BENGALURU: In his 1994 book, On the Grand Trunk Road, American journalist Steve Coll had described Bangladesh as “the epitome of pathetic South Asian wretchedness”, encapsulating “the deepest depths of rural poverty in South Asia”.
All that has now changed. At a time when South Asia has become notorious for floundering economies and pandemic mismanagement, Bangladesh is now everybody’s favourite breakout star.
The transformation has come through several factors. For the past few decades, Bangladesh has been the land of development experiments. Its squalor and poverty made it a very attractive destination for NGOs and philanthropists. More than most other developing countries, Bangladesh’s development story has been run by foreign aid, which averaged 5 per cent of the GDP in net terms for 25 years until the turn of this century. That was backed by the microfinance revolution, pioneered by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, which created a transformative textile industry and lifted millions out of poverty without the need for massive upskilling.
The results have been dramatic. In the 15 years from 2004 to 2019, Bangladesh’s real per capita income more than doubled. In 2020-21, Bangladesh reported a higher nominal per capita income than India for the first time ever. There have also been significant gains on various social indicators: Between 1990 and 2016, Bangladesh’s life expectancy increased by over fourteen years and the expected years of schooling more than doubled.
The inexorable rise of Bangladesh has inevitably turned it into an emerging power in South Asia—most visibly during the pandemic. As India struggled with a deadly second wave of COVID-19, Bangladesh sent vital drugs and equipment. Then, Bangladesh offered an unprecedented currency swap arrangement to Sri Lanka, to the tune of $200 million in order to make up for Colombo’s dwindling foreign reserves.
Many Indians see Bangladesh’s increasing relevance and clout in the region as an affront to India’s own regional primacy and hegemony. But to the contrary, Bangladesh’s rise should be welcome news to New Delhi. For much of history, India’s size and significance has been New Delhi’s own bugbear in the neighbourhood.
India’s inevitable domination of all regional integration efforts has often prompted Colombo, Kathmandu and others to seek cooperation from China, in order to counterbalance New Delhi. Bangladesh’s rise as a potential organiser of regional cooperation could help build trust between India and its smaller neighbours, and facilitate further regional integration.
Challenges Ahead
Yet, Bangladesh’s miracle story is not itself free of peril. As columnist Mihir Sharma recently argued, much like other export economies across Asia, Bangladesh will have to deal with several challenges arising out of its own prosperity. While Bangladesh’s economic growth so far has been driven by low-cost and low-skill sectors, aided by preferential trade agreements, many of these trade concessions will soon lapse. Meanwhile, with the increase in per capita income, much of the future workforce will seek higher-skill and higher-value jobs, as in Vietnam, China and elsewhere.
Climate change is yet another major threat. Over the last decade, nearly 700,000 Bangladeshis were displaced each year by natural disasters. A 2018 World Bank report estimates that over 13 million people could be displaced by 2050, owing to the various impacts of climate change in the country. The influx of Rohingya refugees from neighbouring Myanmar only serves to further complicate this crisis.
Yet, as in the rest of South Asia, the spectre of politics could be the most dangerous. Across much of the region, economic prosperity has often had to grapple with religious fundamentalism and identity politics. Bangladesh is unlikely to be any different.
Born out of a war over its Bengali identity, and fighting the Islamist fundamentalism of the Pakistan project, Bangladesh has long struggled to accommodate conservative religious voices within its secular vision.
Almost immediately after Bangladesh secured its independence from Pakistan in 1971, that challenge came to the fore. Following the liberation war that year, then president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman banned the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), which advocated anti-secular and pro-Islamist politics and had been accused of massacres during the war. Future governments, led by the opposition Bangladesh National Party (BNP) of President Ziaur Rahman reversed that in order to court the support of Muslim conservatives. The JeI subsequently even contested elections, before being banned by the Bangladesh Supreme Court in 2013.
Yet, the decline of the JeI did not end Islamist fundamentalism in Bangladesh. Seeking to continue giving voice to the sizable conservative constituency within the country, a cleric, Shah Ahmad Shafi, set up the Hefazat-e-Islam (HeI) in 2010. The HeI has championed similar Islamist causes, including the establishment of Islam as the state religion and capital punishment for blasphemy. In 2013, members of the HeI clashed with rationalist bloggers and atheists on the streets of Dhaka, as the latter protested for a secular constitution.
Bangladeshi Democracy At Stake
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has often been lauded by analysts in New Delhi for cracking down on Islamist fundamentalists in her country. Yet, Hasina has also been accused within her own country of using the war against Islamism as an excuse for authoritarianism.
In 2014, the BNP boycotted the country’s general elections. Not long after, the BNP’s leader Khaleda Zia was sentenced to prison on corruption charges. After the 2018 general elections, several observers raised questions over the fairness of those elections. Meanwhile, at least 17 people were killed in clashes between the ruling party and the opposition. And on both occasions, Hasina came away with landslide victories, raising the threat that Bangladesh could soon turn into a one-party state.
Hasina has also taken questionable decisions that have threatened to erode the independence of state institutions. This year, the Bangladesh government shifted services related to the National Identity (NID) cards from the Election Commission to the Home Ministry. Since voter lists and the information on NID cards are closely related, that raised eyebrows right away. Election Commissioner Mahbub Talukdar criticised the decision, terming it “suicidal and irrational” and calling it a nail in the coffin for the election system.
The struggle between secularism and Islamism will determine the future of Bangladeshi democracy and, by extension, Bangladesh’s much-vaunted political stability. In sharp contrast to Pakistan, commentators around the world have long held up Bangladesh as a model stable state: voters turn out in large numbers and military coups are rare. But the durability of that model will depend on whether Bangladeshis are able to agree on their secular national identity.
Owing to the threat from Islamist fundamentalists, many rationalists and secularists in Bangladesh—and the international community—will be inclined to ignore Hasina’s unchallenged dominance and questions over the authoritarian tendencies of her government. But the sustainability of the Bangladeshi miracle will depend on the strength of the country’s democratic traditions and state institutions.
The rise of Bangladesh is vital not just for Bangladeshis but also for South Asia and the Muslim world. A prosperous Bangladesh can lead regional integration in South Asia. A secular and politically stable Bangladesh can also lead the Muslim world against global Islamist fundamentalism. For its own sake, the world should hope that Bangladesh can keep it going.
(The author is editor-in-chief of Freedom Gazette and author of ‘Flying Blind: India’s Quest for Global Leadership’ (Penguin). Views expressed in this article are personal.)
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