeal. Two more films, both pro-
duced in 1964, further emphasized the construction of an East Bengali
cultural modernity on screen: Sadek Khan’s Nadi-O Nari (River and
Woman) and Raja Elo Shahare/The King Comes to the Town (Hayat, 2000,
pp. 58–76; Quader, 1993, pp. 120–135). Zahir Raihan’s next film,
Kancher Deyal (The Glass Wall, 1964), also represents this social-realist
trend with artistic aspirations. However, this trend of East Pakistani
modernist-realist cinema of the early 1960s Dhaka film industry was only
hailed by the upcoming urban middle classes, not the majority of film
viewers from villages and small towns. By 1964, the majority of the twenty-
four Bengali films made in Dhaka were financial disasters, except for films
like Joar Elo (Absurdity, 1962) by Abdul Jabbar Khan, Harano Din
(Fantastic, 1961) by Mustafiz and Sootarang (1964) by Subhash Dutta.
These films started portraying romance plots between simple and iconic
figures generally within a familial context in a semi-rural social backdrop
of 1960s East Pakistan. Thus developed the first major genre of Dhaka’s
film industry, the ‘social’ film, which is still the staple genre of Bangladeshi
popular cinema more than half a century later.
392 Z. H. RAJU
The competing genre of folk films that grew organically in East Pakistani
rural environments started with a film called Roopban (Salahuddin, 1965).
This was the first Dhaka film based on a folk myth that won massive popu-
larity all over East Pakistan. I consider this film as a life-saver as this filmed
folktale narrating the sacrifices of a teenage girl named Roopban brought
the rural viewers to the cinemas for the first time and thus ensured that
Dhaka’s film industry could turn into a national cinema serving the major-
ity in East Pakistan, and Bangladesh (Raju, 2015). Alongside ‘social’ films,
Roopban effectively ushered in the other major genre for Bangladeshi cin-
ema—the folk or mythological film.
In the 1970s Bangladeshi cinema not only inherited but also progressed
these two genres further. The 1971 Liberation War and Bangladeshi inde-
pendence gave huge momentum to the local film culture. Like the estab-
lishment of FDC in 1957–1958, this boost also came from the state in the
form of national protection. Soon after Bangladesh became independent
on December 16, 1971, the leaders of the new state banned theatrical
screening of Indian (Hindi) films, as well as Pakistani (Urdu) popular
films, two of the most successful rivals of the local films in the 1950s and
1960s (Quader, 1993, pp. 432 and 441). This ban is still in place in 2021.
The order to ban Indian films was first issued by the Ayub government
of Pakistan during the 1965 India-Pakistan war. The film capitalists of
Lahore, Karachi and Dhaka demanded such a ban as Indian Hindi and
Bengali films have always been considered the main rivals to Urdu and
Bengali popular films produced in 1950s–1960s Pakistan. The war
between Pakistan and India in September 1965 gave the Pakistan State a
suitable excuse to perform the ban. The Pakistani leaders took the decision
to enforce the ban on September 10, 1965, just four days after the war
started (Weekly Chitrali, 10 September 1965). The Pakistan State and the
local film producers successfully used the discourse of pro-Islam (and anti-
Hindu, anti-Indian) Pakistani identity to make the ban work. I am empha-
sizing the 1965 ban because of its relevance to Bangladeshi cinema in the
1970s–1990s and beyond. After Bangladeshi independence in 1971, the
Pakistani ban against Indian films was kept intact based on nationalist
rhetoric of the Bangabandhu government. In 1972, leading distributors
and exhibitors of Bangladeshi cinema expected that the newly established
pro-India government would approve exhibiting Indian popular films in
Bangladesh as was the case prior to 1965.
Khan Ataur Rahman, a veteran film director-producer of Bangladesh in
the 1960s–1970s, recalled that when Bangabandhu was approached, he
declined this proposition, simply stating, ‘tell them, those films will not be
shown in Bangladesh’ (Weekly Chitrali, 13 April 1990). Bengali national-
ist leaders of the new state not only kept the ban on the theatrical exhibi-
tion of Indian (Hindi and Bengali) films, but also quickly issued a complete
ban on showing Pakistani (Urdu) popular films. Thus the Bengali nation-
alist leaders of the early 1970s ensured that local popular cinema did not
need to compete with its major competitors—films made in regional film
centers.
The ban on screening of Indian and Pakistani films in local cinemas
gave rise to a commercially viable film industry in 1970s Bangladesh. Kabir
noted that within the first three years of independent Bangladesh, during
1972–1975, the number of theaters almost doubled—from 120 to 220
(1975, p. 17). The number of cinemas in Bangladesh again doubled dur-
ing the next decade. The Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) recorded
that in 1984 there were 444 theaters in Bangladesh (Kabir, 1979, p. 52).
Such state-level commitment to keeping a well-protected domestic
market only for Bengali-language, local popular films helped Bangladesh’s
film industry to expand in the 1970s–1990s. Even in the globalizing
mediascape of twenty-first-century Bangladesh both the state and Bengali-
Muslim capitalists kept the local popular film industry within such a pro-
tected theatrical-exhibition environment, though Indian popular films are
omnipresent via satellite television channels and streaming platforms
throughout the big cities and small towns of contemporary Bangladesh.
The in-flow of trading capital in the form of ‘black money’ (untaxed,
undeclared money) somewhat energized Bangladesh’s film industry in the
1970s. This energy was palpable both in popular and realist-artistic film-
making. On the popular cinema front, a group of ‘war films’ were pro-
duced in the early to mid-1970s. Most of these war films played an
important role in bringing new audiences to the cinemas, as well as in
developing a local-based action genre in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Some of the notable war films were Arunodoyer Ognishashi (In the Flames
of Sunrise, 1972) by veteran Subhash Dutta, Raktakta Bangla (Blood-
drenched Bengal, 1972) by Mumtaz Ali and Narayan Ghosh’s Alor Michhil
(The Procession, 1974).
As the era of war films ended, Dhaka film producers moved in with the
pre-tested formula of ‘social’ films—combining tears, songs, love affairs
and occasional dances. Still, these were not exactly the family-drama films
of the 1960s. Rather, these were re-workings of social-realist films of the
1960s. Many of these films dealt with the new social realities such as the
394 Z. H. RAJU
traumas of rapid urbanization, rural poverty, disintegration of large fami-

lies and village-to-city migration. Amjad Hossain’s Nayanmoni (1976),
Golapi Ekhon Trene (The Endless Trail, 1978) and Koshai (Butchers, 1980);
Khan Ata’s Sujon Shakhi (1975), Abdus Samad’s duology Surjagrahan
(Solar Eclipse, 1976) and Surjasangram (1979); Abdullah Al Mamun’s
Sareng Bou (1978) and Ekhony Shomoi (The Time, 1980), and Lathial
(1975) by Narayan Ghosh thus portray and criticize the contemporary
transformations of Bangladeshi society that were not visible in the
1960s films.
The late 1970s also witnessed the re-emergence of the modernist-realist
cinema portraying tensions of/in the national and cultural identities in the
postcolonial nation-space called Bangladesh. Baby Islam’s Charitraheen
(Characterless, 1975) Subash Dutta’s Boshundhara (Mother Earth, 1977)
and Doomoorer Phool (Unseen Flower, 1978); Kabir Anwar’s Suprovat
(Good Morning, 1976), Moshiuddin Shaker and Shaikh Niamat Ali’s
Surjodighal Bari (the Ominous House, 1979), Alamgir Kabir’s
Surjokannya (Daughter of the Sun, 1976), Shimana Periye (Across the
Fringe, 1977) and Rupali Shoikotey (The Loner, 1979) or films by FTII-
trained Pune-returned filmmakers like Badal Rahman (Emiler Goenda
Bahini) and Salahuddin Zaki (Ghuddi) are examples of Bangladesh’s New
Wave cinema.
Film Two (1990s–2010s): Bangladeshi Cinema

as Border-Crossing Culture
In order to demarcate this narrative part of Bangladeshi cinema from the

previous one, early 1990s can be considered as a useful pivot point as the
border-crossing tendencies in the texts and contexts of this cinema can be
located in that period. Early 1990s ends the ‘Film One’ for Bangladesh’s
film industry when the cinema served as a strong vernacular cultural-
national institution. Rather, the 1990s starts a new phase for Bangladeshi
cinema characteristically marked with the symptoms of commercialization
and globalization. I tend to find a starting point for this: the very first
teen-age romance film of Dhaka industry—Quamat Theke Quamat, made
in early 1990s Bangladesh. This was an official remake of a very popular
Bollywood film. This truly border-crossing film can be identified as a suit-
able turning point to signify the movement of Bangladeshi cinema away
from being a vernacular social force towards turning into a transcultural

institution.
The ‘Film Two’ then starts a new story of Bangladeshi cinema which is
quite different than the earlier one. Here I locate the globalizing and com-
mercializing drives of this cinema in 1990s–2010s Bangladesh and how
these helped construct Bangladeshi cinema as a transcultural cinema. I
locate how the film culture was still in a conflicting as well as dialogic rela-
tionship with the nation-state amid the globalizing forces in the postcolo-
nial nation-space called Bangladesh. This was also the period when the
film industry expanded exponentially, defying the cultural-national inspi-
rations as prescribed by the nation-state. From the small, struggling ver-
nacular industry of the 1960s, Dhaka’s film industry became a large
industry in terms of film production as well as exhibition venues. This was
the period from which the borders between ‘Commercial’ and ‘Alternative’
cinema started to be blurred, as well as when old film genres started to
become obsolete.
In this part I analyze how Bangladesh’s film industry expands itself in
the face of the global media (e.g., Bollywood, Hollywood, Netflix) cou-
pled with trans-border migrations, as well as the penetration of multina-
tional capital and transnational visual entertainment in Bangladesh. This
expansion process enables it to cross ‘borders’ of different kinds, be they
political, cultural or economic. The visibility and dissemination of cinema
culture and the expansion of film production, exhibition and reception in
late twentieth and early twenty-first-century Bangladesh is truly over-
whelming. As the 1970s’ newly rich homegrown trader-capitalists started
investing in the film industry in order to multiply their surplus money
quickly, the Dhaka industry saw a dramatic increase in the number of films
produced annually. During 1976–1983, it produced on average 42 films
each year, including fifty films in 1979. This number went up to on aver-
age of 67 films each year during 1984–1992, including 78 films in 1989
(Quader, 1993, p. 211). In other words, since the mid-1970s, annual film
production in the Dhaka industry has increased by 25–30% approximately
every five years, while the Calcutta industry has seen a sharp decline in the
number of productions since the 1960s. While the Calcutta film industry
produced 46 films per year in the 1950s, this number decreased by 35% in
the 1960s–1980s and went down to yearly 30 films or fewer (Bhowmik,
1996). In this way, by the 1980s the Bangladeshi popular film industry
had turned out to be the largest and strongest Bengali-language film
industry in contemporary South Asia.
396 Z. H. RAJU
The increase in film production in Bangladesh in the late 1990s and

