Branding Bangladesh: From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to a ‘Middle Income’ Country [1st ed. 2023] 9811971943, 9789811971945

Table of contents :
Acknowledgments
Contents
List of Tables
1 Branding Bangladesh: Fixing a Fifty-Year Frame
Introduction: Images, Development, & Puzzles
Branding: Theoretical Contours
Empirical Context: Ground-level Stocktaking
Principles as Brands?
Nationalism
Socialism
Secularity
Democracy
Socioeconomic Changes
Ready-made Garments (RMGs)
International Migrants
Internal Migrants
From Finding Freedom to Cultivating Socioeconomic Resources
From a ‘Bottomless Pit’ Toward ‘Middle Income’: Socioeconomic Catalysts?
From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to ‘Middle-Income’ Identity
Education
Women Empowerment
Securing Society
Four Branding Considerations
Fitting Flesh into Framework
Organization
Notes
2 Evolution of the ‘Bangladesh Brand’: Pre-1971 Blues
Introduction
National Identity Search & Genocide
Language Movement Frame
Interim Settings
National Crisis Amplifying Liberation War
The Six-Point Movement
Framing the Mass Upsurge
Storm & Election as Frames
Operation Searchlight
National Media Crisis
‘Genocide’ in the International Media
Massacre of Scholars & Across Academic Heartland
Dragged-in India
Crisis & its International Significance
Conclusions
Notes
3 Post-liberation Identity Framing
Introduction
Winning Freedom
‘Nourishment in the Sweetness of Independence’10: Joi Bangla
Amartya Sen’s Bashonti Bala Euphemy Against Demi-God and Evil Alternatives
Amartya Sen’s Entitlement Theory
Act of God
The Demi-God
Internal Evil
Food Basket
Bangabandhu’s Assassination and International Conspiracy
International Mystery
Islamization of Bangladesh: A New Brand
Indemnity Act Clashing with Democratic Identity Aspirations: Symbolizing Nur Hussain and Shahbagh
The Dragon Seed: Indemnity Act
Shahbagh Movement and Identity Predicament
‘Ekushey’: A Guiding Philosophy Against Oppression, Injustice and Denial
Securing Rohingya
Concluding Comments
Notes
Bibliography
4 Microfinance & Social Safety Net Programs: Cracking the Developmental Riddle
Introduction
Organization
Alternatives to Microfinance?
Cultural Economy
Variables Contributing to Microcredit Success:
Microfinance Shaping Middle-income Realities
Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) as Middle-income Cushions
Conclusions
Notes
Bibliography
5 Funneling Frames Amid Developmental Imperatives: How ‘Primrose’ the Pathway Home?
Introduction
Branding Bangladesh
What Brand Bangladesh?
Freelancer’s Viewpoint
Theoretical Views
Microfinance
Banks
Notes
6 Conclusions: Branding Bangladesh & Cluttered Forthcoming Canvases
Litmus-testing Reputation
Different Drumbeats
Index

Citation preview

Branding Bangladesh From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to a ‘Middle Income’ Country

Imtiaz A. Hussain Jessica Tartila Suma

Branding Bangladesh “Bangladesh is a country that has undergone rapid change across a wide range of sectors during its 50 year history. While many of these changes have been well documented, this fascinating book focuses on an aspect that has received far less attention: the country’s changing global image. Using an innovative interdisciplinary approach that combines ideas from international relations and business studies, the authors examine Bangladesh’s changing ‘brand’ over the years. This enables a set of new insights into understanding such diverse themes as nationalism, soft power, commodification and cultural identity - as well as highlighting the contradictions and contention behind what the authors call ‘the branding game.” —David Lewis, Professor of Anthropology and Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK “Hussain offers a sophisticated analysis of the Bangladeshi ‘brand’ and its several constituent elements as they evolve. He provides specific and locally sensitive analysis. This work is historically thoughtful, theoretically lively, empirically grounded, and forward looking.” —Professor Robert A. Denemark, University of Delaware “Imtiaz A. Hussain and Jessica Tartila Suma have produced a meticulously researched and engaging book about Bangladesh’s past, present, and indeed, future. The “branding” lens they use compels the reader to view through fresh eyes even familiar episodes in not only Bangladesh’s first half-century but also the East Pakistan period—and, importantly, to think about the country’s future in new ways.” —Elora Shehabuddin, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, Professor of Global Studies, University of California, Berkeley

Imtiaz A. Hussain · Jessica Tartila Suma

Branding Bangladesh From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to a ‘Middle Income’ Country

Imtiaz A. Hussain Department of Global Studies & Governance (GSG) Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) Dhaka, Bangladesh

Jessica Tartila Suma Department of Global Studies & Governance (GSG) Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) Dhaka, Bangladesh

ISBN 978-981-19-7194-5 ISBN 978-981-19-7195-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2 © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: © Melisa Hasan This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

Acknowledgments

Our volume stemmed from a Sponsored Research Committee (SRC) fund (#2019-SLASS-01) articulated, disseminated, and managed by Independent University, Bangladesh. The study explores the broader context of what today’s breakdown of disciplinary boundaries means (with the resultant need to harness overflowing or inter-penetrating dynamics), but particularly for our own country Bangladesh. We have been trained in two different disciplines: ‘global studies,’ itself a byproduct of ‘international relations’; and ‘communications.’ We explore what it means to combine them in evaluating Bangladesh’s 50th Birthday Anniversary in 2021. Beyond the SRC funding, we deeply acknowledge the makers and shakers of the country during the 50 years of the country’s existence, so many of whom chipped in with a comment here or a correction there, whether through published works, conference exchanges, or interviews. There were so many of them that we mention each as, when, and where their contribution fitted the research best. All of them help us glean through not only a milestone anniversary but also how branding widens such other open-ended arenas where any person from any academic discipline can jump in for their own research. We extend our heartfelt appreciation to those colleagues who have endorsed the book already, particularly in the short time-span we get for these tasks. Our GSG Office Manager, Parisa Alam, together with her counterparts (in the School of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences and the Finance and Accounts Department), kept us on track most efficiently. v

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Ultimately, we would like to share the virtues of bending or breaking intellectual boundaries in an age of enormous flux. We grew intellectually from the exercise, recommend the approach to others, and bless all efforts made anywhere to do so. All caveats and errors are ours, and ours alone. November 2022

Imtiaz A. Hussain Jessica Tartila Suma

Contents

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1

Branding Bangladesh: Fixing a Fifty-Year Frame

2

Evolution of the ‘Bangladesh Brand’: Pre-1971 Blues

31

3

Post-liberation Identity Framing

59

4

Microfinance & Social Safety Net Programs: Cracking the Developmental Riddle

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Funneling Frames Amid Developmental Imperatives: How ‘Primrose’ the Pathway Home?

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Conclusions: Branding Bangladesh & Cluttered Forthcoming Canvases

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5 6

Index

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 Table 2.1 Table 3.1 Table 4.1 Table 4.2

Table 4.3 Table 4.4 Table 4.5 Table 4.6 Table 4.7 Table 4.8

Herbert’s Master Themes & 50-Year Bangladesh Tapestry National identity search & genocide: 1971 Liberation War as mainframe & single-frame simulacra Seven post-1971 branding mainframes Microcredit demand-side influences & supply assertion: Incongruencies Bangladesh’s outcomes on microfinance borrowings/savings outcomes & cracking Welzel’s cultural myth Distribution of source funds Distribution of sector-wise disbursement of loan (BDT in million): 2016–2017 Distribution in loan recovery comparative of 2015–2016 & 2016–2017 Microfinancing contributions to gross domestic product generalized performance responses SSNP programs in Bangladesh Microfinance observations through Hebert’s lenses

23 53 83 95

97 102 104 105 106 109 110

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CHAPTER 1

Branding Bangladesh: Fixing a Fifty-Year Frame

Introduction: Images, Development, & Puzzles What is a brand?1 Does its significance extend beyond the subject at hand at any given moment? When does a brand cease to be one, indeed how do we measure this phenomenon to determine which feature stays and which does not? We apply those questions to a study of Bangladesh’s 50 years as an independent country. From sporting arenas to historical annals and anniversaries, the ‘50’ number stands out as one of the first possible landmarks for many: a half-century creates as much of a buzz in a cricket game as a basketball player netting that many points; and similarly for an anniversary, be it of a treaty, commemoration of an auspicious occasion, or even recovery and relief from any catastrophic moment. For a country, such an anniversary brings more people together than in an individual mind, or in a family, community, or social gathering. In 2021, all of the above resonated for Bangladesh. The occasion resurrected identity questions, particularly when comparing today’s country image with the original fifty years ago. Stock perceptions or some revolutionary changes of how the country might glide into a near/distant future shape that picture every now and then. Over a long spell of time, the resultant actions and imaginations conjoin into a running narrative, itself producing an image or two. We dub these into the notion of a

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_1

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brand. Typically, a brand reaffirms evolutionary tracks, spikes contemporary asset values, strengthens any future shadow, and displays that cumulative coloring enriching epochal anniversaries. Since this work is on branding , the term is placed in theoretical contexts, before a Bangladesh application. Likewise, since development forces its way into the narratives, how Bangladesh has performed on this front, whether its structuring shapes the interpretations made, and the framework adopted are all spelled out, in that order. Over its 50 years, Bangladesh has built its own stock of brands . One of them, which came in from the ‘cold’ and just ‘stuck ‘ around, was that of a ‘bottomless pit.’2 In today’s media, however, reference to a ‘middle-income country’ dominates, with a ‘developed country’ reference entering our vocabulary every now and then. Only in November 2021 did the United Nations Economic, Cultural and Social Commission (UNECOSOC) put Bangladesh on a five-year transition track into a less developed country, which Bangladesh officials want to fast-track into a developed country by the 2040s: Vision 2041 is the relevant policy document on the subject.3 All of these then-now-futuristic snapshots hold one common key point: vivid and constant change at play. Just disassociating from that ‘bottomless pit’ identity triggers the desire for more than routine change, with change becoming a central component. Likewise with a ‘middleincome’ brand, in which upwards becomes central: this ‘catch the bus before it leaves’ or ‘be left behind’ mindset plays to the youth who have less of the past to hold on to, thus more open to new opportunities bringing ‘more’ or ‘better.’ If we let loose tales of an emergent ‘developed country,’ images almost automatically shift, from production toward consumption. Fewer new vistas, tastes, and professions in numbers could correspondingly expand to mean more than a person can handle: growing personal debt, for example, is but a fair-weather indicator of consumption exceeding production. Branding these matter. Whether as periodic memorabilia or wholesome portraiture, branding depends on both the content and context, and how we escape hardships while embracing hopes. Whether change is ever in the right direction or not begs yet other queries: ‘what kind of change’ and ‘change for whom’? Whatever the answer, we notice the slippery routes one must travel to explain such loaded stock terms. If Bangladesh is better off economically, as the corresponding adjectives change, such issues as for whom, and what/who is

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the target imply corresponding political considerations: what has the shift from a zamindari (feudal) way of life toward democracy entailed? Similar considerations prevail at the social (from an extended family to one that is nuclear, for example), environmental (from ‘plastic’ connoting a ‘developed country’ product, thus a barometer of modernization), and, given the 2020–21 pandemic ghost still stalking our every post-Covid-19 move, and health (from the limited range of problems previously to the constantly emerging, cancer-carrying new health threats). Adding other prisms complicates the picture, but the realities captured reflect a more realistic and advancing reality. Before they get processed, realities enter our brain as images, constantly circulating, admixing, thriving, multiplying, or evaporating: which one or few outlast/s the others become/s the storyteller, the trademark, icon or brand. Behind any change lies a trigger or two, which also flushes across the mindset. This does not have to be, and often is not an exclusive dynamic by any means. Yet it must have the capacity to be robust enough to be spotted and sustained. Complementing this trigger with a platform supplies us with the corresponding spark/trigger, flow, and stage inherent in any branding discourse. They independently capture what we might also call the past, present, and future trends correspondingly. How they pitch these trends is crucial, since the art of persuasion opens up a country’s soft-power propensity box: the more the brands, the more the contestation for a supposed soft-power gold medal (or market capture). Moisés Naím sees this capacity as a power channel. Interpreted through IR (International Relations) lenses, power often emanates from expressed muscular exercises (coercion), agreements (codification), or like-mindedness (collaboration).4 It is this ‘capacity to persuade others,’ as he noted, ‘to see the situation in a way that leads them to advance the persuaders’ goals or interests,’ that gets the ball rolling. Improving a country’s image does not necessarily transform global relations structurally, but the residual brand cultivates a constantly shifting positive softpower resource-enhancing country image capable of long-term staying power, thus structure-shaking propensities.5 Branding a country, then, begins not just with soft power and its public diplomacy nexus, but also interdisciplinary brand communications, regardless of whether the snapshot is of a common image or cream capture.

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Branding: Theoretical Contours Theoretical analysis of ‘branding ’ follows an ironically parallel trajectory.6 Adding substance to a dynamic’s spark/trigger, flow, and stage creates a fuller picture. Daniel Herbert decomposed some of the components of branding, highlighting comprehension (perception), communication (dissemination), and consummation (perception and practice).7 These unevenly mirror the spark/trigger-flow-stage sequence just discussed. His first item, perception, is itself loaded, consisting of exposure, attention, awareness , and retention. It ultimately facilitates a variety of individual decision-making prisms: our low-hanging (easily accessible or low-cost) engagements, such as purchasing a bus or cinema ticket (typically blindly), and the high-hanging (high cost or long deliberated) counterparts, such as purchasing customs-based items, like automobiles. Second-thought subjects lie in between, whether in decision-making or behavior, as in purchasing everyday clothing: Sample A is better than Sample B, and vice versa type of self-reasoning. Traditionally a bulk of our choices demanding action lies right here in the middle, but much depends on where we may be situated: an undeveloped, developing, or developed country, since the same product might serve or convey quite different meanings/intentions. Whichever setting we find ourselves in, we go through another brandspecific sifting process involving consummation, that is, the customer’s takeaway. Here we might ask, as innovator and pathfinder in this business, Simon Anholt, does:8 has the brand’s reputation been observed, valued, and managed? Though his view overlaps Herbert’s bargaining approach, the emphasis shift from perceptions to consummation raises a different query: ‘what has the brand done for me?’ Does consummation enhance my reputation (even if it is merely personal, such as relishing the purchase of a specific Chinese food item because of brand name), or benefit (because of the car I purchased, friends can see I got the job promotion, or graduated from a better-ranked university), or social engagement (by purchasing that club membership, I can now compete in the swimming or tennis competition)? ‘I will know if others follow’ becomes a popular a posteriori refrain capturing all three components—time (past reputation, present utility, and future recommendations), terrain (spread-effects from one person to others), and tank (the resource reservoir). Once personal satiation and external feedback to our brand advocacy begin to flow, collectivizing that satiation begins. Naim would call this pitching (or persuading others). What Naim interprets through countryspecific lenses must connect at the international level, for example,

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Bangladesh’s RMG (ready-made garment) factories first displacing the ‘bottomless pit’ image by the 1980s, then shifting production from Main Street clothing to haute-couture wares by the second decade of the twenty-first century. Customers have to be informed, then captured.

Empirical Context: Ground-level Stocktaking Such an approach to a brand assessment appeals to this study’s measurement of flow through the subject’s substance. Explaining events and developments that have already happened might be as ‘easy as pie,’ but part of the art lies in selecting the brand: if it is not comprehensive enough, or a disjointed representation of a half-century time-span or the story told fails to catch attention, then the wrong brand can jeopardize much more than the brand itself. This is why Bangladesh’s shift from a ‘bottomless pit’ has been chosen. With the ‘middle-income’ society already newsworthy enough in various media, its nitty–gritty details need to be spelled out, joined, and articulated in such a way as to also anchor the country’s huge 50-year shift. If that is not enough, any such narrative must also have a future goal-post, a target talked about concurrently and how getting there cannot drift far from the mainstream flow of the past. From current nationwide conversations, becoming a ‘developed country’ has been chosen as representing that future goal-post. Conversations already angle that way today, but much more action and the right kind of infrastructure-building must document the commensurate shifts. These constitute the study’s parameters: Bangladesh’s branding with a political trajectory as declared pillars typical of independence struggles. Though one cause of the country’s liberation was economic exploitation, the war was more hinged upon political and military realities. Principles as Brands? Could the country’s original ‘pillars’ serve as a more convincing measure of ‘change’? Countries seeking independence typically carry a specific mandate to symbolize what they are being driven by, how the country needs to change, and the dreams they hope to materialize. Whether it is the 1776 Declaration of Independence specifically anchored upon democracy, presidential rule, and separation of powers in the United States,9 or a similar democracy meshed with nationalism, non-alignment, secularity, and socialism, among other features, for India,10 a brand-building

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recipe is clearly present and has been frequently utilized. Bangladesh’s counterparts have been no different from India’s: democracy, nationalism, secularity, and socialism drove the Liberation War, not necessarily to keep in tandem with India’s similar springboards at the time because of India’s pivotal role in facilitating Bangladesh’s War of Liberation. They were attachments peoples within each of the national boundaries could not let go at the time since the denial of what each pillar meant produced not only single-minded exploitation but also upwardly creeping volume of exploitation, velocity of fears, and the vicissitudes that come from them. Denying democracy within erstwhile Pakistan (that is, including present Bangladesh), most blatantly after the December 1970 election, corroded Bangalee aspirations to remain Pakistani, and thereby retain Pakistani national identities. One of those identities for the pious Bangalees was religion. How religion was interpreted within Pakistan differed among its peoples over time. Pakistan was not at that time in the zero-sum ‘Islamic state of Pakistan’ sense that has been salient in post-Bangladesh Pakistan lifestyles, legislations, and constitution (and increasingly popular in other Muslim countries since the 1970s). East Pakistanis carried a more tolerant religious face than in West Pakistan yet without compromising any religious belief at all: note how almost all Islamic countries recognized Bangladesh by the end of 1974 without Bangladesh amending its own principles or constitution (yet that these principles would subsequently change leaves a lot of food for thought on the table). Another more silent and long-term distinction was in education. Of the 86,000 graduate students Pakistan could boast of in 1951, a healthy nearhalf (41,000) were from East Pakistan. Ten years later, of the diminished 82,000 graduates, only 28,000 were from East Pakistan, where the per capita income actually fell during that time span, from 287 Rupees to 278 (while corresponding West Pakistani figures climbed from 336 to 366).11 Economic resources took a similar track: not having enough economic ‘heavyweight’ entrepreneurs after independence logically elevated the role of the state, and with it a socialist bent. Before independence two dozen families, almost all with either West Pakistan roots or preferring West Pakistan, dominated the East Pakistan economy. Though Bangladesh began with a socialist proclivity and preference to level the playing field, today it counts millionaires and billionaires (in Taka terms) by tens of thousands without much ado—another evidence of change.12 Fifty years down the road, therefore, we see the need for those principles and inclinations to change, either fade into the background or strengthen further,

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but in all cases reflecting the ‘bubbling’ Bangalee spirit of mixing tradition with innovation, preferences with tolerance, the common lot with the elites, and jingoism with cosmopolitanism and keeping up with the ‘joneses.’ Nationalism Turning specifically to each of the four 1971 principles, since nationalism was a determined driver of Bangladesh independence, one hypothesis tests if post-independence nationalism comes across in as hard hues as on the eve of the Liberation War (assuming all other political conflicts away). Testing would perhaps not be in a cricket ground or on an international sporting arena when the country’s team is playing, but on political grounds and over policy preferences: is Bangla the required and sole language in the country still, and do public sector (nationalized) industries continue to dominate? Though the degree varies, English has flourished as a language throughout the Bangladesh era (and immediately before in Pakistan’s), even if understood by the common person through mangled and alliterated spelling. Similarly, though the proportion of private industries has expanded hugely, the public sector has not vanished. A 1996 competition law facilitated privatization. It was upgraded in 2000, and eventually consummated in the June 2012 Competition Act— a far cry from the 1970 Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Ordinance for Control and Prevention. Yet any image depicting the country’s economy today would have to project the mixed public–private tapestry, since the former signals as much more stability as the latter does individual-level freedom. Indeed, this is even institutionalized, for example, in the Private–Public-Partnership (PPP) types of investment.13 Thickening the tapestry, more Bangladeshis have been working abroad in both absolute and relative terms than in the early 1970s, thus not only loosening prevailing nationalistic strains that may prevail but also both reinforcing religious sentiments, especially from those who went to the Middle East (as a large proportion of the total did). How the work migrants mindset meshes with that of Atlantic-area expatriates’ fuels growing tension within the country and among all expatriates. This is particularly evident in the degrees of alcohol sales, and what dress code to envision for a potentially booming seaside tourism industry: whether shedding rather than adorning clothes hangs like a Damoclean Sword. Remittances can dilute both nationalistic and religious reservoirs, since they represent trans-boundary dynamics, mostly involving rigid Middle

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East countries, and generating all sorts of brand-making images. They could thicken the ‘bottomless pit’ image of the low-wage driver if earned by low-wage migrant workers; but so too could they depict salaried migrants, that is, high-tech/high-paid workers, employed in developed countries. Both feed the ‘middle-income’ image, the former from the huge amounts received, thus feeding the resource pool to build development upon, the latter from contraption-filled wish lists typifying developed countries. With more universities now, we expect a larger proportion of Bangladeshi students to go abroad to finish their education, secure scholarships, find jobs, and remit—all bloating the ‘middleincome’ image. They have also driven another brand-making force, both opening and widening non-nationalistic windows, notwithstanding accuracy or fluency: adapting to a new universal language, English, but in mangled global social media versions, as subscribers to Facebook, Google, or YouTube (rather than Oxford-anchored counterparts). Socialism Socialism might be the principle most spent in Bangladesh. It made a lot of sense in the pre-Bangladesh years when the area the country represents today produced three-quarters of Pakistan’s foreign exchange (through sales of primary goods: jute and tea primarily), but received only a fraction of the country’s developmental or social infrastructural funds. Bangalees were the largest national group in Pakistan (Anglicized Bengali is popular, but a term that cannot be pronounced in Main Street conversations because the Bangla language does not have the facilitating phonetic features). Yet no one raised a call to arms to correct these infractions as they did in anything the ‘Pakistan’ brand stood for, particularly in any of the country’s democratic experiments and cultivation. Quite correctly the most deprived individuals in a deprived population would automatically bend in a socialist direction, interpreting socialism as a leveling force. Such ‘socialism’ reflects more the collective notion of traditionally poor people promoting policy-making instruments, rather than the zero-sum Marxist proletarians (note how they are factory workers, nor farmers), relying upon violence.14 One tangible step as soon as Bangladesh was established was to replace the non-Bangalee proportion of the 24-odd families that controlled Pakistan’s wealth with more collective wealth distribution. Yet, with the boom in private industries from the late 1970s, spurred no less by a shift

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from a democracy-dubbed Bangladesh to military role, the sentiment of Bangladeshis taking greater control of their own economic reins boomed. At its extreme, this entrepreneurial shift has produced more than 35,000 billionaires in Bangladesh’s 50 years (measured in Bangladesh Takas ), a startling figure against the near-zero record of the early 1970s.15 At its extreme was another Bangladesh ‘me-first’ moment: not only making mileage out of microfinance from the mid-1970s, to break the vices of poverty, but to also utilize it as an instrument to directly activate women in the poorest of communities to band together in a way not possible under socialism. Stirred entrepreneurial juices helped prevent socialism from being institutionalized, thus corroding the branding power of socialism. New brands arose. Secularity Secularity, the third principle, may be similarly headed in new directions. In fact, though no Main Street portraiture of the country today would fail to capture the hijab popularity, it would be a misnomer to conclude Bangladesh is becoming more religious: religion is in the Bangalee bedrock, visible sometimes implicitly, at other times explicitly; and therefore any conversation on this itself reveals how the prototypical early 1970s caricature is changing. In 1979 the Constitution added ‘Islamic Republic’ to the country’s name, which was not there in the corresponding 1971 provisional constitution, or even the first formally produced constitution in 1972. In an age of growing global religious identities, oftentimes aggressively, Bangladesh’s many churches and temples face pressures, but the proportionately diminishing numbers of Christians and Hindus,16 the two dominant minority religions, have not spiked apprehension as is brewing inside so many other mixed-faith countries. Pressures such as these only reaffirm the need to strengthen fine-line distinctions between mainstream and fundamentalist practices, and the superiority over freedoms/fears in practicing religion. Democracy Perhaps the most problematic pillar has been the fourth and final one here, democracy. References to military rule and patriarchal societies suggest so. Alternating with military rule, democracy itself invites two self-explanatory questions: What has been its ‘reach’ thus far? How do

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we measure it? The degrees of relishing all its virtues (freedoms of all sorts, rights fully protected, and conformity with the global family) have fluctuated, even when the military is not in power. Democratic longevity depends upon the continuity of democratic practices until institutions solidify. While still a work in practice, experiences from other successful countries suggest institutionalizing it involves a protracted passage, that is, across generations: in the United States alone, from the 1776 declaration of a democratic country to the fullest provision of voting rights in 1965, we note how the wait involved almost two centuries, and really taking a representative turn only when women, that other half of the population, got their own right to vote only in 1920. By contrast, Bangladesh’s women got off to an earlier start, but still needed momentum to overcome so many other traditional socio-cultural impediments, particularly the religious restrictions that their U.S. counterparts rarely, if ever, faced. A far more favorable branding occasion must wait, in spite of the path-breaking other lofty positions, registering a woman office-holder. Evidently, changes dot each and every ‘founding’ Bangladesh principles. Somehow any 50-year explanation must come to terms with them. Returning to the original change, from ‘bottomless pit’ to ‘middleincome’ shift, other brand strands have entered the brand-selection space by way of impacting the socioeconomic structures.

Socioeconomic Changes Though inter-related and with a cause–consequence relationship between each other, at least three sources of socioeconomic changes demand brand-making recognition: and RMG advent, international migrants, and internal migrants. Ready-made Garments (RMGs) Bangladesh’s performances along these lines get to the heart of the puzzle being explored. Certainly the establishment of a ready-made garment (RMG) site was crucial to escalating out of and away from the early 1970s ‘basket-case’ status. Two of the many factors inducing the RMG Bangladesh trademark also invite branding : evaporation of jute export income from the late 1970s17 ; and the 1974 adoption of the Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA), which allowed developed countries (DCs) to shift low-wage production to their less industrializing developed countries

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(LDCs), using a quota system and pushing countries, like South Korea, to find manufacturing platforms elsewhere (South Korea in Bangladesh and other LDC sites).18 This not only branded Bangladesh as an upcoming RMG player from the late 1970s but with the 1994 MFA expiration,19 cemented Bangladesh as a top RMG player. Today it contests Vietnam, for the second-largest global RMG exporter slot, after China.20 When, in fact, Bangladesh should have feared RMG evaporation in the 1990s, as with jute twenty years earlier, it instead strengthened its RMG brand: this showed how to shift brands by ascending the clothing value chain, that is, from concentrating on supplying Main Street to haute-couture production business, entailing more intellectual inputs than physical. In turn, the scope to develop new brands arose: designing styles, penetrating selective haute-couture markets rather than the mass markets, mostly in the west; and spinning off collateral industries, such as advertising these new products, even training workers with skills requiring fewer and fewer assemblyline mass-production mindsets and factory settings. The net domestic impact must not be ignored: exportable haute-couture wares could easily refashion local preferences, making them parallel the ‘graduation’ journey to a ‘developed country’ when consumer styles and preferences shift from Main Street to more fashionable locales. Such industrial and fashion-based ripples clearly soften the ground for major production (and increasingly much needed) diversification, signaling deeper socio-cultural changes, in turn demanding branding attention. With the 2020–21 pandemic as a purported catalyst, Bangladesh may also be identifying how it plays a crucial role in global supply chains, but more pertinently, how to slide up that network by automating and reconfiguring market transactions and personal positioning. International Migrants Migrants have been mentioned. They must play a part, intertwined as they are with remittances, one of the country’s major income sources and making the country eighth-ranked globally among recipient countries.21 They represent a justifiable brand-making candidate. In spite of their ‘low-wage’ work demand opening up a sluice-gate of humorless images, how they also spawned ‘hi-wage’ consequences, such as the country now counting at least 35,000 billionaires should not go unnoticed. Trademarks proliferated: any low-wage migrant-supplying country becomes part and parcel of a supply-chain global network, making not only physical labor

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as the graduation instrument toward higher wages, intellectual skills, and ‘developed country’ trademarks, but also spawning a global integrative thrust often obscured under today’s growing population or nationalism, or even threatened, as by the coronavirus pandemic with its lockdowns and social distancing factory production rules. Internal Migrants Enormous associated changes were also unfolding outside the RMG network. Once a predominantly agricultural country, with over threequarters of its population living in the countryside, this land’s intimate linkage to South Asia’s Poet Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore, is through its national anthem Amar Sonar Bangla, whose birthplace the land was. With farmers migrating to urban RMG factories and Tagore’s rivers, greenery, and villages receding from trademark roles, the country must now come to terms not with inheritances from Nature, but humangenerated problems, such as urban congestion, toxic rivers, and rural communities shedding their village look as rural inhabitants seek urban jobs. From women to factories, with roads and railways in between, Bangladesh’s country values and symbols are on the run. Bangladesh could easily fit into one of several transformative brands in the sociological literatures: William and Charlotte Wisers described one, Karimpur, in north India, between their visits in 1930s and 1980s in Behind Mud Walls, especially the roles of women, decline of caste presence, and the growth of education; Laurence Wylie’s Village in the Vaucluse, to which he tiptoed a similar but shorter pathway at about the same time did so inside France; or Ernest Hemingway’s similar but fictional rendition of one California reality, of traditional farming being suddenly commercialized, befalling Oklahoma’s Joad Family, that too, amid the 1930s U.S. Dust Bowl in Grapes of Wrath.22 Urban trappings now swallow up even public land and riverbanks, with dilapidated large-storied older buildings, even households, turned into production outlets or factories. Once women had no hijabs , by and large, even as they struggled to find attire to cover their bodies; now they stream to work like men into buildings dressed historically more elegantly by their standards than before, but increasingly with traditional hijabs (though some for a modern reason: security). Clearly, the item being branded has changed but must change again if the ‘developed country’ forces prevail. Toxic-free rivers and elegantly maintained buildings dot

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the DC firmaments, but features such as these would have to increasingly contend for branding preference these days in a way they would not in an agrarian society. RMG attraction was not the only force attracting rural dwellers. As already alluded to, urban migration for jobs must now absorb people evicted by land erosion and deforestation, in the process introducing Mother Nature as a possible brand-making determinant. Other secular forces have also intervened, such as a huge number of people sometimes scavenging for household space in a tiny plot of land. From 75 million in the early 1970s to the 170 million in 2022, Bangladesh’s population growth rate is not the villain (it has descended towards a replacement level, now even dangerously dipping below it). Nor may there be a villain. Yet, human congestion is the reality, a high-priced fixture, as price, evident in the images of stalled urban traffic and the evaporation of traffic rules and etiquettes, paucity of playgrounds for children, and new health threats from far earlier in life than before. How the very ingredients of exorbitant living costs stalk even an upwardly-mobile country today only grimly reminds us all of how much worse it was fifty years ago. Agricultural strides that began before 1971, for instance in Cumilla’s Bangladesh Agricultural and Rural Development (BARD) during the 1960s much-touted global ‘green revolution,’ helped, eventually giving the booming population a decent square meal every day. Yet the farmland needed for pastures and animal husbandry also declined, indicating selfsufficiency alone will not do: quality and variety also matter. As a country self-sufficient in food with a higher per capita income today, Bangladeshi changes in both plate (food) and palate (taste) have also had enormous external consequences: for example, spiraling meat consumption (hitherto the ‘rich man’s’ food), has demanded more pastoral land, and that too at the expense of the paltry (but vitally needed) forestland of a paltry-sized country. If raising cows brings in cash, particularly during the sacrificial Eid (Eid-ul-Azha), who would care for preserving forests? Climbing energy demands also result in quick-fixed power generators, themselves threatening forest cultivation too, since the immediate availability of Indian coal when Bangladesh’s gas supplies were overtaken by spiraling consumption demands inflicted a long-term death warrant upon forests. The net effect of development has made the country more import-dependent, if not of food: ‘luxury’ goods, or simply ‘material possessions’ spiral on import lists. These are the very kernels of consumer culture, something necessitating Adam Smith’s ‘nation of

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shopkeepers,’ and with it a bartering of domestic branding sources for global (or external; or farming to feed industrializing countries/societies). Bangladesh is becoming a stew (khichurri), of bazaars contesting urban single-building malls. Institutionalizing open bazaars (haats ) along the Bangladesh-India border could be the first step, of the ‘local’ going ‘global,’ as too of promoting two-way merchandise traffic locally. Formalized in 2010, the Bangladesh-India border trade was another huge edifice taken out of the closed traditional border communities, a miniaturized RMG counterpart just among remote villages. Political constraints remain (wired borders and security measures) and health considerations keep increasing (pandemic), but the ‘development’ march proceeds unabated. From Finding Freedom to Cultivating Socioeconomic Resources Bangladeshis have reasons to feel stable, even ambitious in a way that was not possible in the tranquility of traditional society: ‘peace’ then was devoid of ambition. Independence changed that. They now have the money to import, create shopping lists, raise taller children by spending more or by changing diets, and feel they have tackled persistent past problems like seasonal floods, cyclones and external dependence in their own stride, and within their own capacities—all of these even as the population kept expanding. Inhabitants have adjusted well to multicultural or global brands, just as they face climate-related calamities increasingly taxing their hopes. Facing diminishing land, growing pollution, urban crowding, and widening income gaps, people have enough to keep their intellectual juices flowing to develop remedies. Development over the next 50-odd years will better answer which side triumphed, the constraints or the remedies, and with intellectual activation, whether directed in progressive, static, or regressive directions. Or will the past speak for the future: a muddled-up picture of both, as often is the case in untutored contexts? Clearly, the RMG revolution and work emigration were not all depicting the evolving Bangladesh. Both forces could catch the pride by performances and project the purpose of upwardly-mobile change, but since the huge and gradual socioeconomic transformation also carries nuances and other shades of gray that easily escape attention, the need to look beyond grows every day. It is by navigating sometimes choppy waters and untangling all these competing market-driven ideas, dynamics, and expectations that we discern brands for our three identified landmarks (‘bottomless pit’ as the starting point of Bangladesh’s branding business;

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‘middle-income’ country as the getaway step; and an idealized ‘developed country’ future destination. Selecting a brand representative enough and understood by others poses an increasing challenge. We cannot but turn to specific domains rather than singular fixations. Various socioeconomic development domains/drivers beg our attention.

From a ‘Bottomless Pit’ Toward ‘Middle Income’: Socioeconomic Catalysts? Meaningful country brands pay as much attention to the parts as to the whole. Bangladesh’s socioeconomic developmental domains/drivers introduced an upward-mobility ladder that has stood its ground. Those behind these initiatives had yearned to climb yet another before 1971, a political one, to facilitate proper economic development. Yet the resources to fuel any economic transformation were just not there in the early 1970s to match the landmark political leap into sovereign statehood in 1971. How that changed on the economic front is one part of the (hi)story. How economic development spilled over into social development is another. Figure 1.1 encapsulates the discussion trajectory and projection. From ‘Bottomless Pit’ to ‘Middle-Income’ Identity To ‘begin at the beginning,’ if one is to borrow that catchy Alice in Wonderland phrase, Bangladesh’s not-so-savory springboard of a Liberation War resembles the familiar pathway many new countries trek to find their own ‘50-year’ landmarks. Just about every anecdote or story from that pregnant moment anchored future ‘goal-posts’: political development, for example, targeting democracy; social development, to preserve language and forge a peaceful nationality identity since these were crucial to promoting literacy, gender emancipation, education, and so forth; health development, and with it the turn to eradicating hunger and diseases (cholera and smallpox were two), and restoring nutrition; economic development, permitting an open-ended journey into this or that industry, especially after the golden national fiber was mortally hit in the 1970s; or environmental development, by eliminating threats, such as human-generated pollution and Nature-driven climate-change for sustainability. Multifarious though the platforms were, the country’s pathways or formulas proved to be less than discernible at the start. Still, there is no way to (a) capture all dynamics with equal emphasis; or (b) claim

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2014 Digital Bangladesh mandate & Silicon Valley

2010 SSNPs get World Bank funds

1990s: democracy neoliberalism

1976 microfinance, SSNPs, RMGs

1972 “bottomless pit”

Fig. 1.1 Bangladesh’s developmental ladder

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novelty at the macroscopic level where innovation was badly needed, that is, where microscopic ‘food for thinking’ in a traditional (‘bottomless pit’) society struggles to reach macro level consideration. The war was costly (in human lives, infrastructural damages, and self-esteem), but preserving abstract hopes and traditional claims raised the price too high at an extremely lean productivity moment. Looking 50 years back helps excavate how the denials and dismissals opened a string of ‘hopes’: no more attention, energy, and resources to establish independence, as it had just been attained, yet with the overcharged post-war spirit of freedom to harness material improvements. Henry Kissinger’s uncharitable yet realistic ‘bottomless pit’ reference to Bangladesh that captured public attention is as good a place to start as any. It isolates a finite and fairly comprehensive economic agenda, for example, how to escape that pit, even to placate its opposite, a ‘developed country,’ as the new goal. Such a picture gels with what that same public is taking for granted in 2021. Bangladesh’s generation-long globally leading growth rate from the early 1990s paved the way to add the ‘developing country’ to the country’s economic dictionary and parlance by 2026, then target a ‘developed country’ outcome in the 2040s. Education Education, a subject already referenced, is an intrinsic component of the development of any type: cognizance as a start gives it a self-generated capacity supplying the most basic form of desired growth. The lower the developmental stage happens to be, the greater the emphasis on expanding primary-level schools and literacy. This was Bangladesh’s case from the 1970s when it began anew after the distorted treatment during the Pakistani years: when Pakistan was created, East Pakistan had more primary and secondary schools than West Pakistan, but in 1971, ironically, it had far fewer of both than West Pakistan. For every 1,000 primary school students in 1950, there were 2.75 schools in East Pakistan, but barely 1.1 in West Pakistan.23 Yet, by 1971, a reversal had taken place, with 2.75 schools for every 1,000 West Pakistani primary students, and 1.75 for East Pakistanis. That East Pakistan’s population accounted for 60% of Pakistan’s did not matter to the policy-makers, but swelled the anger at the base. Discriminatory practices were not only followed but also assertively imposed culturally and institutionally.

