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Bangladesh, Sonar Bangla

The propaganda dished out by the government media gives no clue to the actual state of the economy in any Third World country. Nine times out of ten, this will be false and misleading, the tenth time (maybe) the normal exaggeration will be toned down to moderate levels. The basic indicators can be found in the streets of the country’s towns and cities, the number of vehicles (and the types), people thronging the shopping areas, the “housing starts” visible to the observer, etc. Any discerning eye can easily separate fact from fiction.

In Dhaka today fact is becoming stranger than fiction. Dr. Henry Kissinger’s “international basket case” has risen Phoenix-like to make him eat his words in his lifetime. The roads are jam-packed with an assortment of vehicles of all sizes and shapes, many of them carrying cement and steel, the basic ingredients of economic development. Where the Dhaka skyline once only boasted a handful of multi-storied structures, high-rises are now sprouting up everywhere. Not only are the shops full of goods and produce, the shoppers seem to have the requisite buying power. As the new status symbol the cellular telephone (the mobile) is fairly abundant in the hands of budding entrepreneurs. Signs of poverty are everywhere, much more than in Pakistan but there are fewer beggars in the streets than in earlier years. One can literally feel a palpable sense of economic dynamism in the air, many compare Dhaka with Bangkok of the early 70’s. An election year Budget with a third straight year of tax cuts and utility rates remaining mostly unchanged has been unveiled by Saifur Rahman, the Minister of Finance, the third technocrat in South Asia, after Senator Sartaj Aziz and Dr. Manmohan Singh, to take the fundamental steps necessary to unshackle the economy and rejuvenate the process. A major achievement has been the institutionalising of Value Added Tax (VAT) at source, rapidly becoming the mainstay for revenues. Ushered in during the mid-70s by the present PM’s husband, late Gen Ziaur Rahman, garment manufacturing is today vying to become a replacement for BD’s once-traditional dependence on jute as the mainstay of economy. Small businesses are in fashion all over the country, poultry farms, dairy farms, restaurants, barges and tanks, transport, etc, the world renowned Grameen Bank has even unshackled the peasants from the money lenders and given them basic entrepreneurial skills that allows them to earn more while paying less interest. The commercial turnover can be gauged at Aricha Ghat, where the maximum wait for a ferry used to be 20 minutes, a 7 km long traffic line of trucks laden with cargo awaited crossing when one ferry went out of order.

Bangladesh has still some distance to go before it can climb out of the economic depths it was put in by the heedless nationalisation policy of Shaikh Mujibur Rahman’s Awami League (AL) Government in the early 70’s. Pakistan faced the same economic mess due to late Bhutto’s similar disastrous moves for centrally controlling the economy but our economy was much more resilient and diversified. Moreover Pakistan’s placement at a geographical crossroads (Middle East, South Asia, Central Asia, China) makes the parallel economy pull the organised sector along. Now it seems likely that late Ziaur Rahman’s dream of a greater Bangladesh, aired only within an inner circle of friends and advisors, comprised in association with independent Indian States on BD’s borders, viz. West Bengal, Meghalaya, Assam, Tripura, Mizoram, Manipur and Nagaland may unofficially become an economic reality of the “Association of Eastern States of South Asia” (AESSA). AESSA’s geographical fact would encompass all the Indian States aforementioned as well as Nepal, Gorkhaland, Sikkim, Bhuttan, Bodoland and NEFA (North East Frontier Agency) because only the ports and rivers of Bangladesh can give this entire region a genuine reason for any hope of economic emancipation.

To the credit of Begum Zia’s regime she has continued the pragmatic economic policies of her hated enemy (and predecessor in government), Hussain Mohammad Ershad. One must give credit where credit is due even though it is not fashionable in BD’s intellectual circles to favour Ershad’s slate with any good deeds. Late Gen Zia created the basic foundation of the present economy, it was the sustained denationalisation/privatisation of the Ershad period that laid the basis for the economic launch-off that Begum Zia has achieved in her tenure. Blessed with a instinctively entrepreneurial Finance Minister, Saifur Rahman, Begum Zia has shrugged off political turmoil extraordinary orchestrated by arch-foes Hasina Wajed and Awami League, to usher in a hope of economic posterity, a changed attitude of mind that is amazing for neutral observers who saw money concentrated in the hands of a favoured few, almost none belonging to the soil. The lack of entrepreneurial potential was a psychological mind block fostered in the locals by the handful of businessmen-migrants from India who reaped the financial rewards in spades and then some, thereby causing economic deprivation and laying the seeds of national disintegration. If Awami League had not paralysed the major cities for the past several months, Begum Zia’s Bangladesh would have been far into the future already.

