India Spreading ‘Fake News’ About Anti-Hindu Violence

SALEEM SAMAD

Bangladesh, like elsewhere, the Hindus are celebrating a weeklong Durga Puja. This is the second Durga Puja celebration since the Interim Government took charge of the helm of affairs of the nation.

Durga Puja is widely celebrated with great enthusiasm, color, festivity, and religious passion by Bangla-speaking Hindu diasporas and in several neighboring Indian states and among those living abroad.

The festival goes beyond religion to promote strength, unity, and community spirit. However, the Puja is not the mainstream religious festival of majoritarian Indians. They celebrate the Diwali festival of lights.

“There is no anti-Hindu violence,” Chief Adviser of the Interim Government Professor Muhammad Yunus said in an interview with veteran journalist Mehdi Hasan for Zeteo news media on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York last week.

Bangladesh’s majoritarian population is Sunni Muslims, and the religious minorities make up a small but diverse portion of the population of 9 per cent.

Hindus are the largest minority of 8 per cent, followed by Buddhists and Christians. The country has a tiny population of Shia Muslims, Ahmadiyya Muslims, Baha’is, animists, and atheists. Dismissing the claims as misinformation, Yunus told Hasan, “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news.”

Professor Yunus, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning economist, became the interim head of Bangladesh following the 2024 July Uprising known as Monsoon Revolution that led to the ouster of former fascist Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

Mehdi sits down with Yunus in New York, a year after student protesters in his country ousted the repressive former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who ruled the 174 million people with an iron hand for more than 15 years.

The Nobel Laureate accuses India of spreading ‘fake news’ about anti-Hindu violence. Delhi often blames the Dhaka authorities for not doing enough to ensure protection and security for the Hindu population, especially the protection of Hindu temples, which Indian authorities claim are being sporadically attacked.

Dhaka avoids pointing fingers at Delhi for persecution, intimidation, and violence by Hindu extremists on Dalits (untouchable community), Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, Adivasis (ethnic communities), and others.

In November, around 30,000 Hindus in Bangladesh gathered to protest Yunus’ interim government, demanding protection and security, with Donald Trump even weighing in to call Bangladesh’s treatment of Hindus “barbaric”. “One of the specialities of India right now is fake news,” the Nobel laureate tells Zeteo, before declaiming, “There’s no anti-Hindu violence.”

Once, Murshidabad was the capital of Nawab Sirajuddowla (1756-1757), the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The young Muslim ruler met at the Battle of Plassey in 1757. He was defeated by the British East India Company. His defeat marked the end of the 500-year-long Muslim rule over Bengal.

In the same capital, a pavilion of a Durga Puja at Murshidabad, in a state adjacent to Bangladesh. The goddess Durga has other faces of Prof Yunus as a demon, Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, and US President Donald Trump as evils. It did not surprise many, the organizers deliberately avoided Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed for atrocities in Gaza.

BBC Bangla was the first to post a visual story of the Puja celebration in Murshidabad, which enraged the netizens and social media users in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshi diasporas abroad. The tension and distrust between the two neighboring countries in South Asia have gone cold. No visible diplomatic initiatives from Dhaka and Delhi to warm up the relations.

In one incident, Indian Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal urged the interim government in Dhaka to “live up to its responsibility” of protecting minorities without “inventing excuses.” MEA protested the claim of vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home in Shahzadpur, north of Bangladesh.

Immediately Indian government, Indian political figures, and Hindutva–aligned social media handlers circulated about the vandalism at Rabindranath Tagore’s ancestral home. Bangladesh Chief Adviser’s Press Wing, after fact-check, debunked the Indian claim and posted a statement on its verified Facebook page.

Without a fact-check, India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) expressed concern over the incident. MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal claimed that the attack was portrayed as a “systematic Islamist attack” or “terrorist act” against a symbol of Hindu heritage.

MEA spokesperson in his rhetoric on Bangladesh often states: “The attack falls in the broad pattern of systematic attempts made by extremists to erase the symbols of tolerance and eviscerate the syncretic culture and the cultural legacy of Bangladesh.”

Several Indian media outlets have circulated videos claiming that Hindus are being targeted by ‘Islamist forces’ in Bangladesh. Analysts say that while there have been attacks on minorities during the political unrest, the media is exaggerating the scale, says Qatar-based international TV network Al Jazeera.

South Asia witnessed a continuation of religious violence, fake news, and political messaging that mainly targeted Muslim minorities. In India, there were mob attacks, hate speeches by religious leaders, and forced deportations of Muslims to Bangladesh, wrote Mohammed Raihan in The Insighta, an analytical portal.

At the same time, some Indian media were alleged to spread false stories about events in Bangladesh, claiming attacks on Hindus, he wrote inThe Insighta. There is no hide and seek, India has huge discomfort and embarrassment about the political changeover in Bangladesh that took place on 5th August.

Developing events suggest that India considers the changeover as its ‘political defeat in Bangladesh’ and unleashing vengeful plots in hegemonic arrogance to destabilize the country to put back the government of its choice in power, writes Mohammad Abdur Razzak in a secular newspaper, The New Age, published from Dhaka.

