The Conscience Keeper

Deb Mukharji runs an appreciative eye over this seminal collection

Collected Works of Rehman Sobhan (in three volumes)

Published by The Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka, 2007
Price: Taka 750 each

Vol I Challenging Injustice: The Odyssey of a
Bangladeshi Economist
Vol II Milestones to Bangladesh
Vol III The Political Economy of Malgovernance in
Bangladesh

Professor Rehman Sobhan is among the best known and respected figures in Bangladesh, some may say a keeper of the nation's economic conscience. The three volumes of his collected works total an impressive 1,448 pages, comprising 188 articles and speeches.

His insight has focused beyond his training and profession as an economist to cover a wide arc, which has included politics, administration, and statecraft. The span of time over which he ranges effortlessly starts with the last decade of united Pakistan to the fourth decade of independent Bangladesh.

It can be said without exaggeration that no understanding of the process which led to the emergence of Bangladesh, and the first three and a half decades of its existence, can be complete without an acquaintance with his work. It is not necessary that one must always agree with his views. But there must be admiration for his passion and commitment to his beliefs, mostly supported by facts and figures and, particularly, the complete absence of equivocation.

Indeed, the reader, to quote the author's own words: "[W]ill be left with few doubts in their minds on where I stand on the particular issues I have addressed, or what I believe should be done to challenge the injustices which have risen, and continue to divide national as well as global society."

Professor Sobhan's approach is perhaps best summed up in the foreword by Professor Amartya Sen, as being "characterised by his determined will to challenge and fight against powerful -- and sometimes dangerous -- forces that imprisoned the human mind and body in dungeons of societal inequity."

Though the editors have done a commendable job in trying to put the articles in three separate compartments, it was inevitable that there would be leap-frogging of dates and stated subject matters, with a particular strain of thought or argument seen in different volumes, besides, of course, repetition. I have attempted to place them together in the short space available, though each of the areas of his concern should ideally deserve separate assessment.

The thread of the deprivation of the deprived runs seamlessly through Sobhan's writings over forty five years, starting with the cold logic of figures with which he challenged the rulers of Pakistan in the decade of the sixties. At the time, his arguments as an economist increasingly gathered the intensity of a nationalist, as he laid bare the exploitation of East Pakistan by the ruling establishment in West Pakistan.

Starting in 1947 with about the same base, a variety of measures were taken -- or not taken -- which widened the economic gulf. East Pakistan was impoverished as investments were channeled into West Pakistan, whose deficits were met largely by foreign aid.

Sobhan went into the minutiae of personal consumption levels to prove his point. The essential problem, he was to say, was political and not economic, and the "failure of the ruling elite of Pakistan to recognise the unique feature of two economies … remains as the source of the disparities perpetuated by the policies of the Pakistani state.”

In a retrospective analysis many years later, he was to describe the struggle of the sixties as 1. Restoration of democracy where power could be shared according to population. 2. Realisation of autonomy and self-rule. 3. Channeling of resources by the centre for development and 4. Due recognition of Bangla.

The Pakistan resolution of 1940, he pointed out, did not, in constitutional terms, demand a Pakistani nation state, but regional autonomy for two Muslim majority areas. In prescient words of caution, he said in 1970: "Autonomy and self-rule does not mean a new license to our Bengali bourgeoisie and power hungry bureaucrats to promote their personal property and ambitions." In 1969, the still young Sobhan had said that that was East Pakistan's moment of truth, and circumstances could be propitious for compressing the process of radicalisation. This would not happen even decades after the emergence of Bangladesh as master of its own destiny.

A series of articles from 1969 to 1971, occasionally under a nom de plume, brings back the uncertain yet heady days that were to lead to the events of 1971, which I had the occasion of observing from Islamabad. It is clear that people like Rehman Sobhan had foreseen the possibility of the shedding of blood to ensure East Pakistan's dues.

Understandably, Sobhan saw the emergence of Bangladesh in largely economic terms, even though he was not unmindful of the language movement. This area merited somewhat greater clarity and focus. The economic element may have been the underlying reason for East Pakistan's demands for autonomy, as reflected in Mujib's Six Points of 1966. But in the public mind, the language movement and the assertion of the Bengali cultural identity had a far more emotive, and no less political, appeal.

This continues to be starkly underlined by the fact that the issues which have divided Bangladesh politics, "duopoly" as Sobhan describes it, are not based on issues of economics, where the areas of disagreement are at best marginal, but of identity. Later, Sobhan would himself lament the "resurrection of those very forces which remained deeply inimical to the historical processes which shaped the emergence of Bangladesh." These forces are clearly identifiable with those continuing to be imbued with the tunnel vision of a religion-based state.

In stressing the economic content of aspirations, Sobhan perhaps strays into shallows. While one may agree with the essentially economic basis of the Bengali Muslims' support for Pakistan, the assertion that this sense of nationalism, according to him well pre-dating partition, had a territorial definition as comprising the eastern part of the sub-continent, may not bear scrutiny.

