The Two Bengals: West Bengal can now learn a few things from Bangladesh
By Ramachandra Guha: The contempt for the Bangaal among the bhadralok of Calcutta is matched by their contempt for the Bihari, who are often seen as fit for not much more than pulling rickshaws. But it may now be the case that the patronizers have something to learn from the patronized.
The birth of an independent Bangladesh 40 years ago was met with scepticism by Western observers. It was the archetypal basket case, incapable of feeding itself. Sympathetic do-gooders like Joan Baez sang songs to get their richer compatriots to gift money and supplies to the poor starving Bengalis. Others were more hard-headed. The well-known American biologist, Garrett Hardin, wrote that it was futile to send rice to a people incapable of anything other than procreation. In his view, the Bangladeshis should have been left to starve to death.
For the first decade, and more, of its existence, Bangladesh was seen as proof of the Malthusian dictum that in the absence of social organization and technological innovation, population would soon outstrip food supply, leading to mass famine. When lectured to on their breeding habits in the United Nations, Bangladeshi diplomats answered that an American child consumed 70 times as much as a child born in Dhaka or Khulna. One diplomat was more cheeky — claiming, on the basis of a visit to a New York supermarket stocking rows upon rows of pet food, that the birth of one American dog or cat had a greater impact on the global environment than the birth of one Bangladeshi child.
Soon Bangladeshi diplomats had other, and more uncomfortable, questions to answer. There were a series of military coups, and a surge in Islamic fundamentalism. The popular image of the country was that it was over-populated, and run by generals hand-in-glove with mullahs. Slowly, however, perceptions began to change. There were no famines; in fact, rice production grew steadily within the country. The industrial sector also progressed, with Bangladesh emerging as a major exporter of textiles. The generals went back to their barracks, and civilian governments took their place. As the common sense of Bengali Islam reasserted itself, the jihadis also retreated.
In a fine recent book, the British anthropologist, David Lewis, shows that those early predictions of doom and gloom greatly underestimated the resilience and dynamism of Bangladeshi society. Defying the odds — and the cynics — the country’s farmers, workers, entrepreneurs, and professionals have made a modest success of their country. Once written off as a basket case, Bangladesh is now spoken of as a basket of innovation, with regard to, among other things, micro-credit.
As David Lewis demonstrates, given its unpropitious beginnings and violent interruptions (as in assassinations and coups), the fact that Bangladesh has survived 40 testing years, and remains some kind of democracy, is a notable achievement. Lewis further points out that with regard to most economic and social indicators, Bangladesh is doing better than Pakistan, the country of which it was once the eastern wing. West Pakistanis looked down on the Bengalis, whom they considered effete and lazy. But from today’s vantage point it is the former East Pakistanis who come out much better. Pakistan is riven by civil conflict, religious violence, economic stagnation, and the oppression of women. On the other hand, Bangladesh has witnessed steady economic growth, the defeat of religious extremism, and an ever greater participation of women in the workforce and in the public sphere more generally... Read more: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120630/jsp/opinion/story_15658936.jsp
