It is 37 years now since 16 December, 1971. The independent nation has undergone many an upheaval — social, political and economic. Where do the people stand at the moment? The answer, however, depends on whom one ask the question, as almost the entire society has, meanwhile, been divided parochially into two acrimonious political camps, led by Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Awami League, engaged in a no-holds-barred power struggle, without much difference in their political, economic and social perspectives. But to have an objective answer, one needs to remember as to why the people of this country fought for independence.
The political aspirations behind the people’s active participation in the war of national independence was to have a representative democracy within the framework of a parliamentary system of governance; their economic aspiration was to ensure equitable distribution of wealth to be created collectively by the entire population; and the socio-cultural drive was to have a secular society with people of different faiths living in harmony with the religions playing no role in politics, or running the affairs of the state for that matter.
The social, political and economic aspects in question became the prime drives for the struggle for national independence quite reasonably, as the erstwhile rulers of Pakistan denied the Bengalis the democratic right to govern the country despite repeated electoral victories, consistently pursued discriminatory fiscal policies to deprive the Bengalis of due economic developments, and used to obstruct the process of secular cultural accomplishments by using Islam in the vested political propaganda.
The Bengalis, therefore, finally waged the War of Independence, of course in the wake of the beginning of history’s worst genocide by the Pakistani military junta on the frightful night of 25 March, 1971. The Bengalis deemed themselves independent just from the dawn of March 26, although it took nine months of bloodletting to really emerge as a sovereign nation state on 16 December, 1971, the day the occupation forces of Pakistan admitted defeat.
Now, what are the achievements of independence?
Apparently, there was hardly any achievement of qualitative type over the last 34 years, particularly in terms of the core aspirations that the ordinary people had for the nation’s independence. The country now witnesses a parliamentary system of governance with the elected representatives hardly having any meaningful role in the legislative process. Besides, the rich people, who virtually control the political process, have made electioneering an expensive process, making it impossible for the non-rich to even contest in the polls on a level playing field.
On the economic front, the successive governments have pursued identical policies, devoid of the democratic objective of ensuring equitable distribution of national wealth among citizens, which have retained the original economic inequality of the poor and the rich despite the fact that per capita income has been increased to $444 in 2004 from $110 in 1973.
Notably, the official data shows that in 1974 the poorest five per cent of the population owned 1.2 per cent of the total national wealth, while the richest 5.0 per cent enjoyed 16.4 per cent. When the base is broadened, the poorest 10 per cent of the population had access to 2.8 per cent of the total national wealth, while the richest 10 per cent have access to 28.4 per cent.
In 2000, the situation got worse, from the point of view of disparity.
The official statistics show that the poorest five per cent of the population had access to only 0.67 per cent of the national wealth, while the richest five per cent controlled 30.66 per cent of the national wealth. Again, broadening the base, the poorest 10 per cent of the population owned only 1.84 per cent of the national wealth, while the richest 10 per cent controlled 40.72 per cent of the national wealth.
Culturally, the society seems to have taken a U-turn, particularly in terms of its non-secular growth — thanks to the crude political tactics of the power-mongering politicians using religious sentiments of the ordinary people.
National independence provided the people of this country with enormous scope to bring about qualitative changes in the lives of the ordinary masses, but the short-sighted politicians, driven solely by parochial vested interests, have failed to do so. Still, it is important to take note that the nation has made remarkable progress in some of the important areas of socio-economic life — food production, health infrastructure, education and road communications being a few of them. The achievements would not have been possible had the country not been independent.
The country’s food grain production increased by 270 per cent between 1971 and 2005 –– a post-independent period when the country’s population almost doubled.
The rice production has increased to 26.18 million tonnes in the 2003-04 fiscal year from 9.77 million tonnes in the 1971-72 fiscal. The production of wheat has also marked a significant rise from 1.13 million tonnes in 1972 to 15.07 million tonnes in the 2002-2003 fiscal.
During the period, the gap between demand for, and production of, food grain has diminished although the county is yet to achieve sustainable self-sufficiency in meeting the demand of 140 million people at present.
Notably, the food shortfall was three million tonnes in 1972 when the country’s population was 75 million. Based on unofficial estimates, the shortfall of food is now around 2.5 million tonnes.
Production of potato increased to a projected volume of four million tonnes this season from 0.74 million tonnes in 1971-72. A new item has also been added to the basket of food items — maize. The country currently produces around 3.5 lakh tonnes of maize, though no formal cultivation of the crop was there in the 1970s.