Playing the Hindu card, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in a message on his X (Twitter) handle, urged the chief adviser to Bangladesh’s interim government few days after Yunus was sworn in August last year to “ensure the safety and protection of the Hindus and all other minorities in Bangladesh”.

According to Indian media outlet The Wire published a short documentary titled “Being Hindu in Bangladesh is Not a Black and White Story,” which tells the personal story of Deepak Kumar Goswami, a well-known actor from Bangladesh who is a Hindu. He talks about what it’s really like to live as a Hindu in a Muslim majority country.

Deepak shows that life in Bangladesh for Hindus isn’t just good or bad – it’s more complex than what some Indian media shows. In the documentary, Deepak criticizes the Indian media for spreading propaganda after Hasina fled to India, questioning whether it truly supports Hindus or serves Hasina’s interests.

He rejects the portrayal of the July 2024 uprising as an Islamist movement, pointing out that Hindus, including himself, also opposed Hasina—a fact ignored by the Indian media.

Another bone of contention is the recent anti-immigrant crackdown in India. The crackdown ensued after the Pahalgam massacre by Islamic militants’ attack on tourists in Indian administered Kashmir.

Hundreds of Muslim migrants are forced into Bangladesh's porous borders. Many were found to be Indian citizens. Their crime, they speak Bangla and, most importantly, Muslims are eligible to the deported.

Indian ‘Godi Media’, within a few days after the fall of Hasina, quoting “reliable sources” inside Bangladesh, claimed a military coup in the country and Prof Yunus’ government is a façade.

When the Godi Media found the conspiracy theory of a military coup narrative is not credible, they quickly changed their claim that the Yunus government is governed by the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami.

Yunus addressed a group of researchers and academicians in New York last week. He flagged a piece of fake news claiming that the Gen Z (youths) who brought about change in Bangladesh are Taliban. “They even said I’m a Taliban too. I don’t have a beard. I just left it at home,” he laughed.

The Nobel laureate is a staunch secularist. The Grameen Bank, which he founded, has beneficiaries of 10.75 million (August 2025), with 97% of them being rural women. He has brought about the empowerment of women and supported them from sinking into poverty.

The person who has worked with millions of women over several decades and even got the rural women in the Grameen Bank as board members, is regularly slammed by the Indian media as being backed by the Islamists, Mullahs, and Muslim radicals. It is indeed a pity, remarked political historian and researcher Mohiuddin Ahmad.

First published in Stratheia Policy Journal, Islamabad, Pakistan

Saleem Samad is an independent journalist based in Bangladesh and a media rights defender with Reporters Without Borders. He is the recipient of the Ashoka Fellowship and the Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleem.samad.1971@gmail.com>; Twitter (X): @saleemsamad

Reducing gap between rich and poor in Bangladesh

SALEEM SAMAD

The gap between the rich and the poor is perpetuating and has enlarged alarmingly, despite a decline in the rate of poverty in recent times before the pandemic hit.

The poverty level dropped to 24.3% in 2016 from 31.5% in 2010, but other indicators which measure income inequality within the population, coupled with slow investment for vulnerable communities, are likely to challenge the achievements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030, according to social scientist AKM Mustaque Ali, an executive director of INCIDIN Bangladesh.

Whenever financial resources are invested to strengthen the capability of the bottom 20%, the local ruling party elites with their nexus of power lobbies eat up the development initiatives, leaving bread-crumbs for the vulnerable.

The vulnerable community must also have access to natural resources, basic education, health care, learning skills, community participation in development planning, and the justice system. The digital divide that exists among the rural poor has also blocked the best practices of good governance, transparency, and zero-tolerance to corruption. 

A lack of access to the justice system has also aggravated social tensions, which challenges the traditions of social harmony and religious freedom in rural areas.

The power lobby, which includes politicians, rent-seekers, and contractors who are responsible for milching the development budget for the poor, end up making the rich richer. Several other factors, including climate change, have expedited rural-urban migration.

Historically, Bangladesh has had inequitable access to land, in a land-scarce country where the per capita cultivated land is limited. Minority elites with an unholy alliance with power lobbies dominate both land and river resources.

“Migration fundamentally challenges our understanding of development,” says Mustaque Ali in an outstanding research report published in “Migration in South Asia: Poverty and Vulnerability” published by Kathmandu based think-tank South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE).

Internal migration is generally linked to population pressure, adverse person to land ratio, landlessness, poverty, natural calamities, law and order, lack of social and cultural spaces, job opportunities, and higher wages. As for the poor, the search for survival is often forced, controlled, and restricted.

Dhaka is the only migration destination for both the rich and the poor in Bangladesh. It’s understood that migration to the Dhaka region is caused by the concentration of economic, administrative, and political institutions in the capital -- thus it continues to attract migrants from other regions.

The present state of the economy of Bangladesh elucidates that economic growth is not a guarantee in cutting down the rate of unemployment. Bangladesh is in a state of jobless growth. Violence and conflict is another risk factor which causes migration.