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No wonder, then, that the literacy rate in Bangladesh when it was born was barely 25%. Today it has not only crossed the 75% mark but also broken the other jinx many traditional and/or patriarchal societies face: the gender barrier, in rights and responsibilities. How Bangladesh crossed this Rubicon fits into any branding calculation, to which the study returns, but just the statistics can alone jettison the juices:24 by 2015, slightly more than half of all primary students (50.5%) were girls; by an ever larger margin in secondary schools (53.2%), girls dominated; three out of every ten university students were women; and a quarter of all technical/vocational students belong to the fairer gender. If Islam is interpreted as a women-isolating religion, Bangladesh’s Madrasa students defy that picture: 53.2% of them just happen to be women. Such a transformation cannot be matched by an even more strident Muslim Pakistan. It would be difficult to find any Muslim country matching that. Indeed, it would be equally hard for any traditional country climbing the development ladder to achieve those results so quickly and with even more positive consequences. In the first ten years of the century, only 42% of girls passed the SSC (Secondary School Certificate) examination, while 41% successfully completed the HSC (Higher Secondary School). Today, after two decades of the twenty-first century, women threaten to even dominate top honors/scores in those examinations, if they have not already done so. Women Empowerment Bangladesh’s emancipation/engagement realities frequently get cited for achievements in girls’ education, reduction in child mortality, adaptation to disaster management, increased life expectancy, food self-sufficiency, increased economic participation by women, and so forth.25 These frequently represent the very first rung of any socioeconomic ladder from the ‘bottom-up’ to the ‘developed’ arena. How Bangladesh reconfigured marginal rural communities to climb that ladder is a story already being told: microfinance liberated the countryside, first by emancipating women further; then making them active developmental stakeholders. It was not the state but nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and upgrade-minded social entrepreneurs who catalyzed community-based development and ‘self-reliance’ through microfinance. The first of its kind in Bangladesh were the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) and Grameen Bank, led, respectively, by Fazle Abed (later to

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be knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in London for those crucial contributions) and Mohammad Yunus (later to share the Nobel Peace Prize with his own creation, Grameen Bank, precisely for chipping in similarly). They upended all banking conventions to lend money in tiny amounts, to the most economically excluded people in Bangladesh, the poorest of the poor. The kernels of socialism were killed right here, and so silently that no one even talks about its ‘passing.’ Still the entrepreneurial substitution needs greater cultivation. Even as these took empowerment to the very doors of uneducated rural women across the entire country, the seeds of the BRAC PrePrimary Program, which would take off from 1997, were being sown far and wide. How resplendently they flowered can, again, be captured by the numbers: from 40-odd such schools at the fag-end of the twentieth century, they have multiplied to over 16,000 today, a phenomenal investment crucial to propping up even a ‘developed country’ when the need arises. Securing Society Commensurate social developmental initiatives accompany such educational drives. An extensive system of social safety nets programs (SSNPs) have also been disseminated across the country, eliminating misery further and faster in any homestead than any institutionalized ‘development’ campaigns from abroad or domestic had done. Opening the vast rural hinterland in meaningful ways, as these two examples portray, exposed to the world an army of low-wage workers just when the world (specifically the manufacturing or wealthier countries) independently needed such workers. Two secular developments helped: (a) the 1974 Multi Fiber Agreement shifted particularly textiles production to less developed countries, with South Korea’s Daewoo leading that industry exodus, coming as it did to Bangladesh to continue its business; and (b) by attending the Lahore Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC) in February 1974, Bangladesh won recognition from Saudi Arabia and other oil-exporting countries, paving the way to sending low-wage workers to those largely oil-rich Muslim countries. Whatever the impacts of global free trade and a liberalized market, these began to seep into rural Bangladeshi livelihoods. Huge human resources were mobilized in the workforce helping Bangladesh’s RMG sector climb the export market to claim the second export spot and for the country to climb into the top ten of remittance earnings.

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It would be naïve to contend that international perceptions of Bangladesh began to change from the ‘bottomless pit’ caricature it had only because of the above three already discussed social breakthroughs (education, social security, and rural exodus whether for RMG or external work). How such developments within the social fabric supplied the resilience and potential of the Bangladesh economy was also noted in many global economic exercises (for example: Goldman Sachs 2005; J. P Morgan 2007 and Price Waterhouse Cooper’s 2008 updates).26 With a stable economic growth rate annually averaging above 5% since the 1990s and highly favorable long-term demographics (to which the declining population growth rate, heading downwards from the routine replacement level of 2, for instance, played a part), Bangladesh was positioned in a coveted list of potential ‘emerging economies.’27 Armed with highgrowth economic recognition, Bangladesh’s efforts to address equity and sustainability climbed the priority list. This was not a governmental list, but of the individuals on the spot, those grasping emergent opportunities. Exposure to better living standards for the many emigrants, for example, translated into piecemeal improvement gestures whose collective, albeit unorganized, impact changed not only the people but also the rural setting. Such improvements do not discount the fact that substantial poverty remains, or that this social and economic sustainability surge has been matched by commensurate sensitive environmental actions, which makes improvements and developments costly. In the 1980s the country experienced average growth rate of 3.73 percent. Growth at the macro state-wide level then accelerated to 4.81% in the 1990s and 5.8% in the 2000s.28 At the micro, more humane level, this translated into the per capita income rising to $2,064 in 2020 from $1,909 registered in 2018–19,29 with the 2019–20 growth rate of 5.2% climbing to 6.8% for 2020–21 (an Asian Development Bank statistic). Reflected in expanded per capita income, those growth figures only show how Bangladesh has barged into the consumption market. The average citizen, who earned 134 USD in 1971 (even 94 USD in 1972), crossed the 2,000 USD mark on the country’s 50th birth anniversary in 2021 (in 2020: 1,969, USD). The country’s bloating and expanding trade deficits indicate the spiraling consumption, from 500 million USD in 1971 to 20 billion USD in 2020, that is, from representing 4.44% of the country’s paltry GDP in 1971 (mostly for food), to 6.4% of a fattened 2020 counterpart (mostly luxury goods for a food self-sufficient country).30

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The drivers/domains of such growth stemmed from access to microfinance, RMG growth, policy reforms in many areas that including a flourishing banking sector, and the 2014 Digital Bangladesh mandate. These opened new developmental vistas, measurable along at least three interconnected dimensions. First, the ‘basics’ era is over: we no longer have to lose hormones over food deficits, depend only on primary-product exports for our dominant income, and remain overwhelmingly uneducated. Second, ‘transitions’ of sorts characterize a society that had forever been gripped with lifestyles characterizing ‘tradition’: not just from jute production and consumption to RMG production, but now sputtering diversification to upper-end assembly-line production, even automation of low-wage production, as compelled by the coronavirus-19 pandemic social-distancing ghost. Finally, ‘touches’ of the developmental summit, as Digital Bangladesh has been tasked to deliver,31 a domain where innovation finesses top-level education on the ground, and individual skills displace the dominant practices of society and culture anchored in an extended family. In other words, the underlying ‘first’ industrial revolution feature of RMG production transits into the steel-based economic growth typifying any ‘second industrial revolution’: our fledgling automobile and shipbuilding industries (not to mention cycles and bicycles) illustrate this. The computer-based ‘Third’ industrial revolution cannot but be a part and parcel of the Digital Bangladesh crusade, backed up by the larger proportion of technical universities among all universities. Only one exit remains to entering the ‘fourth’ industrial revolution, the one into fullscale automation, involving artificial knowledge and big data, as examples. Bangladesh has stakes there too. Experiencing all four industrial revolutions may be the story of the twenty-first century across this planet, just as Great Britain alone blazed the eighteenth century with the ‘first’ industrial revolution, Britain, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United States dotted the nineteenthcentury firmament with the ‘second’ industrial revolution, and largely the United States dominating the twentieth century ‘third’ industrial revolution. In the free-for-all twenty-first century, intense competitiveness can only strengthen individualism and nationalism just when secular globalizing forces portraying independent technological developments await these regressive forces for a different kind of a battle.32 This is no place to be without a brand. How Bangladesh fares in this competition depends on what brand it has evolved into. This study opens the Pandora Box wherefrom such brands may evolve.

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Four Branding Considerations Against that background, we have extracted four considerations to brand Bangladesh: the weight of past history; what relevant dynamic is newsworthy today; how some of the bubbling issues have been specifically identified; and what we bequeath into the second half-century of the country’s life? Underlying all is a ‘developmental’ theme. Fitting Flesh into Framework Packing 50 years of Bangladeshi dynamics to derive appropriate brands may seem a bridge too far to cross in space so short as this one volume. Yet it is necessary, if not now, then at some future point. Erving Goffman’s frame analysis helps take the first stab. Proposed in the same year as Bangladesh’s birth, it accents negotiating, managing, and comprehending information through one’s own self-constructed clusters. Digging into qualitative archetype texts utilizing relatively small samples that mirror the discourse, we have deposited these 50-year dynamics into eight mainframes consisting of narratives derived from books, music, documentaries, and mostly archived newspapers and journalistic reports. We humans have a habit of sharing what we like or dislike. When comprehension capacity boasts retention, we shift to communications , where also our management capacity must handle such questions as by whom, for what, how many, and so forth, automatically associating with any distributive exercise. How it is valued is the final point, the jackpot for any salesperson or political campaigner: no branding is possible without a value component, relevant to both the customer and the marketeering person. From value it is but a short trip to consummation, a more refined term than consumption since it distills the subject, thus opening gateways to varied takeaways, and thereby capturing more nuanced consumers. That consummation could be individual or collective or both: it could be for personal reputation, for example, how an election candidate’s value system gets exposed to the public, or personal benefit, that is, the material gain being the primary goal. Both often mix, which helps understand collective consummation, such as the image (value) a group (country) gets known for, or the developmental enhancement of the lot, respectively. These are not mutually exclusive forms of consummation since overlaps better characterize our increasingly complex societies today.

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Each of Goffman’s master/mainframes can be disaggregated into a number of single or snapshot frames, the former representing clusters. Table 1.1 list eight mainframes within his tripartite framework. In nature, these single/snapshot frames can be (a) episodic frames (events, actors, and transformation or divorce from the previous image), (b) generic (journalistic schemes) or, (c) issue specific (pertaining to the subject matter). We extract his issue-specific frames for our analysis, knowing fully well these types themselves overlap. That is, our issue-frames may include episodic developments or show generic traits. Narrative fidelity is upheld since the ‘plot’ from the Liberation War to present-day Bangladesh is so vast, with many books, films, and articles that simulations could easily digress or diverge. Bangladesh’s horrific genocidal start, for example, is interpreted in so many different ways that non-political discourses get sidetracked. For Bangalees it was a struggle for liberation, to many Pakistanis an armed rebellion to be quashed, to the U.S. government a political stumbling block, and to Indians a rare opportunity to decisively end South Asia’s most entrenched tussle favorably. As Bina D’Costa resonated: ‘… our national narrative is being affected by... Table 1.1 Herbert’s Master Themes & 50-Year Bangladesh Tapestry Master/Mainframes:

1971 genocide itself: Freedom: An ‘infant’ sovereign state: 1974 famine: Bangabandhu’s assassination: Islamization of Bangladesh: Democratic renaissance: Cultural identity: Rohingya influxes

Comprehension: E = exposure AT = attention AW = awareness R = retention

Communication: O = observed V = valued M = managed

Consummation: R = reputation (personal) B = benefit (personal) SE = social engagement (community)

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historical amnesia,’33 a plight for politicians of every persuasion to capitalize on, both inside and outside Bangladesh. With the political dust now more settled than ever since the early 1970s, new generations must not only assess the multiple other dynamics, but also bequeath a coherent collective package to those coming after them. We decided to take the plunge nevertheless, since a country’s multifarious evolving images await a formal branding exercise. Here is our historically respectful current ‘take.’ If the eight identified frame-themes align, they would reflect the simulacra—a larger representation produced through frame amplification, transformation, and validation (fidelity of communication). These frame-themes include: (a) the 1971 Genocide itself, derived from a cluster of single-frame elements of ethno-nationalism, regional autonomy, Liberation War, competing interest, and international responses; (b) freedom: an infant sovereign state, Bangladesh, achieving its right to self-determination and autonomy, highlighted by such single frames as Joi Bangla slogans and state building components; (c) the 1974 famine, with international responses to the crisis depicting how a ‘bottomless pit’ could sink even farther; (d) Bangabandhu’s assassination, which portrayed a cluster of single frame elements, including BAKSAL (Bangladesh Awami Krishak Srami Awami League), secularism, and international conspiracy; (e) Islamization of Bangladesh, with such singleframe elements as constitutional changes, autocratic rule, and reversing the original four (Liberation War) pillars as a guide; (f) the democratic renaissance, quashing, no matter how imperfectly autocratic rule, making elections and public contestations/political liberalization, the trial of the war criminals and Shahbag Movement as issue-frames, as too the conversion of a pivotal Bangalee movement, February 21, into the International Mother’s Language Day; (g) cultural identity, politics of culture and international recognition; and (h) Bangladesh becoming a safe haven for the Rohingya refugees because of the inherent strength of its humanity symbol. Aligning and amplifying conventional mainframes with the singleframe elements (themselves reflecting ethno-nationalism, regional autonomy, liberation war, national crisis, responses of international forces), feeds a genocide-based simulacra. Without digging deeper into the pre-1971 period, i.e., in the next chapter, the non-cooperation movement seeking autonomy, eleven issue-frames will latch on to extant socio-cultural codes to effectively portray the main ingredients behind the nationalist movement demanding autonomy.34

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Organization In Chapter 2 we capture pre-1971 snapshots. What drove the country to its independence cannot but remain a part of its genes, at least at its half-century mark. After 50 years these may not be as blood-curdling as then, but no edifice can stand without roots in them, and no birth ‘anniversary’ can be celebrated by referring to some symbol from them. We believe these carry brand-worthy credentials. We highlight a crosssection of those roots, but with a ‘going forward’ component, just as we depend upon comparative insights as much for our own interpretations as for the takeaways of others. In Chapter 3 we extend the dynamic selection process, this time to the ‘dust that settled’ after the 1971 war. Our selection, again, exposes how a brand becomes what it is, the evolutionary experiences accumulated, and most importantly, the capacity to not only represent Bangladesh but also place it at the top of any consideration list to warrant further attention here. Chapter 4 plucks microfinance out from our collection, not just to show its revolutionary appearance in the mid-1970s, but also to expose how its leftovers have also been making waves down to the present time. Here we highlight banking, education, and gender, among other analytical dimensions. With RMG impacts also being selected from that collection, Chapter 5 allows a fuller treatment of the ‘development’ transition, from the low wage to whatever emerges in a ‘thereafter’ domain. Automation and a digital Bangladesh belong to that ‘thereafter,’ but the transition matters most: what is it actually transiting, where is it headed, how will it be nurtured if, at all, and what footprints will it leave or spillovers it will generate? We draw conclusions and project implications from them in Chapter 6, both empirically and theoretically.

Notes 1. In the volume, single apostrophe generally represents emphasis, and a double apostrophe a quotation; and likewise, italicization emphasizes mostly contending labels and almost all non-English terms. 2. Used by U.S. National Secretary (and later Secretary of State) Henry Kissinger, during the Liberation War itself, when the United States courted China’s friendship.

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3. Imtiaz A. Hussain, “Bangladesh as a ‘developed country’: ‘Graduating’ imperatives.” The Daily Star, February 13, 2022. From: https://www.the dailystar.net/recovering-covid-reinventing-our-future/blueprint-brightertomorrow/news/bangladesh-developed-country-graduating-imperatives2960461. 4. Mosés Naim, The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being In Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2014). Also see a critique of his ‘branding’ application to countries: “Nation branding reconsidered,” CPD Blog, June 12, 2014, Center on Public Diplomacy, University of Southern California, from: https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/nation-brandingreconsidered, last consulted December 5, 2021. 5. On ‘soft power’, see Joseph S. Nye, “Soft power: The evolution of a concept,” Journal of Political Power (2021), from: https://doi.org/ 10.1080/2158379X.2021.1879572; and https://doi.org/10.1080/215 8379X.2021.1879572, last accessed December 5, 2021. Also, Nye, “American democracy and soft power,” Project Syndicate, November 2, 2021, from: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/ame rican-democracy-and-soft-power-by-joseph-s-nye-2021-11, last consulted December 5, 2021. 6. Jian Wang, “Nation branding reconsidered,” CPD Blog, June 12, 2014, from: https://uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/nation-branding-rec onsidered, last consulted November 9, 2021. 7. Daniel G. Herbert, “The 3-stage theory of bargaining,” Bargaining, Vol. 14 (December 2011), from: https://danielgherbert.wordpress.com/ 2011/12/14/my-theory-about, last consulted July 30, 2020. 8. Simon Anholt, “Simon Anholt on competitive identity, the good country equation, and place branding,” The Place Brand Observer, April 2, 2020, from: https://placebrandobserver.com/simon-anholt-interview/, last consulted November 29, 2021. 9. Principles in the U.S. Constitution include: Popular sovereignty; republicanism; limited government; federalism; separation of powers; checks and balances; and individualism. See “The 7 principles of the U.S. Constitution: The building blocks of the Constitution,” from: https://www. springtownisd.net/cms/lib3/TX21000442/Centricity/Domain/635/ The%207%20Principles%20of%20the%20Constitution.pdf, last consulted February 20, 2022. 10. See Puniti Pandey, “Constitution of Indira: The most controversial amendment to the Indian constitution,” WION Web Team, January 27, 2018, from: https://www.wionews.com/india-news/constitution-of-ind ira-the-most-controversial-amendment-to-the-indian-constitution-30909, last consulted February 20, 2022.

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11. Mohammad Niaz Asadullah, “Educational disparity in East and West Pakistan, 1947–71: Was East Pakistan discriminated against?” The Bangladesh Development Studies 33, no. 3 (September 2010): 5–11. 12. 85 Takas at the start of 2022 equals 1 U.S. dollar (USD). 13. On PPP, see the official explanation by Md. Faruque Hossain, Deputy Secretary, PPP Unit Finance Division, Ministry of Finance, Government of Bangladesh, Policy and Strategy for PPP in Bangladesh, PDF presentation, n.d., from: https://www.unescap.org/sites/default/files/3-Bangla desh.pdf, last consulted February 21, 2022; and Masum Billah, “What is holding back PPP in Bangladesh?” The Business Standard, February 20, 2022, from: https://www.tbsnews.net/features/panorama/what-hol ding-back-ppp-bangladesh-373225, last consulted February 21, 2022. 14. The classic work distinguishing these ideologies is William Ebenstein, Today’s Isms: Communism, Fascism, Capitalism, Socialism (New York, NY: Prentice-Hall, 1954). 15. “Bangladesh gets 13,881 millionaires in one year,” The Business Standard, October 12, 2021, from: https://www.tbsnews.net/bangladesh/ bangladesh-gets-13881-new-millionaires-one-year-314860, last consulted December 5, 2021. 16. The proportion of Hindu segment of the total population shrank from about one-third a century ago (early 20th Century) to less than 9% today (early 21st Century), with the population in stark numbers around the 13 million mark today, growing at barely 4%. By contrast Christians have seen a population growth rate about five times higher (2.1%, the highest of any religions in Bangladesh), with about half a million or so in numbers, accounting for about .3% of the total population. See M. Moinuddin Haider, Mizanur Rahman, and Nahid Kamal, “Hindu population growth in Bangladesh: A demographic puzzle,” Journal of Religion and Democracy, Vol. 6 (2019): 123–148. 17. On jute export crash, see Sanzidur Rahman, Mohammad Mizanul Haque Kazal, Ismat Ara Begum and Mohammad Jahangir Alam “Exploring the future potential of jute in Bangladesh,” Agriculture 7 no. 12 (November 2017): 96, from: https://doi.org/10.3390/agriculture7120096, last consulted February 20, 2022. On India’s performances, see Anil Rai, “Trends in the jute industry since independence,” Social Scientist 6, no. 6/7, Special Number of West Bengal (January–February., 1978): 83–102. 18. On South Korea RMG relocation to Bangladesh, see Mohammad Monirul Islam Sarker, “Garments exports in Bangladesh: The unexpected success story,” Social Scientist 46, no. 9–10 (September–October 2018): 61–70, from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/26611324?seq=1#metadata_ info_tab_contents, last consulted February 20, 2022. Also see Salma Chaudhuri Zohir, “Social impact of the growth of garment industry in Bangladesh,” The Bangladesh Development Studies 27, no. 4 (December

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19.

20.

21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

2001): 41–80, from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40795642?seq=1# metadata_info_tab_contents, last consulted February 20, 2022. MFA, see Junichi Goto, “The Multifibre Arrangement and its effects on developing countries,” The World Bank Research Observer 4, no. 2 (July 1989): 203–227, from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/3986510?seq=1# metadata_info_tab_contents, last consulted February 20, 2022; and Mercy Mathew; KBVSS Raghava; Diana Abraham, “Bangladesh and the Multi Fibre Agreement,” IBS Case Development Center, 2007, from: https:// www.thecasecentre.org/products/view?id=74276, last consulted February 20, 2022; and on MFA expiration, see Ashe Haté Shisir Khanal John Larsen Paul Smart Romina Soria David Zanni, “The expiration of the Multi-Fiber Arrangement: An analysis of the consequences for South Asia,” Public Affairs 860: Public Affairs Workshop, International Issues (Spring 2005), Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs University of Wisconsin-Madison. On RMG export rankings, see “Bangladesh holds the second position in RMG exports: WTO,” Textiles Today (August 2020), from: https://www.textiletoday.com.bd/bangladesh-holds-second-positionrmg-exports-wto/, last consulted February 20, 2022; and Mohsin Bhuiyan, Reyad Hossain & Jasim Uddin, “Bangladesh loses 2nd position to Vietnam in clothing exports,” The Business Standard, July 31, 2121, from: https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/rmg/bangladesh-loses-2ndposition-vietnam-clothing-exports-281803, last consulted February 20, 2022. Staff correspondent, “Rise in remittance in 2020: Bangladesh one of three largest recipients,” The Daily Star (a Bangladesh English daily newspaper), February 20, 2021, from: https://www.thedailystar.net/ backpage/news/remittance-2020-bangladesh-third-largest-recipient-204 7861, last consulted January 9, 2022. William and Charlotte Wisers, Behind Mud Walls, 1930–1960 (Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1969); Laurence Wylie, Village in the Vaucluse: An Account of Life in a French Village (Boston, MA:); and Ernest Hemingway, Grapes of Wrath (New York, NY: Viking Press, 1939). Asadullah, op. cit., 13–4. Muhammad Salahuddin, Rabeya Khatun, and Sadia Bilkis, “Present situation of female education in Bangladesh: An overview of last decade,” BPDA Journal of Research 1, no. 2 (2014), from: https:ssrn.com/abstract=3372022, last consulted December 5, 2021. Hossain Zillur Rahman, “Bangladesh: Strategy for accelerating inclusive growth,” Dhaka: Power and Participation Research Center, December 2010.

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26. Goldman Sachs, “N-11 more than acronym,” Global economics paper, #153, 2007; JP Morgan, “Ho Chi Minh Trail to Mexico,” 2007; and Price Waterhouse Coopers, “The World at 2050: Beyond BRICs, A broader look at emerging market growth, 2008. 27. Rahman, op. cit. 28. Ibid. 29. Ibtahim Hossain Ovi, August 11, 2020, “Bangladesh’s per capita income rises to $2,064,” Dhaka Tribune, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bus iness/economy/2020/08/11/bangladesh-s-per-capita-income-at-2-064for-fy20. 30. World Bank, from: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/BGD/Ban gladesh/, last consulted December 5, 2021. 31. December 12 has been designated as Digital Bangladesh Day. On this day in 2008, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina pledged to make the country digital, as a critical component of Vision 2021, in essence, shifting the country from the manufacturing mode of production into the services domain of knowledge-building, or “the broad use of computers, and embodies the modern philosophy of effective and useful use of technology in terms of implementing the promises in education, health, job placement and poverty reduction,” emphasizing four elements: human resource development, people involvement, civil services and use of information technology in business. The Vision 2021 target was established before this 2008 announcement by the prime minister listing targets to be met by the country’s 50th birth anniversary in 2021. 32. For more on this ‘glocal’ trade-off/tussle, see James N. Rosenau, Along the Domestic-Foreign Frontier: Exploring Governance in a Turbulent Frontier (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997). 33. Bina D’Costa, “1971: Rape and its consequences,” Bdnews24, December 15, 2010, interview of Dr. Geoffrey Davis, an Australian doctor who had to perform many abortions to offset the post-1971 crisis, from: https://opinion.bdnews24.com/2010/12/15/1971-rape-and-itsconsequences/, last consulted February 20, 2022. 34. W. A. Gameson and A. Modigliani. “Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: A constructivist approach,” American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 1 (1989): 1–37.

CHAPTER 2

Evolution of the ‘Bangladesh Brand’: Pre-1971 Blues

Introduction A modern country’s birth ‘pangs’ cannot but depict nationalism in some form: it is not just that nationality has become the bedrock of any state, but how the branding business bloomed most under the nation-state system within which an intimate relationship with the market also evolved. Statehood could become the climactic branding chapter since identity is more unambiguously asserted within its aegis than with any other entity before. Such identities have the capacity to reconfigure world historical narratives, as too local cultural, economic, political, and sociological flairs, flavors, and flutters—behaviorally, in mindsets, and through structures. Popular perspectives and passions from experiential realities color surroundings of such an ‘infant’ country. Eulogizing how the ‘infant’ got to where it is without letting go of the mission and vision that produced it, 1971 stands out in Bangladesh for more than the blood that was shed that year. Branding it half a century later demands more than bloodfilled portraiture if only to appraise how both the country’s mission and vision have fared. Mass media texts songs, novels, poems, films, television dramas, stage plays, and street theatres, as well as non-fiction, political rhetoric, histories, and researched pieces depicting 1971 must now open up to or fit into new realities. Disreputable connections and outrageous White House diplomacy to forge new relations with China certainly made Pakistan a necessary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_2

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U.S. intermediary in 1971. Gary Bass notes this in The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide,1 just as Srinath Raghavan’s work on South Asian superpower competition similarly emphasizes grand strategies of world leadership (even linking with twenty-first-century Chinese Puzzle).2 Bangladesh’s name and stature have largely been built upon homegrown resources. Even if foreign influences filter in, a strong domestic anchor has prevailed. Some of these external connections have included such supplies from Bangladesh as cheap labor, and with it remittance earnings, as well as ready-made garments (RMG) supply tap, while other external connections of relevance include policy-driven Rohingya refugee influxes and Bay of Bengal engagements, as well as the secularly imposed climate-change vulnerabilities, among others. Bangladesh could not have found itself at the cusp of a ‘developing country’ after 50 years without state-building. This shift, that is, from its ‘bottomless pit’ origin into a possible ‘developed country’ by the 2040s, creates the Bangladesh brand from motley components,3 stubborn memories and, of course, the original mission of a ‘developed country’ and a vision stooped in developmental efforts of all sorts. Both were built upon Rabindranath Tagore’s original Sonar Bangla, hoping to add, diversify, and strengthen its components. Historically just another dot on the world map, Bangladesh today punches, in some senses, above its net global weight or virtue. In exploring the significance of Bangladesh through its own narratives, this chapter elaborates on the pre-1971 mainframes for its own simulacra (representation of reality).4

National Identity Search & Genocide Like most, if not all, nationalist movements, Bangladesh depicts a genetic linguistic component—Bengali (the anglicized nomenclature) or Bangla (the native). A quick 1960s appraisal cannot but draw upon the ethnonationalism loosened in 1947 when Pakistan was forged. The new country’s Founding Father Muhammad Ali Jinnah led a parliamentary democracy, making Khwaza Nazimuddin the first Chief Minister of East Bengal (which was the original post-partition name of Bangladesh). Bangalees held a majority in this provincial legislative body, but not in the central government’s executive body. As if to make a statement as to where the proverbial buck stopped, this executive body was anchored in Pakistan’s western wing. Physically and culturally separated, Pakistan’s

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two wings got off to a very tenuous start when in 1948 Jinnah himself rankled Bangalees by declaring Urdu to be the official Pakistan language. Resentment from not only accepting Urdu as an official language, but also the central domination of the bureaucracy by non-Bangalee civil servants, and the appropriation of provincial revenue by the central government, much of whose expenditures were not allocated to the majority province, East Pakistan, deepened rapidly. No mainframes representing Bangalee sentiments could ignore this nationality-based identity crisis frame. Eleven episodic frames can be discerned for this first mainframe: (a) the 1948–1952 Language Movement; (b) interim settings; (c) national crisis feeding into what would become the Liberation War; (d) the Six-point movement; (e) the mass-upsurge frame; (f) the hurricane and election frame; (g) ‘Operation Searchlight ’; (h) crisis in the national media; (i) genocide in the international media; (j) massacre in scholarly premises; (k) India being dragged in; and (l) international significance. Language Movement Frame When protests against Urdu as the official Pakistan language climaxed in 1952, the government invoked Section 144, prohibiting public association of more than five-persons. Protesting students and politicians, under the leadership of Maulana Bhashani of the East Pakistan Awami League (EPAL), were even fired upon (in front of the Dhaka Medical College Hospital). Between six and nine protestors were killed, and instantaneously became martyrs, such was the collective mood and mind. Hundreds of others were injured during the February 21–27 week. February 21 has since been venerated (as Shaheed Dibosh). For a people only recently freed from colonial rule, an emergent mission and vision automatically got an indelible face.5 No matter how incoherently or spontaneously the mission and vision emerged, the language carried a ‘till death do us part’ tone. Defending, promoting, and venerating them became an emblematic part of Bangalee history. One obvious consequence was the overzealous revival of Bangla poets and authors: Tagore’s Amar Sonar Bangla being the foremost of them, became the National Anthem in 1971; and with the same Liberation War that edified it, Nazrul Islam’s Bidrohi, or the ‘Rebel,’ appropriately resonated with every drumbeat, so much so that he was made the brand new country’s natural National Poet (perhaps the first). Not many national anthems across the planet directly thrust culture/language as dramatically, nor personify them

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as intimately as in the Bangladesh case. Once bitten in 1948, for twice-shy Bangladeshis, 1952 sacrifices in East Pakistan were only logical. Of note, the 1948–1952 Language Movement sowed the seeds of Bangladeshi nationalism, in contradistinction to Bangalee nationalism since one adjacent province in India also had a majority Bangalee population: Bangladeshi Bangalees had to split with their West Bengal Bangalees in 1947, when the Greater Bengal representation and nomenclature was replaced by East Bengal. Prior ‘East Pakistan’ identities, particularly of the then Awami League’s preface, were also replaced after the Language Movement, to Bangladesh Awami League in 1971. Also noteworthy, there were no public-rallying cries for Bangalee/Bangladeshi independence until March 25, 1971, not in the 1950s, nor in the 1960s, though isolated incidents and outbursts of that type turned into a gush from early March 1971 with Operation Searchlight (Pakistan army’s March crackdown code name). Each moment served as a landmark of transition from one form of identity to another, but conspicuously becoming more local (or nationalistic) over time. Winning the Liberation War exposed something interesting. Though independence softened the localizing sentiment of nationalism, the post-1948 nationalistic linguistic drive took a global turn: UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day in 2000 in direct commemoration of the lives lost in Dhaka on February 1952. Not many might make that local-global linguistic connection, indicating how public-level comprehension of nationalism diminishes in tone and ferocity once national independence is attained. Though the logical local goal was attained, converting that into a local-global platform not only received far less attention, as much within the country, as outside, in fact, a lot more outside, but also opened new branding vistas. By the same token, reining in nationalistic outbursts continue to show Bangladesh’s struggling local-global predicament: when it wants to globalize (as in its ‘developed country’ driven export-market search), it cannot go fullblooded, either by conflicting dynamics or choice, or both; yet when the moment comes to show more vigorous nationalism, as under the 1980s military rule, the bottom wobbles under globalizing pressures, like Bangladesh’s RMG search for global markets. Indeed, RMG exports (and the fabric imports to make those garments) show how fully Bangladesh can globalize; yet the country’s relatively higher tariff levels on other

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commodities also show the strength of the local or nationalistic (and vested) interests. Interim Settings Military government from 1958 deepened the national crisis frame. East Bengal found itself being governed by elite civil servants who were as removed from Bangalee vox populi as the British colonizers were. Very few Bangalee Muslims had joined the Indian Civil Service (ICS), built by the British and reflecting the pompous noblesse oblige British administrative attitudes. West Pakistani aristocratic citizens or civil servants flocked to this outlet as their identity platform, and with them, the national policy commitment to equal recruitment went astray. By 1960 only about onethird of the members of the Civil Service of Pakistan (the ICS successor in Pakistan), were Bangalee.6 Even more undermining was the relocation of aid and military installations to West Pakistan.7 When the Awami Muslim League was renamed Awami League in April 1953, it portrayed a greater secular bent under the leadership of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman as General Secretary. Sher-e-Bangla A. K Fazlul Huq formed the Krishok Sramik Party in September of the same year to push that secularity point.8 In March 1954, the United Front (Awami League and the Krishak Sramik Party) won most of the seats in the East Bengal Legislative Assembly seats in this first-ever popular election since Pakistan’s independence. The Muslim League that had played a significant role in partitioning the subcontinent had won only 9 out of the 310 seats in the Provincial Assembly. Sheikh Mujib was elected to the East Bengal Legislative Assembly and briefly served as the Minister for Agriculture. In October 1955, a West Pakistan bill renamed East Bengal as East Pakistan, while Pakistan also became the Islamic Republic from February 1955. By hindsight, the forces behind Islam were far more moderate and tolerant than what we and the world notice in this jihad-filled twenty-first century. The constitution that was adopted made Bangla a state language, along with Urdu, and in the same year, Awami League leaders, demanded provincial autonomy be included in the draft constitution from the Chief Minister. A military coup under General Ayub Khan in 2058 nipped democracy in its buds, and though in 1962 Martial Law was withdrawn with the enactment of a new constitution designed by Ayub, and the ban on political parties was lifted and a new National Assembly was elected,

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the multi-tiered system of ‘basic democracy’ introduced was a cup more half-empty than half-filled. Sheikh Mujib and H.S. Suhrawardy made a series of tours and rallies after September 10, 1962, projecting the very issue gnawing away at Pakistan’s survival as an independent country: the growing economic disparities between two wings. Sheikh Mujib was charged with sedition and arrested, only to be released through an order of the High Court. Interestingly, the Combined Opposition Parties (COP) nominated Miss Fatima Jinnah (sister of Jinnah), as presidential candidate for the January 1965 elections. After being briefly banned, the Islam-advocating Jamaat-e-Islami participated, and called upon Miss Fatima to return to the political platform. However, the 1958 military coup leader, General Ayub Khan, retained the presidency, this time as a civilian. Several military exchanges that year between India and Pakistan over Kashmir (in JulyAugust) exploded into a war in September. Ayub Khan called for U.N. Security Council intervention. Both countries halted fire, peace was made through the Soviet-facilitated Tashkent Agreement, and in fact, when the Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri died in Tashkent (for health reasons), how Ayub volunteered as a pall-bearer marked a new ‘high’ in Indo-Pakistan relations (after their second war in 18 years). One fall-out fueled East Pakistani discontent: benign neglect of East Pakistan’s security during that 1965 war. This was not lost among Bangladeshi leaders, both civilian (Mujib) and military (Colonel M.A.G. Osmani, whose denied promotion in the Pakistan army pushed him to join the 1971 Liberation War and become its Commander-in-Chief, thence Bangladesh’s Commander-in-Chief). National Crisis Amplifying Liberation War The reasons for a Bangladesh liberation movement are many and farflung. Language, social composition, culture, history, and the geo-space vivaciously earmark any new country’s contours. Bangladesh proved to be no different. Though the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 concentrated almost exclusively on the Western Front, significantly for historians and scholars, Pakistan’s next war with India, in 1971, was caused by and played out largely in the eastern wing. This is our third episodic frame, viewed as a Bangladesh liberation war, and not an Indo-Pakistan war. While this military conflict frame will remain a topic of discussions under other rubrics subsequently, suffice to say here, in 1966, when

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Sheikh Mujib was elected Awami League President, he crafted a Six-point formula, often cited as the ‘Charter of Bangalee freedom.’9 Like Martyr’s Day in 1952, it became another turning point in the Bangalee quest for greater autonomy identity, and self-determination, and therefore a perennial milestone in the Bangalee struggle for freedom and independence. Among other features, it envisioned (a) a federal form of government based on the 1940 Lahore Resolution; (b) a parliamentary system of government directly elected by the people; (c) two separate currencies for the two wings of Pakistan; and (d) a paramilitary force for East Pakistan.10 Bottlenecks in attaining them and suppression of those advocating them inflamed to a bursting point until 1969, when Ayub Khan’s replacement, another military commander, General Yahya Khan, promised an election. How that truly democratic election’s results were flouted served as the Bangalee Rubicon to retaining a Pakistani identity. Much more water would flow before the East Pakistani nationalistic dam burst. It was fed by cultural, economic, and political discrimination, and ripping the practiced Pakistan idea Chowdhury Rahmat Ali first proposed the ‘Pakistan’ name in 1933 (in which P stood for Punjab, AK for Azad Kashmir, S for Sindh and TAN for Baluchistan—a notorious bellwether of ‘Pakistani’ attitudes toward its most populous and prosperous province, East Pakistan. That Bangalees were not part of the acronym exposed the mindset that would break up the country Rahmat Ali envisioned in his acronym. The Six-Point Movement Sheikh Mujib presented a Six-point manifesto when all parties opposed to military rule met in Lahore during February 1966. His points were for Pakistan to have (a) a federal constitution, built by a democratically elected government; (b) a federal government would be vested only with defense and foreign affairs portfolios; (c) the two wings would have their own currencies to stop the flight of East Pakistan capital, along with separate fiscal and monetary policies; (d) tax and revenue collection to be provincial; (e) even foreign exchange earnings to be separate for the two wings, including the capacity to seek foreign trade; and (f) military and paramilitary forces to also be separated. Magnifying the national crisis frame through wiles and disputes among the political parties in both the Western and Eastern Pakistan wings, the Six-point proposal was frontally attacked by veteran Pakistani political

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loyalists right after the 1965 war with India had ended when attention turned to a return to democracy to strengthen Pakistan. Rounaq Jahan’s Failure in National Integration, which spotted those hostile reactions of other political parties,11 noted how the Six-point demand split the Awami League and made it difficult for the East Pakistan wing to form an alliance with any other West Pakistan-based party. She noted the Council Muslim League (CML) decried and dubbed it as a demand for a confederation; the Jama’at-i-Islami branded it as a separatist movement; the Nizam-iIslam rejected it as a unilateral, dictatorial move on Mujib’s part; and the NAP (National Awami Party) dismissed it for being too provincial, therefore without provisions to free East Pakistan from an imperialist Pakistan. Mujib’s Six-point autonomy search within a Pakistan confederation threatened the military more. Across West Pakistan, this was interpreted as ‘secession’ or ‘disintegration,’ and rejected in the All-Party February 1966 Lahore conference (which sought to dismantle military rule primarily). Mujib did not stop. His ‘maximum autonomy’ demand produced the 1966 mass upsurge, in turn seriously impacting and conditioning subsequent Pakistani political developments. In that Lahore conference, Mujib argued how the “question of (provincial) autonomy appears to be more important after the war between India and Pakistan in September, 1965 . . . [one reason to make] East Pakistan self-sufficient in all respects.”12 He also categorically stated how the proposed Six-point demand was not to maltreat the common people of West Pakistan, rather to seek a genuine ‘provincial autonomy’ for East Pakistan, and therefore urged his demands not be misconstrued or dismissed as provincialism en route to full-fledged autonomy. Reiterating how the 17-day Pakistan-India war exposed defenseless East Pakistan could not depend upon the mercy of West Pakistan, a province one thousand miles away, he made an unequivocal case for East Pakistani self-sufficiency in defending itself from external aggression. In the same conference, he loudly pointed out how the Sixpoint plan for maximum provincial autonomy was not just partisan but actually echoed the long-standing demands of the East Pakistan people. Since his Six-point formula engendered a great deal of enthusiasm among the people and generated spontaneous mass support throughout East Pakistan, Shekh Mujib launched a vigorous campaign with overwhelming support from East Pakistan Student’s League (EPSL). As president of Awami League (AL), he convened an AL Council meeting on March 18–20, 1966, in which his program was unanimously approved.