In the health sector, the country managed expansion of facilities through a cross-country network.
Reduction of the fertility rate and childhood mortality remains a couple of remarkable success. Bangladesh is the only nation in the poorest 20 that has recorded a sustained reduction in the birth rate. In 1990 women had 3.3 births, about half of the rate in 1974. Infant mortality has dropped from about 140 to 88 per 1,000 live births over the same period.
Besides, the country is now free from polio as the successive governments continued massive immunisation programmes against six deadly diseases.
In the late 1980s malaria was one of the major killers in the country, but the number of malarial deaths has shrunk drastically by now. According to official statistics, in 1988 malaria claimed 10,420 out of a total of 18,88,524 affected people, but the death figures and the number of affected people were reduced respectively to 170 and 82,305 in 1998, only within a span of 10 years.
In the case of diarrhoea, the death toll was 2,733 out of 5,04,867 affected people in 1988, but it was reduced by more than 50 per cent to 1,250 out of 5,32,091.
Bangladesh started its journey with less than the minimum health facilities in terms of hospitals, clinics, hospital beds, registered physicians, and nurses and midwives for its 75 million people at that time.
There were only 120 government hospitals with 9,253 beds in 1971 when the country had hardly any private hospital. But the number of hospital beds rose to 44,374 in 1,277 government hospitals in 2000. The number of beds was estimated 11,500 in 265 private hospitals.
Presently, 59 district hospitals, 402 thana health complexes, 15 rural health centres, 1,362 union sub-centres, 25 medical colleges, five post-graduate hospitals, five medical assistants’ training schools, four tuberculosis hospitals, 44 tuberculosis clinics, eight tuberculosis segregation hospitals, five infectious diseases hospitals, 35 urban dispensaries, 23 school health clinics and 96 maternity and child welfare centres are being run by the government.
The country now has over 32,000 registered doctors and the number of registered nurses and midwives is 17,446 and 15,235 in those hospitals.
The number of physicians in 1972 was 731 at the 120 hospitals. The country had 151 rural heath centres, 37 tuberculosis clinics and 91 maternity and child welfare centres at that time.
Education sector, although exposed to criticism for the declining of quality, has witnessed four to six times of increase, in volume, in the infrastructure development compared to the meagre facilities in the pre-independence period.
The total number of primary schools has increased 2.57 times, and the number of junior high schools 1.6 times.
There were 30,518 primary and 2,002 junior high schools in 1971, and now the numbers stand at 78,363 and 3,278 respectively.
The number of high schools was 4,160 in 1971, and stood at 13,275 till December 2003.
The number of intermediate and degree colleges was 263 and 221 respectively in 1971, but now number is 1,459 and 1,077 respectively.
Significant increase was seen in higher education. Bangladesh began its journey with five universities with 13,888 students in 1971. The number of universities at present is 74 — 21 public and 53 private — with 1,26,584 students.
The number of professional educational institutes was 86 in 1971, and in 2003 the number was 235. Colleges and institutes for training of teachers numbered 68 in 1971, and the figure increased to 130 in 2003.
Achievement in the communication sector is also not negligible. There were only 6,000 kilometres of primary and secondary road networks in the country 1971, while there are 1,82,286 kilometres road networks at present covering six broad categories: national highway, regional highway, district road, upzila road, union road and village road.
Motorised vehicles carry about 70 per cent of the country’s total passenger and cargo volume.
Construction of a number of bridges such as the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge, Meghna Bridge, Meghna-Gumti Bridge, Bangladesh-China Friendship Bridge, Shambhuganj Bridge and Mahananda Bridge has made road communication easier and less expensive.
Biman, the national flag carrier of Bangladesh, started its journey virtually from the scratch with no aircraft and no ancillaries. It came into operation immediately after the War of Independence, and now flies to 26 international and 8 domestic destinations.
The country has presently 11 operational airports including three international airports at Dhaka, Chittagong and Sylhet, which serve international routes.
True that the successes cited above are almost nothing, compared to those achieved by some other nations over the same period. Still, the successes, however limited they are, suggest clearly that the nation has the inherent potential to change its lot if the country’s politicians, the ultimate locomotives of the train of development, are streamlined properly, and the political process is set on a democratic path committed to the welfare of the majority.
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