There is no respite in attacks on minority communities, especially on Hindus and on the indigenous communities, by non-state actors, backed by local leaders. The silent, low-intensity violence against minorities is occurring with impunity, while civil administration and police in most cases do not take cognizance of the attacks.

Only those occurrences which make headlines in the media get the attention of the civil administration and police officers. Seldom have the victims been compensated. Justice remains elusive as perpetrators are released on bail, while judicial proceedings reveal that eye-witnesses have remained away from the court in fear of further reprisal.

Eminent economist Dr Abul Barakat has, in his research, said though, that most of this low-intensity violence is not to be blamed on religious motives -- the only intention was to grab the land, property, and business establishments of minority populations.

Bangladesh needs to enlarge its investment in ensuring the bottom 20% population living in both urban and rural areas are brought under a wider safety net, which most development economists believe will significantly reduce the gap.

First published in the Dhaka Tribune, 24 August 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

How to Rob a Bank in Bangladesh

Tahmima Anam

In Bangladesh, we sometimes play We Also Have. This is a parlor game in which we can say, with pride, that we now have the things that could previously be found only in other countries.

In the 1990s, it was satellite television (we also have MTV!); in the 2000s, it was shopping malls and high-rise buildings and multiplex cinemas. This year, it was a Hollywood-style bank heist.

In January, a man going by the name of Sohel and his accomplice Idris successfully stole 169 million taka (about $2.2 million) from a branch of Sonali Bank in Kishoreganj, 70 miles north of the capital, Dhaka.

Although “Sohel,” later identified as Yusuf Munshi, his brother Idris Munshi and a number of other accomplices were arrested within days of the robbery, it was all anyone could talk about for weeks afterward. We devoured the details of the heist: how Mr. Munshi had plotted for two years to rob the bank, how he had rented a house next door and dug a 30-foot tunnel to reach the bank’s vault.

It was even reported that he had had an affair with a bank employee as part of his scheme. Social media exploded with comparisons with Hollywood movies such as “The Bank Job.”

It appears Mr. Munshi has started a trend. In March, 3 million taka (about $40,000) was stolen from Sonali Bank’s Adamdighi branch in Bogra, when thieves used the same technique — digging a tunnel into the vault from a nearby furniture shop. And last month, criminals made away with almost 20 million taka ($260,000) from a Brac Bank branch in the small town of Joypurhat by boring a hole from a neighboring building. When renting the office next door, the robbers had claimed to be starting a nonprofit agency called Poor Development. Oh yes, in Bangladesh, we also have irony.

But while our attention is drawn to this proliferation of movie-style heists, the larger irony is that Mr. Munshi and his copycat criminals are not the real bank robbers. No, the bigger thieves are hiding in plain sight, and sanctioned by the banks themselves. They are the loan defaulters: people and businesses who borrow money from banks with no intention of repaying the debt.

The problem, it seems, is the way Bangladesh’s banking sector is organized. There are broadly two types of banks: private banks, which are overseen by the central bank, and state-run commercial banks, which fall directly under the aegis of the Finance Ministry. While private banks have had their share of loan defaulters (sometimes those who sit on the boards of these banks), it is overwhelmingly the state-run banks that have allowed bad loans to multiply to an unsustainable degree. The international standard for loan defaults is currently at about 2 to 3 percent. In Bangladesh, it is over 12 percent. In a recent study conducted by the Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management, the percentage of nonperforming loans in state-run banks is as high as 29 percent.

The situation is only getting worse. The World Bank’s 2013 Bangladesh Development Update states that “weak internal controls, poor corporate governance, and slackening of credit standards resulted in irregularities in loan approvals,” which caused state-run commercial banks to classify more than half a billion dollars’ worth of loans as “nonperforming.” In the past six years, the four major state-run banks have seen sharp spikes in defaulted loans; the total amount of credit in default held by these four banks is about $2.45 billion (not including nearly $2 billion already written off).

This means that an enormous amount of capital is taken out of the banking system, and banks must compensate for this loss by keeping interest rates high. Currently, Bangladeshi banks’ interest rates range between about 9 percent and 16 percent, while deposits earn between 6 percent and 12 percent.

There is much talk about the government’s attempting to crack down on defaults. The new chairman of Basic Bank, one of the worst culprits with outstanding loans of over $1.45 billion, has publicly named and shamed a list of the top 100 loan defaulters. The bank has attempted to recover some of the bad debt, but has thus far been largely unsuccessful. Ultimately, there appears to be little legal recourse because the justice system is overwhelmed: There are more than 800,000 cases against loan defaulters pending in the courts.

The only way to alter this broken system is for the state-run banks to come under the control of a single body that is entirely separate from the executive branch of government. Having a set of banks that are controlled by political appointees, which report directly to the Finance Ministry and run no risk of being audited by impartial agencies, will always result in a corrupt system.

When the rather terrifyingly named Rapid Action Battalion recovered the money that the Munshi brothers had stolen from Sonali Bank, about 20 million taka was missing. Yusuf Munshi claimed to have spent the money buying a truckload of rice for a local religious leader. That money was never found.

