Culture of fear depriving people of dev benefits

Bangladesh achieved visible development in the last decade, but lack of accountability – triggered by a culture of fear – is depriving the marginalised from reaping the benefits. This in turn is causing income inequality to go up, further weakening the country’s middle class.

Debapriya Bhattacharya, convenor of Citizen’s Platform for SDGs, Bangladesh, made the remarks at a press brief “Does Local Realities Reflect the National Development Narrative? Perspectives from Sub-national Consultations,” held at Dhaka’s Brac Centre on Thursday.

Debapriya, also a distinguished fellow of Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), said, “The platform organised seven citizen consultation meetings at sub-regional level across the county from this June to October to understand how balanced national development has reached the local level.

“We have reached the conclusion based on the opinions that were reflected in those meetings.”

The citizens’ consultation meetings were held in Rangpur, Khulna, Tangail, Sylhet, Thakurgaon, Rangamati and Chattogram. More than 500 citizens of 25 districts across the country actively participated in these meetings and gave their opinions and suggestions.

Debapriya said the platform reached a six-point conclusion after speaking to the public.

The first one that comes up is the lack of decent employment opportunities. Despite the development in the last decade, there is a huge shortage of decent jobs among the youth. On the contrary, the rise in commodity prices in recent times has made the standard of living of the people miserable. This is especially true for the middle class who live on limited income.

Debapriya pointed out, “The middle class continues to weaken as a result of moral, economic and social conflicts. Once the middle class sympathized with the marginalised communities, but today they themselves are facing challenges.”

Discussing the second point, he said in the last decade, women’s participation in society and economy has increased, but violence against them has witnessed a rampant increase, resulting in the deprivation of their rights. This is happening due to the lack of rule of law, he added.

The third point is that environmental pollution is no longer a regional issue, but a national one.

The fourth issue is that the quality of government institutions providing education, health and social safety programmes are not adequate. As a result, poor people are suffering the most.

According to Debapriya, the fifth issue of Bangladesh is that the country used to have a tolerance for multicultural values, which has deteriorated. This is a major issue for the marginalised, indigenous, and minority communities.

The final point is a culture of fear that can be seen everywhere. Not being able to speak and self-censorship is now widespread. That is true both for citizens and institutions. This is also true for politics and local government arenas.

Debapriya said, “Such a culture has created a lack of accountability in delivering the benefits of development to everyone, which has pushed up inequality.

“Although, the development of Bangladesh is visible in the last decade, the heroes and heroines who are supposed to make the development come alive are missing from the big picture.”

In the closing remarks, core group member of the Citizen Platform and distinguished fellow of CPD Prof Mustafizur Rahman said, “Where there is visible development, attention should be given to the quality of development.

“For this reason, we need to build the capacity of government service institutions. It is crucial to ensure good governance and democratic participation at the grassroots level.”