Development vision vs confrontation mission
Vision is planning the future with wisdom and each nation needs a vision to "[...] turn resources into blessing […]" Long-term socio-political and economic development needs strategic planning and a sustainable and genuine implementation of it. In a reverse case, the nation continues to remain within a vicious conflict leading to sustained poverty. The quote, "When a nation does not have a vision, small minds take over" (Abdul Kalam), is a perfect reminder about the need for a nation's vision.
A country's vision rouses fundamental needs of that state and through political consensus that materialises.
Formulation and implementation of a nation's vision is a well practiced matter. All national success stories had a vision at the inception where Bangladesh's War of Independence was based on the nation's vision to free itself from colonial exploitation.
More than a dozen countries have precise formulated development visions and are proceeding forward with those in mind, where Singapore, who falls very well within that group, attained its development through long-term planning and national consensus; leading it to achieve a per capita GNI of of USD 42,930 -- the highest in the world.
None but the politicians are mandated to provide political leadership with a vibrant civil society, other patriotic social elements and efficient government machinery; acting as facilitating forces. The visions have therefore been set forth by the political forces; as it happened during our struggle for independence, since 1949: the Language Movement, formation of the United Front and its victory in the national elections of 1954, students' movement of 1962, Six Point Movement of 1966, and the mass upraising of 1968.
The culminating point of all forms of our national struggle for independence was the War of Independence in 1971. All political forces were united under the banner of our vision for attaining different milestones, except a tiny section of well known collaborators.
Democracy endorses differences of opinion and democratic actions to the extent that those do not distort democratic norms and values. The strength of democracy is in its capacity to synchronise differences of diverse actors through constructive actions. The sine qua non is the welfare of the people at the end of the day.
Bangladesh's current socio-political and economic development is proceeding in accordance with "Vision 2021" that encompasses achieving multi-sectoral milestones within set deadlines. There are both achievements and disappointments, but the judicious political decision should be to capitalise on the achievements, identify the impediments, and remove those for attaining accelerated development in the coming days, rather than negate the achievements and push the development process behind. They should search for developmental innovations putting aside all positive gains that benefited the country.
The political leadership of the country needs to be in possession of the strategic document and should strive to attain the goals of converting the country into a middle-income one by 2021. "Vision 2021" should be considered as a national agenda, rather than branding itself as a party manifesto by the successive governments.
The issue of political ownership of "Vision 2021" is important from the viewpoint of a doomed political culture of reversing the achievements of the previous governments by the new leadership; irrespective of the merit of those successes.
Notably, none of the previous governments could be re-elected for consecutive terms in Bangladesh and thus the development cadence created by the predecessor was mostly discredited and made null and void by the successor.
This "one step forward and two steps backward" culture had been one of the major developmental impediments so far, which had always been instrumental in aggravating the miseries of the people putting the issue of national development further away.
Unconstitutional power capture and continuation of authoritarian regimes for a considerable period of this nation's history fuelled slow growth rate.
During the military rule, the country's growth rate accounted for around 3%, against an average of around 6.2% during 1991-2013. One of the most promising economies of Asia thus remained underdeveloped and the people remained in the vicious circle of poverty.
A recent achievement in the social sectors has been poverty reduction by around 10%t and attaining a strong macro economic stability, despite global recession, which have saturated additional confidence in people's mind to believe that the country can attain an accelerated development of 8% to emerge as a middle-income country by 2021.
However, to materialise that aspiration, the political leadership needs to behave more intelligently: avoid confrontation leading to political volatility, social backwardness and economic injury that concerns loss of resources and time.
Bangladesh's per capita GNI of USD 848 in 2013 against USD 676 in 2008-2009 is certainly a remarkable progress over four years, however, it is not at par with the potential that the country has. It could be USD 8,770 as in Malaysia or even more with sensible democratic culture and good governance in place.
Bangladesh's political leadership mandated to lead a democratic Bangladesh needs to seize advantage of the country's inherent and create through developmental practices opportunities (economic, demographic, socio political, geo-political, etc.), rather than continue with the politics of conflict and contradiction.
Democracy has provided ample scope for the parties and political leadership to mediate differences in the parliament, which is the most important decision-making forum. Street agitations avoiding parliament would certainly instigate political confrontation, which is clearly not at the interest of the nation.
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