Since the Munshis’ heist, the Bangladesh Bank has suggested that banks beef up their security, and yes, it sounds as though their vaults could use some more cement. But while we can barricade bank branches themselves, we need to step up efforts to stop those who steal from within, the sharp-suited businessmen who raid our banks in broad daylight.

First published in International Herald Tribune, October 10, 2014

Tahmima Anam, a writer and anthropologist, is the author of the novel “A Golden Age.”

In Bangladesh, the Steady Pursuit of Justice and Freedom

Kerry Kennedy, President of the Robert F. Kennedy Center (third from right), with Grameen Bank members.

Last week, at the invitation of my friend Muhammad Yunus, I traveled to Bangladesh, a truly humbling and inspiring experience. I met so many incredible people struggling to improve their country and their lives. I wrote a letter to my daughters about my travels, which follows:

Dear Cara, Mariah and Michaela,

Visiting Bangladesh has been a lifelong dream of mine, but all that I had heard about a people who love freedom so much that they have withstood great armies, famine and intractable poverty could not prepare me for what I've seen in the last three days. 

The Bengali patriots' courage and endurance in the face of the Pakistani army forty years ago is the stuff of legend in our family. I remember your Great Uncle Teddy telling us about his visit to the Calcutta refugee camps, where tens of thousands lived not in tents but in sewer pipes. The people in these camps had fled the mass killings -- some would say genocide -- that the United States had failed to stop, as the Nixon Administration's official policy was to choose our relationship with Pakistan over those who shared our love of freedom. Great Uncle Teddy promised to return when the country gained independence, and a few months later, he and Uncle Joe were among the first international visitors to the newborn country of Bangladesh.

Given what I'd heard from Uncle Teddy, I suppose I should not have been surprised by the inspiring people that my colleague Lydia Allen and I met in Bangladesh, people who endure extreme hardship for the freedom that they love and that they demand for their country.

In a small wooden room packed with women in bright saris, we met a proud shareholder of the Grameen Bank -- the transformative microlending institution founded by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus -- who borrowed 5,000 taka (about $80) and bought a rickshaw, and then 20,000 taka ($240) and bought a cow, and then 30,000 taka ($480) and bought land. Thanks to her hard work and the Grameen Bank, she now has a house full of furniture, a field full of food, water, a working toilet, and a television set. She saves 100 taka per month, and this year she will receive 100,000 taka ($750) from her savings.

We met a store owner and her husband, who borrowed from Grameen to buy solar panels, which have allowed them to expand their storefront and provide light to the brick house they share with three siblings and their in-laws. 

We met a young woman on a Grameen scholarship who will be the first woman in her family to go to college. She is majoring in computer science and plans to start a business in the IT sector that will transform her neighborhood.

We met ten women who sit on the board of the Grameen Bank, borrowers all. They're angry at the government and concerned for the future of the bank. The government recently ousted Dr. Yunus from the board of his own bank on the pretense that he had overstayed the mandatory retirement age of sixty. Then, finding no other legal way to do so, the government cajoled the rubber-stamp Parliament to change a banking law for the specific purpose of ousting the impoverished women from the Grameen board and replacing them with ruling party toadies, who, the women fear, will transform the multibillion-dollar bank that has helped so many escape poverty into just another slush fund for kleptocrats to draw upon. 

We met a dozen women, many of them lawyers, all of them leaders of NGOs that address pressing issues like indigenous rights, due process of law, violence against women, dowry battles, rape, and environmental justice. Many have been arrested, and many live under daily threat. One said her husband had been "disappeared" in apparent retaliation for her work. They are scared of the nation's security forces, which are known for kidnappings, torture and extrajudicial executions. And yet they wake up in the morning, kiss their children and their husbands, and return to work, a daily show of quiet courage.

We met a woman who worked at the collapsed Rana Plaza sweatshop who said she never wants to work in the apparel industry again. I met another who said the same thing, but added, "But we are poor, and we must work."

They were among a crowd lining the hallway and sitting at intake tables at the offices of the Rana Plaza Claims Administration, the nonprofit group charged with addressing reparations for the victims of the Rana Plaza collapse. It is an impressive operation, manned by a team of dedicated professionals in labor, law and computer science, intent on making payouts to every single victim for physical and psychological injuries and to the scores of dependents who lost the family breadwinner in the tragedy. They have $17 million to hand out, and calculate the need will be closer to $40 million, but the fund is voluntary and no law compels the brands to pay their fair share. While some have been generous, too many others have refused to participate, because no law compels them to do so.

We met U.S. Ambassador Dan Mozena, a man singularly committed to advancing U.S. interests abroad by protecting basic rights and increasing the prosperity of the people of Bangladesh. He invited me to visit the Edward M. Kennedy Center and the Ted Cafe, a gathering place created by the embassy for NGOs to meet and speak in safety, and for young people to learn about our country. 

Michaela, the book shelf of one entire room was jammed with SAT prep books, looking all too familiar. Thanks to Ambassador Mozena, you will have plenty of competition from young Bangladeshis as you apply for college, determined to gain an education at U.S. schools, and return to their homeland with new hope for the future.