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From mid-February to mid-May that year, the urban centers of East Pakistan’s urban centers faced a mass revolution. Sheikh Mujib was arrested again, this time with his chief lieutenants (Tajuddin Ahmed, Khandokar Mushtaq Ahmed, Mansoor Ali, Zahur Ahmed Chowdhury, and others—all stalwart players in the 1971 Liberation War). In suppressing a complete general strike in Dacca on June 7, 1966, 13 people were killed.13 The Western wing then blamed foreign interests for the agitation. Many East Pakistani civil servants and military officers were arrested on the charge of conspiring to violently separate the East wing, in complicity with India. An alleged Agartala Conspiracy Case was developed and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was charged with 31 others for alleged high treason.14 Framing the Mass Upsurge Starting with the 1968 student unrest against the tyrannical rule of Ayub Khan, Maulana Bhashani launched a mass upsurge. On the one hand, leaders of a section of the National Students’s Federation formed the Students’s Action Committee (SAC), on January 4, 1969, with representatives from the East Pakistan Students Union (EPSU), and on the other, a combined EPSL/EPSU 11-point manifesto absorbed provincial autonomy, and thereby the Awami League’s Six-points, thus amalgamating all political groups and generating the masses behind the antiAyub movement. To this was added the demand for Sheikh Mujib’s prison release and withdrawal of the Agartala Conspiracy Case. In conjunction with the Dhaka University Central Students’ Union (DUCSU), SAC student leaders played a very important role in the 1969 mass upsurges.15 As a footnote, this student-level unity would never be recreated once Bangladesh won its independence. The war might have made independence the sine qua non goal, but even among freedom fighters, splinters were emerging.16 On the sidelines, Sergeant Zahurul Huq, an Agartala Conspiracy Case prisoner, was killed in February 1969, prompting Maulana Bhasani to immediately declare no further East Pakistan tax payment until the 11point demands were accepted and all political prisoners were released.17 He further declared, if necessary, Sheikh Mujib would be forcibly released from jail, invoking memories of the Bastille being stormed during the French Revolution by an agitated crowd. That incident became the most noteworthy trademark or brand of the French Revolution. Soon after the

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meeting people began to set fire on houses of ministers. On 18 February 1969, Dr. Mohammad Shamsuzzoha, Proctor of the Rajshahi University, was bayoneted to death and masses protesting the murder thronged Dhaka’s streets, flouting curfew restrictions.18 A seminar arranged at DU’s Teacher Student Centre and presided over by Professor Abdul Hye on Bhasa Shahid Dibosh (Language Martyrs Day) February 21, 1969, resolved the language-based movement would continue against Pakistani tyranny. Amidst strong popular demand, Ayub Khan had to declare that he would not contest the next presidential election. Sheikh Mujib and other accused prisoners in the alleged Agartala Conspiracy Case, together with 34 political detainees, were released.19 In February 1969, Sheikh Mujib was given the title, Bangabandhu (Friend of Bengal) in a Racecourse Field rally. In his analysis of the Six-point demand, Political Scientist Waheeduzzmaan Manik characterized Sheikh Mujib’s Bangabandhu title a pivotal frame-making moment for Bangalees . He aligned the events and merged them to draw upon the construction of a Bangabandhu brand, and concluded, had there not been a Six-point movement in 1966, the Agartala Conspiracy Case would have to be invented against Sheikh Mujib, and without an Agartala Conspiracy Case, the 1969 student-mass movement may not have taken place. All these developments—the Six-point movement, Agartala Conspiracy Case, and the 1969 student-mass movement—provided the much-needed ground and context for conferring this title to him— Bangabandhu.20 Storm & Election as Frames Another military leader, General Yahya Khan, replaced the very unpopular self-appointed Field Marshall, Ayub Khan, in November 1969, by proposing an election in 1970. On December 5, Sheikh Mujib announced that East Pakistan land would be called ‘Bangladesh,’ a logical corollary to the Bangabandhu title. Followed by those protests and announcements of 1969, the 1970 typhoon, and an almost unanimous election victory for the Awami League in the December 1970 election, the emergent frame suggested a happy and successful popular end to popular protests across East Pakistan. That this was denied between December 1970 and March 1971 by an atrocious crackdown not only highlighted this particular frame, but also predicted the protests were shifting from the street-side frying pan agitations to the fire of violence.

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Two weeks before the election was held, on the night of November 12, 1970, a tremendous typhoon sweeping the Bay of Bengal drove a thirty-foot tidal wave over East Pakistan’s Ganges delta.21 It was assumed a million people were left dead in its wake. A Times correspondent reported how “one could not walk without trampling on the dead.”22 No relief came until the 16th of November. India’s offer to provide aid was rejected. Seven Pakistan Air Force C130 cargo planes provided by the United States to facilitate relief and rehabilitation arguably remained unutilized, that too in a distant Rawalpindi tarmac a thousand miles away.23 The Pakistan government was still only “thinking about” dropping emergency food as relief. As foreign relief goods piled up in Dhaka in the absence of any airdropping plan, the malaise only worsened.24 East Pakistan’s government awaited helicopters from a North Carolina Airbase, not from within East Pakistan.25 Both in Washington and Dhaka the media asked the same question: was the obstacle politically driven, that is, deliberately so? Returning from visiting destruction sites, Sheikh Mujib ventilated his fury to more than two hundred journalists in Dhaka on November 26. How could 25% of the people who survived the cyclone die because the relief had failed to reach them,26 he brazenly asked? He accused the government of “deliberate, cold blooded murder.”27 Observers regarded the Sheikh’s speech as the most explosive threat of secession since the foundation of the State of Pakistan.28 One critical part of Mujib speech noted: “While we have Army helicopters sitting in West Pakistan, we had to wait for helicopters to come from the other end of the world. Is this why we have channeled 60 percent of our budget all these years for defense services?” He went to talk about “crimes committed in the name of national integration,” but concluded by reasserting his autonomy claim. When the delayed election was held on December 7, the Awami League won all but two of East Pakistan’s 162 seats in the National Assembly. Though they did not win any seats in the West, because of the population-based allocation of seats, Mujib’s 160 seats in East Pakistan, out of 300 across the country, constituted an absolute majority in the new Parliament. Second-placed Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), headed by Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, won 81 seats, all in West Pakistan. Minor parties and independent incumbents won the 2 remaining East Pakistan seats and 57 in West Pakistan. As the elected Assembly was to draft a new constitution within 120 days of its first sitting, West Pakistani parties postponed as much as they

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could the handing over of power to Sheikh Mujib as Pakistan’s next prime minster. West Pakistani views before the election interpreted any constitutional amendment would not go beyond extensive negotiations. Election results, however, astounded West Pakistanis. They apprehended a ‘charismatic Mujib’ would push the constitution on his own will, reaffirming our choice to make him an analytical frame here. Neither of these outcomes were acceptable to West Pakistan’s foremost elected civilian leader, Bhutto, even as the country’s military leader, Yahya, was urged by Mujib to set a date for the National Assembly to meet, to begin writing a new constitution. Civilian Bhutto, in turn, urged military Yahya to delay setting a date, in order to persuade relevant stakeholders to defect from Mujib’s side before the Assembly met. As Yahya was under pressure from both sides, he finally set March 3, 1971, as the date for the National Assembly. Bhutto was ensured of military backing as he announced in Lahore that his PPP party would boycott the Assembly altogether. Indeed, he went on to emphatically add, should any elected West Pakistani legislator attend, “their legs would be broken.”29 When Yahya canceled the March 3 Assembly inauguration, East Pakistanis immediately, abruptly, and catastrophically plunged into a civil war frame, couched under a ‘non-cooperation’ movement. In Sheikh Mujib’s March 7 speech, EPSL’s 11-point supporters even raised a flag with Bangladesh’s map on the middle, and its DUCSU leaders A.S.M. Abdur Rob, Shahjahan Siraj, Nur-e-Alam Siddiqui and A.K. Makhan (all framers of the 11-points), launched a massive rally in which an independent Bangla flag was first raised under the historic Battala on Dhaka University premises. Sheikh Mujib distanced himself from such an extreme stand, as he would do time and again until his death (even in recognizing Pakistan only three years after the murderous ‘Operation Searchlight,’ and diluting Bangladesh’s secular principle by courting Muslin Arab countries from 1974). This student announcement closed Dhaka and much of the province for a week, forcing Yahya to announce March 23 as the new Assembly inauguration date. His negotiations with the Awami League, however, were fake, and his proposal was nothing but a façade since his generals were flying military supplies and soldiers to Dhaka. Curfew was imposed in Dhaka from 8pm to 7am, many Bangalees were gunned down by the Pakistani troops, and Mujib’s non-cooperation movement took over the masses rallying behind the students for so long. In his pivotal 7th March speech, Bangabandhu announced four preconditions for participating in any Assembly session: (a) withdrawing

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martial law; (b) returning troops back to their barracks; (c) returning power to the elected people’s representatives; and (d) proper investigating the killings of unarmed civilians. People’s rule under Bangabandhu became the order for Bangalees from the next day. His speech was a classic capstone to a long-enduring mass movement. ‘Our struggle this time is the struggle for freedom,’ Bangabandhu told the Ramna Race Course masses, “our struggle this time is the struggle for independence. Joi Bangla.” The seeds of three pivotal brands were sown: the Bangabandhu title, ‘Bangladesh’ as a country, and Joi Bangla, the popular rallying cry (which was also announced a national symbol only in February 2022, by Bangabandhu’s eldest daughter, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina). Mujib asked for total shutdown and ensured no transmission of money to West Pakistan. Tajuddin Ahmad issued several clarifications and exemptions to mitigate public hardship and to prevent damage to the East Bangla economy, while Maulana Bhashani extended his support to Mujib by calling a Paltan Maidan rally. There he asked Yahya to concede autonomy to Bangladesh.30 In the following days, Lieutenant General Tikka Khan arrived in Dhaka to be sworn in as the Governor as well as East Pakistan Chief Martial Law Administrator. Nonetheless, Chief Justice Siddiqui politely declined to conduct his oath. So too did the other judges in Dhaka. Seeds of perhaps the most infamous Pakistan brand to be associated with the glorious Bangabandhu, Bangladesh, and Joi Bangla brands in the country’s eastern wing were sown: military crackdown, as it turned out, the most brutal in all of Pakistan’s history. Operation Searchlight As more Pakistani troops poured into East Pakistan in civilian dress, ferried by Pakistan International Airlines (the national carrier), Yahya not only ordered the use of force against any move for separation, but also visited Dhaka on March 15, ostensibly to negotiate with Mujib. Negotiations went on for a few days even curfew was imposed upon Chittagong and Joydebpur, while the military cracked upon the residents of Tongi, Joydebpur and other places. While thousands were agitated on the streets of Dhaka, the Mujib-Yahya negotiation climaxed with Bhutto being summoned on March 21. Yahya postponed the National Assembly, and on March 23, most of the Pakistani dailies delved into unchartered territory: the unfolding generic frame of an ‘emancipation of Bangladesh,’31 with Mujib aptly describing his ongoing struggle to

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emancipate 75 million Bangalees . The Awami League submitted a draft of what was considered a final proposal regarding a transfer of power to the Yahya Khan team on the same day. Pakistani generals promised to get back to Mujib. As daytime March 25 newspapers reported 150 people had been killed in various parts of East Pakistan by the Pakistani military, Yahya secretly departed Dhaka that night. Operation Searchlight began. Between 11:00 p.m. and 11:30 p.m., different units of the Pakistani army headed toward various predetermined directions. Tanks, armored cars, and trucks loaded with soldiers headed for Dhaka University, Shaheed Minar, the Race Course (Kali Mandir), Hotel Intercontinental, and Old Dhaka. One group of the army moved to Dhanmandi to take Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman into custody. Contingents also went to over-run Rajarbagh police headquarters and the East Pakistan Rifles in Peelkhana, both falling after bitter battles. Thousands were killed in Dhaka, as academics, students, policemen, East Pakistan Rifles personnel, and sleeping rickshaw pullers were gunned down or bayoneted. The brutality was unprecedented. Suppression, subordination, and exclusion turned into pure genocide. Shaheed Minar and Kali Mandir (a Hindu temple in the then Race Course), were destroyed in the early hours. What was to become a genocide over the next nine months has rarely been matched in the chronicles of modern history. Eminent academics and students of Dhaka University were lined up, shot, and then dumped into hastily dug mass graves. Female students of Rokeya Hall were taken into the trucks of the armies and were never seen again. By midnight, Dhaka was literally burning, and the process of ethnic elimination was also carried out all around Bangladesh. Hindu areas all over Bangladesh suffered particularly heavy blows. One report put the fatalities at 7,000 people in a single night, another 30,000.32 The range varied, but the deadliness and resultant death counts did not. Within a week, half the million-strong population of Dacca had fled. Mujib was arrested and taken to West Pakistan three days later. He would be kept in solitary confinement in Mianwali jail. Only the reality of a separate state would emerge from such a plight. Before his arrest, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman signed an official declaration which read: “Today Bangladesh is a sovereign and independent country …. Bangalees are fighting the enemy with great courage for an independent Bangladesh. May Allah aid us in our fight for freedom. Joy Bangla.” Recently sown seeds spurted stalks all too quickly to show what kind of a flower would unfold. Just the spurting itself was reason to change brands.

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Chittagong’s Awami League leader M. A. Hannan reportedly made the first announcement of the declaration of independence over the radio on March 26, 1971.33 The date became the official Independence Day of Bangladesh, and the name Bangladesh acquired its own sovereignty. Major Ziaur Rahman, who was requested by the students in Chittagong to provide security at the Kalurghat Shwadhin Bangla Betar Kendro station, where Hannan spoke from, read the Declaration on 27 March 1971 on behalf of Bangabandhu. Though the Kalurghat Radio Station had limited transmission capability, a Japanese ship in the Bay of Bengal picked up and re-transmitted the message, such that Radio Australia and the British Broadcasting Corporation could air it.34 National Media Crisis Bangabandhu’s March 7, 1971 speech edified the non-cooperation movement and Awami League leadership including the newspapers under Pakistan Press Trust (PPT). Within a week of the launching of Operation Searchlight , offices and printing presses of Dainik, Ittefaq, Sangbad, and The People, Dhaka’s three leading dailies, were destroyed by Pakistani Army mortar attacks.35 Shaheed Saber, Assistant Editor of The Daily Sangbad, was first among the journalists to be killed by Pakistan Army when the Sangbad premise was burned down on March 31, 1971. A portion of Dhaka Press Club was destroyed, while other newspaper offices were also attacked, including Pakistan Observer, Dainik Pakistan, Morning News , and many more. Such periodicals as Swaraj and Banglar Bani were closed down.36 After a week of this massacre, the Pakistani military realized newspaper circulation depicted normalcy to the outside world, Dhaka’s dailies had to resume normal publication. This would be forced journalism, behind forced freedom to express, circulate, and debate. Yet this was the Pakistan media brand—circumvented or closed. Even in resuming publications, Bangalee journalists could not but portray their unwavering faith in Bangalee nationalism, albeit discretely. Strict martial law regulations were imposed to control the press. Our study of over 100 news reports from Ittefaq, Sangbad, and Observer between March to November 1971 found simulations of the national crisis to be more amplified than the war itself, accenting two themes: news treatment and event actors.37 References to the war were couched in terms of an ‘India-Pakistan’ exchange, even though in reality Bangladeshi freedom fighters were sacrificing their lives across

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the countryside in various ways to not be acknowledged. When the 93,000 Pakistan troops surrendered on December 15, 1971, to their arch enemies, the Indian troops, it was not just because of Rule 47 of the 1949 Geneva Protocol detailing surrender (“that prisoners of war should not be mistreated or abused,” indeed, be treated as human beings with human rights). It was also out of fear of what they refused to acknowledge even more: the revenge of Bangladesh’s own freedom fighters, who had not signed the Geneva Protocol (indeed, could not until a country won de jure recognition abroad). ‘Genocide’ in the International Media The media vividly portrayed Operation Searchlight . Reporter Grace Liechtenstein of the New York Times titled her article, ‘Army expels 35 foreign newsmen from Pakistan,’ on March 28, 1971.38 From March 25, 35 foreign journalists were confined inside Hotel Intercontinental, their documents confiscated, with the Pakistani military threatening death if they left the premises that night. Simon Dring, who escaped Hotel Intercontinental by hiding on the roof, toured Dhaka on March 27, when the curfew was relaxed. Having witnessed leftovers of the slaughter firsthand,39 he headlined his piece “Tanks crush revolts in Pakistan”: “In the name of God and a United Pakistan,” he wrote, “Dacca is today a crushed and frightened city. After 14 hours of ruthless, cold-blooded shelling by the Pakistan Army as many as 7,000 people are dead … people are still being shot at the slightest provocation … and military appears to be more determined each day to assert its control over the 73 million Bengalis [sic].” International media gave the crackdown frontline attention and space for weeks. These headlines globally carried the same single theme: “Yayha denounces Mujib as traitor: Sharp fighting reported in East Pakistan revolt” (International Herald Tribune, March 27–29, 1971); “Bangla Desh declares freedom: Rahman’s step follow army crackdown—Civil war erupts in East Pakistan” (The Statesman, March 27, 1971); “No mercy in Pakistan fighting” (The Daily Telegraph, March 29, 1971); “East wing sealed off” (The Daily Telegraph, March 29, 1971); “Causalities are likely to be heavy” (The Daily Telegraph, March 29, 1971); “Tragedy in Pakistan” (International Herald Tribune, March 30, 1971); “Dhaka civilians stunned by killings” (International Herald Tribune, March 30, 1971); “Mass Killing in terror campaign by Pakistan Army”

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(The Daily Telegraph, April 3, 1971); “The explosion of a nation” (The Observer, April 4, 1971); “Pakistan plunges into civil war” (Newsweek, April 1971); “Pakistan: Round 1 to the West” (The Times, April 12, 1971); and “Witness to a massacre in East Pakistan” (The Times, April 13, 1971), among others. Content analysis produces and reproduces the same images: massacre and genocide. According to the New York Times of March 28, 10,000 people were killed, 5,000–7,000 of them in Dhaka, as reported by the New York Times the next day, or 10,000–100,000 by the Sydney Morning Herald on the same day, or even a revised 35,000 by the New York Times on April 1. Differences over number do not, and cannot, hide the depth of the depravity displayed. While the war was on, The Sunday Times ran a 2-page story, on June 13, 1971, titled “Genocide,”40 by a Pakistani journalist, Anthony Mascarenhas, which shattered Pakistan’s propaganda machine, and helped manufacture public consent in favor of the Liberation War of 1971. He was one of the first West Pakistani reporters, amongst the eight chosen, to join guided tours with the military to East Pakistan with the objective of portraying normalcy. Mascarenhas, suffering from a crisis of conscience, flew to London and contacted the Sunday Times , offering his first-hand interpretation of what he had witnessed in East Pakistan. It was the first detailed eyewitness account of the genocide published in a western newspaper. On July 13, 1971, The New York Times leaked a World Bank report by its economist Hendrik van der Heijden,41 which had been suppressed by World Bank President Robert McNamara.42 It acknowledged how vulnerable the economy of East Pakistan was, as well as the desolation, and destruction created by the Pakistan military. The report stated that the “army terrorizes the population particularly aiming at the Hindus and the suspected members of the Awami League.”43 On April 12, 1971 a large number of U.S. intellectuals who described themselves as ‘Friends of Pakistan’ urged Pakistan that no government had the “right to impose its will by force of arms on a populace that (had) spoken so unanimously as the people of East Pakistan and whose aspirations (were) so reasonable.”44 As mentioned above, important sections of the U.S. press took a similar stance, during the end of March 1971. There were editorials in prominent newspapers asking the U.S. administration to refuse military aid to the Pakistan government (e.g., the New York Times editorial on March 31, 1971).45

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Massacre of Scholars & Across Academic Heartland Robert Pyne metaphorically described the East Pakistan genocide in his Massacre. “They were in batches of six or eight,” he observed, “and in the light of a powerful electric arc lamp, they were easy targets, black against the silvery water. The executioners, standing at the pier, shot down a compact bunches of prisoners wading in the water. There were screams in the hot night air, and then silence. The prisoners fell on their sides and their bodies lapped against the shore. Then a new bunch of prisoners were brought out, and the process was repeated.”46 According to R. J. Rummel: “…by an Inquiry Committee, the Pakistani army killed 100,000 Bengalis in Dacca [sic], 150,000 in Khulna, 75,000 in Jessore, 95,000 in Comilla, and 100,000 in Chittagong. For eighteen districts the total was 1,247,000 killed. This was an incomplete toll, and to this day [written in 1994] no one really knows the final toll. Some estimates of the democide are much lower—one is of 300,000 dead—but most range from 1 million to 3 million. …”47 Thus the nationalist movement sprouting from language and economic exploitation culminated in the March 1971 massacre. These events infiltrated the Bangalee sentiments and strengthened nationalism, ultimately gelling into their demand for autonomous homeland—a free and independent Bangladesh sacrificing millions of lives. Dragged-in India An estimated 10 million refugees entered India following the military repression and ethnic cleansing in East Pakistan.48 Kushwant Singh’s August 1 New York Times piece on East Pakistan detailed Hindu persecution by the military as one crackdown consequence.49 The 1971 massacre was not only gendercide in terms of killing the Muslim men and raping their daughters or wives, but also for the Hindus as they were termed as not only non-believers, but also a ‘fifth column’ in India. Rummel wrote: “Hindus were sought out and killed on the spot. As a matter of course, soldiers would check males for the obligated circumcision among Moslems. If [they were] circumcised, they might live; if not, sure death.”50 Refugee influxes imposed a severe economic burden upon India’s food reserves respites. India called the international community to help allay already incurred expenses, even though the United Nations

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High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reiterated how the voluntary nature of U.N. budget contribution impeded help. As it would challenge the United Nations to undertake complete responsibility over the Pakistani refugees, a global appeal was made instead for emergency refugee assistance.51 India could not allow this opportunity to weaken West Pakistan, hence supporting Bangladesh’s liberation movement was in order for strategic reasons too. Added to that was the persecution of Hindus, which Indira Gandhi, India’s Prime Minister, feared would also fuel conflict within India between the Muslims and Hindus. Therefore, India’s ultimate objectives from the beginning of the crisis in March 1971 had been to process the repatriation of all the refugees who had fled East Pakistan, eventually ensuring the transfer of political power within East Pakistan itself to the Awami League. It was to Indian’s interest that, had Bangladesh not been freed from the Pakistani military rule, India would have to bear the consequence for an indefinite period of time, for it would have to then handle Pakistan from both sides, West and East. India announced refugee repatriation would be completed within six months. The six-month period started with the first refugee influx in March 1971 and was therefore expected to end in September. However, India extended its generosity, attracting millions more. India also claimed the central Pakistan government was attempting to resolve the East Pakistan political stalemate through the mass expulsion of its population, mostly Bangalee Hindus. Therefore, India considered imposing its own political solution in East Pakistan reaching a consensus on the issue of East Pakistan in late July 1971. Its two features: (a) the direct supervision of the Bangladeshi government-in-exile; and (b) military training of the Mukhti Bahini. Indira Gandhi traveled to the United States and West European countries to promote the cause of an independent Bangladesh. In late September, in spite of U.N. Secretary-General U Thant’s efforts to appease India and Pakistan and their respective military forces, skirmishes flourished between Pakistani military and India’s Border Security Forces (BSF) on the India-Bangladesh border. To India’s understanding, the move was interpreted as trying to save the military regime in Pakistan, therefore India pushed the Secretary General to find a political solution, and consider the transfer of power to the people of East Pakistan.

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Crisis & its International Significance The South Asian crisis had relevance in the global Cold War power rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States, as this was a pivotal year in the Cold War. First, ‘ping-pong’ diplomacy between China and the United States had opened a window of cooperation at the Soviet Union’s expense. Second, the Vietnam War was shifting into dire straits for the United States. Third, the Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT) between the Soviet and U.S. diplomats stood on the precipice of a breathtaking agreement only because the Soviet Union had attained strategic ‘parity’ in its nuclear missiles numbers with the United States, a signal for pushing liberation wars from the Soviet side, but one of recalculating allies for the United States. At least three global forces dramatized the Bangladesh Liberation War: (a) India’s support for Bangladesh was interpreted by Henry Kissinger, then the U.S. National Security Advisor to President Richard Nixon, as a Soviet design to break up the U.S. alliance system while also portraying Chinese feebleness52 ; (b) threatening a U.S. ally, Pakistan, was a powerful yet socialist neighbor, India, which only strengthened the communist cause; and (c) Pakistan’s close friendship with China could possibly serve as a critical U.S. card against its Cold War Soviet rival. The United States generally felt China was cautiously probing for openers to a new relationship with the United States, based on the hope that the United States would maintain the global status quo.53 Pakistan became a pivotal partner under those circumstances. Kissinger’s Cold War calculations were central to preventing South Asia from turning into a threat. South Asia seemed to have been analyzed from four possible crisis angles: (a) the possible genocide was perceived as Pakistan’s internal matter; (b) humanitarian problems would stem from this in both India and East Pakistan; (c) political settlement between the two Pakistan wings remained on the table; and (d) at worst, war between Pakistan and India.54 Nixon responded to the first crisis level by iterating it was all Pakistan’s internal matter, despite the ‘Blood telegram,’ named after Archer Blood, U.S. Consul, who wrote the first ever ‘dissent cable,’ which had just been introduced in the U.S. State Department in response to irregularities in handing the Vietnam War. This document constituted one of the most historically outright protests by a U.S. diplomat because of the moral conscience invoked, and the avatar of human rights and democracy. It would cost him an Ambassador position for the rest of his life, but

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29 other U.S. diplomats would endorse that cable. Yet, it did not save the million Bangalees from the Pakistani bayonets, rape, arson—everything that the present scholarships define as the premise of international crimes. The remaining three crisis-levels were U.S. administrative perceptions.55 Surprisingly all the responses had an Indian springboard. Nixon’s response to the second level of the crisis resulted in a 91 million USD commitment for refugee relief through the United Nations, and 158 million USD for those suffering inside East Pakistan. India never showed gratitude to the United States on this ground, since it was an obvious answer to the call of the U.N. Secretary General, and was, therefore, viewed as clearing an international obligation.56 Moreover, inside East Pakistan, relief distribution was conducted by the Pakistani government, which induced criticisms of possible diversion of relief to the Pakistan military.57 The third problem of political settlement between the two wings of Pakistan backfired because General Yahya had an ‘extraordinary relationship’ with Kissinger and Nixon and the U.S. Ambassador, Joseph Farland. In addition, Yahya was of precious help as a channel linking the United States to China.58 In April 1971 the State department assured the U.S. Congress of not supplying arms to Pakistan,59 but despite this a Pakistani ship with arms for Pakistan sailed from New York on June 1971. India urged the U.S. administration to stop the ship. No U.S. effort was taken, nor did the United States dissuade the Pakistani army from using U.S. arms in its East Pakistan operations. U.S. economic assistance to Pakistan continued, which ensured its strong support for the Yahya regime. The U.S. House of Representatives threatened to exclude Pakistan from the 3 August 1971 Foreign Aid Bill, placing ‘public pressures’ upon Pakistan, President Nixon argued, would be “counterproductive.” The crisis demanded discussions “in private channels” (rather than influencing legislation).60 Finally, Secretary of State Rogers’ speech at the U.N. General Assembly on 4 October 1971 slowly reaffirmed U.S. support for Pakistan. He insisted that “the events in East Pakistan [sic] were internal events with which the people of Pakistan must deal.”61 With regard to the fourth level, relating to U.S. administrative anxiety at the zenith of the situation, where a war could have broken out between India and Pakistan, Nixon claimed that he sought to avert war by keeping India acquainted with all U.S. initiatives and talked to the Soviet Union. Still, the episode culminated in Rogers warning the Indian Ambassador earlier on 11 August 1971 that the United States would not continue

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economic assistance to a country that started the war.62 Those threats furthered Indian discontent and upset Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, whose deep annoyance at Washington pushed her to seek more active linkages with Moscow. On 3 December, Pakistan launched air attacks against Indian bases on India’s western front. Indian forces subsequently entered East Pakistan in force,63 and when it did the United States blamed India and immediately canceled the supply of arms and other economic aid to India. While Kissinger was chairing a secret session of the Washington Special Action Group (WSAG) on December 8, 1971, he said: “… The President believes India is the attacker. We are trying to get across the idea that India has endangered relations with the United States. We cannot afford to ease India’s mind. The lady [referring to Indira Gandhi] is cold blooded and tough and will not turn into a Soviet satellite merely because of pique.”64 Upon the request of the United States, the U.N. Security Council met on December 4, 1971, and asked for immediate vote. The result: an 11–2 outcome, and a call for withdrawal of foreign Indian forces from East Pakistani. Soviet Union vetoed it.65 If this was adopted by the Security Council, it would have then prevented the creation of Bangladesh. As the United States knew Pakistan was losing this battle, it insisted on a ceasefire. After the resolution was finalized at the United Nation’s Headquarters, Pakistan agreed to ceasefire and surrender to the United Nations.66 However to boost up the motivation of the Pakistani army, the U.S. administration ordered a Task force of the Seventh Fleet, including the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, into the Bay of Bengal, but could not alter the outcome of the war since intervention was ruled out.

Conclusions Table 2.1 draws a number of conclusions from the 12 single-frame simulacra of the national identity search and the 1971 genocide mainframe. Goffman’s grid shows two-thirds of the single-frame issues command a retention capacity at the comprehension level, while one-third elicit attention. Since this helps identify which single-frame events will carry more mileage across time, we are better able to gauge the relative branding value of these events. As predictable any event directly advocating national identity scores high: the Language Movement asserts its

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perennial salience, as too the 1960 Six-point demands, and all the events associated with it until March 1971. If at the comprehensive level we are a solid candidate for branding national identity and the historical drift toward the Liberation War, how do those events, in fact, the entire dozen of them, fare at the communication level? Our second observation simply recognizes how those events commanding a retention or attention feedback do robustly at this second level: all at the retention level elicit a valued or managed communication feedback, while all but one with an attention degree of comprehension also elicit valued or managed communications . Efforts at branding profit from this 2-level synchronicity. What about the third consummation level? Here we find those events standing out at the comprehensive and communication stages being further Table 2.1 National identity search & genocide: 1971 Liberation War as mainframe & single-frame simulacra Single frames

Comprehension: E: exposure R: retention AT: attention AW: awareness

Communication: O: observed V: valued M: managed

Consummation: R: reputation (personal) B: benefit (personal) SE: social engagement

1948–1952 language movement Interim settings National crisis amplifying Liberation War Six-point movement Mass-upsurge frame Hurricane & election Operation searchlight National media crisis Genocide in international media 1971 massacre in scholarship India’s involvement International significance Net effects (simulacra)

R

V

SE

AW R

O V

R B

R R R R AW AT

RM M M M O O

SE SE SE SE R R

AT

V

SE

R AT

V M

R R

R/AT

M/V

R/SE

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distilled. Two types of consummation demand attention: social engagement and reputation at the personal level. Whereas the former depicts how high the community cohesiveness, which translates into the corresponding brand generating the widest possible appeal, the latter revolves around personalities, more bluntly, the personality of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. In the third decade of the twenty-first century, as the country celebrates its 50th birth anniversary and targets ascending the ‘developing’ group of countries after 2027 and entering a ‘developed’ country in the 2040s, branding Bangladesh cannot avoid the essence of national identity (linguistically and in terms of political autonomy), and the people behind carving it, from whom Sheikh Mujib’s towering presence earns him an almost sine qua non place.

Notes 1. Dexter Filkins, “Collateral damage,” New York Times, September 27, 2013. 2. Srinath Raghavan, 1971 A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013). 3. An excerpt of the conversion published in a Time magazine article on January 17, 1972, states that it was not Kissinger, rather his ambassador U. Alexis Johnson initiated the statement when the issue of an impending famine was brought up by a participant, Maurice Williams during the Washington Special Group Meeting held in Washington, D.C., on December 6, 1971. 4. According to Jean Baudrillard, everything that we consider real is simply a simulacrum, which is basically just a representation or copy where the original no longer exists. Baudrillard explains the concept in reference to a fable where the King asks to make a map of his kingdom. The kingdom is real, the map a simulacrum, or simply a representation of the kingdom. When, over time the kingdom fades away and no longer exists, the representation becomes the reality. The map becomes real. Baudrillard believes this is happening in modern society with almost everything we can think of. 5. Hasan Hamid, Bdnews24.com, Opinion page, February 20, 2019. 6. Encyclopeadia Britannica, The Pakistani Period, 1947–71, n.d. 7. Ibid. 8. Bangladesh Genocide Archive, Timeline, n.d. 9. Waheeduzzaman Manik, “The historic Six-Point Movement and its impact on the struggle for independence,” The Daily Star, June 7, 2008.

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10. Ibid. 11. Rounaq Jahan, Failure in National Integration (Dhaka: University Press Ltd., 1972). 12. Talukder Maniruzzaman, “National integration and political development in Pakistan,” Asian Survey 7, no. 12 (1967): 876–885. 13. Ibid., The Bangladesh Revolution and Its Aftermath (Dhaka: UPL, 1988), 25. 14. Ibid., “The Awami League in the political development of Pakistan,” Asian Survey 10, no. 7 (1970): 574–597. 15. Banglapedia, Mass Upsurge, 1969, n.d. 16. Several sections of the following expose this: Qayyum Khan, Bittersweet Victory: A Freedom Fighter’s Tale (Dhaka: University Publications Ltd., 2013). 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid. 20. Manik, op.cit. 21. Roger Volger, “The birth of Bangladesh: Nefarious plots and Cold War sideshows,” Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies 10, no. 3 (2010). 22. Ibid. 23. Ibid. 24. Archer K. Blood, The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh—Memoir of an American Diplomat (Dhaka: Universal Publications Limited, 2002). 25. Ibid. 26. Ibid. 27. Ibid. 28. Roger Volger, The Birth of Bangladesh: Nefarious Plots and Cold War Sideshows, p. 26; Bennett Jones, 2002. 29. Ibid. 30. Bangladesh Genocide Archive. 31. Ibid. 32. Ibid. 33. Virtual Bangladesh, The Declaration of Independence, 2014. 34. Jyoti Sen Gupta, History of Freedom Movement in Bangladesh, 1943–1973: Some Involvement (Dhaka: Naya Prokash, 1974). 35. Helal Uddin Ahmed, “The role of media during Liberation War,” The Financial Express, March 25, 2020. 36. Ibid. 37. Jessica Tartila Suma, “Media framing of Liberation War of Bangladesh in 1971,” Paper Presented in Conference: Identity in the Globalized World, Independent University, Bangladesh, 2013. 38. “Army expels 35 foreign newsmen from Pakistan,” The New York Times, Bangladesh Genocide Archive, March 28, 1971.

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39. Bangladesh Genocide Archive, Newspapers Report, n.d. 40. Mark Dummet, “Bangladesh war: The article that changed history,” BBC News, December 16, 2011. 41. Hendrik van der Heijden, Thousand My Lais: World Bank Study on Bangla Desh (Dhaka, Bangladesh: Society for Human Rights, 1971). 42. World Bank President during 1971. 43. “Excerpts from World Bank Group’s Report on East Pakistan,” The New York Times, Bangladesh Genocide Archive. 44. The signatories were: Frank C. Child, Edwin H. Clarke II, Paul G. Clark, James Coleman, Edward C. Dimock Jr., Robert Dorfman, Walter P. Falcon, John C. H. Fee, Richard M. Guble, Robert Gomer, Gary Hufbauer, John Isaacs, Kirmitsu Kaneda, Maurice D. Kilbridge, Stephen R. Lewis Jr., Edward Mason, John W. Mellor, Gustav C. Papanak, Hanna Papanak, Stefan H. Robock, Peter Rogers, James A. F. Stoner, John W. Thomas, Wayne Thorne, Barbara Ward, Stanislaw Wellisz, Jerome B. Weisner, and Wayne Wilcox, Washington Post, April 12, 1971. 45. Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, “US role in the 1971 Indo-Pak war: Implications for Bangladesh-US relations,” ISAS Working Paper No. 165, February 15, 2013. 46. Pyne, 1971. 47. Rummel, 1994. 48. In the beginning of December 1971, official figures showed 6.8 million refugees living in camps and 3.1 million living with host families, UNHCR. “The state of the world’s refugees,” Rapture in South Asia (2000). 49. Kushwant Sing, “Why they fled Pakistan—and won’t go back,” The New York Times , August 1, 1971. 50. R .J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994), 323. 51. UNHCR, 2000. 52. White House Years, 286. 53. Ibid. 54. Chowdhury, 2013. 55. Ibid. 56. UN Secretary General appeal, “UN Secretary General had made such an appeal on 19 May 1971.” 57. Ibid. 58. Kissinger, 1979. 59. Chowdhury, 2013. 60. Baltimore Sun, August 5, 1971. 61. Cited in Richard P. Stebbins and Elaine P. Adam, eds., American Foreign Policy 1971: A Documentary Record (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1976), 226.

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62. Richard M. Nixon, US Foreign Policy in the 1970s: The Emerging Structure of Peace, A Report to the Congress, 1972. 63. Chowdhury, 2013. 64. See Chowdhury. The proceedings were leaked to the media and published in the New York Times on 6 January 1972 Later this was cited in Jack Anderson with George Clifford. The Anderson Papers, 281. 65. Chowdhury, 2013. 66. UN Repertoire, Chapter VIII: Maintenance of International Peace and security, December 1971.

CHAPTER 3

Post-liberation Identity Framing

Introduction With the Liberation War concluded, both challenges and opportunities arose. In this chapter we articulate the remaining mainframes . Since the last chapter established the unwitting national identity of Bangladesh and the near-sine qua non presence of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman in cultivating Bangladesh, this one probes how both have fared as brands representing the outgrowth of the new country. In short, what has the country done unto itself (or have secular forces done them for the country) against such an inheritance? To wit, has the 1971 branding of Bangladesh changed in degree, composition, or purpose? We examine the remaining seven mainframes : winning freedom; Joi Bangla expressing the sentiments with that; Bangabandhu’s assassination and the international conspiracy associated with that; Islamizing Bangladesh as a new brand; Indemnity Act clashing with democratic aspirations; Ekushey as symbol against oppression; and hosting Rohingya refugees.

