The Tenth Commonwealth Women’s Affairs Ministers Meeting was held in
Dhaka, 17–19 June 2013, with delegates from 30 countries and a theme of
‘Women’s Leadership for Enterprise’.
Muhammad Yunus, Founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, delivered the
6th Annual Commonwealth Lecture, on ‘Halving Poverty by 2015’, in 2003;
he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006, jointly with the Bank.
Two Bangladeshi-born writers have won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize
Best First Book award: Adib Khan (1995) and Tahmima Anam (2008).
Key facts
Joined Commonwealth: 1972
Population: 156,595,000 (2013)
GDP: 3.7% p.a. 1990–2013
UN HDI: world ranking 142
Official language: Bangla
Timezone: GMT plus 6hr
Currency: taka (Tk)
Geography
Area: 143,998 sq km
Coastline: 580km
Capital city: Dhaka
Population density (per sq. km): 1,087
The People’s Republic of Bangladesh is a fertile and densely populated
delta country in southern Asia bordered by the Bay of Bengal, India and
Myanmar (formerly Burma).
There are 21,270 km of roads, ten per cent paved; these roads are
vulnerable to damage by storms or floods, and have many bridges. The 4.8
km Jamuna multipurpose bridge was inaugurated in 1998, linking the east
and the west of the country by road and railway.
A rail network of some 2,835 km links the main towns. The
Dhaka–Chittagong line has frequent daily services. Rail is broad gauge
in the west, narrow gauge in the east, with ferry links across rivers.
Bangladesh has 5–8,000 km of navigable waterway, depending on extent of
flooding, and a well-developed water transport network, carrying more
than 30 per cent of domestic freight. The main ports are Chittagong and
Mongla, Chittagong dealing with the bulk of foreign trade. Shahjalal
(formerly Zia) International Airport is 19 km north of Dhaka.
International relations:
Bangladesh is a member of the Indian Ocean Rim Association, Non-Aligned
Movement, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, South Asian Association
for Regional Cooperation, United Nations and World Trade Organization.
Topography:
Apart from hills to the south-east, most of Bangladesh is a flat
alluvial plain crossed by navigable waterways – the Ganges (Padma),
Brahmaputra (Jamuna) and Meghna river systems – flowing into the Bay of
Bengal. About 14 per cent of the country is normally under water.
Flooding is frequent and can be disastrous.
Climate:
Tropical monsoon-type. Hot and humid April to October, with the monsoon
season running June to September. Cool and dry, November to March. The
country is vulnerable to cyclones, which can be devastating. The cyclone
of April 1991 killed 138,000 people. In November 2007, Cyclone Sidr hit
the southern coastal strip of Bangladesh, also killing and making
homeless thousands of people.
Environment:
The most significant issues are severe overpopulation, high risk of
flooding in large areas of the country, soil degradation and erosion,
ground water contaminated by naturally occurring arsenic, and poisoning
of fish by use of commercial pesticides.
Vegetation:
Intensely cultivated; paddy fields dominate the delta; palms, bamboo,
mango, the plains. Water hyacinth is a serious menace to waterways.
Forest on the south-eastern hills; forest covers 11 per cent of the land
area, having declined at 0.2 per cent p.a. 1990–2010. Soil is mostly
very rich, supporting intensive cropping, with up to three crops p.a. in
many places; arable land comprises 59 per cent of the total land area.
Wildlife:
The country has a varied wildlife population, although 18 species became
extinct during the 20th century and 33 species of mammals and 28 of
birds were endangered in 2014. Mammal species include 26 types of bat,
the famous Bengal tiger (now virtually confined to the Sundarbans and
numbering a few hundred) and the Gangetic dolphin, and reptile species
include turtles, river tortoises, crocodiles, gavials, pythons, krait
and cobras. There are several ‘protected’ areas for wildlife.
History:
From its earliest pre-history Bangladesh has been subject to waves of
migration and the incursions of regional – and later European – powers.
An Indo-Aryan population, Hindu in belief, arrived between 3,000 and
4,000 years ago and the evidence suggests a flourishing, sophisticated
civilisation.
The Moghul dynasty, conquering the territory in the 16th century, spread
Islam widely through the country. The following successions of arrivals
were the Portuguese, Armenians, French and British, who established
military and trade outposts. In 1757 a British force defeated the local
army of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dwola and set in train 190 years of British rule.
