The book centres round the activities of the Planning Commission of Bangladesh (PCB) of which Rehman was one of the founding members. The subtitle of the book sums up the task entrusted to the PCB, that is, "nation building in post-liberation Bangladesh." Like the first volume, this book also is a compelling read mainly because of its enchanting prose and captivating narratives. Moreover, though it mainly deals with the theme of nation building through the activities of the PCB, it contains an authentic and illuminating account of all the major developments that occurred in Bangladesh during the period. After reading the book, the reader will come to know about everything that has happened during that period and the author’s views on these developments. In giving his views, Rehman comes clearly on one side or the other without hedging or leaving any scope for ambiguity. He never pulls his punches or takes shelter behind platitudes.
There are in fact stories behind the story of the book. For example, there is a riveting account of the imprisonment and release of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, popularly known as Bangabandhu. One reads the story of the emergence of BAKSAL (Bangladesh Krishak Sramik Awami League) and the short duration of this blighted experiment. One also finds in the book the gory details of the aftermath of Bangabandhu’s assassination, including the cold-blooded murder in prison of the three most important leaders of Bangladesh’s liberation struggle, particularly Tajuddin Ahmad.
There is also a well-researched narrative of the exit of the killers of Bangabandhu and his family members and their placements in the embassies of Bangladesh and in other privileged positions. We also get a very close view of former President Ziaur Rahman’s successful pursuit of his ambition to capture power in Bangladesh, form his political party, that is, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP), and become the so-called elected president of the country to legitimize himself in power.
The writer also gives a candid description of the confusion prevailing in the political system during the period of the PCB and the valiant effort of the commission to steer through the minefield of bureaucratic structures and contradictions between various ministries and departments.
The book contains fascinating portraits of prominent personalities who were associated with Rehman in the course of his functioning as a member of PCB. Here also the author is remarkably frank and outspoken while always remaining courteous and respectful. Among his colleagues in the PCB, he characterizes Md Anisur Rahman as an idealist and the one who was "most emotionally involved with the idea of social change." However, while he came out with radical ideas, "he rarely worked out their full implications or suggested roadmaps for their implementation."
He characterizes Mosharraf Hossain as a "pragmatist." Among the commission’s members, he was the most familiar with the details of planning and administration. However, he was sceptical about the commitment and the capability of the ruling class and bureaucracy to bring about reforms.
The author describes himself as an "incorrigible optimist" and "an activist." His intense involvement with the PCB is demonstrated by the fact that 90% of papers addressed by the PCB to the Prime Minister and other Cabinet Ministers were sent by agencies and departments under his charge. This was not surprising because he had been given charge of some of the most important departments of the government. These were: Natural resources, industry, power, and infrastructure.
He was also the only member of the PCB who remained more than actively engaged with the tasks entrusted to him, including that of restructuring economic relations with India during the dying days of the PCB and under very adverse circumstances.
The book gives important insights into the role, functioning, and achievements of the PCB. All fledgling nations on the path of development can derive lessons from these insights. The role assigned to the PCB was to give shape to the social and economic agenda of a war-devastated and extremely poor new nation, with meagre resources of its own, and to quote Rahman, a "hollowed out entrepreneurial sector" on account of the migration of the business and entrepreneurial class to Pakistan and, in some cases, to the United Kingdom. The PCB was also expected to offer policy advice to the government and coordinate policymaking.
Bangabandhu had indicated to the members of the Planning Commission that his goal was to establish a socialist economy. But he never attempted a definition of the term "socialist economy" or "socialism." He only indicated that in the move towards socialism, measures of nationalization would be combined with the role of the workers in industries.
Rehman himself was committed -- and remains so even today -- to the goal of socialism. We learn from him that in the circumstances prevailing in Bangladesh at the formative stage of nation-building, the goal of socialism was sought to be achieved mainly by the large-scale extension of the public ownership of assets, resources, and enterprises. Rehman regards his own work on public enterprises as one of the highlights of his professional career.
Another important measure through which socialism was sought to be achieved in Bangladesh during that phase of nation-building was land reforms. One of the first acts of the PCB after its establishment was to set up a Land Reform Committee (March 25, 1972). The Committee promptly completed its work and submitted its report in which it suggested a set of land reform measures. These included bringing the land ceiling down from 100 bighas to 30 bighas and the farming of the surplus land released in the process by cooperatives of landless workers.
These suggestions, however, did not gain traction, as they proved politically controversial; Bangabandhu therefore counselled caution in moving ahead with these suggestions. He thought that the policy of nationalization adopted by his government had already led to the erosion of the Awami League’s base among the business and entrepreneurial class. If land reform measures, as suggested by the PCB, were implemented, this would alienate the party from its very important constituency of the agricultural class. The report of the committee was therefore put on the backburner and as Rehman points out, became "one of the forgotten secrets of the Bangladesh Planning Commission."
Later, Bangabandhu made land reform a part of the social agenda of the BAKSAL. The specific measures included in the agenda were the establishment of a village cooperative in each district and the adoption of the tebhaga principle of distributing the produce of the land, that is, earmarking one-third of it for the state, one-third for the owner of the land, and the remaining one-third for the tiller of the land.
Rehman never gave up his own belief in the importance of agrarian reforms. He advocated it strongly in the report that he prepared on this subject for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and another one for the International Labour Organization (ILO). The last mentioned report under the title, Agrarian Reforms and Social Transformation, published as a volume by Zed Books, is regarded by him as one of his best works.
Rehman came back to the theme of agrarian reforms as a follow-up of the agenda outlined in his book, Challenging the Injustice of Poverty: Agenda for Inclusive Development in South Asia published by SAGE in 2010. He attempted to push forward agrarian reforms in South Asian countries through the Citizens’ Land Reform Commission to be set up in each of the countries of the region. He was convinced that there was a very strong case for reviving the land reform agenda and taking it to its logical conclusion because of the land hunger prevailing in South Asian countries and for mitigating poverty rooted in landlessness.