The Bengali Muslim, particularly from eastern Bengal, had been, or had been made to be, on the back foot since 1757. 1857 would enhance the angst, and the annulment of Curzon's partition of Bengal did not help; neither did Chittaranjan Das's inability to proceed with the Bengal Pact. But investing this quest for a fair deal with a particular sense of Bengali Muslim nationalism for over "two centuries," as he was later to assert, or placing it in a territorial framework, is open to question.

Sobhan's belief in the uniqueness of the Bengali people is reflected in his observation: "Our Indian identity was, however, itself the by-product of external conquest where rulers from Northern India incorporated the peoples of Bengal into a succession of empires which culminated in the British empire," and needs to be seen in the context of an earlier remark from his days as a Pakistani national: "Nehru's myth of an India united by history and economics was confined to a narrow educated elite which myopically ignored the transcendental social realities of India."

One need only comment that had there been no external con- have been hardly any Muslims in Bengal. Bengal never was an island unto itself, as is true of most of the elements that comprised India. As to the "myth" of Nehru's convictions, a more mature Sobhan later takes a different view of the elements that unite South Asia.

From his earliest days, Rehman Sobhan has been "challenging injustice." Starting with his defence of the rights of the exploited people of East Pakistan, he has been relentless in exposing the hollowness of government policies that benefit only the privileged, and the foreign aid that disempowers governments who become alienated from the people as they seek to serve foreign prescriptions.

For him, poverty is the outcome of structural injustice rather than a deficiency of resources, and is perpetuated by the absence of planning for the poor. In the mid-nineties, he questioned the wisdom of market reforms which were hurting local industry, and the government's externally induced policies on withdrawing subsidies. For him, what is required is the "reconstruction of a polity committed to preserving state sovereignty, based on authentically representative institutions where work rather than access governs the distribution of material benefits."

Criticism of the effects of foreign aid and its manipulative nature remain a constant theme, and Sobhan implies that the restrictions on food aid by the United States may have been designed to create the ground for the violent changes of August 1975. Critical of the aid agenda of donors and their hegemony over policy reforms, he would like Bangladesh to rethink the aid relationship and recover the ownership of its reform process.

There is trenchant criticism of the economic policies of successive governments of Bangladesh. While investments are available for urban development and the rich flourish, there is little concern for the peasants "where our rural population remain victims of both societal and government injustices." This, in turn, has created "two societies, (which) remains in violation of the social contract which has underwritten Bangladesh's struggle for liberation."

Rehman Sobhan had been among the circle of people who advised Mujib on economic issues in the sixties (and was to participate in planning after the emergence of Bangladesh). He is clear that it was Mujib's ability to reach out to the people, far beyond the confines of the bourgeoisie in the cities, that prepared the ground for the stunning victory of the Awami League in the elections of 1970, and their subsequent participation in the war of liberation. He sees the assassination of Mujib, and the efforts not to accord him the recognition he deserves, as being the root of much of the travails of Bangladesh.

The nature of politics in Bangladesh is a matter of continuing dismay for Sobhan. He was to say in 2001: "It was one of the unique features of the Liberation War that it made all of us who were associated with it feel bigger than we were. It is the misfortune of post-Liberation Bangladesh that so much time is invested in making people feel smaller than they deserve to be.”

In 1991, Prof. Sobhan had been inducted into the first caretaker government in Bangladesh under the stewardship of Justice Shahabuddin, and had sought to bring about economic reforms in the short period available at a time when the "Bangladesh economy (was) in a state of structural atrophy with little capacity for structural mobilisation," but with the conviction that "democracy has to be accompanied by development."

In 1991, Sobhan had cautioned that holding elections was no guarantee for the future of democracy in Bangladesh, and wondered whether the democratic exercise would reverse the process of degeneration in the governance of the nation. These questions continue, unfortunately, to retain their acute relevance.

Five years later, he was to see the major political parties locked in a struggle that negated democracy. As a member of an eminent citizen's group he sought to bring about a minimum understanding that would prevent a collapse of the system, but was unable, ultimately, to persuade the ruling party from pursuing the "March of Folly." His articles on the political situation in 1995-96 bring alive the obduracy of the political leadership in pursuing the "March of Folly," which I had occasion to observe from the sidelines in Dhaka. Ironically, there would be a replay of a similar scenario in Bangladesh in 2006-2007, with, however, a different outcome.

Sobhan dismisses the military as an agent of change, and recalls members of the Pakistan civil society welcoming the military coup of 1999 in the context of the corrupt politics of the times. One can see similarities with the situation in Bangladesh today. For him, worthwhile change in Bangladesh can largely be brought about by small farmers, non-defaulting entrepreneurs, small entrepreneurs, micro-credit borrowers, NGOs, and the 1.5 million force of working women.

