‘Some contents of Baksal should be brought back’

Some of the contents of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's 1975 reform programme known as 'Baksal' should be brought back, Prime Minister's International Affairs Adviser Dr Gowher Rizvi said yesterday.

"We should look at it. We should carefully and critically analyse the contents of his 1975 reform programme," he said, "This is to bring back the dimension of social justice as well as to create an equitable, egalitarian and secular society."

Dr Rizvi was addressing a webinar on the topic "Bangabandhu's Vision of Sonar Bangla: Bangladesh at 50" organised by Bangladesh Institute of International and Strategic Studies (BIISS).

Addressing as chief guest, Dr Rizvi said the ideas in Bangabandhu's 1975 reform programme are still very much a need of the time.

He said the reform scheme got discredited even before it was given a try, and Bangabandhu was assassinated before he could implement his ideas of Bangladesh Krishok Sromik Awami League (Baksal).

The scheme that was provided in 1975 was a detailed programmatic framework for how to restructure the society, he said, adding that unfortunately, Baksal got popularly condemned as a one-party system which is far from the truth.

He said, "Even today inequality and intolerance prevail, which was not Bangabandhu had imagined. We need to reflect on it. Yes, we are celebrating, we will be celebrating (success in 50 years), but we need to reflect on these issues."

Addressing the webinar, analysts said although Bangladesh has achieved tremendous progress in economy and poverty alleviation, the country is lagging behind in reducing inequality, bringing in inclusive development and creating a secular society.

Mustafizur Rahman, distinguished fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said one of the major features of Bangabandu's 1st five-year plan was to make Bangladesh self-sufficient.

At the beginning, many people thought that Bangladesh would be a perennial basket case.

"But, Bangabandhu thought that with the gradual implementation of five-year plans, he would be able to reduce our dependency on aid and also there would be less dependence on imports," he added.

He said even in 1990, our export and aid ratio was 1:1, and in the pre-pandemic year, our export was 40 billion dollars against 5 billion dollars of aid.

Following Bangabandhu's vision of a five-year plan, we were able to transform our economy from aid to trading nation.

Binayak Sen, research director at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies, said Bangladesh provides an inspiring story reducing poverty, with 25 million people lifted from poverty over 15 years. In 1973-74, national poverty was assessed at around 80 per cent, and it was around 60 percent in 1991-92. It reduced to 24 percent in 2016 and 20 percent in 2020 just prior to the pandemic.

 Major General Emdad Ul Bari, director general of the BIISS, said building infrastructure rehabilitation after thousands of people lost everything in the war, reviving financial, industrial and business organisations, ensuring security and good governance and establishing diplomatic relations with countries across the world were among the other challenges faced by Bangabandhu.

Mahfuz Kabir, research director at the BIISS, and Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad, chairman of Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation, also spoke at the event.