early 2000s (up to 2006) is also quite striking. During these years, the
Dhaka industry annually produced 100 feature films on average. In other
words, Bangladeshi cinema was able to regularly produce 70–80 feature
films annually during between the early 1980s and early 1990s, and then
90–100 films per year during between the mid-1990s and mid-2000s.2
During this twenty-five-year period, around 2000 feature films were pro-
duced in the Dhaka industry which were being shown in around 1000
theaters in cities and townships all over the country. This is an exceptional
feat that many of the national cinemas in Europe or Oceania cannot even
imagine. This achievement was possible only because there was a large
captive audience—the newly migrated urban working class who wanted to
experience visual stories and entertainment told in both a vernacular and
transcultural manner. As silent spectators of the political and economic
upheavals of the nation, they tended to utilize the filmed fantasies on
screen in order to negotiate their status within the ‘margins’ of global late
capitalism. What are the social, economic and industrial contexts in which
such filmed fantasies were and are produced and circulated? Let me take
this question in hand and attempt an answer below.
In 1980s–1990s Bangladesh, rapid urbanization and migration fuelled
by pauperization of subsistence farmers in the rural areas rapidly trans-
formed the urban landscape. The under-employed villagers started to
migrate to the cities and towns en masse and the process gave rise to vast
new audiences for Bangladeshi popular films. For these new working
class—who were on a journey to effectively cross the border between rural
and urban sensibilities—the number of cinemas also drastically increased
in this period. Because of exhibitor-friendly taxation starting in the 1980s,
the number of cinemas in Bangladesh tripled over the next decade. Quader
noted the existence of 767 cinemas in 1990 (1993, p. 397), which means
a large number of new cinema theaters were built in the emerging town-
ships and on the fringes of the cities.
Such transformations in the compositions of the film audiences—largely
moving away from educated middle class to urban working class—meant
2
Calculated from the data presented in the annual reviews on Bangladesh’s film industry
published in various Bangladeshi magazines and newspapers of this period. See Jai Jai Din
20.12 (December 30, 2003): 27, 19.12 (31 December 2002): 35, 14.13 (December 30,
1997): 29 and 13.13 (December 31, 1996): 39, Weekly 2000 4.33 (January 4, 2002): 78,
Daily Banglabazar (December 30, 1999): 16 and Anandabhuban 3.16 (January 1,
1999): 17.
more new films and new genres were needed in Bangladeshi cinema. On
one hand, new film genres were developed in order to cater for the newly
migrated urban dwellers—popular genres like social action and teenage
romance films (beginning with Quamat Theke Quamat)—that aligned
with the aspirations of menial workers much needed for the envisaged
urban development in a globalizing Bangladesh.
On the other hand, from across the border, Indian popular cinema
(read: Bollywood films) supplied ready remedies to meet the need for new
film narratives and aesthetics in a 1990s–2000s transcultural frame.
Plagiarism in the form of copying Hindi popular films had already started
in the early 1980s. A trip to Calcutta or a nearby Indian city enabled one
to get a pirated video of a Hindi blockbuster film and then to copy it to
prepare a Bangladeshi version—sometimes scene by scene. Action cinema
as a major genre thus developed further in the 1980s–1990s, especially to
meet the challenges brought on by the new viewing options such as vid-
eocassette players imported from—literally—beyond the borders.
Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan, Zeenat Aman and Hema Malini
became household names as both the urban middle classes and semi-urban
working-class audiences had started voraciously watching videotaped
Hindi films since the government issued the permission to import videos
in 1979.
These global and commercializing forces made Dhaka’s industry
rethink its existing generic traditions. Therefore, the early 1990s witnessed
traditional folk films moving to become big-budget ‘costume films,’
alongside the development of new genres like teen romance films. This
refurbishing process of popular film genres over the past two decades
almost eradicated the time-honored traditions of ‘social’ or ‘social action’
films, which were the staple of Bangladeshi cinema in the 1970s and 1980s.
The narrative and genre line in most of the popular films of 2000s–2010s
Bangladeshi cinema thus became thinner and thinner. Instead of narrating
a story on screen, these films mostly presented a high dose of sex and vio-
lence and became quite popular among the semi-urban working-class
audiences on the city fringes and in small towns. These films, the genre of
which can be termed extreme-action, almost always centered on a ‘mostan’
(gangster) with a heart of gold but erratic behavior. The film Ammajan
(The Mother, 2000) can be seen as emblematic of this trend (see Raju,
2015, for details). The rise of such a gangster-centered extreme-action
genre in Bangladeshi cinema can be directly linked to the prevalence of
‘Mostanocracy’ in urbanizing Bangladesh of the 1990s–2010s. Historian
398 Z. H. RAJU
and sociologist Willem van Schendel connects this cultural imaginary

with/in contemporary Bangladesh:
How could a petty gangster become a cultural icon? He came to represent a

new urbanized society that is more violent,…and less firmly under the con-
trol of the old elite. The …mostan is especially attractive to young people
who have been disappointed…; he symbolizes rage, promises to avenge
injustice and gives voice to lower-class ambitions. (2009, p. 252)
The extreme-action films of the late 1990s–early 2000s addressing this

newly urbanized working-class youth made sure that the non-diegetic
attractions, provocative song-and-dances and violent fights, last almost the
full duration of the film. The display of violence often extended to vivid
and lengthy scenes of dismemberment of opponents presented on screen
as part of these extreme-action films.
Display and sexualization of women’s bodies also reached new heights
in these films. Most of these extreme-action films incorporated short,
uncensored clips of nude or sexually explicit scenes (locally termed ‘cut-
pieces’) especially to be shown in cinemas in semi-urban areas, small towns
and on the fringes of the big cities. During the period 2000–2007, Dhaka’s
film industry mostly produced such extreme-action films. The middle-
class intelligentsia were incensed and protested against these films, quickly
marking them as oshlil (obscene). Such a wave of ‘obscene’ films in
Bangladeshi cinema can be read as a direct effect of globalization and
commercialization in early twentieth-century Bangladesh. In late 2007, a
decisive police action against the dubious producers-directors of Dhaka’s
film industry orchestrated by the then army-backed caretaker government
apparently cleaned up all these ‘vulgar’ films (see Hoek, 2014, for details
on production and circulation of ‘obscene’ films).
During 2008–2020, there was a renewed wave of social films and a very
limited number of action films that can be located in the Dhaka film indus-
try. No cut-piece-incorporating, ‘obscene’ films were being made, though
such films made earlier slowly came back into digital circulation. Annual
film production decreased to 30–40 feature films in the 2010s. Cinema
attendance was also dwindling—most of the cinemas in the big cities and
towns were shut down or transformed into shopping malls, while a few
multi-screen cineplexes appeared in Dhaka and Chittagong during
2018–2019. A rapid transformation in the production and dissemination
modes of screen media worldwide is also making significant changes in the

political economy of Bangladesh’s film industry.
Local film exhibition structures used to determine the modus operandi
of Bangladeshi cinema during the late twentieth century. Because of a
‘nationalized’ exhibition environment secured by the state, a significantly
high rate of profitability existed on the exhibition front of popular cinema.
After the state, film exhibitors (cinema-owners), in collaboration with
intermediaries such as booking agents, engaged in the business of film
distribution to gain the lion’s share from the box office.
Within such a pro-state and exhibitor-dependent production context of
popular cinema, film production also depended on the gestures of the
state and sponsorship of the film exhibitors. The state lent shooting, edit-
ing, sound-dubbing, lab and printing facilities to almost all feature films at
its Bangladesh Film Development Corporation (BFDC) studio in Dhaka,
the only fully fledged 35 mm film production studio in Bangladesh. This
kind of high dependency on a centralized state-run facility in the produc-
tion sector of Bangladeshi cinema was and is unique in South Asia. More
importantly, BFDC provides this necessary technical support to the film
producers on credit. Thus the state financed almost all the popular films at
the production stage, as the BFDC is a state-run entity. However, BFDC
lost its centrality in film production in the early twenty-first century as
films are now made mostly in digital formats, and almost none are made
on 35 mm celluloid.
In the same vein, during the last two decades, digital film exhibitors
have become important financiers in feature film production—reflecting
the informal and under-developed capitalist structure of Bangladesh’s film
industry once more. Satellite television channels, such as Channel i, NTV,
Maasranga TV and Jazz Multimedia, which supplied (by renting out) digi-
tal projectors to more than 100 cinemas countrywide, appeared to be
leading players in film production in this period. They consider film pro-
duction as a quick- and high-profit business as they also control certain
exhibition outlets (such as cinemas and television channels). A process of
vertical integration is therefore visible in Bangladeshi cinema during the
2000s–2010s. Other than such large entities and a few well-known film
production houses—remnants of the FDC-based film industry—there are
individual businessmen who function as film producers. As a self-motivated
entrepreneur, they collect finances for their underproduction projects
from various sources. First, they avail the technical services on credit from
the state-run BFDC studio and/or a production commitment from a
400 Z. H. RAJU
television channel such as Channel i. After they have done around half of
the shooting, they pre-sell the film and collect advance payments either
from a group of film distributors and/or theaters or the sponsoring televi-
sion channel, which again pre-sells the film to a group of television adver-
tisers. When the film is in the post-production stage, the upstart producers
collect another advance sum from the exhibitors (especially from those
owning theaters in big cities) in order to pay back the FDC studio for the
technical facilities used on credit and release the film. Or, the sponsoring
television channel now seeks the second or last installment of advance
from the advertisers. Such an uneven process of film production gave rise
to team-financed films in the 1990s–2010s. However, such pro-BFDC
and/or pro-exhibitor financing of popular films has created a vulnerable
film production industry in contemporary Bangladesh. In the absence of
any formal loan facility offered by banks or other financial institutions, the
film producer/director needs to organize the financing from a big entity
(which then becomes the authority of the film) or from a host of exhibi-
tors/advertisers.
The fragile arrangement of multi-source financing and directing of film
production by such an exhibitor-financier-advertiser trio represents the
weak economic structure of Dhaka’s film industry in the 1990s–2010s.
This ad hoc arrangement necessitates that the film has to be completed
and released quickly. The cast and crew, including the director of the film,
are then always under pressure from the financiers to complete the film in
a stopgap manner. This kind of undue pressure based on uncertain finan-
cial resources turned certain makeshift and anything-goes arrangements of
film production into a standard, consensual procedure Bangladesh film
industry in the 1990s-2010s. In this procedure the director first ensures
the dates from some big-name stars when he gets some assurance from a
team of financiers. They then together plan some elements (e.g., songs,
dances, fights, rapes, killings, dialogues, etc.) that will suit the image of the
stars in the film—mostly as advised by the exhibitors and production-
financiers. And at the end they plan together to put the stars and the
attractions on a thin narrative line, sometimes copying the storyline from
a Bollywood or a Tamil popular film.
In the absence of a film financing board or formal loans from the banks,
a professional structure of film production is still unavailable in today’s
globalized Bangladesh.
A Possible Happy Ending: Bangladeshi Cinema

Going Global?
It may sound astonishing that within the half-baked capitalist structure of
the contemporary film industry in Bangladesh, and despite its weak eco-
nomic framework, the mass popularity of Dhaka films reached such a level
that a counter-cultural flow began between the two Bengali-language film
industries of the world in the 1990s. This may be called a ‘reverse-
plagiarism’ practice, as popular films from Bangladesh were being remade
in Calcutta for audiences in West Bengal and Eastern India. This trend
also displaced the long-standing view that Calcutta was the media and
cultural capital for Bengali-language people around the world, and Dhaka
always the recipient of its higher cultural traits and products. Within a
newly developed global/local interface in Bangladeshi popular cinema,
such an opposite cultural flow started. Since the early 1990s, starting with
Beder Meye Joytsna (Josna, the Daughter of a Snake-charmer), Dhaka-
produced popular films have been remade in the West Bengali film indus-
try. During the 1990s and 2000s, around fifty popular films of Bangladeshi
cinema were remade by Calcutta’s film industry for Indian, Bengali-Hindu
audiences (Raju, 2012b). This border-crossing tendency also means that
at least 10% of West Bengali films during this period directly appropriated
films from Bangladesh for their narrative and aesthetic craft. This process
of cultural appropriation of East Bengali/Bangladeshi cultural ethos by
the West Bengali/Indian population under the stresses of globalization
and pan-Indian nationalism may also be read as a symptom of a crucial
transformation of Bangladeshi cinema that has long been nurtured within
a nationalist film exhibition environment.
Dhaka’s film industry has always targeted a very distinct market sector,
a ‘Bangladeshi’ audience within its geographical borders. The remaking of
Dhaka films in Calcutta expanded the audience for Bangladeshi cinema
throughout Eastern India, albeit in an indirect manner. The other direct
mode of audience expansion beyond the actual borders of Bangladesh
intensified through theatrical releases of Bangladeshi films in cities world-
wide, ranging from Toronto, Sydney and London to Kuala Lumpur,
Dubai and Singapore. This trend toward popular films from Bangladesh
began in the late 1990s, and by the late 2010s it had become a norm as
Non-resident Bangladeshis (Bangladeshi expatriates) had increased expo-
nentially in various locations in Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania
during the past two decades. On the art cinema front, Morshedul Islam’s
402 Z. H. RAJU
Chaka (The Wheel, 1993) was the first film released in theaters in Europe.
Later Tareque Masud’s Matir Moina (The Clay Bird, 2002) and other
films were released in many major cities around the Western world. Most
recently, Rubaiyat Hossain’s Made in Bangladesh (2019) not only received
rave reviews from critics, it toured many parts of Europe, Oceania and
North America, though it is yet to be released in its homeland. Similarly,
web streaming platforms have become a mainstay for the dissemination of
Bangladeshi cinema, especially art cinema. Mostofa Sarwar Farooki’s
Television (2012) and Doob (2017), newcomer Noor Imran’s Komola
Rocket (2018) and Abu Shahed Imon’s omnibus film Ity Tomari Dhaka
(Sincerely Yours, Dhaka, 2019) are featured on Netflix for a globally dis-
persed Bengali audience comprising expatriates from Bangladesh and
West Bengal.
In the process, the attitude of the nation-state toward Bangladeshi cin-
ema has been transformed. The strong nationalist-conservative control of
the state over this institution is now changing toward a softer, trans-border
approach. Since 2010, the state has attempted to soften the ban on the
screening of Indian films in Bangladesh through various means, including
SAFTA and other trade regulations. Local film producers are against lift-
ing this ban for their own survival. They are basing their arguments on the
rhetoric of Bengali nationalism and cultural identity, and influencing state
leaders in the same vein. On the other hand, as the majority of cinema
theaters in the country closed or transformed (e.g., into shopping centers)
during the 2000s and 2010s, the remaining theaters wish to bring
Bollywood films to Bangladesh in order to sustain their existence. The
state is negotiating the two blocs and has ushered in some mechanisms so
that cross-border cinematic exchange between Bangladesh and India
increases, and eventually upgrades Dhaka’s film industry into a transna-
tional cinema. Such a transcultural take by the Bangladesh state on Dhaka
cinema is reflected in its recent steps to produce a high-quality film por-
trayal of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The Bangladeshi govern-
ment is jointly producing this film with the Indian State and they assigned
the famous Indian film director Shyam Benegal to make this biopic of
Bangabandhu (currently it is being shot in Mumbai studios with a major-
ity of Bangladeshi actors).
Bangladeshi cinema is thus in the process of becoming a transcultural
screen media industry. As a national cinema, it needs to re-energize itself
as a cultural institution crossing multiple borders. In order to survive and
expand, Bangladeshi cinema as a national cinema needs to move to the
global arena and become a transnational actor. As outlined above, this