In a significant speech in 2006, Professor Sobhan dwelt on his image of Bangladesh, its origins, and the current state of affairs. It is important as a reflection of his present thinking, and as a commentary on present day Bangladesh. He stresses that the founding fathers had envisioned a society "that projected our pluralism rather than our singularity" and a "genuinely inclusive society, which could democratise opportunities for the poor and dispossessed, as well as the religious and ethnic minorities," which are concepts reflected in the principles of the first Bangladesh Constitution, namely nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism. This was a sea change from the exclusionary principles of the Pakistan Constitution.

Sobhan goes on to question the identification of religion as the basis of identity, overlooking the multiple identities of "culture, language, ethnicity, tribe, class, caste and gender," which were no less significant. In a departure from the Sobhan of the sixties, he says: "When Mohammad Ali Jinnah … argued for Pakistan as the homeland of the Indian Mussalmans, he could not have been paying close attention to the geography of India." es on to refer to the abortive Cabinet Mission, differentiating between the political rhetoric of a Pakistan based on religious identity and "the realities of politics, economics and geography (which) demanded an integrated society that could accommodate the historical co-existence of peoples with different religious identities." With the passage of time, the author has evolved from the certitudes inculcated during his Pakistan days.

Prof. Sobhan describes how, in three crucial areas -- democracy, secularism and social justice -- the state of Bangladesh had failed to deliver. With money and muscle as the new pre-requisites for elections, parliament had ceased to be representative. Intimidation of the minorities increasingly ensure their diminishing participation in elections. Measures taken under the Enemy/Vested Properties Act have led to the seizure of assets of one million Hindu households, which have been dispossessed of two million acres of land. While Bangladesh may not have had many communal riots, in reality the minorities have been marginalised and "their communally defined identity ensures them a secure subsistence as long as they do not politically assert themselves or become vocal in making claims to secure their economic and human rights."

I recall seeing just such a conditional promise held out by Golam Azam, then emir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, to the Hindus of Bangladesh some dozen years ago, though couched in honeyed terms. Social justice, emphasises Sobhan, remains a chimera, and the "reward systems of our society … depend on access to power and influence." It is possible to overcome the present situation only by the creation of an inclusive and democratic society, and through a series of measures which empower the dispossessed.

Prof. Sobhan's focus is on Bangladesh, and there are, thus, only incidental references to India. His comments in a column written in November 1970, immediately before the landmark elections of December 7, on the anti-India campaign are, I think, revealing and worthy of analysis. Referring to the attitude of the younger voters, he writes: "The ancient nemesis of a Hindu-dominated India is an academic subject … any suggestion of unification of Bengal or Indian domination of East Pakistan makes little sense to them."

Yet, this precisely is the image of India that is far from absent in an independent Bangladesh today. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the same elements which tried unsuccessfully to fight the Awami League and the legitimate aspirations of East Pakistan on an India-to-be-distrusted-and-feared plank, and have subsequently wielded state power in Bangladesh, have successfully carried out their old indoctrination of fear and hatred of India. Regrettably, people of entirely different convictions have unwit tingly contributed to this mindset. Prof. Sobhan himself refers on several occasions to the large trade gap with India emerging in the nineties, consequent upon Bangladesh accepting the donor driven advice of trade liberali-sation. The negative effects of trade liberalisation on local industry can be a subject of genuine debate.

To single out Indian trade surpluses vis a vis Bangladesh is hardly relevant to the principles involved, and can only contribute to empha-sising the negative image of India which some are so anxious to promote.

Prof. Sobhan states that civil societies have an important role to play to set the pace of liberalisation within the region, when governments have been ineffectual. In a major address in Delhi in 1997, he said: "The disruption of the largest integrated market in the developing world originated in the same fears and passions which originally made it unfeasible for its people to live together in the wake of the Imperial withdrawal from South Asia. The communal conflicts, first on confessional and then on ethnic/linguistic lines, which had divided communities, injected a passion and bloodletting into the conflicts which eventually undermined economic rationality and drove each faction of South Asia along the path of economic autarchy, without counting the cost."

One may disagree with his subsequent description of Kashmir as an item on the "unfinished agenda of partition," obviously an unwitting adoption of a Pakistani terminology. One may also question the primacy he accords to the integration of labour markets of South Asia, of obvious importance to Bangladesh and of some concern to India in terms of illegal migration. But no one would demur with his conclusion that to achieve full potential: "A South Asia made up of national borders without boundaries demands not just statesmanship by India but considerable courage and self-confidence from its neighbours."

Is Rehman Sobhan, the political economist in this age of globalisation and the supremacy of the market, tilting at windmills? I believe not. The issues and concerns, whose solution he has indefatigably championed over close to five decades, are genuine dragons and have the capacity to breathe fire into many comfortable assumptions. They have not disappeared simply because they may not have been addressed. And because they have not been addressed, or addressed only partially, violence is becoming endemic. One must hope that the words of advice and caution of this man of intellectual integrity and learning will be heeded, and not just in Bangladesh.

The three volumes of Prof. Rehman Sobhan's Collected Works will, of course, be retained by libraries and serious researchers. It would be enormously helpful if the publication of a single volume of his selected works, carefully edited to provide a window into both issues and history, could be undertaken.

Deb Mukharji is former Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh.