Abstract
In the recent past, there has been a steady proliferation of books and other resource materials on Bangladesh, from national and regional publication houses in India. Such resources have dealt with the country’s impressive contemporary economic growth, its democratic experiments and foreign policies, the status of human security within its realms, the socio-political implications of the ongoing Islamization of its personal and political spheres; and not to mention, the implications of the latter on its special relationship with India. However, an edited volume encompassing a wide variety of issues concerning Bangladesh—such as the one presently under review—is indeed a delight for the academic community. The breadth of the issues covered, the methodologies employed, and the arguments proffered within the ambit of a slim volume, are enough to impress both the uninitiated and the experts. The editors of the present volume have performed an admirable task: by setting the stage for further inquiries in the introduction, and by strategically placing the chapters, they have been successful in evoking a sense of critical investigation and completion. However, akin to every extensive volume on a country’s history and its domestic and foreign policies, the present book—as a conventional take on Bangladesh’s economic development and its myriad socio-political and economic challenges—also suffers from some shortcomings. This review would simultaneously highlight the book’s structure and achievements, and its ostensible loopholes.
The work has received categorical praise in its foreword by Rehman Sobhan, who chairs Dhaka’s Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD). Following the introduction by Narayan and Datta, the book comprises thirteen chapters dealing with specific issue-areas. These range from Bangladesh’s contemporary economic upswing, its financial policies under successive governments, and export and readymade garment (RMG) industry-led growth to the role of multilateral agencies and NGOs in its development sector. The book also provides an outline of the challenges to its socio-political fabric, the role of women in development, and the country’s foreign policies under successive regimes—with special reference to its role in the creation of SAARC and its relationship with India. There is a chapter on the rise of militancy in Bangladesh, by Amit Ranjan and Roshni Kapur. But, the nature and influence of radical Islamic parties and operatives in the country (whose methods cannot be encapsulated by the term militancy) and their continuous appeasement by the Awami League government have received scant attention both within this chapter and elsewhere in the volume.
The fact that Bangladesh has benefited immensely from the stability brought about by its democratic transition and practice has been revisited intermittently throughout the volume. This is a truism if recent data on the country’s productivity and earnings are evaluated, and one learns a great deal of these numbers even by a cursory study of a few chapters of this work. As evinced within this corpus, Bangladesh’s democratic government has indeed paved the way for its impressive economic record. For Mustafizur Rahman (9–35), agricultural outputs, and export and remittance earnings have increased; Bangladesh’s GDP has almost doubled since the 2011 fiscal year, with growth rate registering a healthy 7.86% in the 2018 fiscal year. Democratic practices have also strengthened the country’s integration with the global market, enabling it to play an enlarged role in the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a graduating LDC—for negotiating support packages for future developing countries. Once it graduates from the LDC category, Bangladesh will no longer be eligible for the safeguards ensured by the international support measures (ISMs), such as preferential and non-reciprocal duty-free and quota-free market access, and so on. This would mean that its RMG sector would now face stringent market-access laws, and the country would be required to raise export-competitiveness (20–22).
Such export-related challenges vis-à-vis its RMG industry, and the imperatives of a Bangladeshi free-trade-area have been amplified in subsequent chapters, by Amitendu Palit (36–56) and Selim Raihan (57–77). Its RMG and other exports-led growth has played a causal role in halving the country’s external debt to GDP ratio within two decades—from 27.9% in 2001 to 13.9% in 2018 (19). The enormity of Bangladesh’s current economic growth has become all the more tangible and appreciable since—as per the IMF’s World Economic Outlook—its real GDP surpassed that of India’s amidst the Corona pandemic (International Monetary Fund, 2020, p. 145). There is indeed a mention of this within the present corpus—albeit fleetingly—which then goes on to enumerate the roles of NGOs and microfinance institutions in the country’s socio-economic development.
In all, Bangladesh has been projected in this volume as a successful case study in economic development, with a few extraneous or intervening irritants. Instances of rampant corruption by NGOs and actors operating in the financial sector have been reported in the past, but these have not received any systematic treatment in the chapter by S. Narayan (78–102). But, Narayan has skillfully dealt with the roles played by various NGOs in promoting socio-economic development in Bangladesh, lauding successive governments for not meddling with their activities, and instead, encouraging private enterprise. It is because of such allowances, infers Narayan that the Grameen Bank, the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and Proshikha could deliver upon their promises of rural education, women empowerment, micro-enterprise, and social welfare (97–98). The country’s present financial policy stance and the challenges to its financial sector—in the light of its imminent LDC-graduation—have been dealt by Saleuddin Ahmed (103–120). Ahmed infers that Bangladesh is in need of a more comprehensive financial policy for catering to both internal and external stakeholders.
These chapters on the various facets of the Bangladeshi economy have all highlighted the weaknesses of and the challenges to this particular sector. From the pressures generated on the country’s economy and infrastructure by its enormous population to rising inequities, competitiveness, and the impact of climate change, each of these challenges have been addressed in detail. The chapter on energy security and sustainability—by Narayan and Paraparakath (197–221)—has also adduced a few developmental strategies that Bangladesh can employ for ensuring economic development even in the face of rising sea levels.
However, if the volume’s treatment of the non-economic topics of inquiry is juxtaposed with the comprehensiveness of its economic discourse, the former’s sketchiness becomes all the more obtrusive. The single-chapter treatment of Bangladesh’s politico-social fabric, the rise of militancy thereof, women empowerment, its foreign policy, and relations with India leave little scope for alternative perceptions and debate. This despite the fact that such topics usually generate the most heated exchanges within academic and policy circles, concerning as these do, the very bases on which a country’s property relations operate.
Amena Mohsin (152–174) discusses the Bangladeshi context of women empowerment and development. She infers that the participation of women in public life has increased steadily under its democratic regime. Also, that in the personal front, the country’s constitution has recognized their formal equality with men. However, Bangladesh’s continued subscription to Muslim personal laws has only led to their recurrent enslavement to patriarchal norms. Such deplorable social repression of women is ever-ascendant in Bangladesh, with the country’s rapid slide towards Islamic fundamentalism: a fact which receives systematic but not comprehensive treatment in the only chapter devoted to it (Ranjan and Kapur, 175–196). Indeed, the chapter neatly enumerates the socio-political changes engendering militancy in Bangladesh, the parties subscribing to militant ideologies, their tactics, support bases, and programmes; not least, the regional ramifications of such militancy in Bangladesh.
However, it misses or ignores certain imperatives concerning the very nature of Islamization and its relationship with the incumbent government’s secular credentials. It must be understood that the ongoing Islamization of the Bangladeshi polity and society has not been a result solely of political violence, agitations, and persecution of religious minorities. Islamic parties have also been involved in various discursive practices, by which they have been able to continuously challenge the legitimacy of the incumbent Hasina government; not least, pose as its viable alternative in a Muslim majority state. On the other hand, the view that the Hasina government can be indicted of systematically appeasing fundamentalist elements within Bangladesh (Nag, 2020) demands greater explorations. Such critical themes have been expediently avoided by the contributors.
Admirably, Datta has attempted to straddle the domains of Bangladesh’s domestic politics and foreign relations in her twin contributions to the volume (121–151; 242–264). Arguing in favor of Bangladesh’s democratic political culture—in the first—she has made a case for prioritizing the citizens’ standard of living, and for further democratic institutionalization. While, in the latter—which can be read in tandem with Shamsher M. Chowdhury’s take on half-a-century of Indo-Bangladesh relations (222–241)—Datta has divided Bangladesh’s foreign policy into four distinct phases. She has also attempted to tackle the country’s policy towards the Rohingyas, its role in promoting South Asian regionalism, and the drivers of its choices between India and China. Quite in tune with the economic orientation of the rest of the volume, Datta has emphasized upon the role of economic diplomacy in shaping Bangladesh’s foreign relations, without directly addressing the more uncomfortable aspects of its pro-China tilt.
Although the entry on foreign policy could elucidate the nuances in the Hasina government’s dealings with both India and China, the starkness of a few probabilities vis-à-vis the country’s domestic and foreign choices—in the aftermath of the pro-India Hasina government—have neither been hypothesized, nor identified. Whereas, such probabilities are of immense interest, if not concern, for the government of India: whether in Hasina’s wake, the country would abruptly slide into the hands of Islamic fundamentalists; whether such fundamentalist elements would auction off the country’s naval facilities, territories and resources to the Chinese; or, would resist the dragon’s overtures for its despicable treatment of the Uighur Muslims. Addressing these questions would perhaps have added to the volume’s rigor and vibrancy.
In short, the volume is a less-than-comprehensive report card on half a century of Bangladesh’s existence as a sovereign state. The contributors have often resorted to the extensive use of quantitative data for substantiating their arguments in favor of Bangladesh’s impressive contemporary economic achievements. The volume’s adduced economic records often run the risk of overshadowing its discourse on the country’s incessant socio-political crises. It is a noteworthy anthology insofar as its treatment of Bangladesh’s economic record in the first fifty years of its independence is concerned. This lopsided focus on the challenging issue-areas contributes to its weakness.