Nothing can hold us back

Md Awal Al Kabir In February of 1972, William S Ellis, senior Sub-Editor of world famous magazine 'National Geographic' came to Dhaka when the air of Bangladesh was still full of the stench of rotting human flesh from the bodies of freedom seeking Bengalis. The smouldering smoke from the burnt down villages and homesteads suffocated the living. Experiencing these situations he wrote an article titled 'Bangladesh: Hope Nourishes a New Nation.' In his twenty-six page article Mr Ellis wrote 'slogans and petitions to deity may or may not have helped, but Bangladesh, the world's 147th independent nation, is getting to its feet. Survival seems likely and, considering what occurred here for nine months of 1971, that is indeed a miraculous accomplishment.' Really we had passed so many bad days with lots of pain, suspicion, and uncertainty from both insiders and outside world. But we never lost our heart. By trust, hard work and commitment we have advanced so far to materialise our dream of building a 'Sonar Bangla.' The fight for an independent Bangladesh started forty years ago on March 26, 1971 when Pakistan's martial rulers unleashed their vicious army on innocent Bengalis and started genocide unprecedented in the post-colonial world. As many as 30 lakhs (3.0 million) people became martyrs and thousands of our mothers and sisters became Birangona. The whole system and infrastructure simply collapsed. At the later stage they tried to create a merit vacuity by killing our intellectuals with the help of the perfidious Razakar, Al Badar, and Al Shams. But all their attempts turned futile and we took only nine months to free our beloved motherland. Henry Kissinger famously dubbed Bangladesh a "basket case" at its birth in 1971. But the nation which has shed so much blood and tears and made extreme sacrifice cannot afford to fail. Now we have much to be proud of. Our economy has come along over the past 40 years since its independence. It has made considerable strides in different socio-economic arenas and established a compact platform. During the last four decades Bangladesh has succeeded in invigorating millions out of poverty, cutting fertility rate by more than half, lowering infant mortality rate by 75 per cent and mortality of children under the age of 5 by 46 per cent. Bangladesh has curbed population growth and is happily giving up its title of the sixth most populous country to Pakistan. Today the average Bangladeshi woman bears fewer than three children in her lifetime, down from more than six in the 1970s. Moreover, Bangladesh's economy has been flourishing at nearly six per cent a year over the past few years, with gradual improvement in inflation rate, high investment rates, high growth in export and notable macroeconomic steadiness despite the global economic meltdown and high fuel and food prices. The per capita income has more than doubled in the last 40 years, according to the World Bank, poverty rate has fallen by 20% to 40% in last two decades. Our manufacturing and the service sectors are flourishing rapidly which leads to more productivity. The country exported $ 12.3 billion worth of garments last year, stands fourth in the world behind only China, the EU and Turkey. Bangladesh was the top exporter in the EU market in 2009 with 6 percent growth, when all other countries, except Qatar, faced an export fall due to global financial retrenchment. During the time, Bangladesh outperformed its global rivals - China, India and Vietnam. Bangladeshi Nobel Laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus lifts up our head in the world community by giving the model of microcredit for alleviating poverty. Now more than a hundred countries and 600 million people are directly or indirectly enjoying the benefits of this model. According to global credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service, Bangladesh ranked three-step higher than Pakistan and one-step ahead of Sri Lanka. Tax reforms and infrastructure development efforts are supporting Bangladesh's Ba3 rating. In the last forty years we have experienced many major breakthroughs in education. Now our literacy rate is over 50% which was roughly 27% in 1971. Primary education enrolment rate has risen to an impressive 92 per cent with completion rate standing at 72 per cent. The enrolment at college and university levels has increased over the years though the quality of education at the levels still remains far from satisfactory. From 1970 to 1999, adult literacy rate in Bangladesh increased by 17 per cent. Bangladesh is one of the six countries in Asia and Africa which has been feted for its progress towards achieving its Millennium Development Goals, a set of targets that seek to eradicate extreme poverty and boost health, education and the status of women worldwide by 2015. Recently our prime minister received an award from UN for this success. In the Index of Democracy, Bangladesh moved up the table from being 91st in 2008 to 83rd in 2010, while Pakistan also moved up, but from 108th to 104th. Bangladesh's Human Development Index (HDI) increased by 81 per cent in the past 30 years despite several enormous challenges. Out of the 95 countries Bangladesh was ranked third in terms of the improvement over that period. UNESCO has declared 21st February as International Mother Language Day. Our valiant soldiers are effectively restoring the peace in different regions of the world. Ironically, Bangladesh has become Jinnah's Pakistan - democratic, developmental, liberal, and secular- while Pakistan has become his worst nightmare - intolerant, authoritarian, illiberal and fundamentalist. Perhaps most importantly, Bangladesh appears comfortable in its own skin: politically secular, religiously Muslim and culturally Bengali. Hindus and Muslims of Bangladesh celebrate the culture and literature equally. Bangladesh is the land of serpentine rivers, green countryside, natural wonders and colourful cultural life. It is a dream destination for the tourists as it has some mind boggling sites to die for. We have the world's longest sea beach in Cox's Bazar, world's biggest mangrove forest the Sundarbans, so many places of historical importance, Kuakata - the only place of the world from where sunrise and sunset can be seen - and what not. That's why travel destinations in Bangladesh are creating much fuss around the world. We have achieved a phenomenal growth in telecom sector. Experts predict that teledensity will reach 80 per cent of the population by 2012 since the government is careful enough to make a telecommunication-friendly IT policy which was their election manifesto. Today about 60 million subscribers have access to telephone, whereas even two decades ago one had to wait for twenty years before one could get a land line telephone connection. In the last two decades we have also witnessed a vibrant growth of our electronic and print media. Both the media enjoy a substantial degree of freedom of expression and the gradual spread of information technology has contributed to different areas. We have prepared a comprehensive voter list and National ID within a very short period of time which is very rare throughout the world. In sports we aren't also legging behind. In recent times we have successfully arranged Cricket World Cup. World No 1 cricket all-rounder Sakib Al Hasan is our son. We also put our triumphant footprints in various events of Commonwealth, Asian and SAAF Games. The country which was considered a bottomless basket in 1971, is offering today a mirror to others on how developing countries can become a development state and is being referred to as the 'development surprise' of the 21st century. Our successes in some areas have been so profound that they outshine many aspects of the development successes of India, dubbed as the 'Asian Tiger' for its phenomenal economic performance. Despite the wishful desires of Kissinger and the like, still nothing can hold Bangladesh back. It continues to thrive amid many hurdles. According to ABM Nasir, professor of Economics, North California University, Bangladesh can be dubbed as the 'Basket of Hope.' Now we need to make out and agree the best guiding principles which will set us on a trajectory of more speedy sustainable socioeconomic development and help prop up national unity. (The writer is a Lecturer of the Department of Management Studies, Jahangirnagar University and can be reached at e-mail: awalalkabir@yahoo.com. Courtesy: 'Bangladesh at 40: Changes and Challenges,' a publication of Faculty of Business Studies, Jahangirnagar University (JU) to mark its holding of a three-day seminar on the afore-mentioned theme from December 09 to December 11, 2011 at the JU at Savar. The Financial Express is the media partner of the event)