process has already begun.
References
Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS). Statistical Year Book 1984.
Bhowmik, S. (1996). Indian Cinema: An Economic Report. Papyrus.
Hayat, A. (2000, January 20). The History of Bangladesh Cinema: The Trends.
6th International Dhaka Film Festival Bulletin, 1, 4.
Hoek, L. (2014). Cut-pieces: Celluloid Obscenity and Popular Cinema in
Bangladesh. Columbia University Press.
Kabir, A. (1975, Spring). The Cinema in Bangladesh. Sequence, 2(2), 16–19.
Kabir, A. (1979). Film in Bangladesh. Bangla Academy.
Quader, M. T. (1993). Bangladesh Film Industry [in Bengali]. Bangla Academy.
Rahman, K. A. (1990, April 13). Tell Them…in Bangladesh. Weekly Chitrali, Dhaka.
Raju, Z. H. (2000). National Cinema and the Beginning of Film History in/of
Bangladesh. In I. Bertrand & Z. H. Raju (Eds.), Screening the Past 11. Special
Issue on Film/Culture Adaptation in Asia.
Raju, Z. H. (2012a). Indigenization of Cinema in (Post)Colonial South Asia:
From Transnational to Vernacular Public Spheres. Comparative Studies in South
Asia, Africa and the Middle East (CSSAAME), 32(3), 611–621. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press.
Raju, Z. H. (2012b). Cinematic Border Crossings in Two Bengals: Cultural
Translation as Communalization? In A. G. Roy & C. B. Huat (Eds.), Travels of
Bollywood Cinema: From Bombay to LA. Oxford University Press.
Raju, Z. H. (2015). Bangladesh Cinema and National Identity: In Search of the
Modern? Routledge.
van Schendel, W. (2009). A History of Bangladesh. Cambridge University Press.
Hip-Hop Music Activism: A New
Phenomenon in Bangladeshi Popular Culture
Mubashar Hasan and Priyanka Kundu
Introduction
Protest music and music itself is woven into social movements, war and
demonstrations. In Bangladesh, historically conscious and politically
charged songs have played a significant role in different movements
directed at inspiring change. Most recently, rap has emerged as an instru-
ment of expression in Bangladesh, influenced by American political hip-
hop culture, but tinged with political criticism particular to Bangladesh.
This chapter describes and analyses this new phenomenon in Bangladesh.
M. Hasan (*)
Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW, Australia
P. Kundu
Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP), Dhaka, Bangladesh

406 M. HASAN AND P. KUNDU
Conscious Rap around the Globe and Bangladesh:

Reviewing the Literature
Afro-American rap musicians were the first to use rap as a tool of political
protest. Through critical and politically conscious rhymes they addressed
the disadvantaged condition of Black communities in the USA. Gladney
(1995) sees conscious rap as a form of expression for addressing different
political, social and cultural problems and also for bringing about positive
change in society. In their exploration into the relationship between race
and politics and rap music in the context of the USA, Lusane (1993) states
that American Black youth, who were trapped in the cycle of violence,
destitution and oppression, found expression through their rap songs as a
way of protest against the system. The researcher also observed that to the
Black youth, rap was the voice of those who were alienated and frustrated
and thought of themselves as marginalized in post-industrial America. The
rise of protest rap was the consequence of the politics and economy of the
USA and the way that political and economic structures embedded disad-
vantage for minority groups. Thus, rap performed two functions: simply
to express and describe conditions, and to protest against them—an instru-
ment for venting as well as for change.
During the tenures of President Reagan and President Bush in 1980 to
1992 the Black unemployment rate soared to 42.5 per cent. Both were
Republicans, but rap was prepared to be bipartisan in its targets. US rap-
per Ice Cube famously ‘dissed’ both sides of contemporaneous politics:
Do I have to sell me a whole lot of crack

For decent shelter and clothes on my back?
Or should I just wait for help from Bush
Or Jesse Jackson and Operation PUSH?
The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is simply the latest iteration
of this tradition. Following the brutal police killing of African American
George Floyd in Minneapolis, Kendrick Lamar’s Alright, which under-
scores police brutality towards the Black community, and Childish
Gambino’s This is America, which tackles white nationalism and race-
infused crime in America, have become BLM anthems (Hasan, 2020)1.
1
https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/bangladesh-fight-power-shut-up
HIP-HOP MUSIC ACTIVISM: A NEW PHENOMENON IN BANGLADESHI… 407
Mohammed-Akinyela (2012) in his investigation of the BLM move-

ment in the USA showed that the message of conscious rap is “overtly
political” and the style of the music has the muscle to affect the practices
of activism all over the world.
Although America is the birthplace of protest rap, this music has been
taken up as an instrument of change globally. David A. McDonald’s early
work on the protest music of the Palestinian-Israel rap group DAM (2008)
is an ethnomusicological study of the relation between the development of
identity and connection of popular culture there. Through the analysis of
DAM’s work, the researcher found that through rap, the group refash-
ioned the concepts of Palestinian suffering and used the lyrics as an ideo-
logical weapon against Israeli hegemony. In Italy rap musicians rejected
the political right (Heibronner, 2016), while in South Asian countries, rap
evolved as a localized Western form of protest. For example, Damodaran
(2020) argues that, in the last two decades India has seen a proliferation
of rap groups and individual singers who have used the Western patterns
of rhyming, lyric writing, style and presentation to address political issues.
Debated social and political issues like caste, poverty, unemployment and
state violence were being framed by rap musicians. Inspired by American
rappers like Tupac Shakur, Eminem, NWA and Public Enemy and follow-
ing the current trend of a new way of expressing protest, a handful of
conscious rappers embedded political and social problems in their rap
(Hasan, 2018). Although protest rap is still in its infancy, it has potential
to have significant importance.
Art activism is of course not a new phenomenon, and is closely linked
with protest and social movements throughout the world. It is an estab-
lished practice to use multiple forms of artistic tools including music to
launch criticism against oppression, autocracy and injustice. In a sense, art
can act as a ‘Trojan horse’, allowing politics to be slipped into society in a
form that would be rejected or repressed if it were inserted in a more obvi-
ous form.
Art activism has played a role in Bangladesh’s development. Its history,
from the time of the Indian liberation movement in the undivided Indian
subcontinent (Sinha, 2015) to the language movement in undivided
Pakistan in 1952, the mass uprising in 1969, and the Liberation War of
Bangladesh in 1971, has been imbued with the use of art and music to
express the will for change. In each historical epoch, art activism in the
form of murals, street art, poetry and music, graffiti and street plays acted
as an integral part of protests (Selim, 2014). Even in recent major protest
events such as the Shahbag Movement in 2013 (calling for capital punish-
ment for a war criminal), the Quota Reform Movement in 2018 (relating
to calls for reform to civil service recruitment) and the Road Safety
Movement in 2018 (calling for greater regulation and safety in road trans-
port following the death of two young children in road accidents), art
activism has played a significant part.
However, art activism through hip-hop music is a new phenomenon in
the history of art protest in Bangladesh. This trend in popular culture
began just after 2000. While hip-hop artists continue to use ‘soft’ issues
such as love, money, romance, crime and drug use as motifs in their work,
there is a small fraction within the hip-hop community who have stepped
out of the box and raised their voices about political malfunction, corrup-
tion in the system, injustice, inequality and freedom.
The Context of Bangladeshi Hip-Hop

Bangladesh, a developing country, is still struggling to achieve democracy
and freedom in a true sense. It features well below Afghanistan (122) in
the 2020 World Press Freedom Index (151)2. The lack of freedom, the
absence of free agency, and curtailment of freedom of speech and equal
legal protection are reasons why the Freedom in the World 2020 report
still ranks3 Bangladesh as only partly free. The report also observes that
“open private discussion of sensitive religious and political issues is
restrained by fears of harassment. Censorship of digital content and sur-
veillance of telecommunications and social media have become increas-
ingly common” (Freedom House, 2020). Against this backdrop, a group
of Bangladeshi hip-hop artists began to use their songs as protests against
power. Rap has become one of the fastest growing conduits of protest
activism. In this chapter the songs we choose to study are termed “con-
scious rap”, which is part of hip-hop culture. Hip-hop is a combination of
art, style, attitudes and values. It includes four elements: rapping (lyrics
with beats), deejaying (creating music for rap and mixing sounds),
breakdancing (gymnastic dance to a rap song) and graffiti. This art form
gained prominence in New York City in the late 1970s (Binfield, 2009).
Conscious rap can be defined as a subgenre of hip-hop. It pronounces
stronger political messages and aims to create awareness and critique the
2
https://rsf.org/en/ranking
3
https://freedomhouse.org/country/bangladesh/freedom-world/2020
system. Through lyrics, attitude and style, conscious rappers express their
protest, criticize the status quo and demand reform (Adaso, 2018).
Movement, protest and war are, usually, harsh and unforgiving, while
music is (traditionally) considered to be in complete contrast: sentimental,
soft and touching. However, these two ‘opposites’ have been drawn
together from the dawn of the history of protest. Politically conscious and
influential songs in the Bangla language served as a tool of motivation for
the Liberation War fighters in 1971. Moreover, these revolutionary tunes
and lyrics evolved, developing new meaning in later acts of rebellion
(Rayhan, 2017).
In the post-independence period, Bangladesh witnessed general politi-
cal instability in the late 1970s to 1980s. Those who dreamt of a prosper-
ous, equitable and politically and socially stable society, especially the
youth, became frustrated with the corrupt political and economic sce-
nario. The period was marked with the rise of rock ‘n’ roll culture where
the urban youth created politically charged songs. Many anti-establishment
tracks were released in what was a striking departure from the traditional
musical history of Bangladesh (Karim, 2017). Hasan (2015) critically ana-
lysed rock ‘n’ roll culture in Bangladesh, arguing that Bangladeshi rock
bands like Warfaze, Aurthohin, Feelings, Feedback, Artcell, LRB and
Souls and artists like Azam Khan, James and Sumon promoted tolerance
and democracy and explicitly criticized authoritarianism, corruption and
extremism in their music. Hasan also observed that in the post-
independence years, these musicians played a vital role in changing the
values of Bangladeshi youth. Rock music offered a pathway of activism
amid mounting criticism to traditional culture through its rebellious lyrics,
and criticism of ‘pseudo democracy’, corruption and authoritarian politi-
cal culture (Hasan, 2015).
However, in the absence of the promotion of intellectual property
rights, and lacking attention from cultural theorists and government spon-
sorship, rock music in Bangladesh lost its strong cultural dominance.
However, with their conscious rap music, a new wave of Bangladeshi
youth, inspired by American rebel rappers like Tupac Shakur, Eminem,
NWA and Public Enemy (Hasan, 2018), are beginning to make headway.
Rebellion through Lyrics: A New Dimension

to Bangladeshi Pop-Culture
To get a sense of the thematic concentration of this new stream in

Bangladeshi pop culture, we analysed over 100 politically-charged rap
songs. From our analysis, five key themes emerge consistently, and show a
distinct difference from the crime, drugs and racism focus of the American
stream of rap.
1. Corruption
Bangladesh was synonymous with corruption when it was the consecu-

tive five-time ‘champion’ in the Corruption Perception Index from 2001
to 2005, ranked the most corrupt country in the world, and it is perhaps
not surprising that corruption emerges as a common theme in Bangladeshi
political rap. For instance, Nizam Rabby, a rap singer from Bangladesh, in
his song ‘151 Rum’, addresses the never-ending cycle of corruption.
“Corruption is hiking, shameless! This circle is boundless”, he observes. A
group of rappers titled Uptown Lokoz in their song ‘Hishaber Kotha’
(Words about Share) asked the corrupt officials “Hey! Don’t you be
ashamed to take bribe from everyone/Children, women, men, nobody
escaped your hunger”. They also asked people to be careful because to
them everyone is so self-centered and have become “blind only for taking
bribes”. In another song called ‘Civil Somaj’ (Civil Society), the rappers
termed the corrupt people “selfish people” and expressed that they “even
do not think twice to deprive others”.
Another Bangladeshi rap pioneer, Towfique Ahmed, made a compari-
son between the corrupt people and Mir Jafar (a historical character of
the British imperial period in India, who was known to act as a traitor to
the last Mughal administration in favour of the British East India
Company). He expressed his anger by rapping, “The blood of Mir Jafar
is still in our veins, corruption and polymorphisms are in every corner”
(‘Barud’, 2010). There is more than a thread of anti-materialist anger run-
ning through the anti-corruption theme expressed in these artists’ words:
Rapper Skib Khan, in ‘Abar Juddhe Jete Hobe’ (2018), remarked,
“Everyone is blind, busy with their own affairs, opposition is troubled,
government is happy”. In another song (‘Dui Taka’, 2018) he raps,
“Making money is only aim…this is the only truth prevailing throughout
the world”.
2. Political Corruption and Inequality
German-based think-tank Bertelsmann Stiftung in its Transformation