Winning Freedom From the onset of December 3, it took just 13 days to bring down the Pakistani forces through the joint effort of the Indian Army and the Mukti Bahini. This is our second master frame. India could block every Pakistani airway since all airbases were under the control of the Indian Army. Over © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_3

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10,000 Bangalees who were trained by Indian Border Security Forces on guerrilla and sabotage tactics from April hounded out Pakistani troops.1 Pakistan’s naval passages were blocked once India’s Operation Trident had stifled Karachi port. So too were the waterways in Pakistan’s former eastern wing, leaving its military stranded on Bangladeshi land. The ceasefire took effect from 1700 hours on 15 December. On surrender day, i.e., December 16, 1971, India’s Field Marshal General Manekshaw, often intimately nicknamed Sam, called Major General JFR Jacob, the Chief of Staff of the Indian Army’s Eastern Command and asked him to get the surrender. He shared his conversation with his Pakistani counterpart, Lieutenant General A. K. M. Niazi, in his autobiography, An Odyssey in War and Peace: “Jake, go and get a surrender.” When Jacob asked him if he should negotiate the surrender based on the draft sent to him some days earlier, Manekshaw replied, “You know what to do; just go.”2 With Indian Defense Ministry permission, General Jacob headed toward Dhaka upon Niazi’s invitation for lunch. Gavin Young of The Observer who was also present at the lunch, entitled a two-page report ‘The Surrender Lunch.’3 The Instrument of Surrender that General Jacob carried, also included a ‘package deal’ conclusively resolving the issues of repatriation of the Bangalees in Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners of war in Bangladesh. The hope was this would clear the way for the recognition of Bangladesh by Pakistan.4 Major General Jacob and Lieutenant General Niazi had known each other during colonial army days. General Jacob had all the facts on the table, and reasoned with General Niazi as how the situation would possibly go out of control in a month as the Indian agents and the Mukti Bahini knew Pakistan could carry out their war for only a month-long.5 He made it clear to Niazi that if he surrendered to India, according to the Instrument of Surrender, then India would protect the Pakistani soldiers under the Geneva Convention, and if not, then Jacob would be left with no choice but to abandon Pakistani soldiers to the mercy of the Mukti Bahinis.6 Surrender with grace or be prepared to be butchered by Mukti Bahini were Niazi’s only two options. Niazi had 30 minutes to decide. If he agreed to surrender, this would have to be public, and Pakistan would have to give a guard of honor to the Indian army,7 given the anxiety, breathtaking developments, and positioning at the very brink. Those could conceivably have been the longest 30 minutes in Bangladesh’s gestation history. While General Jacob took the wait in his stride, General Niazi, who had to call his boss Yahya,

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sweated against his hopeless plight. Opting to sign India’s Instrument of Surrender, as per the Geneva Protocol, he thwarted any civilian court accusing Pakistan’s army of civil offenses. This surrender and Bangladesh winning freedom have been much twisted by Bangladeshis as to why the surrender was not made to Bangladesh military commander, Colonel Osmani? The Geneva Convention holds the simple answer. Bangladesh concurred with this agreement, but was not a party in the agreement.8 General Niazi feared for the lives of his troops and the untold atrocities his army had created would beget Bangalee vengeance on the majority Punjabi and Pathan soldiers. Surrendering to Mukti Bahini would most likely see them get killed. As India happened to be a signatory of the Geneva Convention, and Bangladesh was not a recognized country in the United Nations, the Pakistan Army surrendered to the Indian Army. Finally, General Jagjit Singh Aurora, the Commander in Chief of the Eastern Command, and generals Jacob and Niazi gathered at the Race Course at around 4:30 pm. Among the entourage was Bangladesh Air Force’s Wing Commander A. K. Khandoker, the Deputy Chief of Staff of Mukti Bahini.9 The Mukti Bhainis gathered, and so did thousands of Bangalee civilians. Colonel Osmani was unable to attend due to his helicopter being fired upon by Pakistani Army troops in the Chittagong area. A Guard of Honor was inspected, and when the signing was complete, General Niazi handed over his epaulette, as too his revolver, to Aurora. Tears rolled down his cheeks. General Niazi paid the price. He was disgraced as an officer for his surrendering to the Indian Army, and dismissed from service. All benefits were denied to him.

‘Nourishment in the Sweetness of Independence’10 : Joi Bangla Slaughairm, meaning a ‘clan’s battle cry,’ is the origin of the word slogan,11 defined as a message that crystallizes an idea to ‘thrill, exhort and inspire’ an audience.12 Thus Joi Bangla was adopted by the people of Bangladesh with Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s eloquent peroration of March 7, 1971. It transcended into a political ideology, institutionalizing Bangabandhu’s charismatic leadership, and preparing the country for the people’s imagined land. That historic speech was itself

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the brand of a free Bangladesh that aroused the much-needed motivation of self-determination for its people. Bangladesh won freedom, after a 9-month war riddled with flagrant abuses and human rights violations. There was the genocide itself, along with war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression. Though the Joi Bangla slogan syncopated with time in addition to a regime change after the death of the Father of the Nation in 1975, the High Court sealed it as the national slogan of Bangladesh on December 10, 2019.13 It was officially unfolded as such to mark the historic March 7 on that date in 2022. As a participating observer, William Ellis of The National Geographic (1972) frequently described how Bangabandhu’s appearance in the rally in April of 1972 was a ‘concert of charisma.’ He mentioned the sadness and the physical toll it took on Bangabandhu after 18 hours of a workday walking in the debris of a tornado-struck area in November 1970, with dead animals, scarce drinking water, homelessness, and the threat of a cholera epidemic. Ellis narrated how those destitute people, and for whom survival itself would be an accomplishment, were imbued in that manly charisma and the rhythm of Joi Bangla. That ‘narration of hope’ was all the people of an infant sovereign Bangladesh needed to hear from Bangabandhu. When Bangladesh came out of the war, it had less than $500,000 in foreign exchange, a result of severe economic discrimination by Pakistan.14 Despite providing over half the national export earnings for Pakistan before 1971, and having three-fifth of the population, Bangladesh, as East Pakistan, would receive less than 40% of the national budget.15 Soon disaster relief and the gift of food, poured in from various parts of the world to this war-ravaged country, including even ski clothes from Scandinavian countries. The silos and the warehouse were filled with grains and other foodstuffs, and thus a million tons of food arrived in Bangladesh. Toni Hagen, a Swiss head of the U.N. relief for Bangladesh, predicted how the relief stock he had for the next few months from March of 1972 would help the country get through that year, then, over the long-haul things would get better.16 However, he also urged for cash. People needed that. It was also needed to raise Bangladesh to a stable economic level, 3–4 billion dollars of cash.17 Bangladesh lavishes on its folklore, music, and festivities, which always contain allegories praising the rain, monsoon, flood, and water nourishing the soil. The poverty of the people did not conceal the happiness from the freedom from the atrocities and the renewed hope for a golden future.

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The country had 26 million acres of land under cultivation, 22 million of which were used for growing rice. The three yearly harvests for rice (even pertinent today) would yield 11 million tons to feed 75 million people of Bangladesh. This still fell short by two million tons of the population’s requirements.18 The issue-specific frame from the above narrative produces images of a miserable Bangladesh. Yet it still interplays between the amplified single frames capturing the sweetness in the sense of freedom, on the one hand, and a huge sagacity of hope that made Bangalees to dream of a Golden Bangla (Sonar Bangla), on the other. Five of those single frames illustrate. Amartya Sen’s Bashonti Bala Euphemy Against Demi-God and Evil Alternatives The 1972 issue of National Geography highlighted how the after-effects of the nine-month bloody war pervaded every aspect of a Bangladeshi’s political life, even to this day. From what was an internationally branded ‘bottomless pit,’ Bangladesh subsequently acquired the title of a bread basket by becoming a model for reducing hunger. In 2015, it went on to cross MDG (millennium development goals), and enter the SDG (sustainable development goals) campaign to win recognition as a ‘least developing country.’ In November 2021, on the recommendation of the Economic and Social Organization (ECOSOC) and its more technical Committee for Development Policy (CDP), the United Nations placed Bangladesh on a five-year transition phase to do so (that is, by November 2026).19 Post-1971 reconstruction, reformation, and statebuilding paved the way for the country’s ascendance, segments of which will be discussed. On the analytically comprehension level, clearly, this progress went beyond exposure, attention, and awareness into full-fledged retention. Amartya Sen’s Entitlement Theory Bangladesh confronted food crises in 1972 and 1974. Though the government succeeded in forestalling the predicted famine in 1972, it could not repeat its successes in 1974. Successive onslaughts of floods and droughts produced a disaster, prompting, in true Joi Bangla tone, imagination to perfectly enrapture reality. The picture of Basanti, a girl wearing a fishing net, brought global attention to Bangladesh’s 1974

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famine, though the picture drew domestic consternation because the leading Bangla daily newspaper, Daily Ittefaq, printed this on its front page to chastise the Mujib government. Bashontibala, as the image is known, wore a fishing net because her only sari had torn out, indicating/symbolizing poverty and food-shortage of food. This was an extreme media propaganda against the Mujib government. Aligning this frame with scholarly reflections on the 1974 famine by Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, we note parallel expressions of frustration. Even international forces politicized the famine, despite 20 countries sending aid to Bangladesh. Huge resources had to be mobilized and deployed in order to feed the people. Moreover, culturally Bangalees symbolized malnourishment then, which blended with the ‘bottomless pit’ image. Inflation was also wrecking the post-war economy. Economist Amartya Sen posited the reason for the 1974 famine was not because of a food-availability decline (FAD), but rather entitlement failures, such as a food-rationing system that he dubbed as flawed because it provided subsidized rationed food to only the country’s urban population,20 and not across the countryside where three-quarters of the 75 million people lived. Many scholars debated Sen’s hypothesis, pointing either to his methodological flaws or paucity of empirical evidences, or even questionable quality of statistics used in the study at the time of independence. Bangladesh lacked a centralized statistical bureau, and Sen considered the country’s independence year as the study’s base year when official activities were only minimally performed, or not performed at all.21 Act of God Such aggravating factors then frame the famine through three different episodes: acts of God, demi-God, and the evils.22 The Act of God was the unprecedented flood. The floods in July and August of that year washed out a bulk of the summer crop, while late sowing trimmed the Autumn output. The relay effects of this, as the officials noted, were a shortage of fertilizers and seeds, which would reduce the winter crops, in turn, depending on the timely arrival of the Monsoon (summer) rains. Bangladesh’s food availability depended on three factors: crop yield, food import, and foreign aid. According to the above analysis, the first of the troika of availability factors failed, pressuring the other two. In other words, the calamity drew attention (a forceful form of awareness), but not forceful enough for the right results to be retained. It was neither

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valued as Bashontibala was, merely observed and not fully managed at the time. These communication channels were poor, leading to incomplete consummation, benefiting the few rather than enhancing the value of the many. The Demi-God Such calamitous setting of popularity invokes the Act of demi-God. The unkindness to the already unkind international responses to a previous famine (in 1972), particularly leading the United States to cancel two large orders which were to be delivered by September 1974 just at the time of the famine.23 Political factors intervened: Bangladesh’s warmth and exchanges with Cuba. Bangladesh’s food dependence on the United States was jolted when the United States declined to provide aid because Bangladesh was trading with Cuba. This violated the PL480 condition that a recipient country cannot trade with blacklisted countries, such as Cuba. The U.S. threat in September 1974 forced Bangladesh to stop exporting to Cuba, but by then the Autumn famine was extensively over.24 Without sufficient dollars in the kitty, the Bangladesh government faced challenges of rising international grain prices against its climbing food-import needs.25 It was a trying time, aggravated by international political pinches. Here, too, public comprehension was at its lowest level (awareness ), meaning that the people could not go beyond merely observing what was going on, since the government was too strapped to facilitate retention of any major accomplishment, or even manage the multi-pronged issue adequately. The result: no reputation gained at the personal level (officials), not any social engagement possible, leaving the crisis open for vested interests to exploit. Internal Evil The Evil frame amplifies the domestic political weather itself as a product of a string of consecutive developments: a newly born country experiencing famine, the political turmoil which followed because of how this was handled, the assassination of Bangabandhu being partly driven by these factors, authoritarian rule for next 15-years, then a slapdash transition back to democracy. In early 1972, China-oriented, extreme left-wing Naxalites/Maoists (e.g., Abdul Haq, Mohammad Toaha of the Communist Party of East Bengal [Marxist-Leninist], Shahjahan Siraj from the Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal [National Socialist Party], as well as both

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Siraj Sikdar and Deben Shikder of the Purba Bangla Sorbahara Party, and so forth) wanted to overthrow the government through armed struggle to establish a socialist, totalitarian state under the party Shorbohara Reknay Oktontro” (dictatorship of the proletariat).26 On the other hand, Bhashani, the head of National Awami Party (NAP), declared in 1973 January that he would turn Bangladesh into Vietnam (referring to what happened to communist Vietnam in the 60s and 70s). Interestingly, the razakars (collaborators during the 1971 war), who were already allegedly involved in subversive activities, joined hands with these forces.27 In October of 1972, Jatyo Samajtantrik Dal (JSD) was formed to establish Boigganeek Shomajtontro (Scientific Socialism). It established Biplobi Sainik Sangstha (Revolutionary Soldier’s Organization) and the Biplobi Gono Bahini (People’s Revolutionary Army) in July 1974. Anthony Mascarenhas wrote in his book, Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood, that “if this JSD or Maoists had succeeded, Bangladesh would be pushed irrecoverably into radical, revolutionary channel.”28 JSD activities were already creating havoc: eliminating the bourgeois class, attacking and looting police stations, food silos, setting fire to jute mills, jute storehouse, and even trucks or mechanized boats/launches carrying food grains on a daily basis in different parts of Bangladesh. It was reported that 60 such attacks on police stations took place, with an estimated death of 4,925 people by May 1973. These skirmishes continued through 1974–1975. “They were,” Mascarenhas wrote, “the work of extreme right-wing groups such as Muslim League, and the left wing JSD.”29 The government responded by forming a special Security Force (Rakkhi Bahini) to deal with such activities and in retaliation, Maoists claimed up to 30–40,000 deaths on their sides due to government responses. The newly independent Bangladesh was on the verge of a civil war in 1974 when the famine took off. Thus, resources diverted to keep Naxalites at bay could have been allocated to alleviate the sufferings of the destitute people.30 This Naxalite threat was a 1971 import from India into newborn Bangladesh. Originating from a peasantry uprising on March 3, 1967, in the north Bengal hamlet of Naxalbari, this extremist Maoist movement was a latter-day reminder of the Tebhaga Movement in the province during the famine-ridden 1940s under British rule. Land reforms and rural exploitation incensed the villagers, so much so that the Indian Army had to be utilized to quell the 1967 uprising.31 This home-grown tribal Indian call-to-arms, with residue even today (“15 states, with 170

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districts under their influence, out of which 51 are seriously affected.,” according to a top-level Indian military officer only recently), threatened to enter the Mukti Bahini fighting Pakistani troops in 1971. Even though winning the Liberation War remained the underlying and strategic goal of all groups fighting Pakistani forces, distrust entered the picture because of such cleavages, complicated by Indian responses/reactions to/against such groups.32 Fears of this flaring up after any liberation remained a constant thought. Against the immediate post-independence famine across Bangladesh, these papered-over fissures posed the perfect opportunity to surface. Did these qualify as a brand? On the one hand, although these activities were widely known, comprehension did not deepen beyond awareness , perhaps attention in fits and starts. Graduating to the communications level was, on the other hand, also tepid: JSD activities were ‘observed.’ But nowhere outside the group were they or their principles valued sufficiently to be institutionalized beyond the subscribing groups; and nowhere since has scientific socialism even came close to exciting the masses as microfinance or migrant work have. Those activities and principles were managed only by the subscribers, but provoked opposing institutions, such as the Rakkhi Bahini to dig roots. For all these reasons consummation was maximum for personal reputation or personal benefit amid circumstances that did not gel with the public, although the issues at stake—hunger, poverty—warranted social engagement. Food Basket A recent U.N. report on global hunger highlights Bangladesh for having cut chronic hunger by more than half since 2000.33 Citing Bangladesh, the report said, Bangladesh is one of a number of bright spots in a global effort to eradicate hunger by 2030. Glen Dennings, at Columbia University and noted for his expertise on nutrition and development, listed Bangladesh as a success story giving the United Nations hope of eliminating hunger. He pointed to economic growth as a hunger-reduction prerequisite, and how improved agricultural productivity, a focus on farmers’ market accessibility, and social safety nets for the most vulnerable helped. The 1980s revolution in rice production helped Bangladesh become a self-sufficient producer, a country that was dependent so much on food imports in the 1970s. Small-farm mechanization, irrigation, and particular

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attention to boosting women’s participation in the economy (the readymade garments), along with girls’ education, have all combined to erase the old image of Bangladesh as a hunger hot-spot.34 In 2020, amid the Covid-19 pandemic, Bangladesh became the third largest producer of rice in the world, after China and India, in that order, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA): boro harvest was 36 million metric tons against an annual consumption of 35 million metric tons for the country. Note how the output had more than tripled while the population had more than doubled (still, stopped short of tripling), compared to the 1970s (as was alluded to in an earlier chapter of this volume), thus building a small but healthy surplus. Dr. Akhter Ahmed, chief of strategy support at the Dhaka, Bangladesh, office of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) reported three drivers of poverty reduction and hunger reduction, all happening in Bangladesh today: (a) regular economic growth; (b) human development in terms of education, health, and nutrition; and (c) a ‘safety net’ providing cash transfers and other assistance to that part of the population outside the growth process.35 As we know, culture matters. Bangladeshis happen to be very adaptive, in part due to a last-resort survival strategy, shaped, for example, by constantly finding resilience against annual cyclones and floods. In its four decades of independence from Pakistan, Bangladesh has acclimated to cultural needs and been open to deep cultural change—as mentioned, it applauds the participation of women in the economy (the RMG sector, notably), and the significant role of nongovernmental organizations (like Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee, or BRAC). Both the RMG and the NGO (nongovernmental organization) sectors proved important not only in fighting hunger, but also in other socioeconomic development of the country (some to be addressed later). Clearly branding drumbeats resonate here since there is a progressive proclivity, unlike the entirely opposite scientific socialism just discussed, under ‘The Devil’ subheading. Comprehension went deep, simply because retention resulted in replication: food proliferation led to RMG proliferation. This struck at the communications level with everything worth being valued, whether for self-sufficiency, or expanding exports, or even such institutional spearheads as the BRAC or Grameen Bank machines were turning out to be. No wonder the communications level could be nothing else other than social engagement .

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If we add up the Joi Bangla single frame through its five claimant components, we can see the two positive elements (Bashonti Bala Euphemy) and food basket standing out as brands. We must explore other single-issue frames to gauge how robust this outcome is with Joi Bangla.

Bangabandhu ’s Assassination and International Conspiracy Bangabandhu was assassinated on August 15, 1975, through a military coup. Some believe the reason for his assassination was his creation of a one-party, Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), from February 24, 1975 (as authorized by January 25, 1974, constitutional amendment validating one-party presidential rule). Against multiple ideologically driven factions and violence, the combination of Sheikh Mujib’s Rakhki Bahini (akin to today’s Rapid Action Battalion—RAB), from 1973, conceivably contributed to his assassination. Education Minister, Dr. Dipu Moni, in an Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB) webinar on Bangabandhu’s death anniversary, raised the prospect that Mujib’s secular ideology was the reason why. The reasons may be many, and could be amplified and muted, but how world leaders, including Kissinger, looked upon Bangabandhu due to his charismatic leadership, cannot be erased. Bangabandhu was a leader who could tell his powerful counterpart, Indira Gandhi, to withdraw Indian troops from Bangladesh when he was first in India, on his return home from Pakistan. Fidel Castro, in reference to Bangabandhu, said, “I haven’t seen the Himalayas but I have seen Mujib.” Internationally Mujib and his leadership aroused reverence and deference among world leaders, especially those with South Asian geopolitical interests. The unfolding story of his assassination was crosshatched in Dhaka Cantonment by pseudo freedom fighters: Khandaker Abdur Rashid, Farook Rahman, Shariful Hoque Dalim and others. All had reported to the Mujibnagar government toward the end of the war claiming they had defected from the Pakistani army. This group was seen as ‘fifth columnists,’ working in disguise for Pakistan.36 In March 1975, Rashid and Farook shared their plan to overthrow Bangabandhu with General Zia, who sided with them but could not directly get involved with their plan, as a senior officer. It was his duty to report this to his superiors. He did not.37

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Introducing the military into the very fragile Bangladeshi framework may have stabilized the rocky atmosphere, but it sowed seeds that would haunt democratic forces, and particularly the party Sheikh Mujib belonged to, indeed founded. Yet, the most monumental takeaway is a Bangladesh without Bangabandhu. Single-handedly he gave the Bangalee people an identity, mission, vision, autonomy, and freedom. No single Bangalee could stand as metaphorically and substantively tall as he did during his time, so tall no enemy could bring him down on his espoused causes. All it took, however, was a traitor or two. That remains the legacy of this particular frame. In its wake, the Bangladesh boat would be rocked by other forces, as we turn to next. International Mystery The coup planners were backed by the U.S. embassy in Dhaka and the coup was developed through the purchasing of arms. In his much publicized book, The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens, a British-U.S. journalist and commentator, wrote, ‘In November 1974, on a brief face-saving tour of the region, Kissinger made an eight-hour stop in Bangladesh and had a three-minute press conference…. Within few weeks of his departure … a faction at the U.S. embassy in Dacca began covertly meeting a group of Bangladeshi officers who were planning a coup against Mujib.’ Philip Cherry, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) Station Chief in Dhaka, were among those whom the coup plotters contacted, generating an international conspiracy frame, and adding to the assassination of Bangabandhu frame. Unless released, the related U.S. classified papers could forever hide a mystery (Ambassador Zamir and Professor Imtiaz Ahmed believed so on a talk show in Deepto Television aired on August 14, 2020, at 11:00 pm). A few upright army officers tried to inform Mujib about the coup, but Mujib trusted his people too much: they turned up in droves every time he summoned them after 1969; and he gave them back an independent country. R. K. Yadav, a former RAW (Research and Analysis Wing, India’s intelligence agency) Officer of India, wrote about RAW intelligence detecting conspiracy movements against Mujib, in his book, Mission RAW.38 At the end of 1974, R. N. Kao, a top RAW officer, personally met Mujib to inform him about the conspiracy. Again in March 1975, Kao precisely detailed a coup plot to Mujib. As usual, Bangabandhu ignored the warning. On August 15 of that year, Bangabandhu and his

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entire family were assassinated. That plotting still remains an international mystery, though pieces of it have begun to sort themselves out. The time it takes to complete the assassination picture may be time usurped by other dynamics and other frames. We turn to an antagonistic frame, antagonized not at all by what it stands for, but by how the same extreme element that removed Bangabandhu and his family may pervert one of the world’s most peaceful religions. Here we see not the progressive nature of brands , if only to become marketable, but a negative, nefarious development whose presence was (and continues to be) so insidious, Bangladeshis must remember them, if only to preempt and prevent them. At all three levels, the single frame digs deep: retention under comprehension; valued, in the sense of the victim’s legacy, under communications ; and social engagements under consummation, if only to build a country-wide network against such hideous future developments. The single subsidiary issue of international conspiracy also merits a similar dispensation, except perhaps the strength of the intensity at all three levels. Nonetheless, it merits no more than attention under comprehension since there were many more local prima facie evidence than international; observance under communication, since it was neither managed locally nor was it valued; and consummation served merely private benefits.

Islamization of Bangladesh: A New Brand The 1972 constitution of Bangladesh passed under the leadership Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, cherished secularism and democracy. Following Bangabamdhu’s assassination, President Ziaur Rahman’s military regime, in 1977, removed the principles of socialism and secularism, replacing them with the entreaty of faith in Allah while demolishing the ban on religious politics, which resurrected the Islamist party Jamaat-eIslami. This party sided with Pakistan during the war and its militias were involved in large-scale massacres. Bringing the party into the front seat of Bangladesh policy-making and future-thinking went alongside Zia’s accent on the concept of ‘Bangladeshi’ nationalism that emphasized the Muslim characteristics of the country, through his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). BNP nationalism was a departure from the Awami League’s Bangalee nationalism, enshrined as it was in building upon the country’s ethno-linguistic identity.

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This departure was further disintegrated by the succeeding military regime of General Hussain Muhammad Ershad, who founded the Jatiya Party in 1988 when Islam was made the state religion. But why was it necessary to rebrand a secular state into an Islamic one? One answer in relevant literature is of military dictators using Islamization as a legitimation strategy to compensate for their lack of electoral legitimacy.39 In their article, Ahamed and Nazneen conclude that the ‘“upsurge in Islamic activities” under military rule was “not due to Islamic revivalism” but “power politics,” especially when it is imposed in a country whose mindset of the paradigm is based on secularism. These unfolding stories from the past impose a social cost upon new Bangladeshi generations over identity, as inherent in the 2013 Shahbagh Movement. Two identity factions clashed, one bearing the identity of Bangalee first and then a Muslim, the other Muslim first and then a Bangladeshi (not a Bangalee), as both Hindus and Muslims can relate to Bangalee culture. Identity bifurcation between religion and ethnicity was inherited from British India’s 1947 separation. Since then Pakistanis have been elated with their Muslim identity, though Bangalees in the East, because of their secular mindset, prioritized Bangalee ethnicity instead over religious identity. Bangladesh’s Islamization did have an international significance. Both authoritarian military leaders gripped the attention of global Islamic welfare associations to grow. They received funding from the Middle East with their use of Islamic rhetoric and to promote madrasa education. The change has brought not only the Middle East but also Pakistan, closer to Bangladesh, spilling over to trade and commerce too. As Bangladesh takes up the new brand of an Islamic country, it is desirable to quote Sheikh Mujib. In responding to a journalist questioning him why he wanted to break away from a Muslim state, he replied: “If the only reason for our continuing to be with West Pakistan is that we are both Moslem, why should not we join some other Moslem state, like Kuwait, from which we might get more money?”40 What we find is the introduction of a religious brand. It certainly attracted attention, and since Bangalees have historically been traditional and conservative, even retention goes deep without generally becoming radical. Respecting Islam has been the norm rather than any fundamentalist cry: it was not a BNP characteristic (in fact, would collide with BNP nationalism at some point), nor of the military, given all the many loopholes to institute an Islamic society.

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Religion is locally valued. At the communications level, Islam sunk deep, as it also did with consummation. It is one of the rallying forces of social engagement. In other words, Islam is a viable force to brand within Bangladesh.

Indemnity Act Clashing with Democratic Identity Aspirations: Symbolizing Nur Hussain and Shahbagh General Ziaur Rahman’s dictatorial regime ended with his assassination, on May 30, 1981, in Bangladesh’s key port city, Chittagong, by a faction of officers of the Bangladesh Army. Zia gave birth to a new slogan Bangladeshi nationalism with an Islamic flavor: Bangladesh Zindabad (‘Long Live Bangladesh’) had replaced Joi Bangla. In the process of his taking over as the BNP leader, he paved the way for the revival of religionbased political parties and resuscitated their leaders (who had sided with the opponents of Bangladesh liberation). Though it staunchly advocated nationalism, any deodorant reflected the real BNP face—the recipient and advocate of diverse political elements, leftists, centrists, religious zealots, and deserters from other political parties including the Awami League. It became associated with the 1975 Indemnity Act. The Dragon Seed: Indemnity Act Following Bangabandhu’s assassination in 1975, an Indemnity Act was adopted giving immunity to those behind the assassination.41 Newly installed President Khondokar Mushtaq Ahmed promulgated it in September 1975 through an ordinance entitled Indemnity Ordinance 1975 (Ordinance No. 50 of 1975). It was made a formal statute by Major General Ziaur Rahman and later approved by the Jatiyo Sangshad (National Assembly) through the Fifth Amendment to the constitution,42 on July 9, 1979. The Indemnity Act was treasured in the Bangladesh constitution. During his regime, Ershad legalized military coups, martial law decrees, and orders protected under the Indemnity Act.43 The Indemnity Act of consecutive military dictatorial regimes framed the socio-political scenario of later Bangladesh. Most importantly, the Shahbagh Movement proved how the Indemnity Act intensified divisions among Bangladeshis over secular and non-secular ideologies, based

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on a psychological war between ethnicity—over religion, or religion over ethnicity, indeed over loyalty boundaries, thus making them more slippery than one might find under traditional political contestation. Both the military regimes of General Zia and General Ershad carefully crafted almost every institution in Bangladesh. Ershad’s authoritarian rule continued up to December 1990, eventually overthrown by a mass revolution against dictatorship. According to the constitutional provision, a Caretaker Government was formed, with the Chief Justice, Shahabuddin Ahmed, at its head. Through the February 1991 general elections, power was transferred to the elected Jatya Sangshad representative. Civilian political supremacy over the military was restored, thus creating a passage to free and democratic society.44 As Jamaluddin wrote about this democratic restoration: though the word “restoration” of civilian political reign is referred to in the attainment of democracy, it begs the question if democratic norms meaningfully prevailed in Bangladesh society across its history? As evidenced in the above excerpts, especially through the nationalist movement, Bangladesh attained both its independence and rule of democracy when the 1971 Liberation War ended Pakistani military rule. At the start of the military rule, after 1975, that is, right after assuming office, the military regime of General Zia legalized illegal military orders and administration by instituting the Fifth Amendment in 1979, just when Bangladesh struggled for state-building. This was meant to restart constitutional rule in Bangladesh.45 The 1981 presidential election, in which Justice Abdus Sattar was made the country’s ninth president (May 1981–March 1982), constitutionally legalized the BNP government.46 Constitutional democracy would now function under military fascism, and would do so for ten more years under General Ershad, who assumed office after General Zia’s assassination. Democracy lost its ongoing constitutional base under Ershad, removing hopes for the development of democratic liberties and social institutions. The freedom-loving people of Bangladesh came out on the streets and protested. The November 10, 1987 killing of Juba (Youth) League member Noor Hossain, a representative of democracy, symbolically galvanized the country with the pro-democracy movement, ‘Dhaka siege,’ for the first time after the Liberation War. Noor Hussain was shot because he was painted with several slogans in white: ‘Down with autocracy’ (Sairachar ni patjak) on his chest, and on his back, ‘Let democracy be free’ (Ganatantra mukti pak). Dinu Alam and Pavel Rahman photographed Noor Hossain wearing slogans on his chest and back just

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before his death, and it became an important visual icon in Bangladesh, representing the struggle for democracy.47 His death gave visibility to opposition sentiments against Ershad’s autocratic rule. More poignantly, it exposed the scions of this movement: the youth, probably too young at the time of the Liberation War, if born at all then, but now more full-fledged champions of democracy than the veterans who fought that war, even summoned the war through similar movement a generation earlier, in the late-1960s. If still alive, they could not cherish sustained democracy in their lifetimes. It was this ghost staring the new youth in its face from the late 1980s. The Shahbagh Movement ventilated their hopes, frustration, and desire to command the ship back to a democratic playground. If the Indemnity Act was the visible barrier, even if removed from the constitution, its supporters would not be gone. Democracy would still remain an instrument of political leaders, not a maturing Main Street practice. The 1991 general election could not sincerely enhance democracy, and though the 1996 election removed the Indemnity Act, it was thwarted from instituting democracy fully. This was the stark lesson democracy advocates learned only by experimenting with it (which distinguishes the Shahbagh Movement from the late 1960s Sixpoint Movement): instituting democracy requires more than a historical ‘overnight’ time span, often spanning generations (an observation also supported by evidences from almost all ‘advanced’ democracies today). The dichotomous political setting characterized post-military Bangladesh, with one group challenging the roots of Bangladesh, the other preserving it. Both groups alternated power until 2009, each four-year election transiting through a Caretaker Government against ever-escalating socio-political discontent. Such was the disarray the public voted decisively for the pro-Bangladesh Awami League in the 2009 election, giving Sheikh Hasina a full mandate to complete what she could not before: quash the Indemnity Act and complete the War Criminals trials by meting out actual punishment. That they were harsh and elicited concerns inside the country and outside represented a sentiment of lesser importance than their very execution. Although the ‘Indemnity faction’ lost, democracy would be questioned for a long time, both from within and outside. What did the single frame of this tussle signify? First, comprehensionlevel retention meant the political division has not evaporated. Tussles may be a part and parcel of both political competition and democracy, but in Bangladesh, it aligned with defending or denying independence,

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and thereby the nuts and bolts of independence, not the future tracks independence gives the opportunity to create. There was no place for simple attention of awareness ; and exposure was not an option: it was a hands-down, cut-throat competition. No wonder, then, why the communications means went beyond awareness : it was managed in one way by one party, and another by the alternate party, each also valuing only its own terms and preferences. Consummation followed segmented lines: rather than a social exchange, there were more individual-level benefits and reputation. Like the Islam-secularity tussle, indemnity-democracy square-offs contained the germinal components of political power-rivalry, the only difference being how raw the Liberation War nerves still remained half a century down the line. Any attention at branding would have to accommodate how, for a large chunk of the first half-century of the country, the combative nature of internal forces was strong enough to tarnish the typically glossy brand that emanates from acquiring independence, no matter how bloody it was. Shahbagh Movement and Identity Predicament In the unfolding political drama, the Shahbagh Movement of bloggers gathered momentum just about when the international criminal tribunals were being formed and the trial was about to begin. Two top-notch Jamat-i-islami culprits already got their death penalty. However, Delwar Hossain Sayeedi got life imprisonment. Demanding his death penalty, the social media movement took to the streets. Now, this was supported by especially the children and family members of the martyred intellectuals, the civil society members who comprised different walks of life like the writers, poets, drama personalities, teachers, students, and so forth. The protest and the government of Bangladesh faced international pressure to not hang Sayeedi, who had lots of connections in the Middle East and in Pakistan. However, the Shahbagh Movement reinforced the country-wide division into two, making it vivid that the identity-based clash between religion and ethnicity was still as strong as ever. The Movement revived all the slogans of the Liberation War. Those supporting the Movement were the pro-liberation factions of the country. Because the Shahbaghis turned out demanding the death sentence of the war criminals who were antiBangladesh sentiments and who launched the Islamic revolution in the country, the Shahbaghis were termed atheists. Therefore, those who were

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pro-Liberation War demanded the death penalty for the war criminals, and as their ideology resonated with the Awami League secular sentiment of 1971, they were all termed non-Muslims and therefore atheists. This notion was taken up by the religious faction of Islamic Oikkyo Jote, which, in the absence of the Jaamat-i-Islami, got the platform and launched the anti-Shahbagh Movement. It all culminated in the burning down of shops and streets in Dhaka putting the blame on the Shahbaghis for the disaster. Thus the Shahbagh Movement blatantly exposed the identity crisis among Bangladeshis as to who they are: are they Bangalee first, and then Muslim; or are they Muslim first, then Bangalee? Bangladesh was moving toward what Robert Dahl would call liberalization and public contestation.48 People aspired to restore democracy through mass revolutions organized by political parties, civil society members, and different socio-cultural forces, including students, intellectuals, professionals, and laborers. Analyzing the nature and characteristics of the opposition forces is critical in this frame analysis, as they have since reshaped the ideological bases of today’s mindset and paradigms. In his 2006 work, A. K. M. Jamaluddin observed the opposition to the military dictator stemmed from three pockets49 : political parties and alliances; interest groups and non-participatory groups; and other freelance supporters of the movement. The major opposition political parties comprised of (a) the Bangladesh Awami League (AL), with ideological combination of semi-bourgeoisie and pro-socialist ideology; (b) Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) as right-wing pro capitalist and proreligious; (c) National Socialist Party (JSD) and Bangladesh Workers Party (BWP) as pro-China radical leftists; (d) Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB) as pro-Moscow leftists (Marxist-Leninist); Bangladesh Workers Party (BWP); and (e) Jamaat-i-Islami Bangladesh (JIB), a combination of collaborator political forces who collaborated with the Pakistan Army during the Liberation War and supported pro-Maududi religious fundamentalism and other Islamic Parties (IPs), such as Muslim League (ML) and Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), party, and so forth.50 These political parties were further classified into two distinct groups: the 15-party alliance under the leadership of Sheikh Hasina, with AL, CPB, JSD and BWP participants, were pro-liberation forces, while the seven-party antiliberation alliance with the fundamentalist JIB and ML forces were led by the BNP leader (widow of General Zia), Khaleda Zia. However, it was civil society—including intellectuals and professionals, poets, authors,

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artists, doctors, engineers, and people from government and nongovernment officials—effectively forming the democratic norms and values in the socio-cultural sphere of then Bangladesh. Later, during the Shahbagh Movement in 2013, we saw these same social segments of society making clear fractions, producing an identity-crisis frame, sometimes overtly and sometimes covertly. Elections were held, first in 1991, then in 1996. The BNP-led sevenparty coalition won the 1991 election, with Jaamat-i-Islami also on board. BNP leadership routinized the General Zia framework. Consisting mostly of the social elites-businessmen and rich people, the BNP-led seven-party alliance was pro-religious, it promoted Islamic religious values and madrasa education. Through the juxtaposition of ‘Bangalee-ism’ and ‘Islamization,’ a strong framework evolved challenging the essence of the Liberation War, or if not challenging, then reconstructing that war differently. Somehow this did not gel, as evident in the 1996 election. When the Awami League again took over, one of its first steps was to place a bill to terminate the 1975 Indemnity Ordinance, a move to widen the scope to try the killers of Bangabandhu and his family. The bill was unanimously passed in parliament in November 1996, but the AL regime could not do much with trying the culprits of Bangabandhu’s killing, as the BNP victory in the 2001 election, for the second time, inhibited that option. Yet, against popular uprisings, Bangladesh was left in the hands of a military-backed Caretaker Government for two years, that is, to help transit from the end of one electoral tenure to the next through a neutrally-managed election. That is how Bangladesh’s political evolution became a history of bipolar forces rather than the long-standing multi-pronged expressions of interests: in the late-1960s this happened to unite Bangalees against West Pakistan, highlighted by the Awami League against the Muslim League previously, then in the 1990s and beyond the Awami League against the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, with the platforms of both dominant parties prevailing over the platforms of lesser and/or other parties. Democracy still remained a hostage of the few, rather than an inherent right of the many. Sheikh Hasina returned to power convincingly this time, in 2009, with a full and free mandate to hold trials for war criminals. She would deliver eventually, but the bipolar political architecture was also shattered, taking with it an essential component of electoral contestation. This remains the final Bangladesh prize on its 50th Anniversary: having broken the

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structures of past politics, the slow maturity of representative government and a viable opposing party would supply the country with the missing elements of a truly representative government.

‘Ekushey ’: A Guiding Philosophy Against Oppression, Injustice and Denial Suppressing language, culture, and heritage could be far worse than economic oppression. That was exactly what West Pakistan’s rulers did. The Bangla language was the most important vehicle of cultural expression for those who spoke it. The refusal of the central government in West Pakistan to grant official status to Bangla became the focal point of struggle in the movement for freedom. The Bangla Language Movement of February 21, 1952, popularly known as Ekushey, demanded the recognition of Bangla as the official language of East Pakistan. The language movement, as described earlier, became the harbinger of the nationalist movement for freedom and thus had a socio-cultural and a political impact on the dignity of the people of East Pakistan. When in 2000, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) declared February 21 as International Mother Language Day (IMLD) for the whole world to celebrate, it was, indeed, a great honor for Bangalees all over the world to commemorate the Language Movement and the ethno-linguistic rights of people beyond Bangladesh’s borders. Pride filled the air across the country that the supreme sacrifice of our language martyrs was being graciously admired and remembered the world over for the only country that fought for Mother Language. In return, the diminishing ferocity behind converting that language movement into political independence after the Liberation War even more after the IMLD adoption. This is not to say its force is spent. On the contrary, the same force now feeds other than political instincts and expectations, mostly cultural and patriotism, as and when called for, rather than as a perpetual force. Newly independent countries elsewhere show this same dilating post-independence pattern. The Urdu-speaking Muslims always advocated Bangalee Muslims should speak Urdu. Because of such attempts by his contemporary colleagues to establish Urdu as the lingua franca of Muslim Bangalees , Khan Bahadur Ahsanullah, an educationist and social reformer, wrote in 1918, Bangabhasha o Musalman Shahittya (Bangla Language and Literature of the Muslims), that one must respect Bangla and recognize its

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preeminence over other languages comparable to Urdu.51 The Muslim feminist Roquia Sakhawat Hussain chose to write in Bangla to reach out to the people and develop it as a modern literary language. Exactly twenty-five years before February 1952, the Muslim Shahittya Shamaj (Muslim Literary Society) launched a conference on the appropriateness of the use of Bangla in Muslim society in general and in education.52 As of today, Ekushey has been a guiding philosophy for any movement against oppression, injustice, and denial of self-emancipation for the Bangalees . In short, over a century, the Bangla language has run a full circle, from nowhere to the forefront, then on to its own independent assertion, before sliding into a global context of both recognition and viability. As with the national identity mainframe, this Ekushey single frame was all about retention at the comprehension level, value at the communications level, and reflected social engagements at the consummation level. Why the same issue that guided Bangalees to Bangladesh from 1952 had to be resurrected decades after the 1971 Liberation War had been won goes back to the kernels of the country: defending all the country stood for in 1971, had to be reaffirmed, given the Indemnity-democracy tension. None other than Lord Acton explained why: ‘eternal vigilance is the price of freedom’ means nothing else but eternal vigilance reflecting a viable identity, such as language in this case, as the symbol of sustained freedom.