We met Adil Rahman Khan, who has organized a team of 400-plus human rights monitors and defenders across the country to investigate and report on violations of voting rights; on crackdowns on free speech and assembly; and on torture, extrajudicial execution, disappearances, and more--holding the government accountable for its failures to protect the freedom that the Bangladeshi people won at such great cost 40 years ago. Adil seeks accountability in a country where 197 anti-corruption officers are presently under investigation for corruption themselves. For his actions, Adil lives under a constant threat of death. Last year, after issuing a report documenting a massacre by government forces of 61 protestors, he was taken away and held without trial for 62 days in a filthy cell, ridden with bedbugs and rotten food.

How proud Uncle Teddy would be to know that this man, who personifies all the values that Teddy and Grandpa Bobby so admired, will receive the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award later this year.

And, of course, we met with my dear friend Dr. Yunus. He invited us to come to Dhaka for Social Business Day, where people from scores of countries across the globe gathered to share their designs and experiences with creating businesses which seek not profits for shareholders but solutions to problems like housing or food access.

You were still in diapers when Dr. Yunus came to our home nearly 15 years ago and I interviewed him for my book Speak Truth to Power. I have always been struck by the sense of peace and joy he conveys in the many lectures I have since seen him deliver. But I never appreciated how incredible that was until I saw him in Bangladesh. He is under unremitting pressure from a government that seeks to destroy all he has given his life to build. And yet he endures, and invites us to somehow find peace amidst the chaos in our lives and find our joy through service. His steady bearing reminded me of these lines from Rudyard Kipling's poem "If":

"If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
If you can watch the things you gave your life for, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools...

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings -- nor lose the common touch...

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it..."

By this measure, Dr. Yunus has achieved the world.

What an amazing place, what an amazing country. As we in America celebrate our own Independence Day this week, I hope we can take inspiration from the people of Bangladesh and rededicate ourselves to democracy and freedom, knowing that the price may be high, but the sacrifice is well worthwhile.

Love,

Momma

First published in The Huffington Post, July 7, 2014

Kerry Kennedy is President of Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights

Time for a New U.S. Policy in Bangladesh

ARAFAT KABIR

Although situated in close proximity to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Bangladesh has to this point somehow avoided becoming a major headache for Washington. Yet, given recent developments, Bangladesh could soon cause U.S. officials a migraine.

Bangladesh is currently suffering some of the worst political unrest in its history. After several months of unprecedented levels of political violence, a deeply flawed election took place on January 5, the ruling party and opposition are at loggerheads today. With no end in sight to this political crisis, street violence and other unrest is bound to continue—particularly in the wake of heavily politicized trials for war crimes committed during Bangladesh’s 1971 independence war. Washington needs to wake up before the powder keg of this country spirals out of control.

However, first it is important to understand what is at stake. Over the years, Bangladesh has transformed itself in marvelous ways, serving as an example to other developing nations. The Bangladesh Bank (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) has the second highest foreign currency deposits in South Asia after India, while the country’s garment industry has become the world’s second largest. Significantly, this multi-billion-dollar industry—housed in the third largest Muslim country in the world—is largely driven by women. In Bangladesh, many more girls are in school than boys.

Furthermore, Bangladesh demonstrates an array of human development successes, ranging from decreased mortality rates to increased average incomes and less poverty. A Bangladeshi institution, Grameen Bank, has pioneered microcredit financing. Additionally, the world’s largest non-governmental organization, BRAC, has become a globally active entity whose latest tasks include helping rebuild Afghanistan. Corruption notwithstanding, some state institutions—including the Bangladesh army—have an impressive record as well. Some may associate Bangladesh’s army with mutinies and coups, but in fact it has also been lauded for its extraordinary contribution to U.N. peacekeeping missions. In honor of the great services provided by Bangladeshi forces, the African nation of Sierra Leone has declared Bangla its second language.

Meanwhile, Dhaka shelters half-a-million registered Rohingya minorities in its territory. Similarly, ghettoes inhabited by people of Pakistani origin still dwell in the heart of Dhaka. Neither Islamabad nor Naypyidaw is willing to take back these descendants—making Bangladesh the de facto safe haven for these displaced people.

To be sure, Bangladesh is also accused of providing havens for more unsavory populations. Delhi thinks Bangladesh is a potential sanctuary for separatists fighting for the independence of the northeastern states of India. Bangladesh has also been accused of harboring militants sponsored by the Pakistani intelligence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, some in Washington are concerned that Bangladesh could fall into the hands of terrorists. This is a highly misplaced concern, however.

Bangladesh has significantly curbed religious-based terrorism in recent years. Furthermore, it has helped India by arresting some of its wanted extremists. Recently, Dhaka has signed a long-awaited extradition pact with India. India appears convinced that Dhaka will continue to clamp down on anti-India activities if Sheikh Hasina remains in power. Her administration’s demonstrated willingness to support Indian interests significantly reduces Indian security worries on its Eastern flank. This helps explain why India has supported Hasina’s recent controversial reelection.