Index 2018 ranks Bangladesh as one of the ‘new autocratic’ countries, one
that no longer meets the minimum standards for democracy, noting that
the nation is instead currently running under ‘autocratic’ rule (The Daily
Star, 2018). The Bangladeshi conscious rappers have picked up on this
theme, addressing dysfunctional democracy and political malpractices of
the country.
“Everyone is silent, nobody is speaking up, nobody is bothering about
honesty, why good and bad became the same, is the ‘golden Bangla’ only
a dream?”, rapper Skib Khan shouts out in his song ‘Shob Chup’ (Everyone
is Silent). The singer also contrasted his rage about economic inequality
and the betrayal of politicians with the spirit of the Liberation War. The
singer, in another song called ‘Abar Juddhe Jete Hobe’ (Again we have to
fight the war), condemned the politicians’ excessive false promises. To
him, Bangladeshi politics is nothing but “the domination of voiceism in
the name of democracy”.
The rap group Uptown Lokolz frames their frustration about the over-
all situation of the country by rapping, “When I go out in the street, I
come across the situation of my country, if it runs like this, how the golden
Bangla will be progressed?” Again, a contrast between an idealized
‘Bangladesh’ and a more disappointing reality. This disappointment is also
drawn from a contrast between the ideals of the Liberation War and cur-
rent reality: “I feel bad when I think about the measurable situation of my
country, did the freedom fighters ever think that the result of their revolu-
tion would be this!” To them the election, held every five years, is mean-
ingless as it is only a process to change the hand holding the power but no
real progress ever happens.
Rapper Towfique Ahmed mocks the notion that Bangladesh is a
‘People’s Republic’, with everything instead firmly under the control of
capitalists and neo-feudalists (‘Barud’, 2010). The singer also highlights
‘might’ over ‘right’. “The muscle power is dominating the world, capital-
ism, welcomism, no sign of democracy” (‘Khepa-Gann’, 2012).
In the annual inequality report (Oxfam, 2018), Bangladesh ranked
148th amongst 157 countries. As per the United Nations, in Bangladesh
large disparities remain in accessing health, sanitation, education, govern-
ment services, employment and other public resources (Khan, 2019).
Rapper Skib Khan in his song ‘Dui Taka’ (Two Taka) touches on this
issue, singing “…the number of poor is increasing, if you open your eyes
for once, you can find”. In the song, his anger towards the ‘ruined society’
comes out. “Only 16 people have captured the share of 160 million peo-
ple, everything got ruined”…In the winter night, by the street, a kid in
the lap, the poor mother has to suffer for earning only two taka”. Through
these lines, Skib also points out the sufferings and vulnerability of Dhaka
street people. The singer condemns the politicians as they treat these help-
less people only as their vote bank. He also targets the politicians’ habit of
making promises before the election and forgetting them all when the
election is over, singing, “…we are beside the poor, but before that vote
for me”. The rapper is also critical of the ‘poverty politics’ of Bangladesh
as the ‘promise politics’ of discourse before the election, abandoned after
election day. “Think for a while, if there is no disease, how will the medi-
cine business be sustained?” (‘Dui Taka’, 2018)
Young rapper Nizam Rabby also addresses these issues in his song ‘151
Rum’. “Plenty of food, but other side, people are starving, did not get
some food after all day trying, Oh my dream! Oh the pain!” Uptown
Lokolz also draw on social deprivation and disparity, singing “My ques-
tion is, why the rich only drive the car/Why the poor only killed under its
wheel/Do understand, rich or poor, everyone is human being”. Moreover,
rappers Towfique and Faisal Roddy also mention the exploitation of the
poor in their song ‘Nodi’ (River). They observe, “Common people are
working restlessly, in the country which is full of exploitation”. The sing-
ers also demand the abolition of poverty. “I want to see a smile among the
starved, will not accept the execution of the protesters” (‘Atto
Kathan’, 2010).
Finally, this theme also takes on the role of religion in political corrup-
tion. In a song titled ‘White Democracy’ the rapper Matheon expresses his
anger against the use of religion for political gain. “For how long religion
would be the subject of politics…”, the rapper asks. Religion has become
a key force in Bangladeshi politics, as noted elsewhere in this volume.
Mainstream political parties have aligned with religion-based minority
parties for political gain (Hasan, 2012). Lal Miah, a US-based Bangladeshi
rapper, is blunt when describing Bangladeshi politicians who provoke or
harness religious fanaticism, describing them as “frauds who are betraying
the secular spirit of 1971” (Hasan, 2018).
3. Lack of Freedom of Expression and Justice
Government ‘interest’ in free speech has been a particularly strong

focus in Bangladesh since 2006, when the long-debated Information
Communication Technology (ICT) Act was passed into law. Since the
ICT Act was substantially reformed in 2018 with the new title Digital
Security Act (DSA-2018), journalists, free thinkers, social media activists,
blog writers and other netizens have been constant critics of the law for its
vagueness and ad hoc criminalization of specific online activities and irra-
tional punishments. These laws spread justified fear amongst online critics:
under the ICT Act between 2012 and 2017 (June), at least 1417 cases
were filed and in the four months after the passing into law of DSA-2018,
63 people were arrested (Kundu & Haque, 2019).
Bangladeshi hip-hop singers are some of the loudest voices defending
freedom of speech and expression through their rhymes. In ‘Bidrohi’
(rebel), rapper Towfique sees these legal restrictions as a violation of the
spirit and promise of Bangladesh’s independence. He observes, “I haven’t
seen the war but I heard of it. I don’t know how to revolt but my blood is
on fire”. “Don’t think I am stupid because of the calmness”, he sings. In
this song, he expresses his utmost anger, rhyming, “Overwhelmed world
will be looking at you and must turn back their gaze with shame and will
call you as traitor”. He also criticizes the absence of a free environment for
expressing one’s opinion: “My homeland is afraid of speaking out”
(‘Barud’, 2010)
In ‘Shob Chup’ (Everyone is Silent), referred to earlier, Skib Khan also
references restrictions on free speech, rapping, “…stops us from knowing,
stops us from writing, stops us from understanding, stops us from explor-
ing”. Khan, in ‘Abar Juddhe Jete Hobe’ (Again we have to fight the war),
rhymes, “46 years of age of our independence, still crying for freedom of
expression”. This is an example of tracks that go beyond a cry of despair
to a call for action. Khan and his co-singers call out the authoritative men-
tality of the government: “In the age of internet, the right time to fight
back against authority, Need to build a culture of free speech, free think-
ing and liberal society. Come out fearlessly, come out! We will not give a
damn to the leaders or the beneficiaries of any political parties”, he intones.
These activists also point to the failure of the media, hamstrung by owner-
ship and the need to get licences from the government they are expected
to keep in check. ‘Blast the Police’ (2018) may sound like yet another rap
song tackling an easy target, but instead draws on the role of the media:
“This is the only country where media does not support the public”. And
elsewhere, “the signboard of justice is everywhere, but real justice is
absent” (‘Blast the Police’, 2018).
4. The Culture of Fear
On a more sympathetic note when it comes to the media, rapper Nizam

Rabby, in the bilingual (Hindi and Bangla) song ‘Brasht’ (Wrong) released
in 2020 and jointly produced with Indian rappers, addresses the murder
and arrest of journalists, as part of a culture of fear in which human rights,
and women’s rights in particular, are infringed upon. He names names:
“Journalist couple are murdered in their bedroom, photographer Shahidul
went to the prison for publishing the truth, the dictator is running the
country but everyone is silent” (‘Bhrast’, 2020). The state’s attack on crit-
ics is reflected in GxP’s recently released song titled ‘Atongko’ (Fear),
where the artists declare, “If we talk against injustice, the next day you will
discover my beheaded body” (‘Atongko’, 2020).
5. Call for Revolution and Change
As noted earlier, the lyrics of Bangladeshi rap activists go beyond merely

decrying the situation, to a call for change. In an almost optimistic twist,
Towfique Ahmed, for example, sings, “…hip-hop of Bangla! Your rhythm
breaks the chain, ruptures the lock, in the rally of new day, upholds the
flag, lights the torch”. Elsewhere he is darker: “Red revolution is must,
trial by mass people in must” (‘Bidrohi’, 2010).
Other rappers in Bangladesh have also called for revolution through
their lyrics. Uptown Lokolz, in their song ‘Hishaber Kotha’ (2009), asks
the people to be more conscious about their rights and open their eyes to
see the irregularities: “Hey! Open your ears/Listen the calculation of your
fair share/Hey! Open your eyes/Re-visit your own rights”. And else-
where, “I won’t accept injustice-torture, why I won’t get my liberty in this
free country?”
In the song ‘Abar Juddhe Jete Hobe’, Skib and his group call on the
population to reject irregularities and join the fight. “All empty-handed,
step forward! Together! Will make people’s platform, All barriers…will be
ruined”. He also sings, “Come, come, you fearless, come/We will fight in
the side of unbiased mass/Spread the news all over the country/Fill up
the city walls with protesting graffiti/We will again start the war”.
The ‘fearless’ note that Skib touches on is also repeated elsewhere.

D-Ruthless makes it plain: “This is Bangladesh/I don’t give a f*** to the
government, this is Bangladesh/ I don’t give a f*** to the police, this is
Bangladesh/I don’t give a f*** to the pro-government Students’ League”
(‘Blast the Police’, 2018). The singer also says, “Again the war will hap-
pen, I can risk my well-being, give my life for the country again, then they
will understand our determination”.
Concluding Analysis
Rap music of Bangladesh is marked by political potential. It has already
established its worth in stimulating and critiquing serious issues like the
political system, injustice and social degradation. The new wave of con-
scious rappers has challenged the status quo using the language and status
of ‘music’ as a cultural rather than political movement to invade the politi-
cal space. Our analysis shows that rappers have engaged in a significant
commentary on corruption, inequality and constraints on freedom.
One of the striking aspects of the conscious rap movement in Bangladesh
is that it takes place against a background in which younger Bangladeshis
have been significant depoliticized, partly through cynicism, and partly
through an intentional campaign on the part of political forces. With the
added incentive of active political repression, backed by force, young
Bangladeshis are not keen to talk about political and social issues. A recent
survey by prominent Bangla-language newspaper the Daily Prothom Alo
(2019) of 1200 youth suggested that around 57 per cent participants are
not interested in political issues and 27 per cent do not bother about
political affairs at all. However, a small coterie of conscious rappers has
brought politics back into urban youth culture by making the discourses
‘cool’ and ‘rebellious’.
In conscious rap performances, we hear stories of oppression and insti-
tutional violence, stories that would otherwise be left unspoken or only
whispered behind closed doors—not on stage or the radio. With some
songs asking openly for revolution or at least change, conscious rap may
have the potential to be a catalyst for social change, motivating the masses
and raising political awareness amongst listeners. It could even become a
vehicle to mobilize youth and others to be thoughtful and active in politi-
cal and social issues.
Uttering unpleasant truths in a time and place where free expression is
strongly discouraged and sometimes forcefully repressed in itself sends a
strong political message. Whether the message is complex, nuanced or

even well expressed is a secondary point: music used this way is powerful,
offering a pathway to the artists and their audiences to gain a foothold in
the political landscape. The efforts to ‘speak to power’, however, have
been countered, with some evidence that self-censorship is already impact-
ing the message (Hasan, 2020). However, newer, younger singers are tak-
ing up the baton. Bangladeshi conscious rap has the potential to bring
political awareness to a new generation, a powerful weapon to speak the
unspoken, to protest in a manner capable of falling outside the control of
the powerful.
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Global Bangladesh
Habibul Khondker
This volume has been released in the context of a range of events that have
underlined how different the world is now to the moment 50 years ago
when Bangladesh took its first steps. Events like COVID-19, the moment
a miscalculation with the steering of a single boat in the Suez significantly
altered global trade, and the ongoing challenge of climate change show
that a single nation cannot opt out of the society of other nations. How is
Bangladesh managing its affairs in the global community? That is, how is
Bangladesh coping with the forces of globalization and trying to leverage
the opportunities and manage the challenges to secure a proportionate
place in the globalized world? This chapter casts its eye over key points of
the 50-year journey of this nation, and addresses some of these questions
in order to set the future trajectories of Bangladesh.
On March 26, 2021 Bangladesh celebrated the Golden Jubilee of her
birth. Messages from world leaders—namely President Biden in the USA,
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese Premier Xi Jinping, and British
Prime Minister Boris Johnson—offered lavish praise of the accomplish-
ments and achievements of Bangladesh. Domestic newspapers were
H. Khondker (*)

420 H. KHONDKER
understandably bursting with national pride, while international titles

showed a little more circumspection with headings such as “Bangladesh’s
growth has been remarkable, but is now at risk” (The Economist, March
27, 2021). Another newspaper claimed that Bangladesh had made remark-
able progress despite politicians. Whether it is “despite” or “because of” is
a matter of contention. The Guardian (2021) chose to use the growth of
Dhaka city as a metaphor for both the nation’s remarkable growth and its
troubles. For much of this progress, the result of rapid economic growth
that lifted a sizeable population out of poverty and advancement in social
indicators, such as life expectancy, literacy, and particularly women’s edu-
cation and employment, credit is given to the export of ready-made gar-
ments, remittances of approximately 8 million overseas Bangladeshis often
in relatively menial roles as well as those working for the UN peacekeeping
forces (as noted elsewhere in this volume), and innovative NGOs in
Bangladesh such as BRAC, Grameen Bank, and numerous smaller ones.
In the achievements of the aforementioned sectors from export-led eco-
nomic growth to allowing the NOG sectors to contribute. What is appar-
ent, however, is that progress in all the three sectors is directly related to
the forces of globalization that Bangladesh has come to be involved in.
Globalization has been an overused concept meaning many things to
users of the term. In this chapter we use the sociological understanding—
in addition to the conventional economic or neo-liberal understanding of
the concept. The importance of sociological usage is due to its broader
understanding of the concept. It is all about connectivity, shaped by his-
tory. Globalization, for the present purpose, is defined as compression of
the world and an increase in awareness about it. Robertson describes glo-
balization as “both to the compression of the world and to the intensifica-
tion of the consciousness of the world as a whole” (Robertson, 1992:8).
Swedish political scientist Jens Bartelson (2000) focuses on three
Ts—transference, transformation, and transcendence—in conceptualizing
globalization. Bangladesh has progressed using all the Ts effectively.
Transference of ideas, export goods, and remittance have transformed
Bangladesh, and with growing internet connectivity Bangladesh is ready
for transcendence to a new level of globalization. The entrance of
Bangladesh to the digital age has given the country exceptional connectiv-
ity. Globalization in the simplest sense can be thought of as “complex
connectivity” (Tomlinson, 1999) or, as stated elsewhere, “globalization is
a complex process of social, cultural, economic, and political connected-
ness …” (Turner & Khondker, 2010:19).
GLOBAL BANGLADESH 421
In late February 2021, Bangladesh graduated to the rank of a develop-

ing country according to the classification of the World Bank. In itself, this
may not seem to be a major achievement but considering the challenges
that Bangladesh had to encounter at its birth, noted in this volume, and
the portrayal in the international media of Bangladesh as an emblem of
poverty, flooding and cyclones (and occasionally political unrest), this is a
significant milestone.
Before Bangladesh was born as an independent country against the
wishes of the United States, at a brainstorming session in the situation of
room at the White House, in early December Ambassador U. Alexis
Johnson and undersecretary of the US State Department portrayed a dis-
mal image of Bangladesh, stating that if Bangladesh became an indepen-
dent country it would be an international basket case. To which President
Nixon’s National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger quipped that it would
not be “our” (i.e., the United States’) basket case, implying that the
United States was not going to bail out Bangladesh as it was perceived to
be aligned to the Soviet Bloc. Bangladesh, despite America’s wishes,
became independent as a determined nation against all odds and inherited
a devastated economy and physical infrastructure. The new administration
had a herculean task of rebuilding infrastructure as well as the social fabric
of a divided nation that suffered a genocide, war and what still ranks as the
greatest environmental catastrophe in recorded history, the Bhola Cyclone
of 1970. The famine was postponed, but following a disastrous flooding
in 1974, it struck and as the country was trying to cope with the crisis,
ships containing food aid from the USA were diverted on the grounds that
Bangladesh was exporting jute bags (one of its few exportable products at
the time) to Cuba, as American laws forbade food aid to countries that
traded with communist countries. Ostensibly, Bangladesh’s starving pop-
ulation fell victim to Cold War politics. The epicenter of the famine was
the northern districts of Bangladesh, but the entire country felt the shock.
Discussion of the famine in the news media and in Parliament was frank.
Bangladesh’s agricultural production rebounded remarkably following the
famine year, but not all damage, particularly human impacts, could
be undone.
The image of Bangladesh as a poor nation predates the country’s inde-
pendence. Archer Blood, an American diplomat who became famous for
his frank cables to the State Department reporting genocide and criticiz-
ing US support for the military cooperation, and a long-standing friend of
Bangladesh, recollected a story in his memoirs that a television crew from
422 H. KHONDKER
the USA visited Dhaka in East Pakistan to do a story and whenever Blood
had anything nice to say about the country, they were uninterested. The
film that didn’t end up on the cutting room floor was unrelentingly nega-
tive in its portrayal of East Pakistan. Overcoming such stereotypes and the
negative images was a huge challenge. In some senses, the nation did not
help itself in burnishing its international image. Bangladesh’s high level of
corruption both objectively and subjectively became a byword. Bangladesh
performed persistently poorly in Transparency International’s corruption
perception index, and this perception, while subjective, did reflect the
ground reality of various walks of life and sectors of society. Corruption
remains a pernicious problem plaguing the quality of governance at all
levels, and it places a strain on the nation’s ability to be efficient and aspire
to quality. When corrupt mechanisms reward corrupt incentives, the
incentives for quality and efficiency are blunted. What is also impacted—
and less frequently discussed—is the impact on the ambition of would-be
future leaders of Bangladesh, and the impact on willingness to think cre-
atively, to innovate—when there are perverse incentives to remain a
bystander to the possibility of change.
Yet despite corruption, periodic disasters, and a crisis-ridden political
system, Bangladesh has been successful in coming out of abject poverty.
Poverty levels in Bangladesh have come down from nearly 82% below the
poverty line in 1971 to below 20% in 2021. Bangladesh was unable to feed
its 75 million people in the early 1970s and depended heavily on foreign
assistance. In 2021, 50 years later—barring rare exceptions—Bangladesh
is able to feed its over 160 million people. The economic growth of
Bangladesh and poverty reduction accelerated between 1990 and 2021—
the three decades since Bangladesh ended its phase of military-dominated
rule. Aid dependence in Bangladesh has declined from 14% of GDP in the
1970s to less than 1.5% at present, 2020–21.
According to the World Bank, “Based on the international poverty line
of $1.90 (using 2011 Purchasing Power Parity exchange rate) a day, it
reduced poverty from 43.8 percent in 1991 to 14.8 percent by 2016. Life
expectancy, literacy rates and per capita food production have increased
significantly. Progress has been underpinned by steady growth in
GDP. Bangladesh reached the lower middle-income country status in
2015. In 2018, Bangladesh fulfilled all three eligibility criteria for gradua-
tion from the UN’s Least Developed Countries (LDC) list for the first
time and is on track for graduation in 2024” (World Bank, 2020).
Bangladesh, according to the World Bank, is both an inspiration and a

challenge for policymakers and practitioners of development. While the
country recorded strong performance in income growth and human
development, Bangladesh faces daunting challenges with an increased
level of vulnerability with about 39 million people still living below the
national poverty line (World Bank, 2020).
Much of Bangladesh’s economic growth is driven by the private sector,
where alongside apparel industries, pharmaceutical industries also play an
important role. Starting in the 1980s, pharmaceutical industries have
grown, with 150 functional pharmaceutical industries meeting 98% of
local demands. Based on empirical trends, it is estimated that by 2023
Bangladesh pharmaceuticals will be a US$5.11 billion industry (EBL,
2021). Bangladesh exports pharmaceutical products to 150 countries, and
pharmaceutical exports are likely to earn the country US$1 billion in the
next two years (Business Standard, 2021).
As private sector industries were propelling economic growth, public
sectors and NGOs were responsible for the remarkable developments in
the social indicators that enabled Bangladesh to meet the Millennium
Development Goals (2000–2015), and Bangladesh is on track to meet the
Sustainable Development Goals as well.
The growth Bangladesh has enjoyed, especially in the last three decades,
has been inequitable, following the classic growth model in general as
shown by Simon Kuznets. But the extent of inequality has been somewhat
offset by developments in social indicators, especially “key health, educa-
tion, and gender equality indicators than its income and stage of economic
development would suggest” (Hossain, 2017:4). One of the drivers of
Bangladesh’s growth has been the ready-made garments sector that injects
US$35 billion per year as of 2019 into the black side of the trade balance.
The entrepreneurs who led the apparel industry are part of Bangladesh’s
newly minted bourgeoisie. With high export earnings, they have been
trendsetters in high living and conspicuous consumption. Many of them
have deliberately spread their families across the global space. Some of
them have second homes in Malaysia and Singapore and others as far as
Canada. The global link has been enhanced by Bangladeshis pursuing
overseas education. There has been a significant growth in the number of
Bangladeshi students pursing education in all corners of the world. This
anecdotal evidence—in the absence of more solid documentation—pro-
vides a portrait of the new wealth in Bangladesh.
424 H. KHONDKER
The ready-made garments sector has also created employment for

nearly 4 million, mostly female workers. While these jobs have helped
them to escape abject poverty, they have entrenched social inequality. Yet
Bangladesh’s apparel industry has made Bangladesh’s link to the world
more visible. Interestingly, the first global connection of Bangladesh to
the world was through its once famed muslin, the quality of which
remained unmatched and adorned the bodies of the royal, rich and influ-
ential. Historical records show that the royal houses from the Mughals in
India to the Ottomans and the Old Regime in France shared a taste for
muslin. One of the oldest references to muslin is found in the writings of
Megasthenes, the Greek historian and ambassador to the court of
Chandragupta Maurya who reigned between c.321 and 297 BCE, and
wrote of the Indians who wore “flowered garments made of the finest
muslin …” (livehistoryindia.com, 2021). The highest-quality muslin was
produced in Dhaka. This early coveted commodity of the rich that
launched Bengal on the global map died with the onset of British colonial-
ism following the establishment of East India Company rule in Bengal in
the last quarter of the eighteenth century—a darker side of colonialism.
Centuries later, Bangladesh has again secured a place in the world through
its textiles and ready-made garments.
Apart from muslin, Bangladesh, then Bengal, was also known for its
riches and bounties of nature. The Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta came to
visit Bengal, as did several travelers from China and elsewhere. Battuta
visited Bengal between July and August of 1346 and waxed eloquent
about Bengal as the land of plenty and natural beauty while also complain-
ing about the hot and humid weather (Banglapedia, 2021). The country
also attracted invaders from Central Asia and Afghanistan who established
a Sultanate. The British chose Bengal as their landing port.
Following the incorporation of Bengal and India in the World Economic
System via British colonial rule, a new phase of cultural globalization
began. Bengal was the heart of the renaissance in India in the nineteenth
century. Modern schools and colleges were set up first in Bengal. The
father of modern India was a Bengali, Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833),
a self-taught intellectual and a reformist leader who left a legacy of open-
ness and cultural modernization that helped usher in future generations of
poets, film makers, artists, intellectuals, Rabindranath Tagore, Satyajit
Ray, and Amartya Sen, respectively, in the twentieth century as national
cultural icons transcending the global cosmopolitan cultural space. These
intellectuals represented a new enlightenment, the roots of which were in
the ideas of Ram Mohan Roy and his cohorts who ushered in what was
later defined as the Bengal Renaissance. Space does not allow us to exam-
ine the various trends and countertrends of these cultural movements, and
there were countertrends and attempts to return to conservative and even
reactionary traditions spaced through history. Such conflicting currents
and trends find their echoes today in the tension between the progressive
and conservative (even regressive) ideological currents in Bangladesh.
Such global interconnectedness was found in the educational sphere as
well. Calcutta University was launched in 1858. Bengali intellectuals
began to savor English literature and delved in German and French litera-
ture. Bankim Chatterjee, the first Bengali novelist, was one of two gradu-
ates from the first batch of the graduating class of Calcutta University. A
civil servant by profession, Bankim became the first novelist in Bengali
literature, inspired by Sir William Scott, a well-known historical novelist.
The Bengali language itself was modernized in close interaction with
English, leaving left a mark on Bengali grammar, which was actively
reformed by William Carey (1761–1834), a missionary and educator who
has been called the “father of Bengali prose” and contributed greatly to
the development of the Bengali dictionary as well as building awareness of
Bengali literature through his works of translation. The first modern
drama in Bengal was initiated by Gerasim Lebedev, a Russian musician
who lived in Calcutta (Kolkata) in the 1790s. The Bengali language has
been exposed to and thus enriched by a variety of western and eastern
languages.
Besides art and literature, Bengal was also a birthplace for various radi-
cal movements, the ideas having originated in Europe finding traction in
Bengal. The nationalist movement known as Swaraj or Swadeshi had its
roots in the English educated middle class who drew inspiration from the
liberal philosophers. One such Swadeshi revolutionary was M.N. Roy,
who also imbibed the idea of universalism. Roy traveled to Indonesia and
later to Germany to drum up support for the nationalist struggle. Without
much success on these missions, he reached San Francisco in 1916 to con-
nect with his friend who was part of the “de-territorial, anti-colonial
nationalist network” (Manjapra, 2010:31). Inspired by Marxism, Roy
went to Mexico in 1917 and helped set up the Mexican Communist Party.
Eventually, Roy was elevated to be a member of the Comintern in Moscow
by Lenin. Roy was also the founder of the Indian Communist Party in
Tashkent in 1920.
426 H. KHONDKER
M.N. Roy’s life shows both the universalism and humanism of Bengali
intellectuals as it reveals their migratory predilections. Migration is another
aspect of Bangladesh’s connectivity to the rest of the world. The role of
the Bangladeshi diaspora is expected to transform from financial remit-
tance to more social and cultural remittance and connectivity with time. In
the post-ideological age, diaspora Bangladeshi academics are likely to play
a crucial role in the transference of knowledge, skills, and technology as
Bangladesh enters the next phase of science and technology-based
developments.
Bangladesh still faces challenges that need to be addressed. The first is
the existential as well as environmental challenge posed by global warm-
ing, with a large part of Bangladesh facing permanent inundation.
Bangladesh will not be able to deal with this threat alone, and will have to
rely on global policy shifts toward reduction of global warming through
reduction of carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. On Bangladesh’s part,
better environmental management will be necessary in terms of lowering
dependence on fossil fuels and promoting usage of renewable energy and
a check on unplanned urban growth, but these will be particularly difficult
targets to meet as the pressure will be intense for energy supplies to sup-
port continued growth. The other challenges involve tackling the problem
of corruption and governance, which, if left unattended, will hamstring
the entire Bangladeshi project. Dealing with religious extremism is one of
the challenges that Bangladesh has to tackle with sensitivity. An enlight-
ened pluralist worldview rooted in a syncretic culture, that is, part of
Bangladesh’s tradition, needs to be revitalized to counteract religious
obscurantism. The economic success of Bangladesh can be sustained
through a consensus of progressive enlightened and pragmatic policy
choices, good governance, high-class education, and a will to stay
the course.
References
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Ibn_Battuta
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overview
Index1
NUMBERS AND SYMBOLS Adnan, Shapan, 230, 230n1, 231,