In 1947 East Bengal and Sylhet (then part of Assam) came to independence
out of the UK’s Indian Empire, as the eastern part of the Muslim state
of Pakistan. From the start, East Pakistan was beset by problems. In
particular, it resented the dominance of its richer and more powerful
though less populous partner, West Pakistan, from which it was
geographically separated by about 1,600km of Indian territory. Political
control, language and economic policy were among the large areas of
disagreement. In 1949 the Awami League was established in East Pakistan
to campaign for autonomy. Protests and violent demonstrations followed
the declaration, in 1952, that Urdu was to be Pakistan’s official
language. Bengali was finally accepted as the joint official language
two years later.
By the mid-1960s, continued under-representation in the government
administration and armed forces and a much less than fair share of
Pakistan’s development expenditure gave rise to the belief by many in
East Pakistan that the only remedy was greater autonomy and thus more
control over its own resources and development priorities and politics.
In 1970, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, leader of the Awami League, won an
electoral majority in Pakistan’s general election on a platform
demanding greater autonomy for East Pakistan. At the same time Zulfikar
Ali Bhutto gained a majority in the West. Despite Mujib’s victory, he
was prevented by the Pakistan authorities from becoming prime minister
of the combined state.
The Awami League then issued its own plans for a new constitution for an
independent state, as a result of which the Pakistani army took control
and Mujib was arrested in March 1971 after a fierce crackdown. This
precipitated civil war, with an estimated 9.5 million refugees fleeing
to India as a result, and led to military intervention by India on the
side of theMukti Bahini (Bengali ‘freedom fighters’) at the beginning of
December. Two weeks later, Pakistan forces surrendered and the separate
state of Bangladesh emerged. Sheikh Mujib returned from captivity in
Pakistan in January 1972 and became prime minister. Instability in the
new state was compounded by floods, famine, the assassination of Sheikh
Mujib in August 1975 – shortly after he became president – and a
succession of military coups, with martial law and frequent states of
emergency. After a coup in 1975, Major-General Ziaur Rahman (Zia)
assumed the leadership and in 1978 he became president. The 1979 general
election brought his Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to government.
The country then enjoyed a period of economic and political stability.
But in 1981 President Zia was murdered in an attempted coup.
In 1982 the then army chief, Lt-General Hossain Ershad, assumed power
after another coup and became president in 1983. In May 1986 elections
were held in violent conditions and boycotted by the BNP under Zia’s
widow, Begum Khaleda Zia. Ershad’s Jatiya Party (JP) won and the Awami
League, led by Sheikh Hasina, the daughter of Sheikh Mujib, boycotted
parliament. Ershad won presidential elections in October 1986, and he
lifted martial law and reinstated the constitution. The following year
was marked by riots and strikes, a state of emergency, thousands of
arrests, and house-arrest for Begum Zia and Sheikh Hasina. A general
election of March 1988, boycotted by the opposition, returned the JP
with 238 seats, and the state of emergency was lifted. Then ensued
devastating floods covering up to 75% of the country and making tens of
millions homeless.
In December 1990, following mass demonstrations, President Hossain
Ershad resigned and was put under house arrest. During 1991 he was
convicted of illegal possession of firearms and other offences and
sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. In the February 1991 elections the
BNP won 138 of the 300 directly elective seats and Begum Khaleda Zia was
confirmed as the country’s first woman prime minister. The main
opposition was the Awami League and its allies, with 95 seats. A
national referendum then endorsed a return to parliamentary democracy
with a non-executive president. In 1991 a cyclone devastated the
south-east coast, killing an estimated 250,000 people.
Political tensions mounted and opposition demands for a fresh general
election increased from late 1993 into 1994, culminating in the
resignation of all the opposition members from the Jatiya Sangsad in
December. In 1995, following further strikes and violent protests staged
by the opposition, the Jatiya Sangsad was dissolved at the request of
the prime minister, pending the holding of a general election in 1996.
The Awami League, Jatiya Party and Jamaat-e-Islami boycotted the poll
and the BNP took the majority of votes cast. The opposition parties
renewed their campaign and paralysed the country causing severe damage
to the economy. In March 1996, the government agreed to the appointment
of a neutral caretaker government to oversee the holding of fresh
elections. Begum Zia resigned and the Jatiya Sangsad was dissolved.
In the parliamentary elections that followed in June 1996, the Awami
League won 146 seats, the BNP 116, Jatiya Party 32 and Jamaat-e-Islami
three. An informal alliance with the Jatiya Party allowed the Awami
League to gain control of the majority of seats in parliament and Sheikh
Hasina became prime minister, with Begum Zia’s BNP now the main
opposition which soon began a new campaign of strikes and street
protests and a series of long parliamentary boycotts. In 1997 Ershad was
released from prison and in March 1998 the Jatiya Party left the ruling
coalition. The Awami League, which as a result of a number of
by-elections now had an absolute majority, continued on its own. In 1998
the country was again devastated by floods which covered nearly
two-thirds of the land area.
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