Bangladesh: An Unsteady Democracy

Abstract

The creation of Bangladesh in December 1971 was as much a struggle for constitutional justice as it was a movement of ethno-linguistic nationalism. Yet, the country’s experience as a multi-party democracy could be said to have only properly begun in the 1990s. For most of its first two decades of independence, Bangladesh was dominated by regimes that had a hard time reconciling the pressing development priorities of one of the world’s poorest nations — an international basket case to cite Henry Kissinger’s grim metaphor — with the requirements of Western-style democracy. These governments made some progress in improving the country’s socioeconomic condition, but much more still needs to be done. Its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has averaged a consistent, if unglamorous, 4–5 percent growth since the late 1970s;¹ the population growth rate has declined from 3.2 percent in the early 1970s to around 2 percent today;² average life expectancy has risen from 46 years in the 1970s to an estimated 55 years in the early 1990s;³ and the male literacy rate has steadily increased to almost 50 percent though the female literacy rate remains an abysmally low 22 percent.⁴

D. Hugh Evans is a member of the British diplomatic service. However, the views expressed in this chapter are the author’s own and should not be taken as an expression of the views of the British Government.