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THE TWO BENGALS
- West Bengal can now learn a few things from Bangladesh
Of the countries close to or bordering
India, I have been once to China and Afghanistan, twice to Sri Lanka and
Nepal, and three times to Pakistan. I have declined several invitations
to visit Bhutan, but were anyone to invite me to Bangladesh or Myanmar I
would accept without hesitation. I am told Bhutan is pretty — very
pretty — and were I a botanist, Buddhist, or birdwatcher I would surely
want to go there. But given my interests, I am attracted more to Myanmar
and to Bangladesh, which are much larger, far more complex in
sociological terms, and with tumultuous recent histories besides.
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.
To be sure,
whereas Bangladesh has done reasonably well in recent years, deficits
remain. There is still an excessively Islamic cast to its politics, with
Hindus and Buddhists not always secure of their rights of citizenship.
The army may yet come out of the barracks. Corruption is rife. And the
coastal districts are vulnerable to climate change.
These
caveats notwithstanding, one cannot but be impressed with the steady
progress made by Bangladeshi society in recent years. Lewis compares the
country favourably to Pakistan. I am tempted, on the basis of the
evidence in his book, to make another, and perhaps even more telling,
comparison. This is with the Indian state of Paschim Banga. West Bengal
and East Bengal share a common ecology, a common language, and a common
cultural and historical heritage. They went their separate ways in 1947,
with the former becoming a part of India, the latter a part of
Pakistan.
It appears
that in at least four respects Bangladesh is doing significantly better
than West Bengal. First, the atmosphere is more conducive to
welfare-oriented civil society organizations. Groups such as Bangladesh
Rural Advancement Committee, Grameen Bank and Gonoshastya Kendra have
done outstanding work in providing credit, healthcare, and education to
poor peasants and slum dwellers. These groups have no real analogues in
West Bengal, where civil society groups face considerable hostility from
the state and from political parties.
Second,
there is a more extensive, and apparently more reliable, network of
roads and waterways. Roads and bridges allow peasants to get their
produce to the market, get their children to school, and obtain
medicines to treat the sick and elderly. This has been recognized by
Nitish Kumar in Bihar, and by successive governments in Bangladesh. But
the roads in West Bengal continue to be in a pathetic condition.
The third
and fourth contrasts are connected. There are many more women working in
the modern manufacturing sector in Bangladesh, which is linked to the
fact that the government’s economic policy is outward-looking and
export-oriented. In West Bengal, on the other hand, the economic outlook
has been insular, hostile to entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship.
As I know well from my years in Calcutta, the bhadralok
of that city have long held feelings of condescension, if not contempt,
for their compatriots in the east. The prejudices of caste and religion
feed into this: upper-caste Bengali Hindus think of themselves as
superior to low-caste Muslim converts. The sense of cultural superiority
is enhanced by what Calcutta is supposed to be — a great international
city, a centre of scientific and artistic creativity, the place that
inspired or nurtured Satyajit Ray, Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen,
Jagadish Bose (and so many others). Dhaka, on the other hand, is said to
be a provincial dump.
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. For, in recent years, the political elites of Bihar and
Bangladesh have been far more focused on economic growth and social
well-being than the nostalgic and self-regarding elites of West Bengal.
The problems
with West Bengal are well known — a dysfunctional health system, badly
run (and over-politicized) schools and colleges, lack of good roads
(and oftentimes of any roads at all), inability to attract investment,
the absence of a work ethic among office-goers and factory employees. To
learn how to address these problems, ministers in the Paschim Banga
government would do well to travel through Bihar, or read Lewis’s book
on Bangladesh — or preferably both. Then, perhaps, what Dhaka and Patna
are doing today, Calcutta may yet come to do tomorrow.
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