Securing Rohingya The August 2017 Rohingya influx across the Naf River produced an image of Bangladesh as that of humanity, that is, a country with a human face rather than bedrock power politics. By providing shelter to over a million Rohingya refugees pouring in from August 2017, Bangladesh placed humanity above all else—a feature not commonly found, especially over the same issue of refugee influxes: we see the lack of such caretaking of Syrians in Europe and a number of unsettled groups across Africa, as of Burundians/Rwandians in Tanzania after 1999. The country’s empathy for the atrocities that happened to the Rohingyas refugees also rekindled Bangladesh’s 1971 plight. Earlier, between 1978 and 1991, 2 lakh (200,000, or 0.2 million) Rohingya Muslims came into Bangladesh and took refuge in the Cox’s Bazaar area. Now, in the same area, Kutupalong has become home to the largest refugee camp in the world, where about one million Rohingya refugees live.53 Most of the Rohingyas want to

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return to their own homes across the Naf, and though they are comfortable in the camps, restlessness persists, especially in relocating them, for example, to Bhasan Char island, far from the border. They demand they can only return home after Myanmar confirms their safe return and give them back their right to citizenship. That is a wish unlikely to be met soon. Though the Rohingya issue is of international significance, it may be considered that China has its vested interest in the Rakhine state and imposes a gigantic burden upon Bangladesh. In turn, Bangladesh cannot raise its voice too high or hard with Myanmar by virtue of offending the country that helped it build the Padma Bridge when the World Bank withdrew. The country must now contemplate brands other than the Language Movement spirit (as in the 2000 IMLD transformation), stretching outwards because of forces coming into the country: not just refugees from Myanmar, but also funding from China. A new ballgame is bound to open up in the country’s second half-century. This single-issue frame issue does what no other single-issue frame had done: abandon an endogenous anchor, and invoke exogenous reaches. On the one hand, it speaks of a country confident enough to reach outside its boundaries so early in its life, yet on the other, it carries seeds of diminishing sovereignty strength and increasing porosity. At the comprehensive level, it invokes no other component more than retention: the influx was one thud; but with no exit anywhere, the refugee stay deepens the thud’s reverberations for quite some time to come. Shifting to the communicative level, values of quite opposite types may dominate, again, for the entire duration: the value of humanitarianism, and the value of dropping only half-anchor for the refugees whose determination to return will likely last as long as they remain. That seems to be for a long time. Finally, at the consummation level, again, social engagements speak more to the issues than either reputation or benefit, though both also make a dent in different contrasting ways: humanitarianism can make a claim from the humongous hurdles crossed; but the insolubility also sinks in, as, indeed, emanates as the common feature of refugees anywhere.

Concluding Comments Organized by George Harrison and Ravi Shankar, the ‘Concert for Bangladesh’ was held in New York’s Madison Square Gardens on August

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1, 1971, to expose the plight in the country, while also raise awareness on the atrocities of the civil war and help the victims of the Bhola cyclone in 1970. It helped enormously to bring ‘Bangladesh’ to the global arena during and after its liberation. Fifty years later, Bangladesh holds a global significance in terms of, especially, remittance and development, based on its RMG sector performances. The frames analyzed in this chapter time and again highlight the sentiments of Bangalee people and portray a nationality that has huge international significance on the globe. Bangladesh’s Bay of Bengal makes it more prone to the boosting of its economy through ‘blue economy’ and, because it is a part of the greater Indian Ocean, the grand strategists seem to be much interested to shuffle in its waters to peril the peace-loving yet puzzling Chinese. By examining seven other mainframes the picture emerging is as predictably wavering with what is to be branded (or with what subject can the country be best branded), as the last chapter was predictably steadfast with branding national identity. Here we find those single-frame images directly related to national identity (Joi Bangla and Ekushey philosophy), or indirectly (Bangabandhu’s assassination within an international conspiracy connection) registering not just retention-level comprehension, but also value-driven communications and social engagements type of consummation. All the other single-framed subjects waver. Table 3.1 encapsulates the chapter’s findings. Overall, we note how at the comprehension level, we get a string of retention recorded: every single-frame issue records that, albeit where multiple subjects have been measured within a single-framed issue, as with Joi Bangla, the more the reference to a scholarship-driven branding , or an externally located subject is involved (Bangabandhu assassination’s international conspiracy component, for example), the retention-capacity thins out awareness or attention. Whether this conceals embedded nationalism or unambiguous patriotism we cannot easily confirm, but given how the 1971 War Crime Trials only recently concluded and convicted a few people, it is plausibly the case we are. At least the single-frame issues are valued at the communications level, meaning that if we comprehend the issue, we are more likely to disseminate our view to others. This is particularly relevant over divisive issues, which the indemnity-democracy clash both invites and depicts. What is relevant about this contentious issue is simply that that is more likely to be the post-liberation status quo than not: what one side does, the other will

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Table 3.1 Seven post-1971 branding mainframes Mainframes Winning freedom Joi Bangla: *Bashontri Bala Euphemy *Amartya Sen’s Entitlement theory *The Demi-God *Internal Evil *Food basket Bangabandhu’s assassination and International Conspiracy *International mystery Islamization of Bangladesh Indemnity—Democracy Clash *The Dragon Seed *Shahbag Movement Ekushey philosophy Securing Rohingyas

Comprehension

Communication

Consummation

R AT AW AW R

V O O O/M V

SE B B B SE

R AT

V O

SE O

R R R R R R (twin-sided)

V O/M/V O/M/V O/M/V V V (twin-sided)

SE B B B SE SB, but also R/B

not, thus treating it lightly (observation) or seriously (managed), rather than something to be valued. For all of the nuances observed in the above explanations, the consummation level merely dittos the corresponding response: social engagement of the issue entwines with national identity, otherwise more specious instincts, like personal reputation or personal benefit, depending on how vested the issue, the anchor upon which it is to be remembered, and what kind of a support base that issue may have (or is likely to) garner(ed). The only personal reputation or personal benefit not debated in those 50 years has been Bangabandhu, but his assassination smears that holy, untouchable imprint he otherwise has. This particular debate issue is the stuff of domestic politics, conducted by parties. It is the proper domain where social engagements will be less than complete, or more realistically, absent. For branding purposes, important as the contentious issues are, only in their wholesome form, that is, both sides being present do they make productive, positive noise: otherwise the brand loses market appeal, or worse still, foments a distancing response that ultimately undermines branding. We dare say that over another 50 years there will be many more of these quibbling issues, so many that branding many itself serve

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proportionately fewer and fewer people in the population, thus becoming a segmented representation. If that be so, we should reiterate these first 50 years since the branding ballpark may be far larger than we will ever get: even national identity or liberation-related connections or memories cannot but soften over time, for example, slip from retention to attention, even awareness . For now, though, the nationalism alluded to may be the best brand to fetch more dividends than any other.

Notes 1. Contingency Study for Indo-Pakistan Hostilities, 1971. 2. J. F. R. Jacob, An Odyssey in War and Peace: An Autobiography by Lft. Gen JFR Jacob (New Delhi: Roli Books Pvt Ltd, 2011). 3. Ibid. 4. Howard S. Levie, “The Indo-Pakistani Agreement of August 28, 1973,” The American Journal of International Law 68, no. 1 (January 1974): 95–97. 5. Mukti. Directed by Manu Chobe. Performed by Milind Soman and Yashpal Sharma. 2017. 6. National Geographic 1972. Ibid. 7. Jacob, 2011. 8. Levie, 1974. 9. Jacob, 2011. 10. National Geographic 1972. 11. Cail Newsome, “The use of slogans in political rhetoric,” The Corinthian (2002): 21–23. 12. William Safire, “The way we live now: 12-23-01: On language: Roll’s Roles,” The New York Times , December 23, 2001. 13. “HC asks govt to announce, ‘Joy Bangla’ as the national slogan,” The Financial Express, March 10, 2020. 14. Ellis, 1972. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. Ibid. 18. Ibid. 19. Imtiaz A. Hussain, “Bangladesh as a ‘developed country’: ‘Graduating’ imperatives,” The Daily Star, February 13, 2022, from: https://www.the dailystar.net/recovering-covid-reinventing-our-future/blueprint-brightertomorrow/news/bangladesh-developed-country-graduating-imperatives2960461, last consulted February 21, 2022. 20. Kaushik Basu, “Entitlement Failure,” Britannica. n.d.

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21. Khandakar Qudrat-i-Elahi, “Amartya Sen, fad and the 1974 famine in Bangladesh: A closer look,” Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics XXXVIII (2016–2017): 17–33. 22. Rabiul H. Zaki, “1974 famine in Bangladesh and aggravating factors,” bdnews24.com, July 19, 2013. 23. Miah, 1993, 209. 24. Sen, 1981. 25. Ibid. 26. Zaki, 2013. 27. Ibid. 28. Anthony Mascarenhas, Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986). 29. Ibid. 30. Zaki, 2013. 31. Major General Y. K. Gera (ret’d), “Naxalism: Threat to India’s security,” USI Journal (July–September 2009), from: https://usiofindia.org/pub lication/usi-journal/naxalism-a-threat-to-indias-security-2/, last consulted February 21, 2022. 32. Gleanings of such a Mukti Bahini flavor can be found in even balanced Liberation War autobiographies, such as by Qayyum Khan, Bittersweet Victory: A Freedom Fighter’s Tale (Dhaka: University Press Ltd, 2013). 33. Howard LaFranchi, “From famine to food basket: How Bangladesh became a model for reducing hunger,” Christian Science Monitor, June 17, 2015. 34. LaFranchi, 2015. 35. Ibid. 36. Abdul Mannan, “The conspiracy behind the assassination of Bangabandhu,” The Daily Star, August 15. 37. Ibid. 38. Ibid. 39. Jasmin Lorch, “Islamization by secular ruling parties: The case of Bangladesh,” Religion and Politics, Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association, 2018. 40. Sing, 1971. 41. Islam, 2016. 42. Liton, 2009. 43. Bdnews24.com, 2009. 44. A. K. M. Jamaluddin, The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in Bangladesh (Leeds, UK, January 2006). 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Alam, 2012.

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48. Robert A. Dahl, Polyarchy: Participation and Opposition (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1971). 49. Jamaludin, Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in Bangladesh. 50. Syed Abul Ala Maududi. Pakistani preacher who challenged colonial power, formed the Jamaat-i-Islam Islamic political party in 1941 to promote an Islamic welfare state, and lashed out at secularism as ‘the cause of all problems facing the Muslim world and unity was the remedy for the weakness from which Islam had suffered over the centuries.’ See Sirajul Haq, “Syed Maududi: The great Islamic thinker who influenced millions of people across the globe,” The News International, September 24, 2019, from: https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/531194-syed-mau dudi-the-great-islamic-thinker-who-influenced-millions-of-people-acrossthe-globe, last consulted January 16, 2022. 51. Muhammad Abdul Mazid, “Significance of International Mother Language Day,” The Daily Star, February 21, 2013. 52. Ibid. 53. Human Resources Watch, “Tanzania: Burundian refugees ‘disappeared’, tortured: Halt forced returns; investigate police, intelligence services,” November 20, 2022, from: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/ 11/30/tanzania-burundian-refugees-disappeared-tortured, last consulted February 21, 2022.

Bibliography Ahamed, Emajuddin, and D. R. J. A. Nazneen. “Islam in Bangladesh: Revivalism or Power Politics?” Asian Survey (1990): 795–808. Ahmed, Helal Uddin. “The Role of Media During Liberation War.” The Financial Express. March 25, 2020. https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/ special-issues/independence-national-day/the-role-of-press-during-liberationwar-1585147416 (accessed June 19, 2020). Alam, Ahmed Shatil. “Nur Hussain, Who?” The New Age. December 2, 2012. https://archive.is/20130620204429/http://newagebd.com/sup liment.php?sid=164&id=1229 (accessed August 6, 2020). Anderson, Jack. “US Task Force Did Not Frighten India.” The Washington Post. December 21, 1971: E15. Baltimore Sun. August 5, 1971. Bangladesh Genocide Archive. Newspapers Report. n.d. http://www.genocideb angladesh.org/newspaper-reports/ (accessed June 12, 2020). Bangladesh Genocide Archcive. Timeline. n.d. http://www.genocidebangladesh. org/category/1953/ (accessed August 20, 2020). Banglapedia. Mass Upsurge, 1969. n.d. http://en.banglapedia.org/index.php? title=Mass_Upsurge,_1969 (accessed August 21, 2020).

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Basu, Kaushik. “Entitlement Failure.” Britannica. n.d. https://www.britannica. com/science/famine/Entitlement-failure (accessed August 21, 2020). bdnews24.com. “Indemnity Laws a Black Spot in Bangladesh’s Human Rights Record.” bdnews24.com. August 9, 2009. https://bdnews24.com/bangla desh/2009/08/15/indemnity-laws-a-black-spot-in-bangladesh-s-human-rig hts-record (accessed July 8, 2020). Bennett Jones, Owen. Pakistan: Eye of the Storm. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. Blood, Archer K. The Cruel Birth of Bangladesh—Memoir of an American Diplomat. Dhaka: UPL, 2002. Chattopadhyaya, Sumana. “Framing 3/11 Online: A Comparative Analysis of the News Coverage of 2012 Japan Disaster by CNN.com and Ashai.com.” China Media Report Overseas 9 (1), January 2013. https://go.gale.com/ps/ i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE|A321579443&v=2.1&it=r&sid= AONE&asid=693bb37c (accessed November 4, 2022). Chowdhury, Iftekhar Ahmed. “US Role in the 1971 Indo-Pak War:Implications for Bangladesh-US Relations.” ISAS Working Paper No. 165. February 15, 2013. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/161752/ISAS_Working_Paper_165_-_ US_Role_in_the_1971_Indo-Pak_War_25022013165818.pdf (accessed August 6, 2020). Contingency Study for Indo-Pakistan Hostilities. May 25, 1971. Dummet, Mark. “Bangladesh War: The Article That Changed History.” BBC News. December 16, 2011. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia16207201#:~:text=On%2013%20June%201971%2C%20an,into%20hiding% 20and%20changed%20history (accessed June 7, 2020). Elahi, Khandakar Qudrat-I. “Amartya Sen, Fad and the 1974 Famine in Bangladesh: A Closer Look.” Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics XXXVIII (2016–2017): 17–33. Ellis, William S. “Bangladesh: Hope Nourishes a New Nation.” National Geographic. September 1972. Encyclopeadia Britannica. The Pakistani Period, 1947–71. n.d. https://www. britannica.com/place/Bangladesh/The-Pakistani-period-1947-71 (accessed August 20, 2020). Entman, Robert M., Jorg Matthes and Lynn Pellicano. “Nature, Source and Effects of News Framing.” In Handbook of Jounalism Studies, ed. Karin Wahl -Jorgensen and Thomas Hanitzsch. New York: Routledge, 2009. Filkins, Dexter. “Collateral Damage.” New York Times. September 27, 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/books/review/the-blood-tel egram-by-gary-j-bass.html (accessed August 8, 2020). Gameson, W. A. and A. Modigliani. “Media Discourse and Public Opinion on Nuclear Power: A Constructivist Approach.” American Journal of Sociology 95, no. 1 (1989).

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Gupta, Jyoti Sen. History of Freedom Movement in Bangaldesh, 1943–1973: Some Involvement. Naya Prokash, 1974. Hamid, Hasan. Bdnews24.com. opinion page. February 20, 2019. https://opi nion.bdnews24.com/2019/02/20/how-many-were-martyred-in-1952-lan guage-movement/ (accessed July 29, 2020). Islam, S. Nazrul. Governanace for Developement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Jacob, J. F. R. An Odyssey in War and Peace: An Autobiography by Lft. Gen JFR Jacob. New Delhi: Roli Books Pvt Ltd, 2011. Jahan, Rounaq. Pakistan: Failure in National Integration. Dhaka: The University Press, 1994, pp. 139–140. Jamaluddin, A. K. M. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy in Bangladesh. Leeds, January 2006. Kissinger, Henry. The White House Years. Boston: Little, Brown, 1979, p. 714. Konig, Thomass. “Introduction to Frame Analysis.” n.d. http://www.ccsr.ac.uk/ methods/publications/frameanalysis (accessed June 6th, 2013). LaFranchi, Howard. “From Famine to Food Basket: How Bangladesh Became a Model for Reducing Hunger.” Christian Science Monitor. June 17, 2015. https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Foreign-Policy/2015/0617/From-fam ine-to-food-basket-how-Bangladesh-became-a-model-for-reducing-hunger (accessed August 20 6, 2020). Levie, Howard S. “The Indo-Pakistani Agreement of August 28, 1973.” The American Journal of International Law 68, no. 1 (Jnauary 1974): 95–97. Liton, Shakhawat. “Long Shadow of Indemnity.” The Daily Star. November 26, 2009. https://www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-115676 (accessed July 25, 2020). Lorch, Jasmin. “Islamization by Secular Ruling Parties: The Case of Bangladesh.” Religion and Politics (Religion and Politics Section of the American Political Science Association), 2018. Manik, M. Waheeduzzaman. “The Historic Six-Point Movement and Its Impact on the Struggle for Independence.” The Daily Star. June 7, 2008. https:// www.thedailystar.net/news-detail-40021 (accessed August 8, 2020). Maniruzzaman, Talukder. “National Integration and Political Development in Pakistan.” Asian Survey 7, no. 12 (1967): 876–885. ———. The Bangladesh Revolution and Its Aftermath. Dhaka: UPL, 1988, p. 25. Mannan, Abdul. “The Conspiracy Behind the Assassination of Bangabandhu.” The Daily Star. August 15, 2016. https://www.thedailystar.net/op-ed/ politics/the-conspiracy-behind-the-assassination-bangabandhu-1269715 (accessed August 20, 2020). Mascarenhas, Anthony. Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1986.

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Mazid, Muhammad Abdul. “Significance of International Mother Language Day.” The Daily Star. February 21, 2013. https://www.thedailystar.net/newsdetail-269849 (accessed August 20, 2020). Mukti. Directed by Manu Chobe. Performed by Milind Soman and Yashpal Sharma. 2017. Newsome, Cail. “The Use of Slogans in Political Rhetoric.” The Corinthian (2002): 21–23. https://kb.gcsu.edu/thecorinthian/vol4/iss1/3. Nixon, Richard M. US Foreign Policy in the 1970s: The Emerging Structure of Peace, A Report to the Congress. 1972. Pyne, Robert. Massacare. Macmillan, 1973. Raghavan, Srinath. 1971: A Global History of the Creation of Bangladesh. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013. Rashiduzzaman, M. “The Awami League in the Political Development of Pakistan.” Asian Survey 10, no. 7 (1970): 574–597. Rummel, R. J. Death by Government. New Brusnwick: Transaction Publishers, 1994. Safire, William. ““Roll’s Roles”.” The New York Times. December 23, 2001. https://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/23/magazine/the-way-we-livenow-12-23-01-on-language-roll-s-roles.html (accessed June 9, 2020). Sen, Amartya. Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Sing, Kushwant. “Why They Fled Pakistan—And Won’t Go Back.” The New York Times. August 1, 1971. http://www.docstrangelove.com/uploads/1971/for eign/19710801_nyt_why_they_fled_pakistan.pdf (accessed 2020August 23, 2020). Stebbins, Richard P. and Elaine P. Adam (eds.). American Foreign Policy 1971: A Documentary Record. New York: New York University Press, 1976. Suma, Jessica Tartila. “Media Framing of Libeartion War of Bangaldesh in 1971.” Paper Presented in Conference: Identity in the Globalized World. Indepednent University, Bangladesh, 2013. The Financial Express. “HC Asks Govt to Announce ‘Joy Bangla’ as National Slogan.” March 10, 2020. https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/national/hcasks-govt-to-announce-joy-bangla-as-national-slogan-1583827003 (accessed June 6, 2020). The New York Times. December 7, 1971. ———. “Army Exples 35 Foreign Newsmen from Pakistan.” Bangladesh Genocide Archive. March 28, 1971. http://www.genocidebangladesh.org/newspa per-reports/ (accessed June 9, 2020). ———. “Excerpts from World Bank Group’s Report on East Pakistan.” Bangaldesh Genocide Archive. July 13, 1971. http://www.genocidebanglad esh.org/newspaper-reports/ (accessed June 9, 2020). The Washington Post. April 12, 1971.

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UNHCR. “The State of the World’s Refugees.” Rapture in South Asia. 2000. https://www.unhcr.org/pubs/sowr2000/ch03.pdf (accessed August 25, 2020). UN Secretary General Appeal. “UN Secretary General Had Made Such an Appeal on 19 May 1971.” Asian Recorder (June 18–24, 1971): 10219. UN Repertoire. Chapter VIII: Maintenance of International Peace and Security. December 1971. https://www.un.org/en/sc/repertoire/69-71/Chapter% 208/69-71_08-13-Situation%20in%20the%20India-Pakistan%20subcontinent. pdf (accessed August 5, 2020). Virtual Bangladesh. History: The Declaration of Independence. September 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20140901035519/http://www.virtua lbangladesh.com/history/declaration.html (accessed August 23, 2020). Volger, Roger. “The Birth of Bangladesh:Nefarious Plots and Cold War Sideshows.” Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies 10, no. 3 (2010). Zaki, Rabiul H. “1974 Famine in Bangladesh and Aggravating Factors.” bdnews24.com. July 19, 2013. https://opinion.bdnews24.com/2013/07/ 09/1974-famine-in-bangladesh-and-aggravating-factors/ (accessed July 4, 2020).

CHAPTER 4

Microfinance & Social Safety Net Programs: Cracking the Developmental Riddle

Introduction Bangladesh’s successful thresholds over 50 years were mostly socioeconomic, impacting literacy, employment, mortality, fertility, as well as information and communications technologies (ICT). Perhaps the most significant improvements, in poverty alleviation and women empowerment,1 helps the country stand as a successful development story in the media.2 Microfinance became one of the most viable instruments fostering that growth. Such a transition could not have happened without the microfinance ‘magic.’ A pioneer in modern microfinance, Bangladesh became the 1970s home to the most extensive microfinance operations in the world.3 Most importantly, it was among the first to address the most marginalized and socially excluded social strata in the process: it did not have a choice, since poverty was all the country had in abundance in the early 1970s (and what the country had to tackle first and foremost, even if it had any ‘gold rush’ awaiting it). Still ongoing, that process benefited from policy intervention, depicting in the process how socialism can be displaced without turning capitalist taps full-blown. This was a crucial breakthrough at the most frigid moment of the Cold War when the ‘Third World’ and ‘Non-Alignment Movement’ were being compromised as politicized instruments. Functioning in the backchannel of society, microfinance proved an uncommitted, non-ideological pathway out of the © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_4

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poverty malaise that both socialism and capitalism were not prescribing well. Developed for alleviating poverty by Professor Muhammad Yunus in 1976, microcredit offers the poor in Bangladesh a vital means to access credit. Another pioneer in this sector was Akhtar Hameed Khan of Cumilla Cooperatives, now Bangladesh Academy of Rural Development (BARD). Since Hameed’s time the cooperative model faced governance issues, stagnation, and diversion of funds,4 which microfinance scholars and practitioners Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank, and Fazle Hasan Abed of Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) abandoned. Their more centralized control and service delivery structures did the trick. The millennium years (1990s) saw the inception of Social Safety Nets (SSNs) all over the world, conceptualized by the World Bank.5 Adjustment problems associated with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the East Asia financial crisis pointed to the need of a SSN-type structure, but its 1994 emergence was more directly sparked by two global events: the Mexican crisis (Tequila crisis) that set the stage set for first cash transfer program to the poor, and the transition of South Africa into a democratic post-apartheid society in which the government extended social pensions and child support to all its citizens, without regard to race.6 Facing similar social maladjustments, Bangladesh launched the Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) with a target to bring down the poverty rate from 40% in 2005.7 With that rate being 15% today, clearly the SSNP initiative did chip in somehow, somewhere. Since the SSNP structure also incorporated microfinance into one of its four broad categories of agendas, this microcredit and SSNPs consolidation happened exactly when microfinance was in its maturity phase (1996–2005), a life-cycle theoretical nomenclature,8 followed by its saturation phase (2006–2015). Whereas the former profited from one of the most economically vibrant decade, the latter was further compounded by the 2008–2011 Great Recession, recovery from which still constrains global growth in the 2020s. Bangladesh’s case was far rosier, enhancing its microfinance ‘ownership’ in the modern era. From a bird’s eye viewpoint, microfinance mobilization in the late 70s may be portrayed as the instrument for the ‘push’ required to move the poor in the society to get on the racing track, while its maturity phase set the speed for the marginalized (and profited from that transformative rapidity). On the other hand, SSNP

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instruments added further momentum to the existing financial structure. With an already strong in-built microfinance structure, any international project entering the domain with a SSNP component carried a foregone successful outcome record. How microfinance, and much later the interplay between microfinance and the SSNP edifice, have brought about poverty alleviation in Bangladesh and contributed to the country’s socioeconomic development is explored in this section since both poverty and its removal qualify as brands : Bangladesh already knew that from its Pakistan days; and its relatively superior South Asian scores on women empowerment and a variety of other social indicators enhance its qualification as a social development brand worth exploring elsewhere. Three questions arise: How has the microfinance industry helped poverty alleviation and women empowerment? In what way has the SSNP cushion worked in Bangladesh’s development? Was there any alternative to microfinance in the late 1970s to alleviate poverty?

Organization Using secondary data analysis, literary reviews, and several interviews for information, this section explores the ‘ifs’ and ‘hows’ about: (a) microfinance as a catalyst to take the Bangladesh economy to its jettisoning stage; (b) microfinance contributions to the economy and in driving women empowerment; and (c) the leverage points to which both microcredit and SSNPs have contributed for economic growth. We make several references to a number of documents released by various multifinancial institutions (MFIs), nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and research institutions. Online research databases of notable organizations, namely Institute of Microfinance (InM), Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), Microcredit Regulatory Authority (MRA), Grameen Bank (GB), Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), Development Initiative for Social Advancement (DISA), Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS), and Bangladesh Bank have been scourged for documents related to microfinance growth and trend over the years. The overall organization intends to reflect on how microfinance as a driver or domain of growth has contributed to Bangladesh’s middle-income realities.

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Alternatives to Microfinance? The availability of microfinance, broadly defined as the provision of financial services such as savings and credit to the poor household, was a necessary but not the only condition for rapid poverty reduction. We cannot undermine the importance of its role. Different variables have their stakes, and microfinance was the catalyst to prompting poverty alleviation. Its resultant force was women empowerment and up-scaling school enrollment,9 the result of which helped make Bangladesh’s role exemplary to those other countries not yet successful in including their marginalized strata (women and children) in their development plans, even at sub-national levels. According to Adam Smith, “Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.”10 Back in the 1970s, when Bangladesh was as qualified to be Smith’s ‘nation of shopkeepers’ as Great Britain was two centuries earlier, that is, before its “empire” began,11 it was very difficult for the poor to get small working capital formally from the banks for various reasons. A warranty-free working capital loan was required. Microfinance brought that to the doorsteps of the poor, bailing them out. In fact, microfinance became the only available option to scale up the situation of the people toward poverty alleviation. Another factor fueling microfinance was the incongruity between demand-side influence of microcredit (need of microfinance by the poor) and supply-side assertions (formal sector recognition).12 Any anatomy of the demand factors will show some or all of the following factors: (a) credit for savings, consumption, emergency need, and loans for further production; (b) credit not being determined by interest rates; (c) credit being brought to the doorstep of poor people; (d) the process empowering the poor, thus enhancing the economy; and (e) facilitating the poor to make their economic decisions and address socioeconomic issues. Yet, the contradictory supply perspectives also prevail: (a) poor people not being sufficiently trusted since they could not repay loans; (b) incurring costs also reaching the doorstep of the people; (c) absence of empowerment provisions in the system; and (d) a top-down decision-making structure in which planners speak for the poor people.13 Table 4.1 places these in a more comparative format. What could be the alternatives to microfinance for a war-torn country in the 1970s? Three beg attention: (a) Promote the productive use of the

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Table 4.1 Microcredit demand-side influences & supply assertion: Incongruencies Demand-side influences of microcredit

Supply-assertion of access to finance

Poor need the credit for savings, consumption, emergency need, and loans for further production Credit brought to the doorstep of poor people Empowering the poor to bring about economic enhancement Facilitate the poor to make their economic decisions and address socioeconomic issues

Lack of trust for the poor to obtain credit, given questions about repayment capacities and paying high interest rates Costs to reach the doorstep of the people No provision for empowerment in the system Planners speaking for the poor people

Source Compiled from ‘Microcredit operation seminar’ (Bangladesh Bank)

poor people’s labor by creating opportunities for wage employment. (b) Raise agricultural productivity among farmers. (c) Increase opportunities for self-employment, and so forth. By increasing the productivity of selfemployment in the informal sector of the economy, microfinance had the capacity to transmit the benefits of growth more rapidly and equitably through the informal sector. It is well documented that for many microentrepreneurs, lack of access to financial services is a critical constraint to the establishment or expansion of grassroots development and enhancement.14 Microfinance also enabled small and marginal farmers to purchase inputs, such as fertilizers, to increase their productivity as well as finance a range of activities, thus adding value to agricultural output and in the rural off-farm economy.15 Microfinance gave access to savings facilities which also played a key part in enabling the poor to smoothen their consumption expenditures, and in financing investments for productivity improvements in agriculture and other economic activities. Rather than being separated from those developmental processes, microfinance catalyzed the process of scaling up the economy and enhancing the poor.

Cultural Economy Variables Contributing to Microcredit Success: Major literatures mostly focus on shorthand ‘political-economy’ when they project development as the interplay between the political and the

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economic. However, the question should be pertinent: did Bangladesh’s ‘cultural economy’ play a vital role in its development? In every society the economy reflects culture to varying degrees,16 whether that society be traditional or modern, agricultural, industrial, or service-centered.17 Any examination of economic perspectives shows our need to recognize that culture counts, even if it cannot always be measured because a general field of cultural economy has yet to be scoped out.18 The World Value Survey has over the years demonstrated that people’s beliefs play a key role in economic development, the emergence and flourishing of democratic institutions, the rise of gender equality, and the extent to which societies have efficient governance systems.19 How do cultural environments anchor economic prosperity?20 Cultural aspects could be reviewed as a parallel variable kick-starting the economic regeneration, in this case, through microcredit, and not as an alternative. The pertinent question then becomes: what is the effect of national culture on the social and financial performance of microfinance industry? Micro-borrowers’ entrepreneurial ability, risk-taking attitudes, attitudes toward the role of women, trustworthiness and, most importantly, the extant occupations of the people may all be shaped by a country’s cultural dimensions. This might, in turn, strongly influence the success of micro-financing programs. According to the famous Inglehart-Welzel cultural map,21 Bangladesh is characterized by societies scoring high on traditional and survival values. Traditional values emphasize the importance of religion, parent-child ties, deference to authority, and traditional family values. Survival values place emphasis on economic and physical security, while also being linked with a relatively ethnocentric outlook (akin Max Weber’s ‘Protestant’ work ethic), and low levels of trust and tolerance,22 in part because monetary transactions breed that kind of a competitive individualism at odds with stable, staid, and predictable traditional values. We would rather argue of cultural modernization beginning in Bangladesh before its liberation, dating back to Bengal renaissance in the early twentieth century. Since the 1971 War of Liberation unfolded through protests against cultural oppression, gathering momentum and legitimacy from the 1952 Language Movement, economic oppression could only be a posteriori development officially targeted from the mid1960s through Bangabandhu’s Six-point demand, but strictly only that, as a ‘demand,’ that is, not yet a reality. Table 4.2 captures Bangladesh’s cultural map myth against the backdrop of emergent microfinance.

Survival Values:

High intolerance

Deference to authority

Parent–child ties

Bangladeshi believe in peaceful coexistence. They are also tolerant of their situation be it class, creed, or social strata

They obey authority by the virtue of collective society thus conforming with authority

fits the survival values of the cultural map because children are important source of survival, reliance on children increases and they contribute to microfinance activities * big family size also contributed to microfinance borrowing/savings * Because Bangladeshis adhere to authority, they are keen to return the loan interest on time despite few anomalies The poor are not threatened by the microcredit and are adaptive to the idea of women borrowing as it emphasized subjective well-being of the family

* This

Religious values and practice (according to Sharia) had not stopped poor people from consuming microfinance

are religious but are secular in terms of peaceful coexistence with other religious people and religious practice *Since more than 85% of Bangladeshi population is Muslim, microfinance is an anti-Sharia mechanism Parent–child ties are stronger

* Bangladeshis

Traditional Values

Religion

Commensurate with microfinance participants

Bangladesh cultural traits that already existed

(continued)

* Uplift

trustworthiness in economic status

* Enhanced

attitudes toward the role of women

* Positive

in entrepreneurial ability * Increase in risk-taking endeavor

* Increase

Outcomes in cultural trait

Bangladesh’s outcomes on microfinance borrowings/savings outcomes & cracking Welzel’s cultural myth

Welzel’s indicators

Table 4.2

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Bangladesh cultural traits that already existed

Source Compiled from Welzel’s cultural maps and cultural traits of Bangladeshis.

Low level of trust Because of collective society, the level of trust among the people in any locality is very high. Trustworthiness always existed in Bangladesh

(continued)

Welzel’s indicators

Table 4.2

facilitation of decision-making

* Increased

* From

the institutional point of view, the microfinance had trusted the poor and reached their doorstep * From borrower’s point of view, one’s action encouraged the other to participate in microfinance borrowing

Outcomes in cultural trait

Commensurate with microfinance participants

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The Inglehart-Welzel cultural maps also discuss ‘coping with uncertainty’ as an indicator of understanding the cultural outcome of a country. Bangladesh, where the main occupation of the people was agrarian (farming and fishing), and continues to be important, is placed near the bottom of the continuum. Its people have long been prone to the uncertainty of the supply of these primary products, which are, most of the time, subject to weather and other natural disasters situations beyond human control. Thus, culture and its associations with economic creativity strongly inter-relate with each other in a way they do not elsewhere. Another Bangalee population lies in India’s West Bengal, but within a Hindu caste system (which still functions today, albeit implicitly, with social circles): the poor have to face hierarchical ‘check-points’ which the Bangladeshi poor did not; and the former have long been exposed to not just economic activities, but aggressive forms, within society (Vaishayas , for instance), which was also absent across Bangladesh. Bangladesh’s culture-economy relationship pattern also differs from many other Muslim countries, indicating the lower salience of religion in shaping culture. Whereas Bangladeshi Muslim country-dwellers have long been associated with farming or fishing (even before the advent of Islam), few Muslim countries west of Bangladesh have parallel historical corelationships between a fixed culturally driven occupation and economic profit-making historically: many were soldiers, often mercenaries, or if in farming, only seasonably; while economic reliance was greater on traded goods than on locally produced commodities. These examples merely illustrate the vast nuances in culture-economy relationships complicate any single or dominant model from ruling the day. Within the context of the cultural economy, impoverished Bangladeshis may be better off than the poor in many other countries, especially in terms of entrepreneurial ability, emancipation values, and risk-taking factors (because of their adaptability to uncertainty). Prone to environmental disasters, the people of Bangladesh also happened to be resilient and adaptive to those calamites, thus more tolerant of societal adversities. The cumulative results of the above discussed characteristics can be found in Table 4.2, themselves suggesting a personality revolution in Bangladesh from the emancipation values of the people as a triggering factor. This is the over-riding story we will not find through statistical analysis: a personality revolution lies behind the people becoming more assertive, pro-active toward opportunities, and clear on life goals.23 Their

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aspirations, of course, stem from the Liberation War, anchored in a social resilience against continuous struggles with calamities of nature, political suppression, the acknowledgment of social mobility, and embracing livelihood opportunities. Bangladesh’s poor may be the real protagonists and agents of developmental change, and perhaps a hypothesis to test in other undeveloped or less developed countries of Africa, Asia, and even Latin America, given the above-mentioned Hindu-Muslim Bangalee and western Muslim nuances. Here might lie an important brand, capturing those very transformations, personally using culture-anchored practices, economically to become a ‘development driver’ country after independence, and socially as a consequence of all of the changes of the above two dynamics.

Microfinance Shaping Middle-income Realities Microfinance institutions have been around in the country for more than four decades. They made a mark in three domains: (a) Microfinance institutions and their clients proved the poor to be creditworthy, and that financial services could be provided to and accessed by the poor on a profitable basis at low transaction costs without relying on physical collateral. (b) Microfinance services were capable of triggering a process to broaden and deepen rural financial markets. (c) Microfinance services strengthen the social and human capital of the poor, particularly women, at the household, enterprise, and community level.24 The inception of microcredit industry proved that the poor were worthy of borrowing and trustworthy. However, the second point that microcredit broadened and deepened the financial market was due to several of the microcredit agency’s ground-level activities. First, when Professor Yunus ran the Jobra experiment in the 70s, Bangladesh Bank initiated the Dheki Rin Prokolpa and several other pilot schemes through a handful of NGO actions and engagements which were active then. Back then no one could conceive that these initiatives would lead to a major microcredit movement depicting a different Bangladesh to the rest of the world than the RMG revolution has done today. Even though Grameen Bank’s success was at the threshold in 1980s, the main discourse among development practitioners in Bangladesh centered on the desirability of microcredit programs as opposed to just being conscientious.25 This debate reached a resolution when the country experienced a massive expansion of microfinance activities during the 1990s, as borne

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out by figures: MFI (micro-financial institutional) expansion crossed the 600-mark, while MFI membership expanded into the thousands. Policymakers, academics, and development practitioners who were trying to understand and shape the course of the social and economic dynamics they had initiated because of the introduction of microcredit were even more attracted. With a view to meeting the demand for re-lending funds by the development partners (NGO/MFIs), and due to an urge to coordinate the flow of such fund to appropriate use, the Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) came into being in late 1990.26 Microfinance fund composition and its sources today expose the big picture in the industry and how middle-income realities are shaped by them. Since its inception, the microfinance sector in Bangladesh has been transformed from grant-based small operations to loan-based large operations, crossing the 30 million consumer threshold by June, 2018. This would not have been possible without a loan-based more commercial-type financing structure. The sector is broadly financed by savings collected from clients, cumulative surplus (profit), concessional loan received from PKSF, grants received from national and international donors, and commercial bank borrowing. Table 4.3 shows how, while the total fund increased significantly over the time, there was only a little change in terms of composition of fund from 2014 to 2018. Total fund increased from BDT (Bangladesh Taka) 312.73 billion in 2014 to BDT 741.91 billion in June 2018, a growth rate of 137.24% per year.27 The most important source of fund turned out to be client’s savings. Whereas the government has allowed MFI mobilization of savings from their members/clients, in 2018 client saving was the highest and most important source of fund: savings by participants who got pushed back into the industry soared to 35%, more than a third of the total fund accumulation. This was followed by commercial and specialized banks. Besides microfinance, PKSF (Palli Karma Shahayak Foundation) wholesale funding agency provided a large portion of loan funds at a subsidized rate. The least important source appeared to be grants from the donor agencies. Increasing MFI reliance on internal fund sources, and especially client’s savings, prove hard-core middle-income realities.28 A sector-wise disbursement of the microfinance distribution of resources signifies how this has helped people cope in every enterprise such agencies took up. During 2016–17 the reported disbursed MFIs (including Grameen Bank’s ) loans went to 10 different sub-sectors. Table 4.4 shows this. The first three sub-sectors were in the agriculture sector.

2.19 32.28 3.81 100

100,943.95

11,914.57 312,731.96

16.47

11.04

34.21

6855.04

51,495.9

34,523.5

106,999

14,242.07 398,921.1

137,706.3

5218.45

68,574.2

37,769.68

135,410.4

(million Tk.)

(million Tk.)

(%)

June’15

June’14

Distribution of source funds

Source Microcredit Regulatory Authority, June 2018.

Clients’ Savings Loan from PK5F Loan from Commercial Banks Donors’ fund Cumulative Surplus Other Funds Total

Source of Fund

Table 4.3

(million Tk.)

4974

132,664

40,762

3.57 10,318 100 527,683.53

34.52 168,295. 5

1.31

17.19

9.47

33.94 170,670

( %)

June’16 (million Tk.)

43,922

210,673

5381

1.96 10,417 100 620,497

31.89

0.94

25.14 133,381

7.72

32.34 216,723

(%)

June’17

74S7.2S

152,190

47,830.82

262,963

(million Tk.)

1.68 100

13,137.16 741,905.68

33.95 258,326.04

0.87

21.50

7.08

34.93

(%)

June’18

1.77 100.00

34.82

1.01

20.51

6.45

35.44

(%)

102 I. A. HUSSAIN AND J. T. SUMA

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The total disbursement made by 510 MFIs units (again, including the Grameen Bank) in these 10 sub-sectors was BDT 1,207,538.08 million. Of this amount, the BDT 595,956.80 million allocated to the agriculture sector (or 49.35% of total), proved pivotal in the national economy. After the agriculture sector, the business (34.08%), transport (4.07%), as well as small-and-cottage and handicrafts (2.29%) sectors chipped in. One can see, even after adding all disbursements to these three sectors, the total farming disbursement still remained far, far ahead. These data show how major disbursement, in sectors 1 through 5 (89.79%, or about 90%), fed income-generation purposes. About 10% was disbursed for healthcare, education, housing, and others.29 This exposes the advent of a ‘nation of shopkeepers’ mindset: not that everyone was opening a store, but the profit-making instinct was not only flowing, but also flowing fluently. From self-sufficiency with food as the historical imperative to surplus production, distribution, and (not shown here) consumption began, not in assembly-lines, as in eighteenth-Century Great Britain or twentiethCentury United States, but in the farmlands of Bangladesh. That was part of the microfinance cutting-edge contribution. Table 4.5 depicts loan recovery percentage, exposing how people have actually kept the circular flow of money within the economy through microcredit. The loan recovery rate shows a similar trend both in 2016– 2017 and 2015–2016. In 2016–2017 nearly all MFI loan recovery rate was more than 98%, in Grameen Bank and BRAC more than 99%, while in the remaining MFI collection 94.18%. How did these organizations contribute to the national gross domestic product? Generalized performance responses can be drawn for employment, credit, savings, and investment. These are highlighted in Table 4.6. The microfinance sector facilitates both direct and indirect employment (the self-employment generation of the borrowing household members). The 2016–7 Credit Development Forum (CDF) review showed the direct employment created as the outcome of program intervention, but the total employment generated by the lenders and borrowers would be much higher than the employment being created directly. The CDF survey shows a total number of 510 NGO-MFI involvements only in microcredit program in June 2017 impacted 239,689 persons. The microfinance industry employed a puny 0.40% of the national labor force.30 From 510 NGO-MFIs disbursing a total of

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Table 4.4 Distribution of sector-wise disbursement of loan (BDT in million): 2016–2017 SI No

Name of sectors

1

2

1

Crops Cultivation & Agril. Equipment Livestock, Dairy & Poultry Fisheries Business Small & Cottage Industries, Handicrafts Health Education Housing Transport Others Total

2

3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10

Disbursed loan amount (Tk. in million) 3

% of total disbursement 4

Number of financing MFIs 5

% of total financing MFIs 6

411,392.41

34.07

459

90.00

135,491.56

11.22

447

87.65

49,072.83 411,501.05 27,696.40

4.06 34.08 2.29

399 495 340

78.24 97.06 66.67

8,686.08 3,957.00 18,684.37 49,179.25 91,877.14 1,207,538.08

0.72 0.33 1.55 4.07 7.61 100

191 140 241 353 183 510 (Aggregate)

37.45 27.45 47.25 69.22 35.88 100

Source CDF Survey 2016–2017.

BDT 1,207,538.08 million was recorded during the 2016–2017 financial year. All banks disbursed BDT 6,854,016 million, meaning the MFI sector disbursement was 17.62% of bank disbursement, a significant percentage of the national economy.31 Microcredit programs had expanded in terms of savings mobilization, and the total amount of 510 NGO-MFI micro-savings climbed to BDT 349,063.74 million in 2016–2017. During this time, the total bank deposits accumulated BDT 9,018,956.50 million. The data shows how total MFI deposits accounted for 3.87% against the bank deposits.32 Such a low deposit rate may have been due to the small percentage the MFI members savings, i.e., a very tiny amount every week (the NGO-MFIs cannot also deposit like the bank customers in bulk amount as there is no legal scope for it). This is a systemic issue. Since the country’s agriculture GDP was BDT 2,433,902

106.17 68.92 56.34 43.72 62.78 47.11 40.03 34.32 39.86 26.63

49.67

272,466.48 23.25% 221,688.86 23.99% 127.08 267,286.12 22.81% 202,134.36 21.87% 90.33 53,172.97 4.54% 36,507.71 3.95% 74.68

2.83% 27,721.37 3.00% 49.20 2.23% 19,148.44 2.07% 78.96 1.39% 14,134.17 1.53% 49.64

1.24% 12,009.80 1.30% 47.13 1.21% 10,260.46 1.11% 47.96 0.93% 6,457.86 0.70% 57.87

33,208.97 26,137.07 16,232.39

14,467.78 14,197.41 10,879.98

280,954.59 23.98% 222,932.38 24.12% 32.45

1,171,712.75 100% 924,225.40 100% 61.13

Source CDF Survey 2015–2016 and 2016–2017.

58.89

5

182,710.00 15.59% 151,230.00 16.36% 71.15

4

2015– 2016

Grameen Bank (GB) BRAC ASA BURO Bangladesh TMSS SSS Jagorani Chakra UDDIPAN PMUK Sajida Foundation The remaining MFIs together Total

3

2016– 2017

2

2015–2016

1

2016–2017

Loan recovery per branch

35,115

32,662

42,894 43,379 70,723

37,873 45,329 40,821

52,194 36,455 51,683

21,991

6

2016– 2017

28,674

26,510

34,393 34,469 50,297

37,615 35,810 36,093

45,119 29,389 37,651

17,537

7

2015– 2016

Loan repayment per borrower

98.49

94.18

97.22 98.40 98.98

98.11 98.79 96.97

99.15 98.58 98.55

99.94

8

2016– 2017

98.50

94.22

97.37 98.11 97.97

97.94 98.58 96.26

99.14 98.77 98.09

99.87

9

2015– 2016

Recovery (in %)

Distribution in loan recovery comparative of 2015–2016 & 2016–2017

Organizations Loan recovered during

Table 4.5

97.03

96.05

106.47 98.32 87.63

100.46 94.61 105.39

102.19 99.15 97.76

87.89

10

96.70

97.09

98.59 93.96 86.72

105.78 97.22 106.26

101.45 96.69 92.39

89.31

11

26.78

26.03

20.47 38.37 68.48

19.80 36.50 14.84

22.90 32.23 45.65

20.82

12

Recovered amount as Change % of disbursement over 2015–2016 2016– 2015– (in %) 2017 2016

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Table 4.6 Microfinancing contributions to gross domestic product generalized performance responses Particulars Employment Loans and Advances

Savings and Deposit

Investment

Labor Force (in numbers) Sectoral National 239,689 59,500,000 Credit (tk. In million) Sectoral All banks 1,207,538.08 6,854,016.00 Micro Savings (Tk Bank’s deposit (Tk in million) in million) 349, 063.74 9,018,956.50 Sectoral investment Agri GDP (Tk in (Tk in million) million) 1,207,538.08 2,433,902.00

% share of labor sector force 0.40% % of microcredit share (2016–2017) 17.62% % of sector share 3.87% % of sector share 49.61%

Source Compiled from CDF (2017).

million in 2016, the total microcredit disbursement of 49.61% of the agricultural GDP was indeed a significant figure. Since microcredit is a driver of the alluded personality revolution, it produced women’s agencies. No other domain in Bangladesh can claim such credit. The positive social attitudes toward women’s economic participation were universal. Women visibility and mobility increased, and this, in turn, boosted school enrollment for girls, further boosting the rate of female education from 17.97% in 1981 to 71.18% today.33 However such leaps also beget challenges. While economic participation for women has expanded, female labor productivity remains low.34 On a side-note, greater women participation in micro-financing, RMG work force, and so forth, also set a humongous social revolution. On the one hand, these gave women multiple opportunity windows, which they took full advantage of. On the other, as the proportion of women grew in a Muslim society turning conservative as it climbed the income ladder, reactions were not slow to follow, one dimension being the greater imposition of hijab and other protective clothing. These restrictive stands were not caused only because of this rural Bangladesh social revolution, since similar developments were also happening in other Muslim countries. Yet, they show the resurgence of a social dynamic not known before, much like industrial workers were in nineteenth-Century European/North American societies. As in those industrial countries, social revolutions eventually mesh with social policy reformations, so much so that it may be just a

4

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matter of time before a profit-minded social groups, on top of that, of women, might become an independent trigger to social transformation, a factor of no meager proportions in one part of the world where politics, then economics have thus far dominated as modernization triggers. NGO-MFI member capacity to handle larger loans was one offshoot in many units. In the near future, many MFI enterprise clients may shift to small market enterprise (SME) clients, which also became a flourishing sector in the Bangladesh economy. If this shift is expanded, the MFI clients can only be graduating to a different level with more capital. Nonetheless, microcredit has enabled the poor households to sustain themselves, and many women members now serve as financial managers, which was unthinkable even three decades ago. Many women are now found sitting in their own business establishments doing business. Due to microcredit program, millions of members have been able to generate financial assets through savings. The MFI member involvement in business, agriculture, poultry, and live-stock rearing has strengthened the national economy especially in GDP terms, and has enabled members to enhance their purchasing power, again contributing to the national economy.

Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs) as Middle-income Cushions SSNP cushioning fares better in the development story than development drivers. Why is SSNP cushioning significant? There have been 30 major and 20 minor programs illustrating safety net allocations increasing. During the period immediately after 1971, when Bangladesh was in the grip of mass poverty, deprivation and famine, several anti-poverty programs emerged with multi-pronged measures directed toward disaster rehabilitation and toward creating income and employment opportunities. The growth of these early measures, which were largely in SSNP form, was considerably ad hoc, and fostered through both government and NGO initiatives.35 From the paltry 1.615 billion USD allocated in 2010–11, a budget of approximately BDT 642 billion (roughly 8 billion USD), or the equivalent to 2.5 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), was allocated for this purpose in 2019. Of this, about BDT 372 billion is being used to implement safety net programs as per a globally recognized classification.36 They are in the forms of cash allowances, public works, and

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education and health incentives for poor and vulnerable households, which contribute to the fight against poverty and improving human capital.37 At least four SSNP clusters can be found in Bangladesh: (a) employment generation programs; (b) programs to cope with natural disasters and other shocks; (c) incentives provided to parents for their children’s education; and (d) incentives provided to families to improve their health status.38 Key Bangladesh SSNP targets happen to be the basic necessities of the individuals, such as shelter, food, education, cloth, and health. Table 4.7 illustrates the major programs. Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), Food for Works (FFW), Old-Age Allowances (OAA), Allowances for Widow, Grants for Orphanages, Allowances for disabled, freedom fighters, microcredit programs, and so on. Two vital SSNP outcomes include: (a) social protection, and (b) social empowerment. Whereas social protection includes the food security, new funds for programs, and most importantly cash transfer allowances and cash transfer (special), social empowerment contains the microcredit, stipends, housing and rehabilitation, development programs, and miscellaneous funds.39 Since economists rarely appreciate the psychological milieu for economic actors to carry on their enterprise, the safety net portfolio in Bangladesh has contributed to bringing about more psychologically secure social atmosphere.

Conclusions The key features of the Bangladesh development experience had been the plurality of drivers in the social change paradigm, but in particular the advent of not just women, but impoverished women; and the availabilities of multiple low-cost money-making opportunities, at first for self-sufficiency, but eventually broadening out more broadly and boldly. The comparative strength of each driver/domain contributed to the overall progress, with microfinance being just one such driver. One must recognize here how such a socially catalyzing force as microfinance appeared with such glowing results partly because of the depth of poverty. At that impoverished state, social restrictions, for example, restrictions upon women’s clothing, make less tense (primarily because restrictive clothing may be too expensive to buy for a poor person), have a

4

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Table 4.7 SSNP programs in Bangladesh

109

Types

Programme examples

Cash transfers

Old Age Allowance Widowed and Distressed Women Allowance Disabled Allowance Primary Education Stipend Programme Stipends for Female Secondary Students Rural Maintenance Programme Food-for-Work Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) Employment Generation Programme (EGP) Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF) Gratuitous Relief (GR) Test Relief (TR) Open Market Sale (OMS)

Conditional cash transfers

Public works or training based cash or in kind transfer

Emergency or Seasonal Relief

Source Raihan (2013)

longer salience and relevance than at higher income levels, where fashion, and several other intangible factors play a greater part to invite restrictive impositions in a culturally conservative society. Just to ‘refashion’ society becomes the new bourgeoisie trademark. In other words, Bangladesh’s ‘miracle’ may be hard to replicate except perhaps in truly poor countries, even then against all nuances observed at the start of the chapter: the historical culture-economy inter-relationship pattern, preference, and proclivity. Since the late 1970s microfinance in Bangladesh has enhanced its reputation by playing a vital role in poverty alleviation in the countryside. Bangladesh can rightly claim to be considered the pioneer of an innovative microcredit program, introduced by Nobel Laureate Professor Dr. Muhammad Yunus, through Grameen Bank. Having depicted a clear picture of the performance of microfinance and the operations of leading MFIs in Bangladesh and the role of SSNPs as a cushion, the chapter turns to the Hebert analytic framework. Table 4.8 summarizes the narratives.

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Table 4.8 Microfinance observations through Hebert’s lenses Dimensions

Comprehension

Communications

Consummation

Microfinance Women

R R

V V

SE SE

We find micro-financing attitudes, behavior, decisions, and planning not only sinking in, but also proliferating and strengthening over time— features clearly projecting a brand-in-the-making phenomenon once upon a time, but now much more institutionalized and portraying communities at such higher living thresholds that these outcomes cannot be simply disassociated from, the very micro-financing initiatives they spring from. At the comprehension level, micro-financing habits reached retention levels relatively rapidly; with communications , the diffusion was equally brisk and noteworthy, generating values but also building management skills. No wonder it became a forceful social engagement trigger, indicating the almost guaranteed high consummation degrees. Of note is how micro-financing sort of awakened the womenfolk of Bangladesh in the most handicapped, or least developed, parts of the country: the rural arena, where at least two-thirds of the people lived when micro-financing began, but a proportion whose diminution over time also speaks to the relatively rapid success rate of micro-financing. The country’s rural strides in fifty-years may be as noteworthy today as its jump from a ‘bottomless pit’ fifty-years ago, especially because of how intertwined these developments were: liberating women, gaining food self-sufficiency for more than twice as many people as half a century ago, and migrating to urban areas, caused no less by two other branddeserving dynamics (RMG employment and migrant labor-pool, in turn instigating the country’s largest and third largest foreign exchange earnings, respectively, in garments being sold and remittances gushing in). That the flip sides of those changes have brought some of the world’s most congested and polluted metropolitans and increasingly toxic rivers should not escape any overall assessment; but this combination reveals precisely what earlier references have alluded to: brands can only become transient over time, and demand less market-power faster with time; so what this volume articulated as representing 50 years of the country’s trademarks may be far more easily assembled and articulated today than before, and any similar analysis another 50 years later.

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Notes 1. K.M. Anwarul Islam, “Impact of microfinancing on women empowerment in Bangladesh,” Journal of the Millennium University 1, no 1 (2016), from http://www.themillenniumuniversity.edu.bd/journal/ index.php/TMUJ/article/view/1, last consulted January 17, 2022; Wei Wei, et al., “The influence of women’s empowerment on poverty reduction in the rural areas of Bangladesh: Focus on health, education and living standard,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 13 (July 2021), from https://doi.org/10.3390/ije rph18136909, last consulted January 17, 2022. 2. Sadanand Dhume, “Bangladesh, ‘basket case’ no more,” Wall Street Journal Opinion, September 29, 2010, https://www.wsj.com/art icles/SB10001424052748703882404575519330896471058; and J.P., “Bangladesh, out of the basket,” The Economist, November 2, 2012, https://www.economist.com/feast-and-famine/2012/11/02/out-ofthe-basket. 3. Shahidur R. Khandker, “Microfinance and poverty: Evidence using panel data from Bangladesh,” The World Bank Economic Review 19, no. 2 (September 2005): 263–286, https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/ bitstream/handle/10986/16478/774910JRN020050ofinance0and0Po verty.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. 4. M. A. Chaudhuri, Rural Government in East Pakistan (Dhaka: Puthighar Ltd., 1969). 5. The World Bank, The World Bank Social Protection and Labor Strategy: Resilience, Equity, and Opportunity (World Bank, 2017), from https:// socialprotection.gov.bd/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/SPL_Strategy_ 2012-22_FINAL.pdf, last consulted January 17, 2022. 6. The World Bank, “History of social safety nets at the World Bank,” https://ieg.worldbankgroup.org/sites/default/files/Data/reports/cha pters/ssn_appa.pdf. 7. Barkat-E-Khuda, “Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh: A review,” Bangladesh Development Studies 34, no. 2 (2011): 87–108, https://bids.org.bd/uploads/publication/BDS/34/34-2/04_ khuda.pdf. 8. Government of Bangladesh, Planning Commission, General Economics Division, National Social Security Strategy (NSS) of Bangladesh, July 2017 (Dhaka: Government of Bangladesh, Planning Commission, General Economics Division, 2017). 9. The Borgen Project has a number of personal accounts on this. See https://borgenproject.org/tag/womens-empowerment-in-ban gladesh/, last consulted January 17, 2022.

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10. Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Met&Libri, 2007 (Digital Edition), https://www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/SmithA_WealthNations_p.pdf. 11. Smith’s relevant passage in Wealth of Nations was: ‘To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers may at first sight appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is, however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.’ See John Maudling for a discussion on it, “A Nation of Shopkeepers,” Forbes, August 26, 2014, from: https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/ 2014/08/26/a-nation-of-shopkeepers/?sh=5634b79a6fbc, last consulted January 17, 2022. 12. Salehuddin Ahmed, “Poverty and microcredit: New realities and strategic issues,” Bangladesh Bank, n.d., https://www.bb.org.bd/saarcfinance/sem inar/microcredit.php. 13. Ibid. 14. Akwasi Addai Boateng, “An examination of challenges and prospects of microfinance institutions in Ghana,” Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development 6, no. 4 (2015), from https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/ 234646873.pdf, last consulted January 17, 2022; and Emma Josefsson and Pia Åberg, “The Performance and Constraints of Microfinance and Conditions for Poverty in Tanzania,” Bachelor’s thesis, Lulea University, 2004. 15. Ahmed, “Poverty and Microcredit.” 16. OECD, Economic and Social Impact of Cultural and Creative Sectors: Note for Italy G20 Presidency Culture Working Group (Paris: OECD, 2021); and Melissa S. Kearney and Ron Haskins, “How Cultural Factors Shape Economic Outcomes,” The Future of Children 30, no. 1 (Spring 2020): 3–9. 17. Andrew Thompson, “Culture Makes All the Difference: Reclaiming the Culture of Economics,” Imperial & Global Forum, October 14, 2014, https://imperialglobalexeter.com/2014/10/14/culture-makes-all-thedifference-reclaiming-the-culture-of-economics/. 18. Ibid. 19. World Value Survey, n.d., https://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSCon tents.jsp. 20. Grisna Anggadwita, et al., “Sociocultural environments and emerging economy entrepreneurship: Women entrepreneurs in Indonesia,” Journal of Entrepreneurship in Emerging Economies, March 6 (2017), from https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JEEE03-2016-0011/full/html, last consulted January 17, 2022; and Jan van der Borg Antonio Paolo Russo, “The impacts of culture on the economic development of cities: A research into the cultural economies and policies of Amsterdam, Bolzano, Edinburgh, Eindhoven, Klaipeda, Manchester,

4

21.

22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27.

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36.

37. 38. 39.

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Rotterdam, Tampere, The Hague and Vienna,” European Institute for Comparative Urban Research (Euricur), Erasmus University Rotterdam, September 2005. C. Haerpfer, R. Inglehart, A. Moreno, C. Welzel, K. Kizilova, J. DiezMedrano, M. Lagos, P. Norris, E. Ponarin and B. Puranen, et al. (eds.). World Values Survey: All Rounds—Country-Pooled Datafile (Madrid, Spain & Vienna, Austria: JD Systems Institute & WVSA Secretariat, 2020). Ibid. Hossain Zillur Rahman, “Bangladesh 2015: Crossing miles…,” PPRC, 2006. Ahmed, “Poverty and Microcredit.” Ibid. Ibid. Microcredit Regulatory Authority, “Fund composition of microfinance in Bangladesh,” (2018), from https://www.mra.gov.bd/images/mra_files/ News/mcinbd22072020.pdf. Ibid. Credit and Development Forum (CDF), “Bangladesh microfinance statistics 2016–2017,” from http://ww.cdfbd.org/new/Bangladesh_Microfi nance_Statistics_2016-17.pdf. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. “Literacy Rate in Bangladesh,” from: https://countryeconomy.com/dem ography/literacy-rate/bangladesh. Rahman, “Bangladesh 2015.” Fahmida Khatuna and Syed Yusuf Sadaat, 2018, “Towards a social protection strategy for Bangladesh,” Think Asia (2018), from https:// think-asia.org/bitstream/handle/11540/8583/Working-Paper-117-Tow ards-a-Social-Protection-Strategy-for-Bangladesh.pdf?sequence=1. The World Bank, “Social safety nets in Bangladesh help reduce poverty and improve human capital,” April 29, 2019, from https://www.wor ldbank.org/en/news/feature/2019/04/29/social-safety-nets-in-bangla desh-help-reduce-poverty-and-improve-human-capital. Ibid. Barkat-E-Khuda, “Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh: A review.” S. Raihan, “Social protection for inclusive growth: The case of Bangladesh,” South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (2013).

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Bibliography Ahmed, Salehuddin. “Poverty and microcredit: New realities and strategic issues.” Bangladesh Bank, n.d. https://www.bb.org.bd/saarcfinance/sem inar/microcredit.php. Barkat-e-Khuda. “Social Safety Net Programmes in Bangladesh: A review.” Bangladesh Development Studies 34 (2): 87–108, 2011. https://bids.org. bd/uploads/publication/BDS/34/34-2/04_khuda.pdf (accessed February 3, 2021). Chaudhuri, M.A. Rural Government in East Pakistan. Dhaka: Puthighar Ltd., 1969. CIGH Exeter. “Culture makes all the difference: Reclaiming the culture of economics.” Imperial & Global Forum. October 14, 2014. https://imperialg lobalexeter.com/2014/10/14/culture-makes-all-the-difference-reclaimingthe-culture-of-economics/ (accessed February 5, 2021). Credit and Development Forum (CDF). “Bangladesh microfinance statistics 2016–2017.” December 2017. http://ww.cdfbd.org/new/Bangladesh_Micr ofinance_Statistics_2016-17.pdf (accessed December 23, 2020). Dhume, Sadanand. “Bangladesh, ‘basket case’ no more.” Wall Street Journal. September 29, 2010. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405274870 3882404575519330896471058 (accessed February 20, 2021). J.P. “Bangladesh, out of the basket.” The Economist. November 2, 2012. https://www.economist.com/feast-and-famine/2012/11/02/out-ofthe-basket (accessed February 5, 2021). Khandker, Shahidur R. “Microfinance and poverty: Evidence using panel data from Bangladesh.” The World Bank Economic Review (Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development) 19 (2): 263–286, 2005. https://doi.org/10.1093/wber/ lhi008 (accessed February 2, 2021). Khatuna, Fahmida and Syed Yusuf Sadaat. “Towards a social protection strategy for Bangladesh.” Think Asia, 2018. https://think-asia.org/bitstream/han dle/11540/8583/Working-Paper-117-Towards-a-Social-Protection-Strategyfor-Bangladesh.pdf?sequence=1 (accessed February 5, 2021). MRA. Fund composition of Microfiancne Sector in Bangladesh. Microcredit Regulatory Authority, 2018. Ovi, Ibrahim Hossain. “Bangladesh’s per capita income rises to $2,064.” Dhaka Tribune. August 11, 2020. https://www.dhakatribune.com/bus iness/economy/2020/08/11/bangladesh-s-per-capita-income-at-2-064-forfy20 (accessed October 5, 2020). Rahman, Hossain Zillur. Bangladesh 2015 Crossing Miles... Policy Paper. Dhaka: PPRC, 9–17, 2006. ———. “Bangladesh: Strategy for accelerating inclusive growth.” Dhaka: PPRC, December 2010.

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Raihan, S. “Social protection for inclusive growth: The case of Bangaldesh.” South Asian Network on Economic Modeling, 2013. Smith, Adam. Wealth of Nations. Met&Libri, 2007 (Digital Edition). The World Bank. “Social safety nets in Bangladesh help reduce poverty and improve human capital.” April 29, 2019. https://www.worldbank.org/en/ news/feature/2019/04/29/social-safety-nets-in-bangladesh-help-reduce-pov erty-and-improve-human-capital (accessed February 5, 2021). ———. History of Social Safety Nets at the World Bank, n.d. https://ieg.wor ldbankgroup.org/sites/default/files/Data/reports/chapters/ssn_appa.pdf (accessed March 2, 2021). ———. “Social safety nets in Bangladesh help reduce poverty and improve human capital.” April 2019. https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/ 2019/04/29/social-safety-nets-in-bangladesh-help-reduce-poverty-and-imp rove-human-capital (accessed February 5, 2021). Wang, Jian. “Nation branding reconsidered.” CPD Blog. June 12, 2014. https:// uscpublicdiplomacy.org/blog/nation-branding-reconsidered (accessed February 5, 2021). World Value Survey. n.d. Accessed September 5, 2020. https://www.worldvalu essurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp.

CHAPTER 5

Funneling Frames Amid Developmental Imperatives: How ‘Primrose’ the Pathway Home?

Introduction How does the dust settle after appraising eight mainframes ? What brand or two can represent a Bangladesh half a century old? Why must a brand be necessary in the first place? We tackle those questions, but we do so in reverse order, leaving for the next chapter to handle the leftovers, that is, to explain those strong contenders we left out.

Branding Bangladesh In this age of accelerating communications revolutions miniaturizing the planet, any local dynamic can instantly become global news. If one does not assert one’s identity, someone somewhere will do it for that person or entity. How humans have conquered time and space remains one consideration. Just comparing shipments through the once newsworthy Pony Express to today’s Federal Express (Fedex), for instance, we can see how much more rapidly shipments move, and how far they can reach (ponies could not cross oceans, but Fedex can cross continents in the blink of a historical eye).1 All of these are possible, in part, because of transportation-enhancing technological innovations. Yet there is also the shift, out of full fear, to an over-indulgent consumer culture in which how many material-possessions we have speak louder than, for instance, a person’s © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_5

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educational qualification. Two inherent revolutions await, both involving shifts, from (a) a historically slow-moving culture, and (b) production to consumption. Another takeaway riddles the mind. Just as the stupendous changes accompanying the conquest of time and space have weakened boundaries of all sorts—from disciplines, relationships, and beliefs to territories, treaties, and trade-flows—so too have identities been thrown up in the air. So much so have identities become ambiguous and slippery that in one century Russians, for example, belonged to Tsarist Russia, became a Soviet citizen, found more freedoms in the Commonwealth of Independent States, in fact so much so that digestion could not keep pace, thus resulting in a far-reaching regression under Vladimir Putin, to that historical gene of ‘domination first, democracy last’ as Russians. What might historians say a couple of centuries down the road about Russian identity? Out of consonance Russians are not alone in this predicament. Heterogeneously composed countries also face the predicament of a breakdown into constituting nationalities or tribes. From the many waves of truly gigantic migratory movements we also see how the emergence of dual citizenship puts increasing numbers of countries across the developmental spectrum under new pressures. A similar argumentation accompanies the way competitiveness has been simultaneously forcing countries to cluster even along non-economic lines (such as culture), as much to get a larger individual bite of any commonly available cake, as in the European Union keeping outsiders out, like Turkey, even more so the Great Britain after the Brexit vote; or Anglo-Saxons grouping more concertedly against China today (as the September 2021 AUKUS Pact, between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, indicated by leaving France out). Both the cultural and production-consumption revolutions intertwine with the conquest of time and space: as slow technologies get replaced by more rapid ones, accumulation expansion, boundary evaporation cannot but change identities—and with them trademarks. Since any discussion of history today invokes the imperial past (a long past lasting centuries, in part because technological innovations were fewer, thus slowing down the pace of life), we cannot run away from another layer of distortion. Identity under imperialism essentially revolved around two kinds of players: the colonizing country and the zones/peoples colonized. Wars of independence and statehood changed

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those identities, but may not (and usually do not) always sever all influences of the colonizing country. The British Commonwealth may be a latter-twentieth-century reincarnation of the early twentieth-century British Empire, and though the geographical identities have been reconfigured, English still remains one of the dominant languages, as too the British common law or civil service practices, in many former colonies. More emphatically, the United States enjoyed, for most of the twentieth century, a ‘special relationship’ with the country it broke off from in the late eighteenth century. What all of these point to, and what hits Bangladesh smack in the face, is simply this: just as many of the new identities have been selected by the subject (India becoming India instead of British India, Pakistan similarly seeking a different identity than British India or India), as have been imposed by outsiders (right across the Africa continent). Almost all the territorial boundaries across Africa, for example, and thereby the new post-imperial states created, were largely imposed either by imperialists or the elites within a colony. No wonder Africa is today littered with tribes fighting tribes, within these new established countries. Burundi and Rwanda explicitly expose that antagonism, but the more sedate South Africa or the other continental heavyweight, Nigeria, show more than strong symptoms of local pressures to rechristen the country and/or peoples. Technological growth may have brought peoples and countries into a more compact relationship, but the silent growth of individualism that it also facilitates stands as a thorn ready to puncture any collective effort or outcome. Bangladesh was a victim of such an identity imposition until the 1970s. It was called Greater Bengal, East Bengal, East Pakistan, and not necessarily in that order. Yet the 1971 Liberation War was not about a name change as much as it was for far graver changes in culture (language), economics (parity with West Pakistan), or politics (heeding the simple majority rule criterion). Bangladesh creation shifted the onus on all three above counts to Bangalees themselves. As one of the most homogeneously peopled countries under the sky, Bangladesh might be just about as appropriate a nation-state name as any. It was branded ‘bottomless pit’ from far afield (and not unrealistically), giving the now free peoples and the land they fully owned for the first time a taller mountain to climb to savor that independence. Relationships and even prospects of the country and its people had to change, yet how to change was not as much a

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priority for a people suffering from famine and the resultant hunger as the means to simply survive. Yet when the change came, external agents or catalysts had to not only have domestic anchors, but also positioned behind the steering wheel, primarily to sustain the identity priority of a newly liberated people. Bangladesh’s birth coincided with the U.N. anchored Second Decade of Development. Sliding into this stream was but a natural option for a people so impoverished and a government so resourceless. If that road had been taken, Bangladesh would have been living under one string of expectations and restrictions or another, and shifting from one multilateral agency’s aegis to another, for example, from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) for adjusting commercial policies, while satisfying the imperatives of the World Bank on the projects needed to facilitate development, or the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to fashion its monetary and fiscal policies—all simultaneously. True, Bangladesh had to depend upon many international and multinational organizations just to survive, but the spark to go beyond the platforms they entailed did not come directly from them. Many less developed countries remain a team-player; but multilateral expectations, restrictions, and agendas began, for the lack of a more descriptive term, to ‘defect.’ This led to a trajectory shift, for example, feeding the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM), the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), among others, and inspiring the Organization of Islamic Countries (IOC). Bangladesh, led by Bangabandhu, jumped on board of these, not that they would recreate Bangladesh’s identity, let alone fuel its upward developmental climb, but how they fostered camaraderie, and with it a shared sentiment to soften the tough terrain, offered linkages as an alternative to isolation. Even amid this maelstrom at least one seed sown simply blossomed beyond expectations. OIC affiliation fueled an industry out of migrant workers, which, over the next 45 years (until the 2020s) staunchly established a viable country brand: a low-wage labor-supplier, Bangladesh grabbed the chance to consolidate itself as a brand-making remittance earner. With low-wage propelling Bangladesh up the developmental ladder in a way not prescribed by concurrent developmental theorists, another brand-making window opened up: production possibilities, in Bangladesh’s case the sector first harnessed in a traditional society to

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begin the industrialization process, that is, clothing, or low-skilled readymade garments (RMG). For a people world renowned for producing Dhaka muslin centuries ago, this return to fabric production could not but become a deep trademark qualifier. If that is not enough to expose the ‘magic’ low-wage can hold, a third window exposed an old label into completely new and most enterprising domain: microfinance, this time not only at the social ground-level with the individual, but also built upon a gender not historically associated with brand-building or trade-marking—women. How microfinance was transformed into tackling poverty using women to lead the charge may hold a story too special to be neglected in future annals. One must keep in mind, Bangladesh was not capable of handling foreign investment finance (macro-finance) in the 1970s, if only because all banks and many industries were in the public sector, as befitted a country principle of socialism. Yet it jumped to microfinance precisely because its dire poverty provided fertile ground for microfinance experiments. Remittances, RMG enterprises, and gender empowerment emerge, in the study being conducted here, as the strongest contenders in branding Bangladesh’s first 50 years. They may not be the only one, but each is involved in one of the storied chapters of this country’s evolution. Each has also had extraordinary (though expected) ripple effects. Remittances funded development, especially at the lowest, individual level, intricately intertwined with remittance earners as an independent catalyst too. Workers who went abroad returned with new ideas of how to spend the money remitted to the family and mostly in rural areas (Bangladesh is replete with concrete houses replacing traditional tinshed abodes). Both labor and investment markets were ignited, and through them banks, insurance, and a variety of other services and, eventually, infrastructures. This was the original home-made trademark, often disguised under too many rubrics to be understood on its own count. It was a structurally different type of approach to development than the multilateral pathway. Many of these indigenous, mostly ground-level or practical, approaches to development have not earned the recognition and respect that the original theories of development did, even though they account for a larger share of the developing countries today at the end of the first fifth of the twenty-first century. They helped abandon those earlier western, intellectually fashioned theories. Developmental ownership shifted to the so-called less developed countries (LDCs). Yet, they should not be

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totally trashed. They serve as a rebounding board pertinent for at least Bangladesh types of abysmally impoverished countries (‘bottomless pit’), if only for comparative purposes: there are too many of them for the strategy to avoid contemporary failure. Perhaps the most illustrious of those economic developmental theories was Walt Whitman Rostow’s ‘stages’ approach. Even before the 1960s began and based on his studies of primarily the United States, he posted four steps from a traditional country to a developed counterpart: a pretake-off stage, take-off , maturity, and high mass consumption stages. The first two of these stages involved production, the pre-take-off opening up industrial work in a single arena to get the juices of production flowing: turning farmers and peasants into factory assembly-line workers working long enough to accumulate enough national wealth, for example, by exporting the product, to begin diversifying investments. Once that diversification begins, the country shifts from the pre-take-off into take-off , and it can go in any which way it desires to. Typically, this is determined by what resources the country possesses to produce exportable surpluses, what needs it must satisfy through domestic production rather than imports, if only to save foreign exchange, or what a foreign company might want to produce locally at a globally competitive price. Likewise, the more varied such responses, the greater the diversification, which facilitates the shift to maturity and thence high mass consumption. These two stages depend upon necessary infrastructures being in place, a shift from production to consumption and from manufacturing to services, and so forth. This is not a fixed formula, as modifications litter the practice. Applied to Bangladesh, we note how Bangladesh shifted quickly out of a traditional society identity into pre-take-off industrialization. Our RMG low-wage industry helped us do so from the late 1970s. So successful has it been that forty years later, we remain trenchantly glued on to this sector for both our dominant income and trademark. Only recently have we begun to pay any attention to the take-off stage and diversification, and that too driven by the urge to move out of undeveloped and less developed categories of countries to join the developed counterpart. Because Bangladesh has enough cash in the counter, it has become sort of gung-ho this will happen, just as the RMG brand did not collapse with the MFA expiration in 1994, and has withstood not only the 2008–11 Great Recession but also the 2020–22 pandemic. Only in November 2021 did the United Nations Economic, Cultural and Social Commission (UNECOSOC) put Bangladesh on a five-year transition

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track into a less developed country, which Bangladesh officials want to fast-track into a developed country by the 2040s.2 Such wishes are easier said than done. What is traditionally a threeyear graduation transition was made five years for Bangladesh. We must take this in the same stride as we took the ‘bottomless pit’ tag in the early 1970s: there is work to be done, and while mobilizing to do what must be done, we must also let our imaginations flow elsewhere, just in case other independent dynamics, like low-wage labor in the 1970s, emerge to lift the country. More than the technological innovations sparking the industrial revolutions, these other social innovations may supply the cutting-edge moments needed at the moment, just as grabbing the globally floating microfinance opportunity in the mid-1970s did. From another viewpoint, our low-wage pool of income has also chipped in handsomely for Bangladesh to play around with multiple developmental tracks: remittances from migrant workers and RMG exports net over 50 billion USD annually. No wonder Bangladesh is beginning to splurge: it is building a long string of infrastructures to fit a developing and developed country’s needs; megaprojects have been diligently worked out to supply energy, even as a once poor Bangladesh ranks high in exploring and exploiting renewable solar energy. It has been equally alert in diversifying low-wage workers, while it still has an enormous supply, to higher-end production, such as assembling bicycles, motorbikes, and automobiles, building ships, and digging deeper into converting primary goods into secondary (manufactured) goods through leather product cultivation. Parallel to Rostow’s third and takeoff development stage activities, the country also began harnessing Digital Bangladesh,3 a project designed to computerize the country to peak intellectual levels, thus at the upper-end of all developmental investments. If not smooth-sailing into the developed-country club by the 2040s, barring any catastrophes, Bangladesh will climb high enough and far from where it is now, let alone the 1970s. It has the cash, personnel, workforce youth, differently skilled workers, and innovative talents. Its ballooning trade deficits have long shown the conspicuous shift from not being selfsufficient in food in the 1970s to becoming too materialistic and too heavily populated by a consumption-minded public. These characterize a high mass consumption stage. That does not mean Bangladesh will become a perfect example. It will not because of its reliance on non-renewable energy suppliers, especially

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coal and oil; its cities have become too polluted for its citizens to learn and obey the rules to cut back on contamination in one lifetime, given the materialism in their genes; and it faces a daunting climate-change ghost threatening its coasts, land erosion on the hillsides, and forests facing salinity. Above all, the ‘bottomless pit’ ghost could still stalk us, as it did in protracting our ‘developing country’ graduation threshold. By the 2040s, Bangladesh’s population growth-rate will be hitting an alarmingly low threshold rate, as it is already below the replacement level; and though the peak population will come later in the century, the average citizen will no longer be young enough to (a) run the country’s wheels, and (b) care for an aging population. These would only raise the ante for all sorts of service-level investments, like healthcare. Will the country manage? Whatever the answer, the image of the country will be at stake. Will it continue as the congested, polluted, sinking country in ‘bottomless pit’ mold, or banish that identity long before such a fate descends to forge that softness commensurate with a vintage palate? Will a newer image be powerful enough and more comprehensive to deliver such an outcome?

