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Bangladesh: Partitions, Nationalisms and Legacies for State-Building

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Bangladesh: Partitions, Nationalisms and Legacies for State-Building Bangladesh: Partitions, Nationalisms and Legacies for State-Building Mushtaq H. Khan Department of Economics, SOAS, University of London July 2010 Executive Summary The political economy of developing countries is characterized by the clientelist organization of politics. This perspective gives us a theoretical model of a clientelist political settlement as a framework for analysing the interaction between politics and economics in developing countries. We look at the emergence of Bangladesh out of two violent partitions in 1947 and 1971 through this lens to address a number of puzzles. Why did these particular nationalisms emerge when they did when there was no prior history of Bengali Muslim nationalism in this area before the 1930s? Why did the achievement of the most religiously and ethnically homogenous state in South Asia not result in stability in 1971? And what is the source of the persistent failure of modern Bangladeshi political parties to achieve credible elections? The interaction between a clientelist organization of politics and changing economic opportunities and challenges provide a coherent and systematic set of answers to these and other questions. While the organization of clientelist politics had many standard features in East Bengal, a number of specific characteristics forced clientelist factions to unite against intransigent dominant classes unwilling to make distributive compromises in time. Some of the contemporary ‘no-compromise’ attitudes of Bangladeshi political factions can be directly traced to this historical experience. This analysis directs attention away from good governance reforms as a way of addressing political crises in Bangladesh. Many good governance goals are not implementable in a clientelist political settlement. The reform experiment in Bangladesh over 2007- 2009 confirms the futility of attempting to implement this agenda in countries like Bangladesh. A more limited and yet difficult set of challenges are identified. The first is to establish a shared understanding between political coalitions that live-and-let-live compromises are the only way forward in the competitive clientelism that has emerged. The significant differences between present problems and past experiences of mass movements need to be widely understood by the political players themselves. Here the dissemination of arguments and analysis is important. Secondly, the prospects for sustaining growth depend on the enforcement capabilities of agencies that can assist with the adoption and learning of new technologies. The experience of Bangladesh with its garments industry shows that these processes can be assisted even in the context of a clientelist political settlement. Finally, the analysis of clientelism and nationalism has implications for some critical issues in regional relations. Bangladesh sits at the heart of a potential geo-political flashpoint that involves India, China and separatist states in India’s North-East. The partition of Bengal and the intensification of Hindu-Muslim animosity spurred India to build the longest fence in the world around Bangladesh to prevent ‘Bangladeshi infiltration’ into India. At the same time, India desperately wants transit routes through Bangladesh to access its North-East. One implication of our analysis and the history of nationalism in Bangladesh is that the concession of Indian rights to travel through a fenced-in Bangladesh while Bangladeshis remain subject to strict Indian immigration controls is exactly the type of asymmetry in rights that resulted in significant nationalist reactions in the past. The analysis tells us that it would be dangerous to ignore the likely responses of political organizers in Bangladesh and a new form of nationalist backlash can easily emerge as a result of this political agenda. This would be seriously detrimental to both India and Bangladesh. 2 Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................ 4 2. A Theoretical Framework for Analysing Clientelist Development ......................... 10 The Ubiquity of Patron-Client Politics ................................................................... 10 Political Settlements and Growth-Stability Trade-offs ........................................... 18 The Organization of the Ruling Coalition and Variations in the Political Settlement ................................................................................................................................. 22 3. The Roots of Islam in Bengal .................................................................................. 30 4. The British Conquest ............................................................................................... 33 5. British Strategies of Divide and Rule ...................................................................... 43 6. The First Partition: A Crisis of Exclusion in Clientelism ........................................ 47 7. East versus West Pakistan ........................................................................................ 51 Capitalist Development with an Authoritarian Ruling Coalition ............................ 52 Regional Inequality and Asset Concentration ......................................................... 58 The Unravelling of the Authoritarian Ruling Coalition .......................................... 60 Summary ................................................................................................................. 62 8. Phases in the Evolution of the Political Settlement in Independent Bangladesh ..... 63 9. The Rise and Fall of Dominant Party Authoritarianism 1972-1975 ........................ 65 Summary ................................................................................................................. 71 10. The Transition Period of Clientelistic Authoritarianism 1975-1990 ..................... 71 The MFA and the acquisition of garments technologies ........................................ 74 Summary ................................................................................................................. 78 11. Competitive Clientelism 1990- .............................................................................. 79 Bengali versus Bangladeshi Nationalism ................................................................ 80 The Absence of (Informal) Rules for Live-and-Let-Live Cycling.......................... 85 Summary ................................................................................................................. 89 12. India, its Fence and its Transit Demand ................................................................. 89 13. Conclusions ............................................................................................................ 93 14. References .............................................................................................................. 95 Tables Table 1 Growth in East Pakistan / Bangladesh 1950-80.............................................. 56 Table 2 Industrial Investment in West and East Pakistan 1961-71 ............................. 57 Table 3 Foreign Inflows as Percentage of Provincial GDP ......................................... 58 Table 4 Bangladesh Garments: Growth Rates of Dollar Exports 1985-2006 .............. 77 Table 5 Bangladesh: Sectoral Shares in GDP 1980-2005 ........................................... 77 Figures Figure 1 Bengal’s partition of 1947 and Pakistan’s partition of 1971 ........................... 4 Figure 2 Political Settlements ...................................................................................... 18 Figure 3 The Growth Stability Trade-off ..................................................................... 19 Figure 4 Patron-Client Factions and the Structure of the Ruling Coalition ................. 23 Figure 5 Patron-Client Structures and the Organizational Power of Emerging Capitalists ..................................................................................................................... 28 Figure 6 Evolution of the Political Settlement in Contemporary Bangladesh ............. 64 Figure 7 The Longest Fence in the World ................................................................... 91 Figure 8 India's North-East and its Demand for Transit .............................................. 92 3 Bangladesh: Partitions, Nationalisms and Legacies for State-Building Mushtaq H. Khan 1. Introduction Bangladesh was created out of two violent partitions. The first in 1947 partitioned Bengal into a largely Muslim east, which became East Pakistan (later Bangladesh), and a largely Hindu west, which became the state of West Bengal in India (first map in Figure 1). When the Pakistan state failed to meet the aspirations of East Pakistani elites, a second violent partition in 1971 led to the secession of East Pakistan, which became Bangladesh (second map in Figure 1). Figure 1 Bengal’s partition of 1947 and Pakistan’s partition of 1971 Sources: National Maritime Museum, http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/server/show/conMediaFile. 4845/Map-of-Bangladesh-and-West-Bengal.html and http://princefino.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/ east-and-west-pakistan.jpg The outcome was a country with significantly greater linguistic and religious homogeneity compared to the other major subcontinental countries. Yet far from creating a stable state and a society with a clear sense of national identity, Bangladesh continues to be riven by conflict and dissent
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