Looking ahead with the people

Shamsul Bari

Looking ahead to the future of Bangladesh at a time when a general sense of despondency grips the nation, it may be difficult to defend the optimism I have nurtured since the tumultuous days of 1971. But I know of no other way to deal with the situation than to remain hopeful that the people of Bangladesh will once again rise to the occasion and bail the nation out, as they did on so many occasions in the past.

It is true that the hopes and aspirations, which guided us during the liberation war of 1971, have been largely belied by developments in independent Bangladesh. The basic ideals and principles on which we had wished to build our nation are all but forgotten. Our faith in democracy has been badly bruised. Our dreams for a secular, non-communal Bangladesh, where people of all creed and religion would live in peace and harmony with each other, have been rudely shattered. Our goal to establish an egalitarian society, where the gulf between the rich and the poor, the privileged and the underprivileged, would be reduced progressively under state policy, has remained as distant as ever. The hope of every citizen to live a peaceful and normal life, under the rule of law, has been dented severely. Terrorism and lawlessness flourish with impunity. Corruption, both in the public and private sphere, runs amuck. How does one see light in this darkness?

It is a difficult task indeed. But we know from history that nations do spring back from the precipice and move ahead. History is never stagnant. Even in our own history we have seen progression from despair to hope. Our struggle for autonomy during Pakistani times and the subsequent creation of Bangladesh bear testimony to the determination and grit of our people. This has been displayed in post-independent Bangladesh as well. We have seen the fall of many repressive regimes during the last three decades brought about by peoples' power. There is no reason why the same may not happen in the future. The state has time and again failed the people but the people have always risen to change the state of affairs and save the state. Such changes have not always delivered the desired results to the people but this has never deterred them to persevere.

The contribution of the people to the welfare of the state is no less impressive. We need only recall the most outstanding among them. Take for example the fact that while the population of Bangladesh doubled from 70 million to 140 million in the period since 1971, our farmers managed to produce enough food to feed them all on this small land of ours by their hard work, determination and intelligence. Our hard-working and skilled women-folk toil day and night to produce garments that are sold all over the world to earn the bulk of the much-needed foreign currency for the country. The remittances sent home by our hard-working labour force abroad is today the largest source of our foreign currency reserve. Where would Bangladesh be today without this contribution of the people, more so from those who are the most disadvantaged in society? It is this silent contribution of the people that has kept the nation going despite the failure of the state to ensure their minimum needs of safety, security and justice.

There are many other examples, which could be cited. But that may not be necessary. What has been said already should be enough to demonstrate the basic strength of our people. This strength has been further augmented by a silent revolution that has taken place in recent years. The enrolment in our educational institutions throughout the country has gone up tremendously compared to the time three decades ago. And more significantly, the increase in the enrolment of girls and women has been phenomenal. Despite the well-known deficiencies of our educational system, the fact that we will have a more literate and educated, and therefore more alert citizenry, among whom a large portion would be women, is bound to have a significant impact on the future of the country. I have so far focused upon the better-known strengths and achievements of the people. Less known is the strength of the majority of the population whom we call "poor". How often do we reflect upon the fact that these so-called "poor" are probably the most skilled in the art of survival under most adverse circumstances? This they do through their resilience, hard work and creativity. If these could be harnessed and utilized for the development efforts of the country, how much better off the nation would be? I have had the opportunity to learn more about this formidable strength of the people from my involvement in a research programme for poverty alleviation. The activities of the programme took me to different parts of the country to observe ongoing research projects involving the poverty groups themselves through the method of participatory action research. These have provided us with insights into poverty issues which are generally unknown, or not fully known.

In one such research project, groups of journalists and social workers are presently engaged in identifying peoples' self-help initiatives to improve their own lot throughout the country. The idea is to analyze the factors that lead to the success or failure of such initiatives and learn from them. There are inspiring stories coming out of this exercise, demonstrating the creativity, hard work, mutual cooperation and resilience of our people. Many such stories are appearing regularly in the local and national newspapers. One newspaper has named the section under which they are published as: "The Strength Within". Indeed they are testimony to the tremendous inner strength of our people.