What Brand Bangladesh? A free-lancer’s appraisal might not be like the theoreticians’. We believe, however, where the twain overlaps there we will find unambiguous Bangladeshi 50-year brands. Other contenders might sneak in, but the justification must be solid. Accordingly, this chapter appraises those two views (and they may not be the only two ways to determine the relevant brands; but if there are others, we invite other scholars to make their viewpoint). It then summarizes, before drawing projections. Freelancer’s Viewpoint From analyzing eight mainframes and the many more single-frames, the following stand out: Sonar Bangla as the political embodiment of the representation of the Bangalee heritage; Joi Bangla as the political embodiment of the Bangalee desire to be autonomous (and unwitting yet ultimate pathway towards independence); microfinance, one key vehicle to take Bangladeshis out of the ‘bottomless pit’ and give their country a face (without, in fact, elevating their ‘low wage’ capacity from this prism); and embedded antagonism of sorts (beyond that dominating the 1971

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Liberation War, and evident in the assassination of Bangabandhu, the 1980s civil–military schism, the political party schism from the 1990s; and in the democracy-Islam division all along). We have elaborated on their relevance as frames. That was at the proverbial ‘tree’ level of analysis in the two previous chapters, relying upon a vast armada of publicly available news or information. Pushing them to serve as brands requires moving to the ‘forest’ level of analysis: what is their broader or long-term impact? Heritage (culture, language, literature, even religion if truncated from politics is a ‘no-contest’ zone), gave Sonar Bangla and its relative, Joi Bangla, strategic footing as a brand. Even though Joi Bangla carries a political flavor which disassociates it from Sonar Bangla, here it makes sense given its intimate relationship with (a) Bangladesh’s independence; and (b) expressing pride, such as that which comes with climbing into the upper strata of economic development. Joi Bangla shrills can also be expected as Bangladesh climbs the economic ladder. Any ‘made in Bangladesh’ trademark can pump up the blood and patriotism. With them come the flag, and of course, nationalistic songs or slogans sound or shouted with growing pride. Without independence, Joi Bangla would not stand a chance as a Bangalee brand, and without Joi Bangla companionship, even Sonar Bangla would not resonate loud enough to become a steadfast brand: our national anthem would be denied, and so too our language. Bangladesh has not experienced what the absence of the former would mean to Bangalees , and God forbid it ever will; but we do know, from those bloody February days in 1952 to the first week of March 1971, what would transpire if the latter was denied. All other brand contenders carry time limitations. Without wanting to shed the ‘bottomless pit’ skin, there would not be a microfinance brand. That it springs in the countryside with poor residents, mostly women, gave it two solid reasons to become a brand: not just attacking poverty to eliminate it, but also attaching poverty to eliminate it with a game-plan of what could be done thereafter (with banks as an anchor, a wide panoply of options opened up for tackling, with education a BRAC highlight); and gender empowerment, not just in a patronizing stratified society, but also in a Muslim community which would suddenly face a globally radicalized atmosphere from the mid-1980s. As we look back from 2022, both brand-deserving rationales stand taller, firmer: our microfinance became a global brand, blessed one of its founding father with a Nobel Prize,

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knighted another founding father, and took the rural Bangladeshi emancipation (from both poverty and gender immobility) to global playgrounds (as BRAC beacons sprawl abroad with the same poverty alleviation and women emancipation targets). Poverty has been shifted to the backburner, even faces an ‘exit door’ if the ‘developed country’ plans fall into place on time; and on the gender front, as this is being written (that, too, by gender-parity authors), the country’s executive and legislative heads (as well as foreign, education, and other ministries), are none other than women. The same ‘low-wage’ pool tapped by microfinance went on to produce yet another brand-worthy contender: the RMGs parachute out of our ‘bottomless pit’ caricature into a ‘development’ ballpark. It is within that context that we return to the RMG contribution. What remains in the freelance ledger is the antagonism contender, a feature not expected to grab newspaper attention after the Liberation War was won. Between 1968 and 1971 the only antagonism was too soft and too political to vie for attention in the media, that between political parties within the East Pakistan confines. Yet, once Maulana Bhasani summoned his forces to threaten an assault upon Dhaka Cantonment to release Bangabandhu and other so-called Agartala Conspiracy Case leaders in 1969, even political parties of all suasions rallied behind Sheikh Mujib. We do not need ‘rocket science’ to detect cleavages during the Liberation War among Bangalee fighters: the moderate and extremists were always there, but liberation not only widened the gulf (as the Jatio Samajtantra Dal, JSD, split from the Chaatra League indicated), it also invited religious peddlers into the fray. This was unavoidable: the Pakistan occupying forces played on religion to emasculate the freedom fighters, and many Razakars (those Bangalees explicitly siding with Pakistan during the Liberation War, hence dubbed an ‘traitors’), identified themselves under al-Badr and al-Shams groupings, both introducing radicalism under the banner of Islam. Bangabandhu’s assassination not only highlighted the havoc this residual Razakar group could inflict, but how it penetrated political parties also exposed the long-term war betrayals could have. That antagonism remained potent until the 2012–5 War Crimes Trials had meted out justice; and though not erased, the more independent growth of a more assertive Islam across the country alerts us as to how that antagonism could be rekindled).

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For our branding purposes, the broad term antagonism is left as a composite of the international conspirators still eyeing Bangladesh footholds, political parties threatening the status quo of experimenting with democracy, pitting Islam against democratic forces (as the Shapla Square incident indicated), and coupling anti-Indian sentiments with any Islamic crusade as a means to warm relations with Pakistan. It is a brand opening public eyes with a warning to not unfasten their safety-belt nor compromise independence no matter how contentious democracy might get. Theoretical Views Although we have implicitly or explicitly referred to developmental brands (‘bottomless pit’ is a synonym for ‘economic un-development’, while its opposite, ‘development’ is eponymously emphatic on that point), theories do not necessarily have to be developmental to claim consideration as a brand. We have just raised it to the forefront for a number of reasons: (a) to bury the ‘bottomless pit’ reference; (b) to explore the ‘developed country’ pathway; (c) the term associates most readily as a brand market in the first 50-years of any country’s sojourn, since it is some sort of an independence follow-up task; (d) the term is, as we will show below, far more multifaceted than the implicit economic underlay, in fact, so much so, little else can be left or ignored in brand-building; and (e) branding has taken such an economic slant in the relevant literatures that it would be hard to even talk about substantively without references to development—even if that exposes how much more constrained the human intellectual outreach is beyond a material relationship. Development can be economic, but also health, political, social, and so forth. Treated in reverse order, we will see branding fits in everywhere when the time is right. We contend it is not yet time for any of the other types, save political, before the economic sun is fully up. We hope the rationale emerges soon as much as we hope the branding prospects also become visible. One of the frequently used measurements of social development has been the physical quality of life index (PQLI). Determined by the literacy rate, infant mortality rate, and life expectancy, even though a typical Bangalee lives to be 70+ today compared to somewhere in the 40s range during the 1970s, this has not attracted branding attention. Reasons are not hard to find: in 2019 Bangladesh ranked 133rd (out of 189), in

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the human developed index; it ranks 112th (out of 138) on the Global Knowledge Index; stands 133rd (out of 189) in the Human Development Index; and 103rd (out of 110) in the Digital Quality of Life Index; and although its 1,962 USD (2020) per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is the 41st highest in the world, one-third of that (662 USD) goes to pay the national debt. Even though literary rates have climbed from 16.8% in 1971 to 78% in 2021,4 infant mortality decline from 210 to 20,5 and life expectancy spiraling to 73 from 47,6 no brand has emanated. Across South Asia Bangladesh leads in various social indicators, yet these statistics have not fathered any brands as yet. It could be the story of the second 50-year of the country’s life, but numerous challenges must first be overcome, from unregulated urban congestion and pollution to climate-change vulnerabilities. If branding social development must await the next 50-years of Bangladesh’s existence, how has political development fared? One of our free-lancing brands, antagonism, is itself politically driven. It could easily become a free-wheeling brand, but a more nuanced response would have to dig into political development theories. One of the earliest developed in the 1950s and 1960s under the U.S. Social Science Research Council’s aegis, under Gabriel Almond and others,7 identified the development of a country in terms of its ability to cross several sequential crises: 8 identity; authority; legitimacy; penetration; participation, integration; and specialization of labor. These were all evaluated under three trajectories: equality; capacity; and differentiation. Bangladesh overcame the first crisis, identity, to present brand-worthy credentials, as recognized by both Sonar Bangla and Joi Bangla becoming appropriate trademarks. The country’s legitimacy began with Bhutan’s and India’s recognition over (a few days before) Victory Day on December 16, 1971; and by today over 150 countries have recognized the country, including Pakistan (in February 1974). How it has crossed the third crisis is evident not just through microfinance revolutionizing the countryside, but also from the enormous urbanization since 1971 (just over one-third of our population lives in the countryside today as opposed to three-quarters in the early 1970s). If that does not suffice as ‘penetration,’ the huge migrant workers abroad could be added to that list, as too the government’s EPZ (export processing zones) plans, as too the border haats . All of these (migrant workers, EPZs, and border haats ) are potentially brand candidates.

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If anything about the shift from military rule to democracy from the 1990s, the fourth crisis was tackled and overcome: participation. True voters conflicted between two different parties during most of that time, even viewing each party’s election victory as a sine qua non claim on governance. More work needs to be done for external observers to be comfortable about electoral participation, but compared to other countries to have democratized over the last one-quarter of a millennium, Bangladesh has not done too badly, though it was not ready as yet to brand this particular dynamic. Likewise, too, for the fifth and sixth crises: integration and distribution. With the former, many minorities, especially ethnically different citizens and Hindus’ need to feel more comfortable as citizens than they presently do, indicating how much more work needs to be done; and so too with distribution, a state-centered function that is best when delivered in a non-partisan manner. All but the first crisis remains vulnerable to political hijacking, and this is the ghost to be bequeathed to the second 50-years of the country: by then no survivors of 1971 will be alive, meaning no one will have any liberation war-driven bias to trip the country’s progress. Political development, then, can contribute heavily to issue-specific branding of the country, as has been noted; but a comprehensive branding impact can only glow when at least five of the six crises have been satisfactorily reconciled (or crossed). It carries the credit of branding the country even before economic branding entered the picture; but its divided-house portraiture keeps it from permitting those brands to shine to their fullest. Health development owed its presence and salience to the stringent but silent crusades against malnutrition and a number of diseases, such as cholera and smallpox. But it is with malnutrition that one of the most strategic battles can be won: to feed protein to the offspring so brain development to its fullest becomes the springboard of new ideas and innovation at most, but satisfying education thresholds at the minimum. We have already noted how literacy rates have gone up, as too the number of universities; and we have acknowledged such social growth features as better nutrition, more decent meals, and taller children being raised than before. Yet, if these are to hit any noteworthy brands, much more work is needed, and the second 50-year of Bangladesh may open the platform for those accomplishments to vie as a Bangladesh brand.

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Turning to economic development, perhaps it is a fair enough indicator to remain with Rostow’s stages of development as the barometer: whether it is the right one or not we will leave for others to decide, but for us this thesis offers an argument that adjusts well with a 50-year stretch and in outstripping extant brands. One way to picture the theoretical ballpark is to position Bangladesh on a continuum from un-development (‘bottomless pit’) to a fully ‘developed country’. On that spectrum, we can position microfinance and RMG production as the brands for lowwage or impoverished people, thus as symbols nearer the undeveloped end; while Digital Bangladesh could become the brand closest to the developed-country end. What we position in between should tell the country’s story, facilitate identifying the graduation being made all along, and mesh with the motley of events and developments rather than the political pitching behind them unless that has an identity or liberation war connection. Toward that end, we propose the RMG sector and banks between microfinance start and digitalized Bangladesh ending. RMG inclusion as a brand is justified as the perennially strongest component of our economy, still the largest industrial domain and foreign exchange earner. Without its presence, Bangladesh would be literally tottering economically. Similarly, banks which have themselves served as launching pads of just about any business, must pay homage to both BRAC and Grameen Bank since their pacesetting presence made microfinance a springboard. Not only do they represent the largest advertising sector in the country, but their profitmaking possibilities add up to making them a powerful country brand collectively. Before turning to the four brands, this might be as appropriate a place to elaborate and demonstrate why economic development is so multifaceted that we do not have to think of the other forms of development as intensely as we do, a claim that is simply unable to make reverse claims: there is no way social development, political development, or health development could encompass economic development directly or formally. We may or may not get economic development from finessing the other forms of development, but that economic development contains the other and directly feeds into them is something ‘they’ cannot claim of economic development. An RMG worker is, by definition, a low-wage worker historically involving a huge chunk of young women. Here we see not only

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gender emancipation, but gender emancipation as a step toward povertyelimination. Both sociological offshoots travel far: we have seen how the RMG sector has helped improve the clothing worn by hitherto poor girl wrapped up in tattered clothing, an improvement matched by a more refined household now boasting two sources of income at least, thus permitting education of sorts, and generating market ripple effects. These are huge consequences, both non-economically and economically. According to Mr. Hai Sarker of the Purbani Group, the key RMG inconvenience relates to compliance with western standards, a dimension accented acutely following the Rana Plaza and Tazreen tragedies: compliance over safety, labor standards, maternity leave, against child labor, and so forth. “They are wanting us to comply with all the compliances,” he observed, “but they don’t like to share the burden of the expenses being incurred …” These compliances make the finished RMG product costlier still in the market. With the steady shift of inevitable online transaction, and pushed by particularly the COVID pandemic, automated RMG alternatives have been knocking far louder on RMG doors. What has been the RMG response in Bangladesh? Again, Sarker dismissed the threat. “Automation is not a problem for us,” he assertively pointed out. “Smaller retailers will come and start buying,” he confidently informed us, while “most of the big retailers [are] now hanging their selling policy … putting up online sales.” He seemed receptive to changes of any sort. “Everything is changing with technology,” and his company seemed prepared to do the same. Rubana Huq was even more gung-ho. A former president of the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and Chairperson of the Mohammedan Group (RMG manufacturers), she insisted the country “go global” for a very valid reason: global online fashion market value was climbing, from over USD 500 billion before the pandemic to over USD 800 billion. Here we get a sense of defending RMG producers as the status quo. Their confidence continues to be buoyed by external demand remaining high and domestic wages remaining low, thus strengthening the RMG image, or brand, as a low-wage bonanza business. It will be a tough nut to crack, but crack it must at some point, releasing the industrial diversification juices that development needs. The same is true of banks, not just from recruiting women at a higher income-level, but also branching out (partly helping cross the ‘penetration’ crisis discussed earlier) into the countryside, enticing a wider variety

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of investors, courting possible clients in universities, and so forth. Yet again, non-economic doors open up to make banks successful, just as bank entry into the social lives of customers help them to diversify their attention and spending outside the economic realm, The higher the net income because of the economic development underway, the more likely the customers will seek education for their children, better clothing, and more books; families are more likely to travel and seek medical attention even over minor maladies. In other words, many functions open up in the communities from ripple effects, generating more jobs, and greater modernization needs. This is why economic development contains social development, political development, and health development. Political development, for example, builds upon the governmental provision of social security and protections, all of which expose ‘penetration’ yet again, among other ‘crises.’ In conjunction with our first economic development brand contender is Bangladesh’s wonder sector: its RMG industry. Since it began in the late 1970s, it has remained Bangladesh’s top industry, and alone takes credit for converting a traditionally agricultural mindset into an industrial configuration. Its arrival was timely: one of the land’s historical brands, jute, was fast losing its edge against plastic competitors. The World Bank alerted Bangladesh of this in the mid-1970s, when another development was to restore the garments industry: the 1974 Multi-Fiber Agreement (MFA) imposed quotas on clothing exports for sufficiently industrialized or developed countries. They quickly relocated production processes into low-wage countries. South Korea sought Bangladesh out, led by Daewoo, from 1979. Here began the journey of another signature Bangladesh brand.9 ‘Present at the creation,’ as A.K.M. Enayet Kabir entitled his analysis of the country’s RMG evolution, noted how this new brand began on July 4, 1978, when Nurul Kader, who was a government secretary during Bangladesh’s Liberation War, teamed up with Kim Woo Chong, Chairman of Daewoo Corporation, for whom Kabir worked, indeed, got first exposure to the RMG business in South Korea. Kabir notes how the Daewoo–Desh Joint Venture Agreement was described by the World Bank ‘as the single largest and most modern garment manufacturing in South Asia,’ built upon the first group to go to South Korea for training (or 130 supervisors, 18 of them women). He could not help but observe how that multiplied into 4,630 export-oriented RMG industries today, earning 40

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billion USD from sales, supplying 83% of the country’s gross domestic product, and of the four million workers, 80% happen to be women. The brand kept evolving, as Kabir further noted, from ‘shirt mania’ to ‘trousers, sportswear, jackets, gloves,’ among others. Today this industry has also entered that branding niche market: haute-couture. Not only the RMG factories, but the backward and forward linkage establishments spawned altered the Bangladesh landscape, not only on the industrial front, but for the country overall. Even though industries go through a life-cycle (often determined by a product life-cycle), this one in Bangladesh seems to be an ever escalating phenomenon. Its positive spillovers have already been mentioned, but one key negative spillover has been how it blunted Bangladesh’s entrepreneurs from investing elsewhere, diversifying from a solid start. It was simply that the golden eggs never looked like ending, even when the MFA was withdrawn in 1993. Apart from catalyzing the country economically, the RMG sector also galvanized the social atmosphere, with girls entering the job market, their attire constantly improving in style as if to reiterate Bangladesh was no long a ‘bottomless’ anything, and the sweeping landscape change with over 4,000 new factories, the government had no choice but to make political adjustments. The 1982 New Industrial Policy began privatizing state-controlled enterprises, and with further Kader influences, a ‘Triangle of Trust’ entwined fabric producers, suppliers, and the central bank, Bangladesh Bank, which helped convert typical license of credits (L/C) into ‘back-to-back L/C,’ a Bonded Warehousing system was established and Utilization Permits were introduced (paper calculations replacing physical estimations). Perhaps it was resorting to a more uplifting counterpart: in this case to help Bangladesh graduate out of a less developed country and enter the developing bracket after 2026. Microfinance Our first economic development brand contender, microfinance, was activated just after Bangladesh was liberated. It not only went on to become a global brand, especially in developing countries, but served as one of the two to directly grapple with poverty, the salient feature of a ‘bottomless pit’ image. Bangladesh’s RMG export-machine is treated next. Microfinance was not new in the economic compendium, but in a world infected with top-down development strategies battling bottom-up communism/socialism, the tendency to look away from the underneath

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had many casualties. Microfinance was one. It took re-juggling minds of two routine Bangladeshi economists to embrace social entrepreneurship to make magic out of microfinance. That magic did not come easy, or even serve as a predictable or inevitable outcome. The ‘dirty work’ had to be done fast, and both Fazle Abed and Mohammad Younus were ready to get their hands dirty straightaway. Cutting a long, oft-told story short, since this is not the place for industrial evolutionary conversations, the former created BRAC and the latter Grameen Bank institutions (note how both have the countryside stamp right in the heart of their names), to supply relief to the impoverished survivors of the war, either within Bangladesh itself or returning from refugee camps in India. It was shifting from the defensive to the offensive in eliminating poverty that caught the eye of brand-building, not just within Bangladesh, but also globally—and properly rewarded in the 1990s by knighted for the former and a Nobel Peace prize for the latter. Both BRAC and Grameen Bank microfinancial platforms have remained macro concepts and organizations. Real branding developments occurred under the umbrella of both. It is just that there were so many of them, all innovations, that the macro representation got more attention and brand-making cultivation. Under the BRAC and Grameen Bank umbrella emerged smallloan programs in 1974, both targeting social development more than economic. BRAC emphases, for instance, touched education, health, and livelihood through a ‘creative approach’: farmers with low soil productivity were now able to get softer loans for inputs, an initiative that became institutionalized with seed development or chicken farming, and extending that same idea to sericulture and handicraft. This social safety network approach teamed up with the World Food Program and the government to extend the 1974 Vulnerable Group Development (VGD) government program into an income generation VGD (IGVGD) approach from 1987, then transforming into the Ultra-Poor Graduation (UPG) program from 2016, helping lift over two million people out of poverty in this century alone. The buck did not stop there. The BRAC education interest culminated in a leading country-level university from 1994, and ever since the BRAC institution has gone abroad to do in other countries what it successfully did in Bangladesh with its Poor Graduation Programme. From wanting to cleanse the country of demeaning trademarks, both

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BRAC and Grameen Bank microfinance brands have dignified microfinance, non-profit poverty-alienation, and Bangladesh’s original reputation through bottom-up innovative economic engagements, social safety networks easily accessible to the poor because they happen to also be managed by the poor or the tradition of a community collateral, and an internationalized campaign to take from one once poor country to other still-poor countries, or even poor-in-developing-country audiences, as a different and equally successful alternative to the top-down banking tradition and development dating back to the Carnegies , Fords , Morgans , Rockefellers, and Vanderbilts , among others, from over a century ago in another part of the world. Digital Bangladesh takes the country into domains dominated by the Third and Fourth industrial revolution dynamics, the former accenting the Internet, the latter does likewise to artificial intelligence (AI), among its growing fleet of armor. Such a government institutionalized fast-track approach adequately augmented by private sector initiatives (for instance, as represented by Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services, BASIS), should not be seen as the brand for the future: it is, but not alone. As evident in how the BRAC and Grameen Bank microfinance clustered brands still remain potent four decades after they were launched, Digital Bangladesh will have to coexist with these and other similar brands. They carry inter-relationships: Digital Bangladesh requires a high degree of intellectual capabilities, slowly nurtured slowly by both BRAC and Grameen Bank initiatives from the 1970s, among several other springboards. As one of the leading countries in deploying solar energy, especially across the countryside, while also becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate-change threats, even ranking among the most-vulnerable countries, Bangladesh has a lot at stake in developing digital responses to these opportunities and threats. Not only will this digital plunge build intellectual parks, but the cross-country sprawl of these envisioned projects show the official determinations to create such new brands. A similar ongoing foray into constructing vital infrastructural projects, such as highways and bridges, could also expand both commodity flows and consumption, as Mohammad Tanveer Madar, Chairman of Hellman Worldwide Logistics, Ltd., contends. Whereas shipping freight accounts for a whopping 80% of all trade, air and road account for a paltry 20% presently. These figures cannot but change.

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Banks Whereas the bottom-up BRAC and Grameen Bank approach was eyeopening to become a formidable brand, the routine top-down banking system in Bangladesh also made a mark, strong enough to also offer branding credentials. Before elaborating what some of their contributions have been, it is necessary to fit banking into the adopted developmental scheme. Banks represent a service industry, ranging from minimal sophistication (state-run banks) to maximal (not just private sector banks, but banks breaking the ice to reach customers, either through new technological ramp-ups or other innovative methods). Therefore, they do not fit the product-based industrialization relying heavily on physical input (labor), as in the first and second industrial revolutions. Even their functions depend upon banking of a routine nature. It is the shift to the third and fourth industrial revolutions that demand banks go out of the ordinary to meet new needs. More than that, banks provide the capital for all industrial revolutions. Competition drives them to innovate to adapt, the more so today than ever in the staid past (and likely for more rapidly in the future). That importance is reflected in Bangladesh advertising: banks dominate advertising, whether in news media or conferences/congregations, and the like. These alone make them pivotal to the enormous changes afoot in Bangladesh. Two sides prevail to the bank-based growth, and thereby branding . One is based on regular competition, as in the free market, a domain struggling to prevail, thus far successfully albeit only narrowly. The other side is based upon patronization, nepotism, and the kind of irregular banking behavior we see in countries not fully cultured in commercial processes, or are too new in the business to learn all the ropes, or just have too much dependence upon strings being pulled, favors being imparted, and favoritism winning out. The direct result of this has been the staggering growth of non-performing loans (NPLs). Anis Khan, former CEO (Chief Economic Office) of Mutual Trust Bank, attributes this growth to “too many banks, too much competition, too much favoring upon the same customer, and putting money in the same customer … [T]hey take this money, they divert it, they buy land, and then the business fails because they do not have enough cash flow in the business … and

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then they cannot sell the land.” Hai Sarker similarly blames “irresponsible financing to the extent of 2,000,000 crores of defaulted loans in the country.” There is another reason why, Khan adds: “we do not do proper analysis, we do not have proper professionals … [and] corporate governance.” Both sides get branded. Bangladesh’s NPL dimension is embarrassingly bloated; and it has become a Main Street brand in that every literate person knows about it, some exploit it, others keeping as much of a distance as possible, and the banking system of professionals striving to fight their way through measures, and by scraping as much of evolving technologies painted the face of banking different. What are some of these, since they become components of a macro-level banking brand? Those dealing directly with transactions include agent banking and booth banking, both enormously bridging the urban–rural gap. New MTB CEO, Syed Mahbubur Rahman’s proposal to restructure both the banking institution and staff functions outlined three priority areas: a ‘personality revolution’; banking automation; and remote banking. If anything, this signals how top-down commercial banks have identified rural residents as potential customers. They may, quite likely, adopt measures of the bottom-up type like in the BRAC and Grameen Bank cases, only not bending as far toward the poverty-elimination mission of the latter two banks, just enough to attract new countryside customers. Accessing the public took a revolutionary turn with the adoption of automated transaction machines (ATMs) right after the 2008–11 Great Recession ended (it did not have as much of an impact in Bangladesh). Today over 35,000 such machines riddle the country. Our interview of the former MTB CEO revealed that bank itself owns about 10% of these cost machines. In parallel stride evolved agent banking systems from about the same time. Each serves like a mini bank in a typical single-room equipped with a cash counter with biometrics so the public can deposit or withdraw money, dispatch remittances, or make payments. These take urban banking styles and practices to the countryside, in reverse form of the BRAC and Grameen Bank approach, which build local practices to serve local interests and built upon local collaterals in the countryside. Once again we see the spread of banking, and with it a commercialized instinct. Associated with agent banking is an even more miniaturized booth system, approved by Bangladesh Bank upon a MTB proposal MTB itself had nine booths at the time of our interview, in 2019. We learned of

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financial inclusion not only demanding a lot of banking attention, but also how it has been variegated to serve customized clients, such as women or senior citizens. Dhaka Bank also reported moving in similar directions. In our interview with its Chairman, Mr. Hai Sarker, we found booth banking being preferred to branch branding in the traditional sense: it is more economic, pliable, informal, and capable of reaching new clients. At the time of our interview in 2019, Dhaka Bank had 110 branches dispersed across the country, and giving as much attention to booth banking as branches. It did not, at that time, tap the agent banking option. Although low-wage industrialization was a crucial breakthrough, especially for a country born chastised, for Bangladesh to reach such a ‘developed country’ outcome it must climb up the value-chain. One way to do so would be to produce at the higher-end of the low-wage spectrum, that is, manufacturing products necessitating more skills than the basic RMG range. Diversification is the name typically reserved for that, and recognition has been made of motor-cycles, automobiles, and shipbuilding, each requiring not only more skilled workers, but also skills of a higher nature. While these fulfill the needs to fall under a ‘second’ industrial revolution syndrome, at the ‘third’ more mature level, Bangladesh would have to shift to intellect-based production, not physical labor-based. Moving up to the higher-end of the industrial ladder (to intellectbased production and consumption), we intertwined Advanced Chemicals Industries (ACI ) and Rahim Afrooz, the conglomerate managing a chain of supermarkets called Agora. This is where pharmaceuticals-type highintellect products lie, among so many others. With the COVID pandemic exposing how Bangladesh is advanced enough to produce at least U.S. Drug Authority (USDA)-approved oral vaccination counterpart. At the same time, with so much emphasis on production in our research, we thought we would turn some more attention to consumption: perhaps we could discern from what citizens consume something about their level of development. For that, our final case study asks what branding potential may lie there? ACI narratives antedate Bangladesh’s life. Invited to the Civil Service viva examination, Chairman of the ACI Board of Directors, Mr. Anis ud Dowla, opted instead to continue as Sales Manager of the Chittagong branch of Pakistan Oxygen. When that became Bangladesh Oxygen after the Liberation War, he became the automatic Managing Director, until his British parent company stationed him in Kenya, following which a

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stint as Managing Director of Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) in Dhaka. When ICI closed its Dhaka subsidiary, Dowla took over ownership with a “token down payment,” and changed the name to Advanced Chemical Industries , in 1992. With over 12,000 workers, the ACI brand is better known for ACI Pure Food and ACI Pure Salt, the latter scooped up in Cox’s Bazaar and processed (evaporation, crystallization, and iodization) in Naraynganj. With research facilities in Rangpur, the ACI name has opened more brand-making opportunities than other industrial units. Among its several pathfinding, thus brand-making, products have been saline resistant hybrid rice, pollution-controlled products, farm mechanization, tractors floating fish-feed, and pharmaceuticals—each consistent with a ‘developed country’ than a ‘bottomless pit’ platform. ACI hybrid rice is the first in the country. It is also being developed to resist salinity, a prudent decision given the climate-change threats of growing soil salinity. If climate change ‘bad’ turns to ‘worse,’ developments such as these could boost brand popularity. Related to these breakthroughs have been farm mechanization steps, from rice transplanters to harvesters with tractors tilling land in between. From Dowla we learned how one-third of Bangladesh land is already being tilled by tractors, a silent but huge ACI contribution, as too finessing fishfeed. Typically these fish-feed sink and only a proportion is gulped by the fish. To offset that waste, floating or semi-emerging fish-feed have been devised. These minute measures parallel the pollution control steps: effluent treatment plants cater to liquid discharge, an omission branding the leather industry very negatively to the public. For a country losing its farm population, and destined to lose even more, tractors prove increasingly necessary, that too in a deltaic land inhospitable to tractors and a tradition still relying on manual farming. Yet, these, very much like the pollution-controls and more savvy fishing practices earmark the type of the country we want to become—advancing until we reach the ‘developed’ capstone. ACI advances await us alongside that trek. Its venture into pharmaceuticals could make it a more household name and brand, particularly if its state-of-the-art Rupganj plant received US FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) approval (it was awaiting a USFDA team shortly after our interview was conducted). From the ACI exploits highlighting production, we turn to consumers and consumption. Rahimafrooz, a supermarket pioneer (along with Ameena Bazaar and Shwapno), exposes some of the major changes facilitating our transition from the traditional bazaars and haats to a more

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conglomerate shopping future consistent with a developed country. From Niaz we learned the starting point was in 1991, which synchronized with the onset of neoliberalism globally, a market-driven surge more anchored upon multilateral rules than ever before, with the World Trade Organization monitoring transaction and policy guidelines, but also unleashing pent-up private sector juices to the point that even WTO liberalism was driven to extremes. Entering the food business (that too from automobiles, tires, and batteries), we confront only new practices, meaning breaking social stigma, but also innovative outputs. One of those innovations, which we take for granted every time we go shopping is the barcode on our receipts. “Locally, today, every product you see will have a barcode,” Niaz proudly shared with us, “and all of this was the contribution of Rahimafrooz.” By not establishing its own supply sources, Rahimafrooz’s contract supplies help accelerate the economic multiplier effect, that is, connecting other firms to supply the necessary merchandise, letting those firms create their own supply networks, and so forth, down the line. This ‘opening up’ is too common in many other countries, but for a traditional society, as in Bangladesh, that too, starting from scratch, this was some sort of a milestone initiative. From eliminating traditional animal slaughter through slaughter-houses, even then upgrading those slaughter-houses, to preparing for mobile services and online (which threaten the distribution of perishable goods), Rahimafrooz might be a close-knitted corporation, but it does have its fingers on the progressive buttons. Niaz was clear, we have hardly tapped the potential Bangladesh retail market yet, but a lot of retailing is headed our way, necessitating the preparation of retailers. Rahimafrooz retailers undergo internal training, something that might be out of sync if the retail market is to unravel the way it has been predicted to. Supermarkets and retail training apart, Rahimafrooz remains a big name in battery exports and solar energy. Both carry brand-worthy credentials, the latter enormously so. With its export plant in Ishwardi, Rahimafrooz sells batteries to over 70 countries, India being a prize though a tough-to-enter market. It forced the country to file a WTO (World Trade Organization) case against India, as Niaz told us, “the first company to push Bangladesh to that level, and Alhamdullah [Mercy of Allah], we succeeded….” Two other plants in Savar serve its domestic market. Yet it was the ‘protected’ domestic market where reaping solar energy started in 1985, pushed by Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anwar

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Hossain. “The duty was one hundred per cent [sic] on solar … became 50% in 1991, and in a couple of years later it became zero perpetuity.” Prices fell behind the Rahimafrooz slogan (developed in 1986–7) of Banglar ghore ghore biddut (electricity in every Bangalee home). As Niaz explained, “an illuminated house will bring home knowledge, education and development … if someone were to keep you in a darkened room, all your qualification and education means nothing..” Yet, when “even the smaller homes have electricity, the first thing they will buy is a television … getting exposed to the whole world … catching the news, different programs … getting mental exposure … [T]hat is how they develop.” Niaz piquantly observed Bangladesh to be “the world’s largest solar home lighted country,” and correctly so. That is a massive branding opportunity, one that remains underplayed. Jute and RMG exports have fashionably lit up the country’s brand abroad, even at home; but as we slide increasingly and so ineluctably into a climate-change morass, branding the right renewable energy supply could change the face and texture of Bangladesh’s image. This kind of outgrowth is consistent with a ‘developed country’ claim or status in a way jute or RMG exports are not. Angling for future relevance and recognition helps this value-based family-bonded enterprise strengthen its ‘perpetuity-building’ approach. Solar-powered batteries dominate rural electricity, as Niaz argues, “a Mercedes-Benz customer is not as important to us as a rickshaw-wala … A rickshaw-wala uses five batteries, a Mercedes-Benz uses one.” All Rahimmafrooz needs is an environmentally safe ‘booster charge’ to ignite solar-power usage. Utilize the newly created Center for Zakat Management (itself a novel approach) to fund student scholarships and the Dholaikhal reproduction method (a method utilized by vendors to reproduce any model in place of innovation, and without any copyright), Rahimafrooz has plenty of brand possibilities the country could anchor upon. Just as the media can help popularize them, a more nuances approach at branding that looks outside the boxes (of income generation, political reputation, and heritage), could easily help such floating brands get much more mileage.

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Notes 1. See Imtiaz Hussain for much more on this technological interaction with culture in Tyranny of Soft Touches: Interculturalism, Multiculturalism, and 21st Century International Relations (Mexico City: Universidad Iberoamericana, 2004). 2. Imtiaz A. Hussain, “Bangladesh as a ‘developed country’: ‘Graduating” imperatives.” The Daily Star, February 13, 2022. From: https://www.the dailystar.net/recovering-covid-reinventing-our-future/blueprint-brightertomorrow/news/bangladesh-developed-country-graduating-imperatives2960461. 3. Rejaul Karim Byron and Mahmudul Hasan, “Mega project for digital economy Govt to shell out Tk 2,541cr,” The Daily Star, December 7, 2021, from: https://www.thedailystar.net/business/economy/news/ mega-project-digital-economy-2911461, last consulted March 22, 2022; Haider A. Khan, “Digital Development for Bangladesh: Challenges and Prospects,” Paper, University of Denver, n.d.; Lamina binta Jahan and Wan Fadzilah Wan Yusof, “Digital Bangladesh and Productivity: Stagnation or Development?” Advances in Economics, Business and Management Research, Vol. 198 (2021): Conference Towards ASEAN Chairmanship 2023 (T-AC 23 2021); and Prime Minister’s Office, Government of Bangladesh & United Nations Development Programme, Strategic Priorities of Digital Bangladesh prepared by Access to Information (A2I) Programme (January 2021); 4. Soma Dhar, “The digital divide in virus-time education,” The Financial Times, November 20, 2021, from: https://thefinancialexpress. com.bd/views/the-digital-divide-in-virus-time-education-1637345916, last consulted March 22, 2022. 5. World Bank, “Mortality rate, infant (per 1,000 births), Bangladesh,” from: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.IMRT.IN?locations=BD, last consulted March 22, 2022; and UNICEF, “Bangladesh - Mortality Rate, Infant (per 1,000 Live Births), Trading Economics, from: https:// tradingeconomics.com/bangladesh/mortality-rate-infant-per-1-000-live-bir ths-wb-data.html, last consulted March 22, 2022. 6. “Bangladesh life expectancy, 1950–2023,” from: https://www.mac rotrends.net/countries/BGD/bangladesh/life-expectancy, last consulted March 22, 2022. 7. Gabriel A. Almond, 1965. “A developmental approach to political systems,” World Politics 17, no. 2 (1965): 183–214; –––––, “Political theory and political science,” American Political Science Review 60, no. 4 (1966): 869–879; ––––– and James S. Coleman. (eds.), 1960. The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,

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1960); Almond and Sidney Verba. 1963. The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963); and ––––– and G. Bingham Powell, Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1966). 8. Leonard Binder, James S. Coleman, Joseph LaPalombara, Lucian W. Pye, Sidney Verba, and Myron Weiner, eds., Crises and Sequences in Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni—versity Press, 1971). Previous volumes in this series include: Lucian W. Pye, ed., Communications and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963); Joseph LaPalombara, ed., Bureaucracy and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963); Robert E. Ward and Dankwart A. Rustow, eds., Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1964); James S. Coleman, ed., Education and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965); Lucian W. Pye and Sidney Verba, eds., Political Culture and Political Development (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1965); and Joseph LaPalombara and Myron Weiner, (eds.). Political Parties and Political Development (Prince- ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1966). 9. AKM Enayet Kabir, “Bangladesh Across 50 Years: Present at the creation: Bangladesh’s RMG evolution,” Social Face of the Growing, Glowing Bangladesh, Bangladesh Across 50 Years, vol. 4, ed., Global Studies & Governance Program, Independent University, Bangladesh (2021). Kabir’s interview is in volume 4 of this series, but volume 2 contains the interviews of successive MTB CEOs Anis A. Khan and Syed Mahbubur Rahman, and ACI Group’s Chairman, Anis ud Dowla, the former BGMEA President Rubana Huq, Hellman Worldwide Logistics Chairman Md. Tanveer Madar, RahimAfrooz Group’s Director, Niaz Rahim, and Hai Sarker, Chairman of both Dhaka Bank and Purbani Group. See Imtiaz A. Hussain and Jessica Tartila Suma, “Bangladesh Across 50 Years: Branding Bangladesh: From low-wage to hi-tech …a long and winding road,” Economy, vol. 1, ed., Global Studies & Governance Program, Independent University, Bangladesh (2021).

CHAPTER 6

Conclusions: Branding Bangladesh & Cluttered Forthcoming Canvases

What have we learned from documenting the pivotal brands in Bangladesh’s first 50 years? Two broad issues demand attention. The first distinguishes between image enhancing and image staining reputation, the second accounts for the value of a string of different determinants.