Since human rights and promoting democracy have been cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy, it is understandable that America is unable to applaud the deeply flawed election of late that returned Hasina to power. Washington’s cautious efforts in recent weeks to help bring the government and opposition together—so that they can come to an agreement to hold a fresh election—are welcome. Nevertheless, much more needs to be done.

Belatedly, U.S. policymakers seem to have realized Bangladesh’s overall importance in a number of sectors. Although President Obama has suspended GSP (Generalized System of Preferences) benefits for Bangladeshi garment manufactures, “Made in Bangladesh” still remains a trusted brand among American retailers and consumers. American conglomerates now consider Bangladesh a lucrative destination with the rise of a strong middle-class population. What is less clear is whether Washington has recognized Bangladesh’s strategic importance. Thanks to geography, the country lies somewhat equidistant from three nuclear powers. It sits along an important channel that transports massive amount of freight every year.

Washington, which has already wisely increased its military aid to Bangladesh, would be wise to build a strategic partnership with Bangladesh in order to help protect American interests in the vast Indian ocean—a region that stretches from Eastern Africa to Southeast Asia, with Bangladesh right in the middle.

Unfortunately, none of this can happen if Bangladesh’s political deadlock continues to grind on. Ongoing political clashes can end up in lawlessness, which could enable indigenous vigilante groups to proliferate. This in turn could provide an environment ripe for foreign insurgent groups.

What this all suggests it that despite Bangladesh’s many success stories—it faces many impending dangers ahead. Therefore, it is time that Washington adopts a more robust policy on Bangladesh. A prime focus of a revamped policy should be trade. Washington should pursue a bilateral trade partnership that emphasizes not only commerce, but also the importance of labor rights, transparency, and countercorruption measures within Bangladesh’s economy.

In addition, American cooperation, whether technological or financial, to bolster Bangladesh’s energy sector would come as a great relief to Dhaka. Bangladesh’s economy is performing as projected due to acute scarcities of power. With a steady growth of urbanization and dwindling indigenous energy sources (mainly in the form of natural gas), Bangladesh thus is badly in need energy assistance—an area Washington can be of great help. The U.S. has a strong interest in greater energy security throughout South Asia, and has advocated for cross-regional pipelines and financed energy projects in Pakistan. Therefore, Bangladesh is a logical next step.

On the political side, Washington should exert pressure on both the ruling party and opposition to take disputes off the streets and on to the negotiating table. Both parties should be encouraged to explore new avenues for peaceful dialogue—such as social media—and other nonviolent means to engage with the masses. If democracy is for the people, then it is virtually absent in Bangladesh where political parties show little interest in being accountable to their constituents.

Democracy in Bangladesh—the embodiment of a moderate Muslim nation—is now imperiled. The United States can no longer be complacent about the nation a famous American secretary of State once notoriously referred to as a “basket case”—yet has now become, despite its economic and democratic achievements, one of the biggest tinderboxes in Asia.

First published in The National Interest, January 27, 2014

Arafat Kabir is a regional politics analyst based in Bangladesh. Follow him @ArafatKabirUpol.

Dr Amartya Sen: What's happening in Bangladesh?

AMARTYA SEN

Self-assured commentators who saw Bangladesh as a “basket case” not many years ago could not have expected that the country would jump out of the basket and start sprinting ahead even as expressions of sympathy and pity were pouring in. This informative Lancet Series on Bangladesh helps to explain what happened—and why. It is important to understand how a country that was extremely poor a few decades ago, and is still very poor, can make such remarkable accomplishments particularly in the field of health, but also in social transformation in general.

The lessons are important for Bangladesh's own future, and for what The Lancet Bangladesh Team describe as the construction of “a second generation of health systems”. But the messages from Bangladesh's experience are also of great relevance for many other countries in the world that suffer from debilitating poverty. It might not be good manners for Bangladesh to start lecturing the world on what to do, so soon after jumping out of the basket to which it had been relegated, but the country's experience has important lessons for other developing countries across the globe.

These lucid and helpful papers discuss the main avenues of change on which Bangladesh has travelled. I will not summarise the findings: this has been nicely done in the introductory paper by Mushtaque Chowdhury and colleagues. Instead I will concentrate on a small number of striking features of the strategy followed by Bangladesh in moving rapidly towards health transition.

One direction of change is the emphasis that the country has placed on reducing gender inequality in some crucially important respects. The impetus for the change was linked in many different ways with the politics of liberation that made the issue of freedom, including the liberation of women, a part of the progressive agenda of what people wanted and were ready to fight for. There are inescapably complex issues to be addressed in order to explain more fully how exactly that happened. It can be argued that there were historical elements in the culture of Bengal, and particularly in the emergence of radical movements in various forms in that province throughout the first half of the 20th century, that leant them to include a serious concern for gender equity. But it was the nature of the struggle for independence of Bangladesh, particularly in focusing on the contrast with West Pakistan, that made it possible to make an effective political translation towards empowering women.

