The Zia synthesis: society and economy

Had he not been killed in 1981, Ziaur Rahman would have been 76 today.  Despite the twists and turns of politics, over three decades from his death, when things actually work in Bangladesh, they work along the path set by this military strongman turned a very popular politician.  And they work because the politics of synthesis crafted by Zia had continued from the work of his predecessors, and his successors saw the merit in keeping them.

And yet, the discourse about Zia is dominated by lies of various degree.  Even his own political creation, Bangladesh Nationalist Party, doesn’t try to engage in a serious discussion about his synthesis.  In a modest attempt at rectifying this, I started a five-part series last May.  The first part covered politics and governance.  Over the fold is a discussion on various socioeconomic issues.  Future installments will cover sociocultural issues and the foreign policy, while the final post will point out how along one crucial dimension, the Zia synthesis has completely been abandoned.  Not in all aspects does this blog agree with the synthesis — the disapprovals are also pointed out.

Society and economy

In a series of recent articles and media appearances (one example is here), Amartya Sen has noted how Bangladesh has better social indicators than India despite having only half the per capita income.  This theme has been picked up by a number of 40th anniversary pieces that note that Bangladesh has done pretty well when it comes to human development, despite unfriendly nature and dysfunctional politics.  As it happens, the beginning of pretty much all the examples of ‘good results’ recorded by Bangladesh can be traced to the Zia era.

Take population control for example.  In the 1970s, population was growing by 3% a year, and was expected to double to 150 million by the mid-1990s.  That has been delayed by well over a decade, and population growth rate is now between 1-1.5%.  At the time of independence, Bangladeshi women on average had 7 children.  By 2008, according to the World Bank, fertility rate had fallen to 2.3 — close to replacement level that stabilises population.   Look at the chart — when do you see the beginning of the sustained dip in this rate?

And unlike in China or India, the decline in fertility rate hasn’t been accompanied by grotesque discrimination against female infants (effectively female infanticide in places).  In fact, on metrics related to living standards of poor women, Bangladesh tend to pretty well compared with its peers.

The reason for this includes concerted government efforts — something again initiated by the Zia regime, and continued by everyone since.  But activities of the NGOs and the emergence of the ready made garment sector have also played their part.  Of course, both the first Aarong shop and Desh Garments (first RMG factory) started when Zia was the president.

What about self sufficiency in food?  The green revolution came to Bangladesh under Zia.

What about the remittance boom that has kept Bangladesh afloat for the past decade?  The Gulf labour market opened under Zia.

We can see a pattern here.  But let’s not belabour the point.  Instead, let’s ask — how much of this was because of conscious decisions by Zia?  How much of this would have happened anyway under Mujib had he lived?  Was Zia simply lucky?

After all, it’s not like Mujib was unaware of the importance of population control, or food security, or women’s empowerment.  And he tried to establish relations with the Arab countries.  The thing is, Mujib’s efforts failed, while Zia succeeded in initiating or establishing the processes that led to the achievements we celebrate today.  The question then becomes, why Zia and not Mujib?

The standard answer to this question is that Mujib had to deal with a war ravaged country while Zia came in when the hard task of reconstruction was done.  But this standard story is only half true, and therefore all wrong.  Yes, Mujib had a war ravaged country.  But the country had hardly been reconstructed when Zia assumed power.  If anything, after the 1974 famine and the impacts of Bakshal and the coups of 1975, Bangladesh was in a more perilous condition when Zia assumed power.

I would contend that Zia succeeded not because his task was easier, but because he was a pragmatic technocrat who eschewed ideology and grandiosity, and adopted ‘whatever works’.  Thus, for example, he facilitated the NGOs to expand not because there was an ideological dispensation for it, but because he recognised that these agencies were providing a service that the state machinery was incapable of delivering.

I will talk about foreign policy in a later post.  For now, it’s important to note that Zia received political as well as economic support from the Red China right from the beginning.  And China itself was undergoing its transition from the Mao to Deng era at the time Zia emerged in Bangladesh.  From all accounts, Zia’s pragmatism seems to be heavily influenced by Deng Xiaoping’s philosophy of ‘crossing the river by feeling the stones’.

This is not to say that Zia was ‘ideology free opportunist’.  Far from it.  The opportunist thing to do would have been to talk about socialism while encouraging crony capitalism — exactly how things are in today’s Bangladesh.  But Zia consciously and deliberately turned away from socialism.

Think about how radical this would have been in the late 1970s.  This was before the Reagan-Thatcher ascendancy, before the reform eras of China and India, before Glasnost and Perestroika.  Soviet Union was still exporting revolution, as was Red China.  Indeed, Zia himself was put to power by radical soldiers claiming to carry out a ‘people’s revolution’.  The opportunist thing to do would have been for Zia to dub himself the great socialist.

Instead, what Zia claimed to base his economic policies was ‘social justice’ — সামাজিক ন্যায়বিচার in Bangla.  Now, social justice has never actually been defined formally.  But we can guess what he would have meant by this from the policies and developments adopted and initiated under his watch.

I would contend that social justice would involve economic growth, which translated into jobs and income from the rural and urban poor and less affluent classes.  I would contend that social justice would mean stable prices and macroeconomic stability.  I would contend that social justice would mean government programmes that ensure safety nets such as food vouchers for the needy.  Social justice, I would suggest, would involve active government programmes for human development, and particularly development of the marginalised sections of the society.

Social justice, I would contend, is what Sen says Bangladesh is better at than India.

Interestingly, across the Muslim world, parties that are coming to power with popular mandate seems to contain ‘social justice’ or related terms such as welfare or development in their names.  It seems that Ziaur Rahman pioneered a synthesis that is still all too relevant not just in Bangladesh, but in other similar countries too.