Ask this generation what images they relate to on hearing about Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and the answer you are most likely to receive is his fiery speech, the gift of the red and green flag, and the unrelenting love for his countrymen. What you are least likely to hear is his policies and plans that shaped up the country’s course of development. To give access to that chapter, WhiteBoard, a newly launched policy magazine, dived deep into his policies and plans in its first issue, creating a space for the experts who either worked with Bangabandhu on formulating policies or possess ample knowledge of that matter.
The publication gives a perspective that while youths observe today’s development and progress, they hardly recall that the seed of those developments was sown by Bangabandhu over four decades ago. Take the case of the write-up by Julian Francis who has worked with the extreme poor in Bangladesh and India, with nearly 30 years in Bangladesh. Under his close look at the post-independence policies, he offered some practical insight into how Bangabandhu envisioned the developmental roadmap of a war-ravaged country.
Referring to the fact that the Father of the Nation had to start everything from scratch, Julian wrote, “During the war, all communication, social and industrial infrastructure had been targeted. Transportation networks had been destroyed – bridges, roads, culverts, railways, and waterways. More than 300 rail and road bridges had been demolished. The damage done in the transportation and communication sector was estimated at USD 160 million. The main trading hub, Chittagong Port, had been ruined. Nearly 22,000 educational institutions, including 18,000 primary schools, had been damaged. The cost to public assets stood at USD 350 million. The challenges before Mujib were thus huge, especially in the early phase of the reconstruction process. The government took up this Herculean task along with its development partners.”
Julian also mentioned that Bangabandhu pinned his hope on waterways as the lifeline of the country’s connectivity. He directed the purchase of three truck-carrying ferries that, even 45 years into their purchase, ply the Padma river at Mawa. There was a sea of issues Mujib had to deal with within a handful of years. Having witnessed the inaction of the previous regime of Pakistan during the 1970-cyclone leaving hundreds of thousands of countrymen dead, he led his administration to formulate a disaster management plan including the construction of climate-resilient rural housing as well as flood/cyclone centres in disaster-prone areas.
Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) Chairman Rehman Sobhan and Fellow Rounaq Jahan jointly penned a commentary titled ‘Mujib’s economic policies and their relevance today’. They highlighted how Mujib came up with policy directions including filling ‘the policy-making vacuum by setting up a National Planning Commission and the Bangladesh Bank within two days of his return to Bangladesh on 10 January 1972’. They also shed light on Mujib’s vision to ensure a just and egalitarian society where people from all walks of life including peasants and workers also receive their fair share.
Other write-ups covered the gamut of policies that Mujib worked on – from economic development to foreign relations to preparing the constitution. As revealed by the magazine’s editor-in-chief Radwan Mujib Siddiq, this issue is a tribute to the Father of the Nation on his birth centenary.
Talking about the way the policies of Bangabandhu relates to today’s policy landscape of Bangladesh, Radwan said that the country in the last 10 years went back to some of its founding principles and one of them is ‘friendship to all and malice to none’, which inspired the country’s current good relations with so many economic partners.
As the magazine bore the torch towards an undiscovered aspect of the life of Bangabandhu, it felt like an epiphany that this chapter had long been locked up by a vested quarter. It all started with the country’s darkest episode on August 15, 1975, when the nation slipped into an abyss with the assassination of the founding father. The yarns spun by the killers and the myths carried forward by their associates went unchecked for decades. That method worked so well and that bowl of misleading stories was catered so amicably that even people, in general, gulped them down. While no one doubted his charisma in the pro-liberation leadership, many remained skeptical of his role in the post-independence country.
To debunk those myths and to spell out a careful and objective analysis of the policies adopted by Bangabandhu, WhiteBoard featured the expert commentaries on that period and handed the key to that locked chapter. Launched by the ruling Awami League’s research wing Centre for Research & Information (CRI), WhiteBoard is the first of its kind in Bangladesh objectively and comprehensively covering the country’s policy issues.
Mujib’s vision didn’t end with the independence of Bangladesh. While he gave the nation a vision towards freedom, he also gave the nation a direction towards how that freedom can be upheld and how a handful of smart policies can make a world of differences.
Today’s youths must take into account not just his leonine voice and heroic courage but also his policies that still shape the nation’s progress and transformation.