Litmus-testing Reputation Bangladesh was born not so much with a litmus-test competition between contending images, but with not only an embarrassing inheritance (the ‘bottomless pit’), but also the absence of any resource-filled game-plan to help a recovery. Image-building public relations demanded as much as having ‘wares’ for transactions. After 50 years one might reliably argue, though poverty has not been eliminated and ‘bottomless pit’ realities still stare us in the face across nooks and corners of the country, Bangladesh still built enough positive images to dilute inherited stains and stigmatic depositions. On balance, they demand more attention across the past 50 years, even if their future value cannot be taken for granted. A more gruesome test may be these same positive developments, such as microfinance or RMG export leadership, battling other post1971 developments staining reputation. Bangladesh’s civil–military tussle could be one, perhaps more trenchantly, its intra-party political bitterness

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2_6

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breeding rampant corruption, unchecked urban pollution, and its handmaiden, unchecked traffic congestion. In the final analysis, these threaten human health, mental peace, and social capital growth whose summedup costs might easily dwarf the billions being earned from unregulated business growth or microfinance strides. More bluntly, the country’s highly touted ‘developed country’ target may remain as chimerical as the outright inadequacy of palliative efforts against just these three perils. The net image, or that single brand the country expects to be known by to the global public matters: they could easily determine if businesses seeking foreign investment outlets should come, stay out, or linger awaiting some green or red signal; and at a more personal level, it could easily thwart tourism, for which plans of attracting ten-odd million over the next decade or two may also be a bridge too far to cross. Having a positive perennial litmus test carries a long-lasting premium. We know that from the single-shot brand of other countries. Switzerland has built up a reputation of neutrality, even though historically it was home to mercenaries, thus showing to Bangladesh how an abhorrent brand can be placed in the forever dustbin, along with much of its memory. Japanese have built a reputation of an industrious people in a country with more developmental mileage than many others. Even though demographic tolls begin to ring and Japan’s un-competitiveness grows and shows globally—all these against its horrific pre-World War II colonial mindset and behavior—Japan has learned to adapt, that is, its ‘fire’ is far from being spent. Of course, the United States must be the litmus-test haven. It is the country most democratic for at least the past century, compared to many (though by no means all) countries. On top of that, it explicitly campaigns for democracy (which it sometimes willingly violates, abandons, or diminishes in one way or another). Still it carries a democratic brand not many other countries can as effectively manage even as that democracy is being increasingly questioned by outsiders, but remarkably, as the populist wave behind ex-President Donald J. Trump shows, from within too as well: that is, U.S. citizens question their own democracy more urgently, even violently now—signs that do not bode well for ‘cultivating’ democracy. Yet the United States is also globally known to be the arms-producer par excellence and often the initiator of conflicts (or conspiracies leading to conflict, either domestically, as in Iran in the early 1950s or Chile in the early 1970s, or internationally, as with Iraq since 2003, or Afghanistan

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from two years previously). On balance, though, positive brands allure more tourists and foreign students than many other countries. Scandinavian countries have even fewer blemishes, if any, to hide, whitewash, or drag through a litmus test. Bhutan stands as a solid Asian counterpart along the same measurement scale, or perhaps Costa Rica or Uruguay in Latin America. A picture-perfect country brand may be too ideal for humans as we have known them to be, but inching closer to that ideal has been attempted by these cases, among possible others. Since such a trend prevails in sputtered form, it cannot be disregarded as a future impossibility. We, therefore, turn to what Bangladesh can do and how this consideration could flow. In this very competitive, extremely ferocious Fourth Industrial Revolution era, if any quality is the bedrock of reputation (while reflecting sanity), it is transparency: this window allows the rest of the world to see what is going on, and whether the balance-sheet permits businesses to flourish, tourists to feel uninhibited, and both the warts and blemishes be put on public display for legitimate public-level balancing. In other words, the scope to ‘learn’ remains high. Transparency carries with it policy-making tilts of sorts: we expect more of a free trade approach than protectionism, which carries connotations of clandestine actions and beliefs; politically, a freer election is another automatic association; socially all the warts get exposed; and culturally, the degree of inter-mingling traits appears more attractive than otherwise. The magic of transparency is its longevity: the longer it stays, the more predictability, and thereby business, political and social comfort, and with these, institutional growth. Against that backdrop, no country can run away from blemishes; but the more the deliberate action to correct them or minimize flaws, the stronger the associated political brand. This may be easier said than done. Never before have four industrial revolutions coexisted. It is just the different brands they compete with each other, making the composite picture harder to generate. Whichever way the dust settles on that front, brands will no doubt be emerging faster than before, given the considerably more rapid technological speed and progress. In short, flux may be as constant a feature as any, meaning that today’s top brands may be lackluster tomorrow, in turn suggesting the historically acquired brands may slowly recede from front-page attention guiding Main Street lifestyles, but probably reside permanently on the back-burner, revived only on commemoration days.

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It is this setting that poses the most difficult questions. If positive images prevail, optimism would grow. If, on the other hand, the negative images prevail on more days than not, the steady-state reputation deterioration could spark a tit-for-tat ripple effect with all sorts of damaging outcomes. Given the rapidity of changes today, fair image weather one day might cloud the inherited negative vibes, but will not have the time, space, or intensity to last long enough to tackle the roots of the negative images. In other words, one slide today could spiral into a long-term slide, but one image boost today is unlikely to generate a similar stride in the positive direction, given (a) the rapidity of changes, (b) multiplicity of options available, and (c) diversity of consumer tastes. Branding as a profession, or even a story, might itself be reduced to snapshot, temperamental clicks. How the multiplicity of brands is mixed, or mingled, poses the growing challenge. Still, we need to discern the different triggering catalysts and the variety of dimensions.

Different Drumbeats At least three branding dimensions come to light when exploring determinants: the quality of brands begs attention; the diversity they represent of society at large; and the adaptability of new brands to bedrock brands, particularly the evolving social needs. The previous section exposed how we are being literally bombarded by brands through the four industrial revolutions pitching quite different images simultaneously. This may not necessarily be the only arena either. Society itself may be so variegated that accenting one brand might raise dissent levels elsewhere. Just balancing out a representative social picture might become the Achilles Heel. The upshot of the game itself is when a selected brand today ends up being, not necessarily relegated to the backburner by more commanding concurrent images, but actually rejected: political divisions of the type Bangladesh noted after the military retreated to the barracks open up windows for such a tossed-and-turned brandrejection future. Quality also acknowledges growth with a diversified economy or society (or both), raising the ante. The United States epitomizes this type by being both a traditional country climbing to become the industrial world’s leader and a ‘nation of immigrants.’ Bangladesh is unlikely to reach such heights since the same industrialization-immigration composition is not there. Yet, its expatriates could open up a diverse portrait

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if galvanized collectively: we already see the birth of various bilateral chambers of commerce and industry; and if they were to flower, they would supply a more multifaceted and less acrimonious battle of brands. Likewise, as it begins to diversify its industrial base, a similar window of variations also opens up. One perpetual question: who manages the contending brands ? Letting the market decide has often been the way to go in the free world: only authoritarian countries impose brands (from a necessarily smaller selection list), through a single-minded top-down pattern, as the Russia/Soviet Union example demonstrated previously, rather than the bottom-up and more sustainable counterpart in Atlantic area countries. Just as the market can look after commodities and anything in the transaction market, free and fair election does the same politically, and when the elected government converts preferences into policies, then social, cultural, and environmental arenas open up to expose other branding stocks. Heritage reflecting brands should be up for grabs. The weaker a country’s heritage, the more it must rely upon ongoing developments to be noted; but, contrariwise, the stronger the heritage, the less likely other brands will fare well, possibly inviting a diminishing appetite for brand juggling. This is one dimension Bangladesh needs to keep an acute eye on in its second 50th anniversary innings: balancing heritage with ongoing developments, as even any superficial observation of its key ‘national holiday’ events may begin the slippery road to obscuring inherited components. The second dimension of diversity has already been alluded to, but this is the ‘curve-ball,’ to apply baseball language to the branding game: representative brands may not make as much noise, but they have the scope to go longer. Behind the brands must be an anchor, a ‘national’ anchor completely outside the diversity camps. Its purpose is to hold the variegated country together. It could be the strength of the anthem since that is as holy to every faction as any other inheritance-reflecting element. It could also be emotional attachments to a sports team, such as with cricket of late, even though it was hardly a game worth any attention in the early 1970s. Measuring the greater loyalties and sentiments expended upon ‘national’ occasions gives us a sense of branding possibilities, direction, and the state of the past–present relationship. Bangladesh’s large Bangalee ethnic group is humongous enough to not push us into any kind of complacency on the diversity front. Our Hindu population component may be declining in proportion even as the numbers grow, but how Hindus are being pushed to feel a lesser part of

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the ‘national’ body should stand as a signal of moving in the wrong direction from diversity. It is similar for our many indigenous communities: bringing them into the ‘national’ fold has been tedious, and erroneously treating them as some sort of ‘guests’ in their own country beckons a costly future correction. Branding their heritage is a start to chalking out a common brand. Once done, there is so much in their culture that new flavors of branding could easily emanate, a task we must pay more attention to. Diversity must also embrace every expatriate community, a group alluded to several times already. Thus far Bangladeshis have not opened this box for branding purposes, leaving a dimension worth the watch given its growth-pattern trajectory. Our underlying goal: not to deny any group entry into the national branding exercise. They bring even more variety, thus capable of elevating us far higher than we can foresee presently. Letting the free market blend these diverse groups into a brand is an exercise we have not explored beyond the perfunctory level. Once we do, we begin to show the length and breadth of our cultural values and identities. Finally, adaptability remains a crucial dimension of our branding mission as a country. How we adapt to our own diversities is a guide to how well we can adjust to the rest of the world where this may matter even more: the heart, mind, and soul of individuals (the more of them, the merrier), not just over transactions or diplomatic negotiations but ever-increasing moods, orientations, and tastes. Done best at the individual level, countries can help nudge citizens in this or that direction, and oversee all the interactions. But it is in the independent capacities of citizens that we see the growth of authentic brands, in which competition until the ‘strongest will survive’ supplies the gravitational force. Adaptability capacities also inform us of the country being able to blend its heritage with not only contemporary circumstances, but also different brands or behavior from abroad. We learn not only of the degree of nationalism within a country from its brands, but also how good an international player it can be. Such information feeds not just corporations seeking new markets, but also individuals seeking travel outlets, whether as a tourist or in sending their children for education, and so forth. In short, the wildest branding moments await Bangladesh as it steps into its second ‘50th Anniversary’ innings.

Index

A Abed, Fazle Hasan, later Sir, 18, 92, 134 ACI Pure Food, 139 ACI Pure Salt, 139 ‘Act of demi-God’, 65 ‘Act of God’, 64 Advanced Chemical Industries (ACI), 138, 139 Africa, 80, 100, 119 Agartala Conspiracy Case, 1967–69, 39, 40, 126 agrarian, 13, 99 agricultural productivity, 67, 95 Ahmed, Akhter, 68 Ahmed, Chief Justice Shahabuddin, 74 Ahmed, Imtiaz, 70 Ahmed, Khondokar Mushtaq, 73 Ahmed, Tajuddin, 39, 43 Ahsanullah, Khan Bahadur, 79 Alam, Dinu, 74 Al-Badr, 126 Ali, Captain Mansoor, 39

Almond, Gabriel, 128, 142, 143 Al-Shams , 126 Anglo-Saxons, 118 Anholt, Simon, 4, 26 anti-poverty programs, 107 assembly-line, factory, 122 Atlantic-area, 7 Atomic Energy Commission, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 140 AUKUS Pact, September 2021 (Australia, United Kingdom, United States), 118 Aurora, Lietenant General Jagjit Singh, Indian Army, 61 authority (as a stage of political development), 128 automated transaction machines (ATM), 137 automobiles, 4, 21, 123, 138, 140 autonomy, 24, 37, 38, 41, 43, 54, 70 Awami League, 34, 35, 37–42, 44, 45, 47, 49, 71, 73, 75, 77, 78 awareness , 4, 53, 63–65, 67, 76, 82, 84

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023 I. A. Hussain and J. T. Suma, Branding Bangladesh, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7195-2

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INDEX

B ‘backward linkages’, 133 Baluchistan, Pakistan, 37 Bangabandhu, 24, 40, 42–45, 59, 61, 62, 65, 69–71, 73, 78, 82, 83, 96, 120, 125, 126 Bangabhasha o Musalman Shahitya (Bangla Language and Literature of the Muslims), 79 Bangalees , 6, 8, 23, 32–34, 37, 40, 42–44, 51, 60, 63, 64, 72, 79, 80, 119, 125, 126 Bangla (the language), 7, 8, 24, 32, 33, 35, 42, 64, 79, 80 Bangladesh brand, 1–3, 5, 8, 10–12, 14, 15, 21, 22, 24, 25, 32, 33, 43, 54, 59, 62, 63, 71–73, 76, 93, 100, 117, 119–121, 124–130, 132–137, 141, 145–150 Constitution, 1972, 9, 71 Constitution, 1979, 9, 73 Islamic Republic of (1979), 9 Provisional Constitution (1971), 9 Zindabad, 73 Bangladesh Bank, 93, 100, 133, 137 Bangladeshi, 124 developments, 71 Bangladeshis, 7, 9, 14, 34, 61, 68, 73, 77, 97–99, 124, 150 Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League (BAKSAL), 24, 69 Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 71–74, 77, 78 Bangladesh Oxygen, 138 Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC), 18, 19, 68, 92, 93, 103, 125, 126, 130, 134–137 Bangladesh Rural Advancement Cooperative (BRAC). See

Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) Bangladesh’s LiberationWar (1971), 6, 7, 15, 23, 24, 33, 34, 36, 39, 47, 50, 53, 59, 67, 74–80, 100, 119, 125, 126, 132, 138 Bangladesh Worker’s Party (BWP), 77 Banglar Bani, daily Dhaka newspaper, 45 ‘Banglar ghore ghore biddut’ (electricity in every home), 141 bank, 19, 21, 25, 94, 101, 104, 106, 121, 125, 130–132, 135–138 customers, 104, 136, 137 disbursement, 101, 103, 104, 106 Basanti/Bhasonti, 63 Bashontibala, 64, 65 Bass, Gary, 32 Battala, 42 Bay of Bengal, 32, 41, 45, 52, 82 Bengali, 8, 32, 46, 48 Bhashani, Maulana, 33, 39, 43, 66 Bhola Cyclone, November 1970, 82 Bhutan, 128, 147 Bhutto, Zulfiqar Ali, Prime Minister, Pakistan 1972–77, 41–43 bicycles, 21, 123 Bidrohi, 33 billionaires, 6, 9, 11 Biplobi Gono Bahini (People’s Revolutionary Army), 66 Biplobi Sainik Sangstha (Revolutionary Soldier’s Organization), Bangladesh, 66 Blood, Archer, 50 ‘Blood Telegram’, 50 Boigganeek Shomajtontro (Scientific Socialism), 66 ‘booster-charge’, 141 ‘booth banking’, 137, 138 border haats , 128

INDEX

Border Security Forces (BSF), Indian, 49, 60 ‘bottomless pit’, 2, 5, 8, 10, 14, 17, 20, 24, 32, 63, 64, 110, 119, 122–127, 130, 133, 139, 145 ‘bottom-up’ communism/socialism, 133 bourgeoisie trademark, 109 branding , 2–5, 9–11, 13, 14, 18, 22, 31, 34, 52–54, 59, 68, 76, 82–84, 127–129, 133, 134, 136, 138, 139, 141, 148–150 Bangladesh, 150 branding components communication, 4, 22, 24, 53, 68, 71, 82 comprehension, 4, 22, 52, 53 consummation, 4, 22, 53, 82 reputation, 4, 54, 76 social engagement, 4, 54, 68, 82, 83 Brexit, 118 British Commonwealth, 119 British Empire, 119 British India, 72, 119 Burundi, 80, 119 C capacity (as a development measurement indicator), 128 Caretaker Government, 74, 75, 78 Carnegies, 135 cash allowances, 107 Castro, Fidel, 69 Center for Zakat Management, 141 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), U.S., 70 Chaatra League, 126 change, 2, 6 upwards , 2 check-points, 99 Cherry, Philip, 70

153

Chile, 146 China, 11, 31, 50, 51, 65, 68, 77, 81, 118 Chinese Puzzle, 21st Century, 32 Chittagong (later Chattogram), port of Bangladesh, 43, 45, 48, 61, 73 Chong, Kim Woo, 132 Chowdhury, Zahur Ahmed, 39 civil–military schism, 125 Civil Service of Pakistan (CSP), 35 climate-change, 15, 32, 124, 128, 135, 139, 141 coal, 13, 124 Cold War (1945–89), 50, 91 collection action, 20 colonizing countries, 118, 119 Columbia University, New York, 67 Combined Opposition Parties (COP), Pakistan, 36 Committee for Development Policy (CDP), 63 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), 1991–, 118 communications , 22, 53, 67, 68, 71, 73, 76, 80, 82, 110 communications revolution, 117 Communist Party of East Bengal, 65 community, 1, 9, 12, 14, 18, 48, 54, 100, 110, 125, 132, 135, 150 comprehension, 4, 22, 52, 53, 63, 65, 67, 71, 75, 80, 82, 110 ‘concert of charisma’, 62 consumer culture, 13, 117 consummation, 4, 22, 53, 54, 65, 67, 71, 73, 76, 80, 82, 83, 110 consumption-minded public, 123 cooperative model, 92 Costa Rica, 147 Council Muslim League (CML), Pakistan Party, 38 COVID pandemic, 2020–22, 131, 138

154

INDEX

Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh, 80, 139 Credit Development Forum (CDF), 2016–7, Bangladesh, 103 cultural economy, 96, 99 cultural environment, 96 cultural modernization, 96 culture-anchored practices, 100 D Daewoo–Desh Joint Venture Agreement, 1978, 132 Daily Telegraph, The, 46, 47 Dainik Pakistan, daily Bangla newspaper, 45 Dalim, Shariful Hoque, 69 Declaration of Independence, U.S. (1776), 5 demand-side considerations, 94 ‘demi-God’, 64, 65, 83 democracy, 3, 5, 6, 9, 15, 32, 35, 38, 50, 65, 71, 74, 75, 77, 78, 125, 127, 129, 146 Dennings, Glen, 67 deprivation, 107 ‘developed’ country, 54 ‘developing country’, 17, 32, 124 development, 2, 5, 8, 13–15, 17–23, 25, 29, 32, 40, 60, 65, 67, 68, 71, 74, 82, 91, 93–96, 100, 101, 106, 108, 110, 120–123, 125–136, 138, 139, 141, 145, 146, 149 driver, 15, 100, 107 spectrum, 118, 130 Dhaka Medical College Hospital, 33 Dhaka muslin, 121 Dhaka University, 42, 44 Dhaka University Central Students Union (DUCSU), 39, 42 Dheki Rin Prokolpa, Bangladesh Bank program, 1970s, 100 Dholaikhal reproduction, 141

differentiation (as a development measurement indicator), 128 Digital Bangladesh, 21, 29, 123, 130, 135 diversification, 11, 21, 122, 131, 138 ‘domination first, democracy last’, 118 donor countries, 101 Dowla, Anis ud, Chairman, ACI Group, 138, 139, 143 Dring, Simon, 46 dual citizenship, 118 E East East East East

Asian financial crisis (1997–8), 92 Bengal, 32, 34, 35, 119 Bengal Legislative Assembly, 35 Pakistan Awami League (EPAL), 33 East Pakistan Rifles, 44 East Pakistan Students’ League (EPSL), 38, 39, 42 economic, 6, 9, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 31, 36, 37, 48, 51, 52, 62, 67, 68, 79, 93–97, 99, 101, 106–108, 119, 122, 125, 127, 129, 130, 132–135, 138, 140 ladder, 125 prosperity, 96 Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (ECOSOC), United Nations, 2, 63, 122 education, 6, 8, 12, 15, 17, 18, 20, 21, 25, 68, 72, 78, 80, 103, 108, 125, 126, 129, 131, 132, 134, 141, 150 Ekushey, 59, 79, 80, 82, 83 electoral participation, 129 elites, 35, 78, 119 Ellis, William, 62 emancipation values, 99 embedded antagonism, 124 English (the language), 7, 8, 119

INDEX

environment, 3, 20, 99, 141, 149 episodic frames , 23, 33, 36 equality (as a development measurement indicator), 128 Ershad, General Hussain Muhammad, later President Bangladesh, 1981–90, 72–75 European Union, 118 export-processing zones (EPZs), 128 exposure, 4, 53, 63, 76

F factory, 5, 8, 11, 12, 122, 133 family, 1, 6, 8, 10, 71, 76, 78, 96, 97, 108, 121, 132, 141 extended, 3, 21 nuclear, 3 famine, 1974, 24, 64–66 Farland, Joseph, 51 farming, 12, 14, 99, 103, 134, 139 farm mechanization, 139 Federal Express (Fedex), 117 female education, 106 fertility, 91 fertilizers, 64, 95 ‘fifth column’/‘fifth communists’, 48 First Industrial Revolution, 21, 136 fishing, 64, 99, 139 floating-fish, 139 flow, 5 food-availability-decline (FAD), 64 food business, 140 Fords, 135 foreign exchange, 8, 62, 122, 130 earnings, 37, 110 ‘forest’ level of analysis, 125 ‘forward linkages’, 133 Fourth Industrial Revolution, 135, 136, 147 frame episodic, 23, 33, 36

155

generic, 43 main, 83 freedom fighters, 39, 45, 46, 69, 108, 126 free-wheeling, 128 G Ganatantra Mukti pak (‘Let democracy be free’), 74 Gandhi, Indira, Indian Prime Minister, 49, 52, 69 gender emancipation, 15, 126, 131 equality, 96 front, 126 parity, 126 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), 120 generic frame, 43 Geneva Protocol, 1949, 46, 61 genocide, 24, 33, 44, 47, 48, 50, 52, 53, 62 Global Knowledge Index, 128 global news, 117 Goffman, Erving, 22, 23, 52 governance, 92, 96, 129, 137 Grameen Bank, 19, 68, 92, 93, 100, 101, 103, 109, 130, 134–137 grant-based operations, 101 Grants for Orphanages, 108 grassroots, 95 Great Britain, 21, 94, 103, 118 Great Recession, 2008–11, 92, 122, 137 gross domestic product (GDP), 20, 103, 104, 106, 107, 128, 133 growth-rate, 124 H haats . See border haats Hagen, Toni, 62

156

INDEX

Hameed Khan, Akhtar, 92 handicrafts, 103, 134 Hannan, M.A., 45 Haq, Abdul, 65 Harrison, George, 81 harvesters, 139 Hasina, Sheikh, Prime Minister Bangladesh, 1997–2001, 2009–, 43, 75, 77, 78 haute-couture, 5, 11, 133 health incentives, 108 Herbert, Daniel, 4 high-end (economically), 20, 132 ‘high-hanging’ , 4 high-mass consumption (stage in development), 122 hijab, 9, 12, 106 Hindu, 9, 44, 47–49, 72, 129, 149 caste system, 99 Hindu-Muslim Bangalee, 100 historical culture-economy, 109 Hitchens, Christopher, 70 household, 12, 13, 94, 100, 103, 107, 108, 131, 139 House of Representative, U.S., 51 housing, 103, 108 human capital, 100, 108 Human Development Index, 128 humanitarian problems, 50 Huq, A.K. Fazlul, Sher-e-Bangla, 35 Huq, Rubana, former President, BGMEA, Chairperson, Mohammedan Group, 131, 143 Huq, Seargeant Zahurul, 39 Hussain, Anwar, 141 Hussain, Nur/Noor, 74 Hussain, Roquia Sakhawat, 80 hybrid rice, 139

I icon, 3, 75

identity (as a stage of political development), 128 Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI), 139 imperialists, 119 income-generation, 103 Income-generation Vulnerable Group Development (IGVGD), 134 Indemnity Act, 1975, Bangladesh, 59, 73, 75 Indemnity-democracy tussle, 75 Indemnity Ordinance, 1975, Bangladesh, 73, 78 Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB), 69 India, 5, 6, 12, 14, 23, 27, 33, 34, 36, 38, 39, 41, 46, 48–53, 59–61, 66, 68–70, 99, 119, 128, 134, 140 Indian Civil Service (ICS), 35 Indian Ocean, 82 India-Pakistan wars, 36, 38, 45, 50, 51 Industrial Revolution, 21, 123, 136, 138, 147, 148 ‘infant’ country, 31 information and communications technology/technologies (ICT/ICTs), 91 infrastructure, 121, 122 building, 5, 123 Inglehart-Welzel cultural map, 96, 99 integration (as a stage of political development), 128 intellectual parks, 135 International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), 68 International Herald Tribune, 46 International Mother Language Day, February 21, 34, 79 International Relations (IR), 3 Ishwardi, Bangladesh, 140

INDEX

Islamic crusade, 127 Islamic Parties (IPs), 77 Islamic state of Pakistan, 6 Islami Oikya Jote (IOJ), party, 77 Islamizing Bangladesh, 59 Islam-secularity tussle, 76 Ittefaq, daily Dhaka Bangla newspaper, 45, 64 J Jahan, Rounaq, 38 Jamaat-e-Islami Party ( or Jama’at-i-Islami), 38 Jamaluddin, A.K.M., 74, 77 Jatiya Party, Bangladesh, 72 Jatiya Samajtantrik Dal (National Socialist Party), 65 Jatiyo Sangshad, 73 Jinnah, Miss Fatima, 36 Jinnah, Muhammad Ali, Founding Father of Pakistan, 32, 33 Joi Bangla slogan, 62 Joydebpur, Dhaka outskirt, 43 Juba League, Bangladesh, 74 jute, 8, 10, 11, 21, 27, 66, 132, 141 K Kabir, A.K.M. Enayet, 132, 133 Kader, Nurul, 132, 133 Kali Mandir, Dhaka Race Course, 44 Kao, R.N., 70 Karachi, Pakistan’s key port, 60 Kashmir, 36 Khan, Anis, A., former CEO and Managing Director, MTB, 136, 143 Khandoker, Wing Commander A.K., Bangladesh Air Force, 61 Khan, Field Marshall Muhammad Ayub, President of Pakistan, 40 Khan, General Yahya, 37, 40, 44

157

Khan, Lieutenant General Tikka, Chief Martial Law Administrator, East Pakistan, 1971, 43 Kissinger, Henry, U.S. National Security Advisor, 17, 50–52, 69, 70 Krishak Sramik Party, 35 Kutupalong refugee camp, Cox’s bazaar, 80 Kuwait, 72 L Lahore Resolution, 1940, 37 land erosion, 13, 124 Language Movement, 1948–52, 33, 34, 52, 53, 96 Latin America, 100, 147 legitimacy (as a stage of political development), 128 less developed country (LDC), 2, 123, 133 Liberation War, Bangladesh, 1971, 6, 7, 15, 23, 24, 33, 34, 36, 39, 47, 50, 53, 59, 67, 74–80, 100, 119, 124, 126, 132, 138 Liechtenstein, Grace, 46 literacy, 15, 17, 18, 91, 127, 129 loan-based operations, 101 local-global relationship, 34 locally produced, 99 ‘low-hanging’ , 4 low-wage, 8, 10, 11, 19, 21, 25, 120–124, 126, 130–132, 138 labor-supplier, 120 M macro-finance, 121 Madar, Md. Tanveer, Chairman, Hellman Worldwide Logistics , 135, 143 ‘made in Bangladesh’, 125

158

INDEX

madrasas , 18, 72, 78 main frame, 22–24, 32, 33, 59, 82, 83, 117, 124 Main Street, 5, 8, 9, 11, 75, 137, 147 Makhan, A.K., 42 malnutrition, 129 Manekshaw, Field Marshall, Commander-in-Chief, Indian Army, 60 Manik, Waheeduzzaman, 40 manufacture, 47, 123 Martial Law, 35, 43 Martyr’s Day, Bangladesh, February 21, 1952, 37 Marxist(s), 8 Mascarenhas, Anthony, 47, 66 maturity stage (in development), 122 McNamara, Robert, President, World Bank, 47 MDG (millennium development goals), 63 megaprojects (in Bangladesh), 123 Mercedes Benz, 141 mercenaries, 99, 146 microcredit, 92–94, 96, 97, 100, 101, 103, 104, 106–109 microfinance, 9, 18, 21, 25, 67, 91–98, 100, 101, 103, 108, 109, 121, 123–126, 128, 130, 133–135, 145, 146 microfinancial institution (MFI), 100, 101, 103, 104, 107, 109 Middle East, 7, 8, 72, 76 ‘middle-income’ country, 15 migrant workers, 8, 120, 123, 128 military government, 35 military rule, 9, 34, 37, 38, 49, 72, 74, 129 millennium years (1990s), 92 minorities, 9, 129 modernization, 3, 107, 132

Moni, Dipu, Dr., Bangladesh’s Education Minister, 69 Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Ordinance for Control and Prevention, 1970, Bangladesh, 7 Morgans, 135 Morning News, daily Pakistan newspaper, 45 mortality, 18, 91, 127, 128 MTB (Mutual Trust Bank), 136 Mujibnagar government, 1971, 69 Mukhti Bahini or Mukti Bahini (Freedom Fighters), Bangladesh, 49 Multi Fiber Agreement (MFA), 1974, 10, 19 multilateral expectations, 120 multilateralism, 120, 121, 140 Muslim League (ML), 35, 66, 77, 78 Muslims, 6, 18, 35, 48, 49, 71, 72, 77, 79, 80, 97, 99, 100, 106, 125 Muslim Shahittya Shamaj (Muslim Literary Society), 80 N Naf River, 80 Naím, Moisés, 3 Naraynganj, Bangladesh, 139 ‘narration of hope’, 62 National Awami Party (NAP), 38, 66 national crisis frame, 35, 37 National Geographic, The, 62 nationalism, 5–7, 12, 21, 24, 31, 32, 34, 45, 48, 71–73, 82, 84, 150 National Poet, 33 National Security Advisor, U.S., 50 ‘nation of shopkeepers’, 94, 103 nation-state system, 31 natural disasters, 99, 108 Naxalites, 65, 66

INDEX

Nazimuddin, Khwaja, 32 nepotism, 136 New Industrial Policy, 1982, 133 Newsweek, 47 New York Times , 46–48, 56, 57, 84 Niazi, Lieutenant General A.K.M., 60, 61 Nigeria, 119 Nixon, Richard, President United States, 1969–74, 50, 51 Nobel Peace Prize, 19, 134 non-alignment, 5 Non Alignment Movement (NAM), 91, 120 non-cooperation movement, March 3-25, 1971, 45 non-governmental organization (NGO), 18, 68, 93, 100, 101, 103, 104, 107 non-performing loans (NPLs), 136, 137 non-renewable energy, 123 North West Frontier Province, Pakistan, 38 nuclear. See family nutrition, 15, 67, 68, 129 O Observer, daily Dhaka newspaper, 45, 47, 60 oil, 19, 124 Old Age Allowances (OAA), 108 Operation Searchlight, March 1971, 33, 42–46, 53 Operation Trident, 1971, 60 Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC), 19, 120 Osmani, Colonel M.A.G., 36, 61 P Padma Bridge, 81

159

Pakistan East, 6, 17, 33–44, 46–52, 56, 79, 119, 126 Press Trust, 45 West, 6, 17, 35, 38, 41–44, 47, 49, 72, 78, 79, 119 Pakistan Oxygen, 138 Palli Karma Sahayak Foundation (PKSF), 93, 101 Paltan Maidan, Dhaka, 43 pandemic, COVID-19, 3, 11, 12, 14, 21, 68, 122, 131, 138 participation (as a stage of political development), 128 party schism, 125 patriarchal society people’s beliefs, 96 patronization, 136 penetration (as a stage of political development), 128 Peoples’ Party of Pakistan (PPP), 41, 42 perception, as attention, 4 awareness , 4 exposure, 4 retention, 4 perpetuity business, 141 personality revolution, 99, 106 pharmaceuticals, 138, 139 physical input, 136 pillars, of a country, 5 ‘ping-pong’ diplomacy, China, U.S., 1970–1, 50 pitching (or persuading ), 4 political development, 15, 38, 128–130, 132 economy, 95 hijacking, 129 polluted metropolitans, 110 pollution, 14, 15, 128, 146 controlled products, 139 Pony Express , 117

160

INDEX

population, 8, 10, 12–14, 17, 20, 27, 34, 41, 44, 47, 49, 62–64, 68, 84, 97, 124, 128, 139, 149 post-COVID pandemic, 3 poverty, 9, 20, 29, 62, 64, 67, 68, 91, 92, 107, 108, 121, 125, 126, 133, 134, 145 alleviation, 91, 93, 94, 109, 126 elimination, 131, 137 PQLI (physical quality of life index), 127 pre-take-off stage (in development), 122 primary goods, 8, 123 primary products, 99 principles, 5–10, 42, 67, 71, 121 private industries, 7, 8 sector, 135, 136, 140 Private-Public-Partnership (Bangladesh policy approach), 7 private sector, 135, 136, 140 product-based industrialization, 136 product-cycle, 133 production-consumption revolutions, 118 provincial autonomy, 35, 38, 39 provisional constitution, 9 public–private tapestry, 7 public sector, 7, 121 public works, 107 ‘pull’ factors, 136 Punjab, Pakistan, 37 Purba Bangla Sorbahara Party (East Bengal Communist Party), 66 Purbani Group, 131 ‘push’ factors, 92 Pye, Lucian, 143 Pyne, Robert, 48 R Raghavan, Srinath, 32

Rahimafrooz superemarket, 139–141 Rahim, Niaz, Director, RahimAfrooz Group, 143 Rahman, Farook, 69 Rahman, Major General Ziaur, Bangladesh President, 1976–81, 71 Rahman, Major (later General) Ziaur, 45, 73 Rahman, Pavel, 74 Rahman, Sheikh Mujibur, 35, 39, 44, 54, 59, 61, 71 Rahman, Syed Mahbubur, CEO and Managing Director, MTB, 137, 143 Rahmat Ali, Chowdhury, 37 Rakkhi Bahini, 66, 67 Rana Plaza tragedy, 131 Rangpur, Bangladesh, 139 Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), Bangladesh, 69 Rashid, Khandakar Abdur, 69 refashion society, 109 refugees, 48, 49, 51, 56, 80, 81, 134 religion, 6, 9, 18, 71–74, 76, 96, 97, 99, 125, 126 remittance, 7, 11, 82, 110, 121, 123, 137 earners, 19, 32, 120, 121 retention, 4, 22, 52, 53, 63, 65, 68, 71, 72, 80, 82, 84, 110 rice-transplanters, 139 rickshaw-wala, 141 risk-taking factors, 99 RMG (ready-made garments) advent, 10 search, 34 supply tap, 32 Rob, A.S.M., 42 ‘rocket science’, 126 Rogers, U.S. Secreraty of State, 51 Rohingya refugees, 24, 59, 80

INDEX

influxes, 32, 48, 80 Rostow, Walt W., 122, 123, 130 Rummel, R.J., 48 Rupganj, Bangladesh, 139 rural strides, 110 Rwanda, 119

S Saber, Shaeed, 45 Sairachar ni patjak (‘Down with democracy’), 74 salaried migrants, 8 Sangbad, daily Dhaka newspaper, 45 Sarker, Hai, Chairman, Purbani Group, and Chairman, Dhaka Bank, 131, 137, 138, 143 Sattar, Justice Abdus, 74 savings, 70, 94, 95, 97, 101, 103, 104, 107 school enrollment, 94 girls, 106 secondary goods, 123 ‘Second’ Industrial Revolution, 21, 138 Section 144 (police regulation), 33 secularity, 5, 6, 9, 35 self-employment, 95, 103 self-sufficiency, 13, 38, 68, 108 food, 18, 103, 110 Sen, Amartya, 63, 64, 83 separation of power, 5, 26 service industry, 136 Shahbag Movement , 24, 83 Shaheed Dibosh (Shahid Dibosh), 33 Shaheed Minar, 44 Shankar, Ravi, 81 Shapla Square incident, 127 Shastri, Lal Bahadur, Indian Prime Minister, 1962–66, 36 Shikder, Deben, 66

161

Shorbohara Reknay Oktontro (dictatorship of the proletariat), 66 Shwadhin Bangla Betar Kendro, 45 Shwapno, 139 Siddiqui, Nur-e-Alam, 42, 43 Sikdar, Siraj, 66 simulacra, 24, 32, 52, 53 Sindh, Pakistan, 37 Singh, Kushwant, 48 Siraj, Shajahan, 42, 65 Six-points, 37–40, 53, 96 Awami League, 1966, 36, 38 Movement, 33, 37, 40, 53, 75 Slaughairm, 61 slaughter-houses, 140 small-and cottage-based industries, 103 social capital, 146 social change, 108 social engagements , 71, 80–82 social entrepreneurship, 134 social innovations, 123 socialism, 5, 6, 8, 9, 19, 67, 68, 71, 91, 92, 121 social policy reformations, 106 social protections, 108 social restrictions, 108 social revolutions, 106 Social Safety Net Programs (SSNPs), 19, 92, 93, 107–109 Social Safety Nets (SSNs), 67, 92 Social Science Research Council (SSRC), United States, 128 socioeconomic, 10, 14, 15, 18, 68, 93–95 soft power, 3 solar energy, 123, 135, 140 Sonar Bangla, 12, 32, 33, 63, 124, 125, 128 South Africa, 92, 119

162

INDEX

South Asia, 12, 23, 28, 32, 50, 69, 93, 128, 132 Soviet Union, 50–52, 92, 149 spark/trigger, 3, 4 spark/trigger-flow-stage, 3, 4 ‘special relationship’, 119 stage, 3, 4, 122 state-run banks, 136 stipends, 108 Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), 1971–72, 50 strategic parity, 50 Sunday Times, The, 47 supply-side factors, 94 ‘Surrender lunch’, 60 survival values , 96 Swaraj, Dhaka Bangla newspaper, 45 Switzerland, 146 Syria, 80

T Tagore, Rabindranath, 12, 32, 33 Taka (Bangladesh currency unit), 6, 9 take-off stage (in development), 122 Tanzania, 80 Tazreen fire, 131 tea, 8 Teachers Student Center (TSC), Dacca University, 40 Tebhaga Movement, 66 technological revolutions, 123 Tequila crisis, Mexican (1994), 92 theories of development, 121 Third Industrial Revolution, 135, 136 Third World, 91 time, 4 Toaha, Mohammad, 65 top-down, 135–137, 149 decision-making, 94 development, 133 toxic rivers, 12, 110

tractors, 139 trademark, 3, 10–12, 39, 109, 110, 118, 121, 122, 125, 128, 134 traditional society, 14, 120, 122, 140 traditional values , 96 trans-boundary, 7 transportation, 117 ‘tree’ level of analysis, 125 ‘Triangle of Trust’, 133 trigger, 3 Tsarist Russia, 118 Turkey, 118

U Ultra-poor Graduation (UPG), 134 U.N. Decade of Development (1960s), 120 undeveloped country, 4, 100, 122 ‘un-development’, 127, 130 United Nations, 49, 51, 52, 61, 67 United Nations Development Program (UNDP), 120 United Nations Economic, Cultural and Social Commission (UNECOSOC), 2, 122 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 49 United Nations Security Council, 36, 52 United States, 5, 10, 21, 41, 49–52, 65, 103, 118, 119, 122, 146, 148 urbanization, 128 Urdu, 33, 35, 79, 80 Uruguay, 147 U.S. Department of Agriculture, 68 U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 139 U.S.S. Enterprise, 52

INDEX

163

V Vaishayas , 99 values, 2, 12, 78, 81, 96, 97, 99, 110, 150 valuing , 76 Vanderbilts, 135 van der Heijden, Hendrik, 47, 56 Verba, Sidney, 143 Vietnam War, 50 Vulnerable Group Development (VGD), 108, 134 Vulnerable Group Feeding (VGF), 108, 109

empowerment, 18, 91, 93, 94 work migrant, 7 World Food Program, 134 World Trade Organization, 140 World Value Survey, 96

W War of Liberation, Bangladesh, 1971, 6, 96 Washington Special Action Group (WSAG), 52 West Bengal, 34, 99 West Europe, 49 White House, 31 women, 9, 10, 12, 18, 68, 94, 96, 97, 100, 106–108, 110, 121, 125, 126, 130–133, 138

Z zakat , 141 zamindari (feudal), 3 Zamir, Ambassador, Bangladesh, 70 zero-sum, 6 Zia, General, Bangladesh President, 1976–81. See Rahman, Major (later General) Ziaur Zia, Khaleda, Prime Minister 1991–96, 2001–7 (wife/widow of General Ziaur Rahman), 77

Y Yadav, R.K., 70 Young, Gavin, 60