The causation of this move towards gender equity cannot but remain somewhat speculative, but its consequences are clear enough. Schools focused particularly on expanding the education of girls: Bangladesh is one of the few countries in the world where the number of girls in school now exceeds the number of boys. Public services, including school teaching, health care, and family planning, employ a much higher proportion of women workers than is the case in most developing economies, including in Bangladesh's neighbouring countries. Women have also entered the economic workforce in plentiful numbers, led by such industries as garment making that provided easy entry to female labourers, even though the neglect of safety at work has been a huge blot in the record of that industry, a serious deficiency that is only belatedly being addressed, and perhaps not yet strongly enough.

Women have also received special attention from Bangladesh's powerful non-governmental organisations (NGOs)—from large initiatives like BRAC and Grameen Bank to smaller organisations—and the mobilisation of the active agency of women has been a distinctive feature of the vision that has moved Bangladesh forward. And there has been a general determination in post-independence Bangladesh to target the elimination of female disadvantage in different fields of action, including maternal and child survival.

The removal of female disadvantage and the use of female agency have raised Bangladesh's record of achievement even on its own, but it is in fact the case that women's agency has also contributed greatly to the advancement of the lives and freedoms of all—men, women, and children. The unlocking of the power of women's active role in the society and in the economy has been an extremely productive move for Bangladesh and contrasts with what has happened in much of India. Bangladesh's powerful achievement in making much greater use of women's agency is a remarkable affirmation of the importance of what Mary Wollstonecraft called, in 1792, “the vindication of the rights of woman”. Indeed it turns out that the removal of the social shackles that restrain women has a crucial part to play in the progress of all people—of both sexes and of all ages.

A second striking feature of the Bangladesh story is the general acceptance of a multiplicity of instruments in the public and private sectors for rapid social advancement. Just as state initiatives have been seriously undertaken, NGOs and private enterprises have been forcefully supplementing the efforts of the public sector. As Syed Masud Ahmed and colleagues argue, the use of pluralism has allowed Bangladesh to get off to a quick start bringing the country a little closer to a health transition.

This is not to deny that the mixture of instruments that characterise Bangladesh's path of development will demand critical examination over time, since substantial overall advancement can coexist with persistent inefficiency and inequalities in the sharing of the benefits of health transition. These evaluative issues remain open to scrutiny and critical examination, but what has to be immediately—and firmly—recognised is that Bangladesh has been, in its own way, going ahead rapidly, rather than remaining paralysed by the slowness that is often entailed by the pursuit of “purity” in more ideologically oriented initiatives which favour either exclusive reliance on private enterprise or exclusive use of state-based programmes. The pragmatism that Bangladesh came to accept through a complex political and social process has yielded noticeable success, which has impressed—and to a considerable extent surprised—the world.

A third feature, closely related to the second, is the intelligent use of community-based approaches in the delivery of health services and medical care. As Shams El Arifeen and his coauthors outline, the mobilisation of community-based participation has many advantages, not only for the fostering of social cooperation, but also for extending the reach of the health initiatives and their impact. The innovations in health-service delivery from which Bangladeshis have benefited have been possible partly because of these participatory features in the process of social change. The importance of innovations is also discussed in the context of equity in the paper by Alayne Adams and colleagues.

A fourth feature, which demands particular attention in Bangladesh, is the country's improved ability to face natural disasters, such as storms, cyclones, floods, and droughts. These natural calamities have acted as a persistent drag on the country's progress. As the contributions by the Richard Cash and colleagues highlight, the deep vulnerability of the disaster-prone country to unruly forces of nature, which needed to be subdued, has indeed been, to a considerable extent, reduced. The elimination of these problems would, however, demand much more security-oriented progress in future years, especially if the threats for climate change become stronger.

I have pointed to a few of the special features in Bangladesh's progress towards a health transition, and many other features have been explored in this valuable Lancet Series. One very important aspect of this compendium of investigations is the continued focus on a call to action that nicely supplements the appreciation of what has been accomplished. Bangladesh has still a long way to go. This Lancet Series shows how Bangladesh has firmly placed itself on the way to that long journey (and has made an excellent beginning), but also points to further problems that have to be tackled as the journey proceeds. The key to Bangladesh's laudable success has been the avoidance of the twin dangers of inertia and smugness. The future will demand more from these virtues.

I declare that I have no conflicts of interest.

First published in The Lancet journal, 21 November 2013

Prof Amartya Sen, a Nobel laureate and professor of economics, Harvard University, Littauer Center, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA

The never-ending trial of Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus

RASHIDUL BARI

Muhammad Yunus is the first person since Dr Martin Luther King Jr to achieve the trifecta of the Nobel Peace Prize, the US Presidential Medal, and the US Congressional Medal. However, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh put him on trial for a second time. The prime minister alleged that Yunus had received his earnings without the necessary permission from the government, including his Nobel Peace Prize earnings and the royalties from his books. This trial has puzzled billions of people around the world, from 8.3 million underprivileged women of Grameen Bankto President Barack Obama. Who is right: the leader of his own country or the leader of the free world? To answer this, we need to look at the first trial. 