When Rehman approached me in 2010-2011 for taking the initiative of setting up a Citizens’ Land Reform Commission in India, I responded promptly and positively. For I had myself taken an initiative in this regard in the case of Bihar. I had persuaded the then newly-elected Chief Minister to set up a commission on land reform which worked for about a year mainly through public hearings and submitted very thoughtful, pragmatic and yet quite far-reaching recommendations.
As in the case of the report of the Land Reform Committee set up by the PCB, this report was strongly opposed by vested interests in the leadership of both the major political parties in Bihar. This prompted the Chief Minister to publicly disown and denounce the recommendations of a commission set up by him. As a result, this report joined the category of numerous other well-meaning and significant reports submitted to the government which were not even allowed to see the light of day, let alone being acted upon.
I felt quite let down by this development and was looking for an opportunity to revive this issue. I found a good opportunity in Rehman’s move. I, therefore, started consulting experts in land reforms and public persons interested in this subject for selecting the members of the commission to be set up in India. Rehman on his part got busy mobilizing modest financial support for interested NGOs in South Asian countries to initiate and sustain the effort in the beginning. However, the entire initiative came to a standstill because of the deterioration in the political climate for regional cooperation in South Asia.
For Indian readers, by far the most important section of the book is Chapter 11 under the title, "Laying the Foundations of Indo-Bangladesh Economic Relations." The chapter deals with not only Indo-Bangladesh economic relations, but also with the political aspects of these relations. The analysis in the first part of this chapter of the true nature of anti-Indian forces in Bangladesh is original, penetrating, and instructive.
I found this part of the chapter by far the best and a convincing analysis of anti-Indian forces available in existing literature on this subject. Indian policymakers and diplomats can benefit immensely by going through it. In fact, this chapter should be made compulsory reading for them and the book as a whole should be prescribed as essential reading in Indian universities and other academic institutions.
The first part of this chapter demonstrates, as never done before, how the allegations regarding the hegemonistic designs of India in its dealings with Bangladesh were false, speculative, and malevolent. According to Rehman, this was a camouflage used by some discarded political forces in their desperate bid to preserve their political niche in Bangladesh politics with a view to serving their self-interest. Rehman divides the anti-Indian forces in Bangladesh approximately into two groups.
By far the largest group consisted of bureaucrats, politicians, academics, and, above all, armed personnel whose attitudes were shaped by the relentless propaganda of the Pakistani government carried out against India for over 24 years. The second group consisted of the extreme leftists who at one time were a part of the Awami League and split from it subsequently, ostensibly on ideological grounds, but in reality for opportunistic reasons. Rehman is very severe in his criticism of the second group and rightly so. For it is easier to deal with known adversaries than those who, through deceit and guile, pose to be friends, but are actually enemies.
In order to justify their extremist views against India, these individuals and groups went out of their way to hold India guilty for all the mishaps and misfortunes of Bangladesh. Rehman characterizes the anti-Indianism of these forces as "fantasies" and "surrealistic." According to him, the anti-India propaganda of this group "polluted the political climate for Indo-Bangladesh relations."
Another important subject dealt within Chapter 11 is the need to restructure Indo-Bangladesh economic relations. Rehman writes,"The need for a conscious attempt to restructure the pattern of economic relationship was realized from the outset by the PCB." It was seen that unless Bangladesh could build up its capability to export to India and unless there was a qualitative change in the pattern of exports, the development of economic relations would carry within it the seeds of dependence and political crises. I am sure Rehman’s counterparts in the Planning Commission of India would have felt the same way.
Rehman, along with Professor Sukhamoy Chakravarty from the Indian side were assigned the responsibility for giving shape to Indo-Bangladesh economic relations on the new basis of restructuring trade through ambitious industrial and infra-structural collaboration.
For this purpose, among others, the following three projects were identified to begin with:
1. A urea-based fertilizer project in Ashuganj in Bangladesh, the product of which would be mainly exported to India
2. A sponge iron project in Bangladesh, the product of which would also be mainly exported to India
3. A cement project in Sylhet in Bangladesh, based on the supply of lime stones from Meghalaya in India, the product of which was meant for both local consumption in Bangladesh and export to India.
Before Rehman left the PCB in September 1974, feasibility studies of two of these projects, that is, the ones on urea and cement, were completed and the one on sponge iron was nearing completion. The author writes that he was trying to push these projects even when there was very little support for them in bureaucratic and political circles in Bangladesh and there was only token support in India.
The post-liberation euphoria of recognizing India as a saviour in the war of liberation and in the immediate post-liberation, nation-building enterprise had long dissipated. This was replaced by a general climate of anti-Indianism, particularly in the bureaucracy and in reality, in political parties as well. In this overall context, Rehman’s remark: "I found myself the prime mover on both sides to take forward the project proposals" reflects his genuine commitment to contribute to advancing Indo-Bangladesh relations in the long-term.
The author of this book is one of the tallest personalities of South Asia. He has contributed more to the promotion of South Asian and South–South cooperation than any other person from the region that I know of. I understand that the third volume of Untranquil Recollections, which is all but ready for publication, is going to centre round his contributions in these areas.
It is in these realms that our paths have crossed with each other more frequently than elsewhere. Therefore, while commending the current volume as essential reading for policymakers, diplomats, and researchers, I am greatly looking forward to the publication of the next volume which, I am sure, will be equally enthralling and instructive.
Muchkund Dubey is President, Council for Social Development, Delhi, India. This review first appeared in Social Change, New Delhi and has been reprinted with special permission.