What does Bangladesh look like politically in an election year to an outside observer? Presently a legal tussle is going on due to the en bloc resignation of the Opposition MNAs, the President has made a Reference to the Supreme Court on the advice of the PM to determine the status of those who have resigned. While the Supreme Court will shortly take up the issue, having invited 6 of the country’s eminent lawyers to help it in its consideration, the absentee MNAs have continued to enjoy the pay, perks and privileges that is the lot of the elected few. On the surface and going by the size of the strikes (hartals) Begum Zia should be in deep political trouble. In the first-ever directly held municipal elections she lost control of the major two cities, Dhaka and Chittagong while winning the lesser cities Khulna and Rajshahi. Without control of the capital and the major port city and in the face of organised periodic shutdown, Begum Zia has successfully ruled the country, a noteworthy democratic achievement that should not fail to get the attention of Ms Benazir with respect to Karachi and the MQM’s hold over this port city. While sporadic arrests and violence do take place, notably in the country’s higher educational institutions, which are mired in politics, there is no calculated political vendetta against the main Opposition, the Awami League. Begum Zia’s ire is reserved for BNP’s ideological partner, the Jatiya Party (JP), and that too mainly for its leader, Lt Gen (Retd) H.M. Ershad, the former President who is in jail facing many charges, some on which he has already been convicted. The most important charge involves the post-arrest murder (supposedly on the orders of the then COAS, Lt Gen HM Ershad) of Maj Gen Manzoor who had earlier led an abortive revolt that killed the PM’s husband, then President Gen Ziaur Rahman. Begum Zia seems to feel that Gen Ershad had something to do with Gen Zia’s assassination (a mind-boggling Machiavellian scenario). The net result of this vendetta is that she keeps Ershad in the public eye and given that Ershad was a populist who heralded in significant development on the Ayubian pattern, the former President remains quite popular in the countryside, enough to give him nuisance value of some political consequence. The nationalist vote will be divided between the BNP and the JP, with the main beneficiary being AL. Backed by a solid Hindu vote (12% of the electorate) Hasina Wajid’s AL thus stands to have about a 100 plus seats, a couple of dozen or so plus seats more than last time the elections were held. However there are enough signs to safely predict that BNP will remain the majority party with Jatiya Party getting about 25 seats (at least a dozen less than the 37 seats the last time around). BNP may thus have to scramble into a coalition to form a government, that may take some doing as the only likely support may come from Jamaat-e-Islami whose seats may be reduced from 18 to about 12.

There have been scandals in Begum Zia’s time, none so potent as the one that led to the recent fertiliser crisis but the public memory is short and the Government seems to have weathered the issue of corruption in government which remains endemic. One must note however that the disinformation spread about Begum Zia’s son was found to be patently false on closer inspection. At least two major Business Houses owe their financial creditors more than Rs. 5 billion. Like in Pakistan, chronic loan defaulters who are the old (and nouveau) rich make a significant election issue but unlike in Pakistan the BD Finance Minister seems determined in recovering the money from such predators. It should be interesting to see how many such people still manage to get party tickets, case in point Maj Gen (Retd) Mahmudul Hasan, formerly close colleague of Gen Ershad and labelled “Thief of Baghdad” by Begum Zia in his role as Mayor of Dhaka, has now been accepted in the BNP fold by Begum Zia, a remarkable volte-face that she passed off with the remarks, “that even a thief may become a good person in the company of good people”, unquote, a philosophy that is long on political expediency but rather short on principles.

In the end, all Third World countries always look nervously at their respective Armies for “democratic” guidance. The former COAS, Lt Gen (Retd) Nuruddin, established a good precedence by not availing of his opportunities on Ershad’s turbulent transition by electing (like his 20th PMA Course-mate COAS Pakistan Army Gen Waheed) to sustain democracy by staying neutral. Bangladesh has been extraordinarily lucky in Gen Nuruddin’s successor, Lt Gen ASM Nasim, who has an impeccable Army career, long on hard work, honesty and integrity. Nasim took over as Begum Zia’s choice as COAS in September 1994 and has studiously kept the Army aloof from politics despite the severity of the Opposition’s strikes and the ensuing Constitutional crisis. Having a well deserved reputation as an excellent professional soldier (and an envious track record in a Third World country of stubborn loyalty), Gen Nasim has remained cool under pressure. Given AL’s Indian connections and the much-criticised 25 year Treaty of Friendship Shaikh Mujib had entered into with India in 1972, the Army would seem to be less than neutral in its perception of friends and foes (an enemy of an enemy is a friend?). India is uncomfortable at the size (and the pronounced nationalist psyche) of the Bangladesh Army and would very much like to see a friendly government cut it to “reasonable” size. One doubts that Nasim and company would sit idly by and let that happen i.e. if by some chance AL gets a simple majority and manages to make a coalition with Jatiya Party (whose demands for release of Gen Ershad may be too much for AL to concede), both extremely doubtful at this stage. This works silently in Begum Zia’s favour. While there is always opposition to incumbent governments, particularly in the urban areas, the indications of economic well-being and future prosperity are too strong for the electorate to turn its back on Begum Zia. Naturally BNP stands also to gain from the power of incumbency as well as the anti-Indian feeling in a vast majority of the populace.

Politics is based on economics whose main concern should be the amelioration of the misery and privation of the masses. While many factors, namely natural disasters and India’s machinations, viz Farrakka Barrage, Shanti Bahini, etc, may tend to derail Bangladesh’s march to economic prosperity, there is a basic amity and unity among the intelligentsia and the masses about the nation’s sovereignty and independence that we need to take lessons from. While Sonar Bangla may yet remain a dream to Bangladesh’s impoverished millions for many years to come, it is no longer in the realm of fantasy only.

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