4.7 metres of sea level rise, 35 234, 234n4, 235, 237–239,
16 December, 40 241–247, 245n6
21st February, 9, 79, 82, 83 Adoption, 47, 50–53
21-point election manifesto, 83 Adult literacy, 163, 164
25 March, 1971, 39, 40, 46, 47, 53 Advertising industry, 377
1947, 58, 60 Agartala conspiracy, 62
1971, 39–54 Agenda, 370, 380
1971 Liberation War, 111 Agriculture, 264, 340
1972 constitution, 61, 138 Agro-economy, 144
1975 military coup, 279 Ahmed, Abul Mansur, 76
$330 billion, 160, 163 Ahmed, Said, 29
Ahmed, Tajuddin, 21, 297, 298, 302
Ain O Shalish Kendra (ASK), 205,
A 209, 214, 215
Abduction, 40 Akbar, 318, 319
Abdur Rab, A. S. M., 61 Akram Khan Committee, 325
Abortion, 45–47, 49 Ali Khan, Liaquat, 9, 78
Absolute destruction, 34 All-government approach, 271
Accountability mechanisms, 273, 279 All India Radio (AIR), 373
Accumulation of commodities, 157 Amin, Nurul (Mr.), 80
Adaptation, 262, 269, 271 Anglo-American root, 370
Adibasis, 113, 126, 127, 131 Anizuzzaman, Abu Mohammed, 30
Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5521-0
430 INDEX
Antenatal care, 168 cinema culture, 388

Antibiotics, 345, 346, 349 export basket, 178–180, 197
Anti-Corruption Commission National Strategy on the
(ACC), 274 Management of Disaster and
Anti-Muslim racism, 364 Climate Induced Internal
Anti-racist movement, 358 Displacement (NSMDCIID),
Appropriate healthcare, 342, 343 261, 269
Armed forces, 294, 294n2, 295, Bangladesh Air Force, 296n6, 300
302–304, 306, 308, 313, 314 Bangladesh Betar (BB), 374
Armed Forces Division (AFD), 311 Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics
Armed insurgency, 251, 254, 256 (BBS), 340
Art Bangladesh Constitution, 57–65, 110,
activism, 407, 408 114, 252
cinema, 389, 401, 402 Bangladesh Export Import Company
Article 70, 59, 62 (BEXIMCO), 381–383
Association of Television Channel Bangladesh Government-in-Exile
Owners (ATCO), 380–382 (BGE), 297–301, 297n8
Ataur Rahman Khan Commission of The Bangladesh Times, 372
1957, 325 Bangladeshi, 39, 45, 51, 52, 77, 329
ATN Bangla, 375, 379 American diaspora, 359–364
Aurangzeb, 320 economy, 188
Autocratic regime, 112 health, 341–343
Awami League (AL), 10, 11, 15–17, middle class, 359
21–24, 33, 34, 58, 60, 62–64, rock bands, 409
76, 112, 114, 116, 120, Bangladeshi Associations in North
275–277, 284, 285, 327, 330, America, 361, 362
372, 374, 375, 378–382 Bangladeshi Public
Awami Muslim League, 68, 79 Administration, 273–290
Ayurvedic treatment, 343 Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami, 379
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP),
77, 279, 282, 287, 375,
B 378–380, 382
Babar, 318 Bangladesh Navy (BN), 305, 311, 313
Babri Masjid, 112, 113, 119 Bangladesh Observer, 371, 372
Baby Homes, 42, 47 Bangladesh Rural Advancement
Backroom-deals, 378 Committee (BRAC), 169
Bangalee, 77 Bangladesh Students League, 61
Bangladesh, 7–24, 57–65, 369, 370, Bangladesh Television
372–379, 381–384 (BTV), 374–377
as a lower-middle income Bangladesh Women’s Rehabilitation
country, 204 Program (BWRP), 42, 43
cinema as global, 401–403 Banglanews24.com, 381
INDEX 431
Bangla Vision, 380, 382 British colonization, 321

Banning of the Indian films, 392 British immigration laws, 357
Banshkurul, 235 British rule, 355
Barkat, A., 116–119, 121 Bureaucracy, 64, 199–200
Barrack, 39 as an important state actor, 276
Bashundhara, 381 monopoly, 286
Basic social services, 168–170, 173 Bureaucrat, 15
Bastards, 41, 51 Businesses in Bangladesh, 182,
Bay of Bengal, 25, 26, 28, 34 184, 188
BBC London, 29
Bedays, 128, 131
Behavioural radicalization, 89, 103 C
Belief, 47 Calcutta Alia Madrasah, 321
Bengal Gazette, 371 Call for revolution, 414–415
Bengali(s), 9–24, 39, 40, 42, Canadian homes, 47, 52
43, 67–84 Capital integration, 370
identity, 67–84 Cast, 69
language, 77, 83 Census, 339, 340
mahajans, 242 Centers for Disease Control, 30
Muslim, 68, 70, 71, 74, 77–79 Centre of development, 157
nationalism, 110, 252, 253, 388, Chakma, 77
391, 402 Channel i, 375, 377, 379, 380
settlement, 254, 255 Channel 9, 380
settlers, 231, 234, 237, 246 Char Fasson, 28, 31, 33
Bengal Primary Education Act Chars, 26, 27, 31
1930, 323 Charter Act of 1813, 321
Best children, 53 Child immunization, 162, 168, 170
Bhashani, Maulana, 60 Child nutrition, 162
Bhola Cyclone 1970, 421 Children of mixed blood, 41
Bhola Island, 26 Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), 166,
Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 10, 12, 21 229–248, 251–258
Biological father, 49 Chittagong Port, 28
Biopic of Bangabandhu, 402 Chronic food insecurity (CFI), 232
Birangona, 53 CHT Accord, 114, 123–125, 128
Birthmother, 41, 42, 47–51 CHT Manual, 252–254, 257
Black rat, 233 Cinematic discourses, 389
Blind spot, 370 Citizens Charter, 274
Bloody coup, 112 Civil disobedience, 22
Boishakhi, 380, 382 Civil rights, 109
Bourgeoise, 8, 9 Civil servants, 276–278, 280, 281,
Brain drain, 359 283, 285, 286, 288
Britain, 356, 357 Class, 391, 396–398
432 INDEX
Climate change, 26, 35, 158, 166, Creativity, 329, 331, 333
170, 171, 173, 174 Crime against humanity in 1971, 98
Climate-change equation, 271 Critical thinking, 325, 329, 331
Climate shocks, 260 Cultural, 68–78, 69n2, 83, 84
Climate-vulnerable districts, 166 Cultural diversity, 8
Clothing, 60 Cultural identity, 376, 377
Cognitive radicalization, 89, 97 Cultural transformation of Bangladesh
Colonialism, 424 cinema, 388
Combat (armor and infantry), 304 Culture, 15, 67, 69–74, 76, 77, 84
Combat service support (Army Curtailment on freedom of
Services, Army Medical, speech, 408
Ordnance and Electrical and Customary solidarity, 246
Mechanical Engineers), 304 Customs, 8
Combat support (engineers, artillery Cycles of poverty, 242
and signals), 304
Commercial plantations, 239, 240
Commercial resorts, 239 D
Commodification, 370 Dacca University, 80
The Commonwealth Immigration Act The Daily Sangbad, 28, 29
1962, 357 The Daily Star, 372
Communal forces, 113 The Daily Sun, 381
Communalism, 68, 69 Dainik Azad, 371–373
Communicable diseases, 340, 348 Dainik Bangla, 372
Communist, 69, 70, 72, 79 Dainik Ittefaq, 372, 373
Conscious rap, 406–409, 415, 416 Dainik Sangbad, 371–373
Consensual sex, 45 Dalits, 130, 131
Constitutional promise, 132 December 1971, 22
Constitutions, 57–65 Deepening governance, 174
Construction of minorities, 110–113 Defense policy, 293–315
Consultation fees, 344 Democracy, 10–14, 18, 58–61, 64,
Consumers, 375 142, 145, 151–153
Contraceptives, 341 Democratic, 88, 89, 97
Contract farming, 238 Democratic phase, 275, 282–284
Control, 371, 372, 374, 375, Demographic dividend, 170
377–381, 383 Demographic shift, 254
Controlled democracy, 61 Dengue, 341
Coordination within government, 195 Destruction, 39
COP 24, 259 Development, 203–220, 204n1,
Corruption, 422, 426 207n3, 207n4, 212n8, 213n9
Counter hegemony, 377 challenges, 158, 170–173
Covid-19 pandemic, 158, 166, miracle, 158
170, 172 trajectory, 157, 158
INDEX 433
Dhaka, 9, 371, 373 Educational Despatch of 1854, 322

Dhaka University, 9, 10 Education for All, 327
Diarrhoea, 341 Education Policy 2010, 317–336
Diaspora of Bangladesh, 355–367 Egalitarianism, 152
Diganta TV, 379, 380 Eighth amendment, 112, 113, 119
Digital Bangladesh agenda, 188 Ekattor (71), 380
Digital competency, 174 Ekushey Television (ETV), 375, 379,
Digital twenty-first-century economy, 170 380, 382
Direct Foreign Investment (DFI), 141 Election, 58, 59, 61, 62, 64, 65
Discrimination, 205, 206, 217, Electricity, 168
219, 220 Electronic media, 373
against women, 205 Elite, 9–12, 15, 20, 21, 67, 68,
Diseases of poverty, 341 72, 78, 84
Displacement, 259–271 Emancipation of the intellect, 74
of people, 171 Emancipation of women, 73
Disposable babies, 41, 42, 52 Emergence
Domestic media, 376, 377, 383 of Bangladesh, 7–24
Dual Nationality, 360 of Pakistan, 68
Durant, Will, 320 of social media, 369
Dutta, Dhirendra Nath, 9 and survival of media houses, 381
The Emergency Government, 310
Employment, 204, 206, 207,
E 210, 212–214, 216,
Early marriage, 169 217, 220
Earthquake, 264, 265 Empowerment, 210, 217
East Asia, 139, 152 Enabling environment, 157
East Bengal, 11, 14, 68–72, 69n2, 75, Enemy children, 41
76, 80, 82, 83 Enforced pregnancy, 40, 41,
East India Company, 321, 322 43–45, 50, 53
East Pakistan, 9–13, 15–17, 20, 23 Entertainment, 370, 371, 374, 378
Ecological crises, 135 Entrance examination, 322–323
Ecological niches, 237, 238, 247 Environmental hazards, 262, 266
E-commerce, 188 Environment sustainability, 157
Economic Complexity Index (ECI), Ershad, Hussain/Hussein
179, 180 Mohammad/Muhammad
Economic growth, 141–143, 420, (General), 112, 113, 119, 138,
422, 423 144, 281, 282, 285,
Economy, 8, 13, 15, 16, 19, 308–310, 372
21, 22, 57 Ethnic discrimination, 230, 246, 247
and business sector, 178 Ethnicity, 67
Education, 60 European missionaries, 321
and literacy, 242–244, 247 The evils of communalism, 77
434 INDEX
Existential anxiety, 92, 100 G

Export garment manufacturing, 204 Gandhi, Indira, 297
External and internal forms of Gang rape, 40
accountability, 283 Garment industry of Bangladesh, 172
Extra economic logic, 381 Garment workers, 217
Extreme climate events, 233 Gender, 203–220, 204n1, 207n3,
208n5, 212n8, 213n9
and Development approach,
F 209, 213n9
Facebook, 369 disparities, 166
Faith-based education, 331 inequality, 158
Families For Children (FFC), 52 practices and policies, 203, 204
Family planning, 168, 206, 210, relations, 203, 204, 207–211,
212, 341 213n9, 216, 218, 219
Fear of litigation, 375 Gender Development Index (GDI),
Federal structure, 57 159, 162
Female Gendered differences in
education, 322 experience, 266
labour force participation, 166 Genocide, 421
Feudal, 10 Genre, 391–393, 395, 397
Film Girls, 39
industry, 390–395, 398–402 Global extremism, 110
production, 388, 390, 395, Globalization, 419, 420, 424
396, 398–400 Global North, 359
Film Development Corporation Global warming, 426
(FDC), 389–392, 399, 400 Gold card, 366
The Financial Express, 372 Golden Jubilee, 157, 158,
Financial wealth, 157 318, 419
Food, 60 Gonojagon Mancho (GM), 98
Forced marriage, 357 Government, 58, 61, 64, 65
Forces Goal 2030, 311, 312 Government-business
Foreign “aid,” 136, 141 relationship, 177–201
Foreign investment, 194, 197 Grameen Bank, 169
Formal education, 322 Gramsci, 138
Foster parent, 375 Gramscian-Kaleckian theory, 136
Fourth pillar, 369 ‘Grave danger’ warning, 29
Fred Hyde, 35 The Great Cyclone, 35
Free and compulsory education, 327 The Guardian, 34
Freedom movement, 57, 58 Guardianship, 51
Free primary education, 328 Guerilla attack, 40
Fundamental Principles of State Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC),
Policy, 60, 61 355, 364–367
INDEX 435
H Illegal detention centres, 269

Hasina, Sheikh, 376, 377, 379, 382, 383 Illegitimate children, 41
Hastings, Warren, 321 Imperialistic education, 321
Health budget, 348 Implementation
Health disparities, 346 gaps, 194–196
Health insurance, 342 of policy actions, 196
Health workers, 343 Independence, 9, 10, 12–13,
Hefazat-i-Islam (HI), 95, 98 39, 48, 53
Hegemony, 68, 376, 377 of Bangladesh, 317, 334
Hertz Committee 1927, 323 movement, 65
Hill people, 252–258 The Independent, 372, 381
Hindu, 8, 16, 68, 69, 73, 76, 77, 84 Independent
minority, 73 judiciary, 58, 63
-Muslim unity, 76 state, 58, 59
-phobia, 70 TV, 380, 382, 383
threat, 68, 69 India, 41, 43, 46
zamindars, 116 -Bangladesh media exchange, 384
Hip-hop music, 405–416 factor, 376–377
History, 7, 8, 13–15, 22 India Meteorological
of the Bangladesh Military, 295 Department, 25
Holt Adoption Program, 52 Indian Education Commission, 322
Homeopathy, 344 Indian
Hossain, H. (Dr.), 209 film, 392, 402
Hossain, Kamal, 21 subcontinent, 8, 371
Human child, 51 Indian Ocean, 25
Human deprivations, 166–168 Indigenous peoples, 229–248
Human Development Index Industrialisation, 73
(HDI), 159–162 Infant mortality rate(s), 147, 161n2,
Humanist, 72, 74 162, 164, 168
Humanitarian crisis, 39 Influence of the border-crossing
Human rights violation, 255 films, 394
Human security, 158, 172 Injustice, 9, 10
Humayun, 318 Innovation, 329, 331
Hunting and gathering, 237–239 Institutional censorship, 375
Huq, A. K. F., 11, 76 Institutionalized dominance, 286
Hussain, Q. M. (Dr.), 80 Instrumentalist view, 68, 84
Hybrid regime, 381, 384 Insurgency, 231
Hybrid variant, 71 Integrated approach, 175
Intergenerational socioeconomic
disadvantage, 357
I Inter-governmental Panel on Climate
Identity, 67–84 Change (IPCC), 259, 261
Ideology, 8, 88–91, 93, 95, 96, Interlocked market, 235,
98, 100–103 238, 240–242
436 INDEX
Internal Displacement Monitoring K

Center (IDMC), 262, 263 Kabeer, N., 206, 210, 214, 216–218
International Centre for Diarrhoeal Kabir, A., 387, 388, 391, 393, 394
Disease Research, Bangladesh Kafala, 365
(ICDDR,B), 29, 30 Kaiser, Shahidullah, 79
International labour mobility, 268 Kaler Kantho, 381
International Planned Parenthood Kaptai hydroelectric project, 230, 245
Federation (IPPF), 42, 46 Kasem, Abul, 78, 81
Internet as a tool of radicalization, 98 Khan, Ayub, 14, 17
Intersectional development Khan, Azam, 409
strategy, 137 Khilafat movement, 76
Invisible party, 378 Khudro Jatishotta, 115
Islam, 8, 68, 70, 71, 74, 75, Kissinger, H., 421
78, 81, 83 Knowledge nation, 327, 328, 334
as a political ideology in Bangladesh, Krishak Sramik Party (KSP), 11
91, 95, 100, 103 Kuttis, 78, 79
Islamic ideology, 324
Islamic Republic, 112
Islamic sentiments, 325 L
Islamic state, 72 Labor
Islamic TV, 379, 380 migration, 364–367
Islamic Ummah, 359 deployment, 240
Islamist politics and militancy, 91 Lahore Resolution, 11, 17
Isolation, 40 Land-based livelihoods, 237
Ittefaq, 371 Landfall, 27, 29
Land grabbing, 257
Language, 8, 9, 67–68
J movement, 67–84
Jahan, Shah, 319 Large Reserve Forests, 230
Jamaat-e-Islami, 8, 72, 112, 119 Larma, M.N., 252, 254
James, 409 Least Developed Country(ies) (LDC),
Jamuna group, 381 350, 422
Jatiyo Nari Punorbashion Board, 42 Liberalization, 376, 384
Jatiyo Rokkhi Bahini Act 1972, 306 Liberal values, 132
Jinnah, Mohammad Ali, 8, 9, 58, 77, Liberation, 21–24
78, 81, 324 of Bangladesh, 40, 47, 50
Joint Warfare Doctrine, 311 war, 39–41, 62, 143, 157, 339, 347
Judicial democracy, 59 War of 1971, 296–301
Judicial power, 63 Life expectancy, 135, 147, 159, 161,
Jumma, 230 164, 168, 340, 341, 346, 348, 349
Jumma nationalism, 255 Lingua franca, 80
‘Jumma’ nation, 129 Linguistic, 71, 72, 76
INDEX 437
Local customs, 68, 71 Microfinancing, 142

Localizing film language, 390 Middle class, 10, 23
Long-term settlement, 366, 367 Middle-class Bangladeshis, 359
Lower middle-income country, 177 Middle-income status, 177,
178, 200
Mid-1990s, 135
M Militancy, 61
Maasranga, 380 Militarism, 40
Madrasah, 318–320, 319n3, 323, 324, Military, 9–12
326, 329–331 -bureaucratic oligarchy, 279, 280
Majority, 58, 61, 64, 65 -bureaucratic regimes, 275
Malaria, 341 camp, 39
Malnutrition, 27, 148, 341 cooperation, 421
Mangrove region, 26 crackdown, 39
Man-made disasters, 234 dictator, 372, 374, 377
Manob shontan, 51 operations, 296, 309
Manpura Island, 28 organization, 294
March 1971, 21–24 Millennium Development Goals
Marginalized groups, 266 (MDGs), 160, 160n2, 340
Marginalized people, 170 Ministry of Defence (MoD), 303,
Market 308, 313
competition, 189–192 Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 109
driven wage employment of Ministry of Information (MoI),
women, 207 374, 383
Marma, 77 Minority rights, 70
Martial law, 15, 16, 144 Modernist film culture in 1970s–80s
Martyrs, 83, 84 Bangladesh, 388
Massacres, 39 Modern medicine, 341, 348, 350
Materialism, 73 Moneylenders, 234, 235, 240–243,
Mawdudi, Maulana, 8, 72 246, 247
Media, 369, 370, 372–384 Monopoly, 16
behaviour, 370, 377 Monthly Pay Order (MPO), 330
industry, 371, 375–377, 381 Moral degradation, 40
landscape, 369, 370, 375, Morality, 319, 327, 333
377–381, 384 Motherhood, 50
owners, 373, 378, 382 Mother tongue, 71, 81
ownership, 369, 370, 376, 377, Movement, 88, 98, 101, 102
380, 381, 384 Mughal, 318–321
Medical care, 60 Muhammad Ali, Maulana, 76
Meritocracy, 174 Multidimensional Poverty Index
Micro-finance, 204 (MPI), 159, 166, 167, 167n5
agencies, 241 Multidrug prescribing, 345
438 INDEX
Multi-ethnic religious NGO programs in women's trainings, 214

communities, 363 NGOs, 420, 423
Multiple identities, 70 Nijera Kori, 211, 214, 215, 215n10
Murder, 40 Non-Bengali, 10, 13, 15, 16, 18, 22
Muslim(s), 8, 9 Non-Bengali minorities, 77
India, 318 Non-Bengali-speaking population, 110
League, 11, 14, 70, 76, 79, Non-communicable diseases
80, 82–84 (NCDs), 347
migrants, 79 Non-governmental organizations
readers, 371 (NGOs), 169, 173, 203–206,
Muslin, 424 208, 210, 211, 212n8, 214,
215n11, 216, 219, 220, 343
Non-Resident Bangladeshi (NRB), 360
N North Western Frontier Province
Naripokkho, 214–216 (NWFP), 9
Narnaul, 318 NTV, 377, 380, 382
Nation, 68, 76, 77, 81, 84 Nutritional status, 236, 237
National Awami Party, 58
National budget, 9
National consensus, 58, 63 O
National Education Policy (NEP), Oath-taking ceremony, 23
330, 331 Occupied Bangladesh, 40, 42, 43
National Housing Policy 2016, 270 Offspring of depravity, 41
Nationalism, 8, 15, 22–24 Oligopoly of transport, 238
Nationalism and secularism, 61 Onset climate disaster, 263
National parliament, 60 Ontological security, 92
National Security Policy, 295 Open-access forests, 235, 246
National Social Security Strategy Openness, 320
(NSSS), 169 Operations of War, 311
Nation-state, 7 Opponents, 382
Nazimuddin, Khwaja, 9, 81, 82 Osmani, Colonel M A G (Retd), 297,
Nazrul Islam, 21 299, 303, 306
Neoliberalism, 364, 367, 377, 384 Overprescribing, 345, 346
Neonatal mortality, 341 Overseas education, 423
Nepotism and favouritism, 277, 283 Overseas Employment, 364
Newborn(s), 41, 47–51
New ideology, 84
News, 369, 370, 372–375, 378–380, P
382, 384 Pagan traditions, 71, 73
News24 (TV), 381 Pahari, 230–232, 234, 235, 237–248
New Values, 72n6, 73, 74 ethnic minorities, 231
The New York Times, 30, 33 producers, 246
INDEX 439
Pakistan, 7–18, 24, 39, 57, 58, 60, Political interference, 283
68–72, 74–83 Political violence, 91
education system, 325 Politicization, 279
Pakistan Observer, 371–373 Politico-commercial nexus,
Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP), 10, 21 369, 378–384
Pakistan TV (PTV), 374 Politics, 9–12, 65, 76–78, 82, 84
Pakistani of exclusion, 253
army, 40 Popular cinema, 389, 391, 393, 397,
government, 32 399, 401
military, 33, 39, 41, 42, 48, 53–54 Population control, 142, 147
state, 110, 111, 117 Population displacements, 236
Pan-Islamist, 72 Portuguese sailors, 26
Parbattya Chattogram Janoshonghoti Post-colonial state, 370
Samity (PCJSS), 124–126, 238, Post-independence Bangladesh, 372,
251, 254, 255, 257 373, 375, 376
Parental rights, 50 Post-independence phase, 275–279
Parliament, 58–60, 65 Post Liberation War, 33
Parliamentary democracy, 58, 60, post-9/11 environment, 88, 90
282, 286 Post-partition, 68–75
Participation of women in formal and Post-Partition Intelligentsia, 72–75
informal labour market, 207 Poverty, 32, 157–160, 160–161n2,
Participatory planning, 152 162–164, 166, 167, 169, 170,
Partition, 7, 371, 373 172, 173, 420–424
Pathshalas, 319, 320 line, 160, 162, 163
Patuakhali, 29, 31, 33 reduction, 135, 141, 142, 146
Peace accord, 251, 255, 257, 258 Power, 13–17, 19–22, 68, 70, 72,
Peace Accord of 1998, 246 77, 78, 82
People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Pregnancy, 40, 41, 45–47, 50, 53
57–65, 301–303 Presidential form, 58
Performance monitoring systems, 197 Press, 371–373
Performance-orientation, 196 criticisms, 372
Persianate Islamic world, 70 freedom, 373
Pharmaceuticals, 344–346 Preventative health, 347
Piddington, Henry (Captain), 26 Prima facie, 47
Policies, 203, 204, 206–208, 207n3, Primary enrolment, 163
207n4, 212, 215, 218–220 Print media, 371–373, 375
Political, 88–91, 95, 97–103 Prisoners of War (POWs), 41
Political conflicts, 143 Private sector, 181, 193,
Political dynamics, 115, 122 194, 197–199
Political Economy of Communication Private television channels, 375,
(PEC), 370 379, 382
Political elite, 67, 72, 84 Priyobhashini, Ferdousi, 53
440 INDEX
Pro-government news, 374 Refugee and Migratory Movements