Prime Minister Hasina launched the first trial against Yunus in December 2010, one month after the release of Caught in Micro Debt, a documentary by Tom Heinemann. Screened on Norwegian television on November 30, 2010, the film broadcast the allegation that Yunus stashed approximately $100 million in 1996 into Grameen Kalyan, a sister company of Grameen Bank. After completing a full investigation, the Norwegian government found Yunus innocent. However, Prime Minister Hasina used the situation as an excuse to increase a sustained attack on Yunus. She fired him from Grameen Bank, citing that he was older than the mandatory retirement age of 60, even though nine of the bank's directors-who were elected by 8.3 million Grameen Bank borrowers-allowed him to stay on the job after he had crossed that threshold. Many people thought the prime minister would not take further damaging action against Bangladesh's only Nobel Laureate, yet she continued her assault on Yunus and Grameen Bank. She brought more pressure against Grameen Bank by reducing the power of the bank's directors and breaking the bank into nineteen pieces. However, in September 2013, her mission to destroy Yunus took an even more drastic turn: She decided to put him on trial again. Yunus has challenged the allegations against him and has claimed that they are baseless, politically motivated charges. The Obama administration urged the Prime Minster to treat Yunus in a fair and transparent manner. 

Prime Minister Hasina's political vendetta against Yunus could be understood as a modern-day replay of the famous conflict between Archimedes and General Marcellus. Roman soldiers killed Archimedes because, instead of meeting with General Marcellus, he said, "Don't disturb my circle." In a similar reactionary spirit, Hasina, who labeled Yunus as a "blood sucker of poor people," unleashed her entire regime to destroy Yunus just because he asked her not to disturb his Grameen Bank. 

Yunus not only founded Grameen Bank but also nurtured it with his world-acclaimed, highly influential concepts of microcredit and social business. Yunus formulated microcredit in 1974 as an innovative idea to spur entrepreneurship among underprivileged people. In 1981, he formulated social business as a visionary new dimension for capitalism. In my new book Grameen Social Business Model, I show how these two concepts started as theories yet have evolved to become practices adopted by leading universities (e.g., Glasgow University), entrepreneurs (e.g., Franck Riboud), and corporations (e.g., Groupe Danone) across the globe. 

Yunus believes that people who are poor can achieve success if they have access to microcredit. That does not mean that microcredit is the perfect remedy to end all poverty; however, it seems to be the best option available. In a sense, microcredit is like education; one can succeed only if he or she puts in the extra effort. Simply building more schools in remote villages will not educate everyone. By the same token, Grameen Bank does not turn everyone into a successful person. Yet a microcredit loan may indeed increase an individual's chances of rising out of poverty. For example, Taslima Begum, who lives in Shibganj Upazila, took out a loan worth Tk 1,500 from Grameen Bank in 1991 to help her husband run a mechanic's shop. The couple are now self-reliant. Begum received the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of Grameen Bank from the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Ole Danbolt Mjoes, at Oslo City Hall on December 10, 2006. Begum was merely 1 of 8.3 million borrowers; thus, we get a sense of how Grameen Bank successfully empowers women. Yunus and Grameen Bank's 8.3 million borrowers became a family. For the last three decades, they worked together, prayed together, struggled together, attacked poverty together, and even won the Nobel Peace Prize together. Hence, Yunus refused to allow Prime Minister Hasina to break Grameen into nineteen pieces, much the same way Archimedes refused to leave his beloved circle. 

Roman soldiers killed the father of mathematics because they were ignorant; they thought meeting with General Marcellus was more important than contemplating a geometric circle. Do Prime Minister Hasina's actions mirror this ignorance? Regardless, three factors contributed to her brash decision: the Nobel Peace Prize, hingsha, and politics. 

First, Prime Minister Hasina did not agree with Yunus winning the Nobel Peace Prize; she thought that the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize Committee would award it to her for signing a peace treaty, the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT), in 1997. Second, Hasina experienced hingsha, which is a Bangladeshi word meaning jealousy or hatred. As Yunus won more awards and became more famous, Hasina feared his reputation would soar above that of her father, Shikh Mujib. Third, in an interview with the AFP news agency in 2007, Yunus remarked that politicians in Bangladesh work only for money, saying, "There is no ideology here." In 2013, he decided to join in cleaning up corruption by launching a new political party, Citizen Power. However, he never went through with his plans. 

Yunus is not a divine being or free from mistakes. Rather, he is a man, and no man in the world has never made mistakes. One does not have to be a Newton or Einstein to understand that the works of great people are tied to trials and tribulations. Every idea, invention, theory, and concept has its own humiliating shortcomings, from Newton's theory of gravity to Yunus's theory of microcredit. Indeed, Yunus should have known better. Perhaps he should have done more for the poor people of the world or published more books. Instead, he became Prime Minister Hasina's target for name-calling, accusations, and expulsion from Grameen Bank. 

I really do not know how the prime minister will end this trial. But I can only hope that she will never unleash her soldiers on Yunus the way General Marcellus unleashed his on Archimedes some 2300 years ago. President Obama remarked, "Professor Yunus was just trying to help a village, but he somehow managed to change the whole world." I hope he does not have to continue reminding Prime Minister Hasina that this is not 212 BC but 2013 AD.

First published in TheTimes of India, September 19, 2013