Bangladesh Celebrates its Fifty Years of Freedom as a Confident Nation

Growing economy with higher development index marking golden jubilee, writes ASHIS BISWAS.

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Bangladeshis, celebrating the 50th anniversary of their Independence, are pining for happier times as the Covid-19 pandemic that has ravaged 2020 limps to its end. But the sombre national mood has been leavened by a quiet pride in that the country, defying all odds, has economically out-performed its neighbours in South Asia, including India. After 50 years of freedom, overcoming a myriad political crises and setbacks, Bangladesh edged ahead of India in terms of their per capita income, a major 'first' by any reckoning.

Dhaka-based policymakers as well as common people showed remarkable restraint, even as their media reported the accomplishment. There was no gloating, nor any loud patriotic cheering among TV chat show panelists.

This caused no surprise among analysts: it is not all about fluctuating GDPs and export performances.  Bangladeshi researchers have just produced a new flood-resistant strain of rice that can survive underwater for long spells. Also, to deal with the usual post-monsoon waterlogging that affects agricultural production over 25% of its landmass, besides causing untold havoc otherwise, new methods of 'floating farm' techniques are being tried out in India's East. No wonder Japan, Thailand, and Myanmar keenly track these trends, often sharing data with Dhaka, while carrying out their own research. 

The Bangladeshi development 'story' is no longer only about jute and the export of low-end garments. 

Bangladeshis have silenced many of their erstwhile critics (and enemies) who opposed the freedom struggle idolised the late Indira Gandhi along with the founding father Mujibur Rahman in the process. The scoffers included major world leaders like Henry Kissinger, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and even the otherwise respected late A.B.Vajpayee. While younger Bangladeshis have little knowledge of such matters, surviving old timers invariably recall some their caustic comments which bear remembrance on such a special occasion.

History records Kissinger telling President Nixon gleefully in 1970 , receiving first reports about the massive nocturnal crackdown on unarmed people in Dhaka on March 26: 'Now the fun really begins …' The genocide that followed eventually saw the death of over 3 million mostly innocent civilians! He derided Bangladesh as the world's 'bottomless basket' that no amount of foreign aid could ever sustain as a country. Throughout 1970-71, the US supported Pakistan. 

Bhutto told newsmen without apparent regret during the Pak army crackdown, "Bengalis have disaster written in their stars." During a Lok Sabha debate years later, Mr. Vajpayee asserted, 'Bangladesh cannot shift the burden of its appalling poverty on to India', dealing with the issue of illegal immigration.

Such attitudes have changed slowly over the years, although Pakistan is yet to extend even a routine apology to Dhaka for the excesses it had committed. Even as Dhaka has resumed diplomatic ties with Pakistan after a long spell of cold shouldering, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina told the new Pak envoy a few days ago, 'We can neither forgive nor forget what Pakistan did to our country and its people in the 70s. That memory will always be with us.'

A section of the Dhaka media reported another fact, again minus any fanfare or gloating: during the current month, Bangladesh's foreign exchange reserves rose to a record high of $42.09 billion — not too bad for a Corona-ravaged year, for an economy that underwent a long lockdown and a worldwide downturn in trade and business. During the past year, official sources said, these reserves had risen by over $1 billion. Among reasons driving such progress were increased remittances from abroad, the stabilization of exports facing a decline during the corona pandemic, and a reduction in imports and foreign loans. Forex reserves were around $32 billion, on average in December 2019. These existed the $ 40 billion mark on several days this year.

This enables Bangladesh to import $4 billion worth of items for the next 10.5 months!

There was an added sweetener: Pakistan's forex reserves in December 2020 mostly hovered around the $20 billion mark.

In other words, fifty years on, the 'bottomless basket' of yore now has more than twice the forex reserves, compared to its former mother country, so beloved by major world leaders and powers. 

No wonder, today's younger Pakistanis participating in serious TV panel discussions can be seen asking their senior leaders, former generals, politicians and others, just what had gone wrong in what was East Pakistan back in the seventies. 'What was the trouble all about, why did we fight there?' are most common queries. Rewriting inconvenient history has been an art where the Pakistani ruling establishment is in a class of its own. 

The answers vary significantly. Most surviving Pak leaders prefer to remain silent, admitting generally that 'so many things went wrong.' The leaders were misguided, the army and politicos botched up matters, there was much violence….and of course, India conspired with Mujibur and won big. The West, too, failed Pakistan in its crisis despite their promises. All this in the briefest replies possible. 

Facts like the massacre and the mass killing of unarmed civilians and rapes of countless women, the great refugee exodus to West Bengal and Tripura…. are a strict no-no even in 2020! Pakistanis still remain strongly attached to their' denial' mode. Only a few people criticise Gen Yahya or Bhutto, or the general exploitation of East Pakistan.

No one ever mentions in such discussions that before 1970, very few East Bengalis could go abroad because not too many passports were being issued by their West Pakistan-based rulers. (Bangladesh today has 76,00,000 of its citizens working or settled all over the world ). Only 3% of Bangladeshis were above the official poverty line in 1971 after they won their 'freedom', their country in shambles after the massive killing of 3 million people and the scorched earth tactics adopted by the retreating Pak army, leaving most buildings razed or damaged!

Indeed, it has been truly a long journey for Bangladesh during the past 50 years. As of now, scores of manufacturing units based in China are considering a shift to Bangladesh. At least 7 South Korean units have already relocated their units to Chittagong and adjacent areas from Myanmar, attracted by better working conditions in Bangladesh. More are on the way. In fact, Vietnam and Bangladesh are the preferred destinations for such companies, compared even to India. (IPA) 

(Ashis Biswas is a Kolkata-based journalist. The views are personal.)