The initiatives identified so far include those of low income farmers to get together and form their own organization, develop savings programmes even with their low incomes and advance loans to the most needy among them to launch income raising activities; literacy programmes by village youth; initiatives of villagers to develop "people's library" with community contribution not only for access to general knowledge but also as a centre for general awareness raising on society and environment, and for training farmers in modern farming technology after helping them acquire literacy; mobilization of women of low-income households to successfully stop gambling of their husbands as well as women abuse; primary schools for children of low-income households supported by organizations of their parents; community health care and health insurance programmes supported by member contributions; flood control programmes with voluntary contribution of labour and materials by communities; and innumerable individual and group initiatives of very low-income people including the so-called "disabled", even the blind, to face and move through their life's challenges with dignity and creativity worthy of the deepest respect. I could elaborate and substantiate this point further with findings from other projects that I have been privy to. But space does not permit me to do that here, nor do I think it necessary. Others have written about it. There is, for example, an excellent collection of reports on self-help initiatives of people throughout Bangladesh to rebuild a war-torn nation immediately after liberation. It is entitled: "Je Agun Jolechilo" ("The Fire that was Ignited"), edited by Prof. Mohd. Anisur Rahman. A scanning of newspaper reporting from more recent times will reveal the same truth. The efforts and enthusiasm of the people in those early days of the nation were halted in most cases by hostile political developments. The same is true today. Without the right atmosphere, the full flowering of the potentials and genius of our people is not possible. Thus what is needed is the creation of that atmosphere.

However, in the political climate of the country today this is a far cry. The destructive and confrontational politics, which has engulfed the nation, has made good governance the main casualty. And without good governance peoples' initiatives cannot flourish. Fortunately there is a general recognition in the country today that the present state of affairs cannot continue indefinitely. There is some hope, therefore, even in our despondency, that there will be a change, sooner or later, for the better, which will be ushered in, as before, by the combined will of our people. But when that happens, we should be ready with an alternative, so that this time around we don't fail again to cash in the opportunity presented to us by such change. The main objective for an alternative approach, to my mind, should be to place people in the forefront through a system of participatory democracy.

I believe the time has come once again for the nation to reflect on the reasons why our democratic system is not working the way we had wished it to work. I have no doubt that this is because the system has moved away from the main plank of democracy, which is the people. There is no scope in this article to elaborate on the above point. It could be the subject of another article on its own. In any case, what I am suggesting doesn't call for any revolutionary change in our system of governance. There are enough provisions in our law to engage the people at least in local governance. That could be a good beginning. But the main requirement for any new beginning should be the reorientation of the mind-set of our political leaders to place people before politics. If only, for example, they could start assisting the above-mentioned scattered self-development initiatives of the people, a nation-wide movement could begin. We have seen enough of our political leaders promising and initiating top-down development projects where the people are kept waiting for deliveries from above to trickle down to them, surrendering their own initiatives. In the process the development "agents" end up appropriating, like "middlemen", the bulk of the benefits arising from them. Instead it is the people who must be regarded as the chief agents of development. The political leaders should be there to assist them with necessary information and access to technology. They could help them, as animators, to network among themselves for mutual stimulation and assistance. They could help them to collectively search for causes of their poverty and ways to move forward. They could give them all other necessary support to realize their fullest potentials to develop themselves and to contribute to the nation's development.

There was a time in our political history when political parties, or at least some of them, used to maintain strong links with the grassroots as a mobilizing agency rather than as a vote-collecting institution. Tagore himself had given such a clarion call to our predecessors with his song "firey ja, firey ja, maatir taaney...(Return to the soil!). Only when the people shape the nature of the programmes of development and when they themselves shape the form and structure of the intermediary institutions, be it party or NGO, can we think of progressively alleviating poverty and taking the nation forward. This is a process, which deserves to be encouraged and assisted as the chief task of Governments and NGOs alike, not for idealistic reasons alone but in order to make themselves into more enabling and effective instruments of progress.
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The author is Ph.D, Bar-at-law, is a former Director of UNHCR and presently the Chairman of Research Initiatives, Bangladesh (RIB).