Pro-opposition television Research Unit (RMMRU),
channels, 379 260n3, 260n5, 263, 265, 266,
Pro-socialist stance, 62 268, 269
Protest music, 405, 407 Regional approach, 175
Prothom Alo, 372 Regional Council (RC), 256
Provincial language, 80 Regulatory uncertainty in
Public administration reform, 173 business, 185
Public bureaucracy in Bangladesh, 289 Religio-culturalist account, 8
Public health expenditure, 346 Religion, 8, 11, 67, 70, 71, 74, 76,
Public health services, 170 77, 84, 87–93, 95, 99–103
Punjab, 9, 10, 19 -based nationalism, 8
Puritanism, 73 Religious extremism, 426
Religious leaders, 51
Religious minorities, 110, 111,
Q 115–120, 130
QK Commission, 328, 329, 331, 334 Religious radicalization, 87–103
Quota Reform Movement in Religious revivalism, 73
2018, 408 Religious-secular tension, 68,
70–72, 77
Religious understanding, 91
R Remarkable progress, 163, 170
Radical intellectuals, 79 Remittances, 364, 367
Radical Islamist groups, 87 Result-orientation, 195–199
Radicalization, 110 Revolt of the Bengali military
Radical thoughts and personnel, 297
behaviours, 88, 90 Richness of the economy, 157
Radio Capital, 381 Rights, 9, 10, 12, 20, 58, 60–64
Rahman, Lutfur, 358 of civil servants, 63
Rahman, Salman F., 382, 383 Rise of rock 'n' roll culture in
Rahman, Ziaur (General), 77, 112, Bangladesh, 409
252, 279, 300, 307–309, 372 Riverbank erosion, 260, 262–265
Rainfall pattern, 262, 264 Robust ties, 367
Rape, 40–43, 45–48, 50, 51, 53, 54 Rock music, 409
Rap music, 406, 415 Rohingya catastrophe, 349
Rapper, 406, 407, 409–415 Role of military force, 295, 308
Rashtra Bhasa Samgram Roy, M.N., 425, 426
Parishad, 82 Roy, Raja Rammohan, 424
Readymade garments, 178, 197 RTV, 380, 382
Rebellion through lyrics, 410–415 Rubber plantations, 239, 241, 246
Reform, 319, 323, 325, 328–330, Rui Lui para, 235
332, 334, 335 The rule of law, 274
INDEX 441
Ruling elites, 68 Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s

Ruling ideas, 68, 84 government, 372
Rural Medical Practitioners Shelter, 60
(RMPs), 344–346 Shishu Bhavan, 47–49
Rural women’s projects, 204 Sidr in 2007, 25, 35
Silent exodus, 116
Simla Agreement of June 1972, 304
S Siraj ud-Daulah, Nawab, 321
Sajek, 233, 235, 239 Sister Mary, 46–49, 51
Salinity intrusion, 264 Six-Point demand, 21, 23
Samgram Parishad, 81 Slavery, 40
Sanskrit, 319, 320 Social, 68, 72, 75, 75n14, 77, 84
Satellite channels, 374, 376, 377 integration, 8
Science, 320, 321, 325, 330 movement(s), 152, 405, 407
Seasonal food shortage, 233 security, 350
Secondary disasters, 233 stratification, 142
Section 144, 82 studies, 330
Secular education, 318, 320, 321, 328 Socialism, 60–62, 64
Secularism, 67–84, 87, 100, 101 Socially Embedded Intersectional
Segregation of bad seeds, 41 Capabilities approach (SEICA),
Self-censorship, 372, 375 136–138, 153
Semi-skilled workers, 365 Socio-religious restrictions, 323
Sen, A., 136, 137 Sommer, A., 29, 30
Sengupta, Suranjit, 58 Somoy TV, 380
Sensitive news, 379 Spiritual healing, 344
Settlers, 254, 256–258 Square, 381
Sexual crime, 39, 41 State, 68–72, 76, 77, 79–84
Sexual harassment, 267, 270 acquisition, 235, 237
Sexuality, 40 intervention, 370
Sexual violence, 39–41, 46, 47, 51, 130 language, 69, 79–83
Shahbag Movement in 2013, 408 nationalist policy, 377
Shahid minar, 83, 84 policy, 370
Shahidullah, Muhammad (Dr.), 80 -run television, 374
Shamans, 245 Status quo, 73
Shanti Bahini (SB), 254, 255 Stigmatization, 51
Shantiniketan, 331 Strategic openness, 136, 139
Sharif Report, 325 Structural violence, 230, 232, 247
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, Suhrawardy Uddyan, 23
Bangabandhu, 9, 16, 17, 22, 23, Suhrawardy, H. S., 16, 17, 70, 76
31, 33, 42, 59, 62–64, 76, 84, Supra-geographical community, 359
143, 275, 277, 279, 297, 302, Supreme Court, 63
318, 327–329, 331, 333 Surplus extraction, 240
442 INDEX
Sustainable Development Goals U

(SDG) 11, 270 Undivided India, 7
Swadeshi movement, 425 Unimaginable damage, 28
Swidden cultivation, 233, 237 UN involvements, 313
Syed Nazrul Islam, 47 United Front, 11, 15, 17, 83
Sylhet, 356, 358 United Nations Children Fund
Syncretic culture, 426 (UNICEF), 169–170
Systematic discrimination, 232 Universal Health Care, 168
Universal health coverage (UHC),
342, 344
T Universalization of citizenship, 370
Tagore, Rabindranath, 69 University of Dhaka, 322
Tagore songs, 69 UN missions, 313
Talk shows, 375 Upper-class Muslim, 70
Tamaddun Majlis, 72, 78 Urban-based mass movement, 282
Technology-based education, 172 Urban labour market in
Telecom industries, 377 Bangladesh, 203
Teleology, 7 Urdu, 9, 71, 78–82, 324–326
Television, 369, 370, 373–383 Urdu–speaking Bihari, 115, 128
Teresa, Mother, 47, 52
Terrorism, 88, 90, 91, 98
Terrorist, 90, 91, 94, 95, 99 V
Tertiary education, 322 Vested Property Act, 116–120, 127
Tertiary level of education, 166 Victim, 39, 41–43, 45–48, 50, 51, 53, 54
Thanchi, 233, 234 Vidyapith, 319, 321
Theaters, 389–391, 393, 396, Village community, 241
400, 402 Violence against women, 206, 211,
Theology, 320 215, 215n10
Time magazine, 28, 33, 34 Violent extremism, 87–89, 91, 99, 103
Timm, Father R. W., 28, 29, 32 Vulnerability, 260–262, 260n3,
Tolerance, 111 260n4, 264–269
Torrential downpour, 29 Vulnerable employment, 168
Total Fertility Rate (TFR), 340
Traditional content, 374
Traditionalists, 74 W
Transcendence, 420 Wahabi and Faraizi movements, 74
Transference, 420, 426 War babies, 39–54
Transformation, 420 War on Terror, 359
Tropical cyclones, 25, 26 War orphans, 41, 42
Tuberculosis, 340, 341 Watchdog, 369
Twitter, 369 Water logging, 267
Two martial law regimes, 307–310 Western ideas, 68
Two-nation theory, 69, 76, 78 West Pakistan, 9, 10, 12–14, 17,
Two wings, 57 19–21, 371
INDEX 443
Wild foods, 235, 246 Y

William, Thomas, 62 Yahya Khan (General), 14, 21, 32,
Women, 39–43, 45, 47 33, 39, 60
empowerment, 159, 169–171, 174 Youth employment, 174
lives and livelihoods, 203, 206, 209, Youtube, 370
217, 219 Yuba League, 68, 72
rights, 205, 210
wage employment, 206, 207, 213,
213n9, 214, 216, 217 Z
World Economic Forum, 183, 189, Zia, Khaleda, 376, 380
190, 192 Zia’s growth strategy, 280

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The Emergence of

ISBN 978-981-16-5520-3 ISBN 978-981-16-5521-0 (eBook)

Cover image: Ashiq Khondker

We remain indebted to a great many individuals for their cooperation,

Translated by Habibul Khondker

I remember, for example, a poor, old woman waited for me on the

replaced by another officer as he declined to do the bidding of the govern-

Gender and Development203

Shapan Adnan (PhD Cambridge) is a professorial research associate with

International Sociological Association. His recent documentary is The

He is the author of Islam and Politics in Bangladesh: The Followers of

Priyanka Kundu is working with Bangladesh University of Professionals

Zakir Hossain Raju PhD Latrobe, is a professor and Head of the

The Political Economy of Development: Bangladesh From Its

Human Development in Bangladesh: A Dynamic Trajectory

Government—Business Relationships in Bangladesh

The Political and Economic Context Underlying the Emergence

Religious Radicalization in Bangladesh

The Political Economy of Development: Bangladesh From Its

Human Development in Bangladesh: A Dynamic Trajectory

Bangladesh, against all odds, has come of age. International pessimism

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Bangladesh studies it is very important to hear from the makers and

of the room for improvement in the education sector. Capacity building in

Towards Industrialization and Urbanization

Foreign Policy Imperatives

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 7

and other non-Muslim bourgeoise in India. With the independence of

small number of economists, mostly based at Dhaka University, high-

expected to emerge as the electorally dominant party in East Pakistan.

account and its aid allocations and disposition of domestic foreign

1 1949/1950 288 351 63 21.9

The central government was completely dominated by the bureaucracy,

Marginalization of the Provincial Government

representative status compromised their capacity to confront the Center.

Marginalization of Bengalis in the Business Sector

Bengalis to assert their presence. Of the 43 families who dominated the

Struggle for Self-Government for Bengalis

The validity of such a perception, which came to impact on the emerg-

Constitutional provisions should be made to enable separate accounts to be

This proposition exposed to serious risk the West Pakistani industrial-

From Autonomy to Liberation

agreement on March 22, 1971, about the constitutional mechanisms for a

what had traditionally been a movement dominated by the concerns of the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 25

and degradation of protective mangrove forests on its southern margins

November 11, 1970

For those living in the southern ‘capital’ of Char Fasson, as ‘inland’ as

of November 11 and reported hearing the signal warning steadily climb to

Getting an exact bearing on the size of the population in the impact

Whole areas have been totally depopulated. In many areas of Patuakhali,

Twenty three thousand square kilometres of rice fields had been

190 kilometres of roads destroyed (Uwagawa, 1991). Even for a much

Aid to the Region and the Government Response

Today was declared a national day of mourning by the Government, but in

… Pakistan’s government proved shockingly inept and many of its people

survivors. Some 500,000 tons of grain were stock-piled in East Pakistan

Contemporary reports (e.g. in the Guardian a week after the disaster)

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 39

arrested, imprisoned, tortured or killed. The global media witnessed, and

Gender and Development203

Kashem, Hosne-Ara (2002). This Was Expressed to the Author by Hosne-Ara-

to address educational problems. Muhammad Abdul Hai, the founder-

Category Sub- Examples

Situational Pre- Enabling Developments within modernity, for example the