It would appear from Aravind Adiga's story that the social, cultural and economic attributes of Bangladesh has undergone a sea-change within a space of two and half years' rule of the present government and prior to that Bangladesh was a paradise without blemish during the rule of the Awami League regime. But the picture would appear quite different if we look at the facts and figures related to crime in the country. Annual crime figures for the years 1999 to 2003 clearly indicate that the situation has gradually improved since 2001with regard to criminal activities such as murders, mugging, robberies, theft, abductions and acts of terrorism. Official figures show, that the number of cases filed in police stations declined from 10,706 in 1999 to 8659 in 2003.

At the moment, the police in Bangladesh is manned by around 110 thousand personnel. But this number is quite inadequate for a country of 140 million. The police-people ratio in Bangladesh, which currently stands at 1:1350, is one of the lowest in Asia. The ratio is much higher even in neighbouring countries of South Asia. Add to this the resource constraints of the government, inadequate infrastructure, logistics and equipment, a colonial past of exploitations and subjugations, a traditional society with high rates of illiteracy, erosion of social morality, dependency syndrome emanating from the days of colonial rule and a past culture of law-breaking.

However, despite all these odds and handicaps, crime rate in Bangladesh is one of the lowest in South Asia. People should also not lose sight of the fact that, no terrorist outfits presently exist in Bangladesh and there have been no communal riots or rise of religious fundamentalism. Besides, Bangladesh has also out-performed most of her neighbours in the field of social and human development in recent years and this has been lauded by no lesser authorities on the subject than the UNDP and the World Bank.

In the just released report titled 'Economic and Social Progress in Bangladesh', the World Bank has praised Bangladesh for the strides made in the past 20 years, saying that the country has established a track-record of progress on many 'social and economic indicators'. The WB compared the country's democratic progress with Turkey, saying that the South Asian nation demonstrated the feasibility of democracy in a Muslim-dominated country.

On economic growth, the WB report found that during the 1990s, GDP increased by 60 percent. Per capita income grew three times faster than the average for low-income countries. Over the last three decades, per capita income grew more than twice as fast as the average for low-income countries. The private sector has taken over former public sector activities such as distribution of fertiliser and irrigation equipment. It built and operated five plants generating 34 percent of Bangladesh's electric power under IPP contracts. On poverty and vulnerability reduction, the WB report said that during the 1990s, income poverty declined by 9 percentage points, a record exceeding that of most developing countries. Bangladesh is ahead of most countries in the region in reducing public food subsidies in the urban areas and redirecting most of the public food distribution to poorer groups in rural areas; an extensive food safety net exists in the country. Bangladesh is undergoing a demographic transition at a low income level without resorting to coercive measures, the WB report concluded. It is unfortunate that Aravind Adiga has dismissed outright all these achievements by Bangladesh over the years with a single brush of his pen.

Despite media campaigns to the contrary by vested political and religion-based groups within and outside the country, Bangladesh has been described by credible people in Asia and the West who know the country well as a 'liberal democracy' and 'moderate Muslim country'. A Dhaka-based daily wrote in a commentary on 10 April 2004, "Time's correspondent has disgraced himself by describing Bangladesh in such extreme language. Bangladesh is no doubt facing difficulties but to call it a 'state of disgrace' should be a shame for any journalist with any objectivity or true assessment ... "Though the issues of corruption, law and order and economic mismanagement were highlighted, the conclusions were strangely far from it. They focused on Islamic fundamentalism, repression of minorities and religious intolerance. What the Time correspondent did not report is how the party that killed democracy is now busy in trying to overthrow the elected government through any means. He also did not say anything about the US Ambassador Mr. Thomas and the State Department coming out with a warning that change of government through unconstitutional means was not acceptable".

"The recent Time report is different from the first polemical ones and this time it could not hide the fact that the reporter came with an old brief to rewrite an old story... The reporter also interviewed a former President, who is angry with the government for being thrown out of the Presidency; Mr Chowdhury did not resign to protest anything done by the government. So the motive of the reporter is clear".

The reporter did not show any objectivity by not mentioning how difficult the task of running a democracy in a developing country was when the major opposition party, felt free to create chaos in the country so that a democratic government fell. The Time magazine authorities should thoroughly examine the one-sided nature of the report.

Two years have elapsed since the publication of the cover story 'A Cocoon of Terror' by Bertil Lintner in the Far Eastern Economic Review. But by now, it has become crystal clear to the international community as well as knowledgeable quarters in the East and the West that his claims were 'cocoons of falsehoods' designed to destabilise a moderate democratic government in Bangladesh and to deceive the democracy-loving people all over world. We are quite convinced that by writing the story 'State of Disgrace', Aravind Adiga would in a similar fashion earn the reputation of being a 'disgrace for ethical journalism'.

Helal Uddin Ahmed is a freelance journalist.