TIME report

A nation withiout hopes?. PHOTO: AFP

I recently gathered information on the Internet that I would like to share with your readers to show that the TIME story calling Bangladesh a dysfunctional state is partial, untruthful and highly motivated. The Webster news from Bangladesh put on its site a Dhaka datelined story that quoted The World Bank highly appreciating Bangladesh's economic and social progress saying, " Over the last 20 years, Bangladesh has quietly but steadily established a track record of progress on many important economic and social indicators." The story, further quoted the World Bank stating, "Together with Turkey, Bangladesh has demonstrated the feasibility of democracy in a large Muslim country. Three consecutive free and fair elections resulting in the changes of government have taken place since 1991 under the auspices of a non-partisan caretaker government."

Bangladesh's law and order situation is hardly as bad as the TIME report indicated. The problem with the press in Bangladesh is that it is free beyond the point of fairness and impartiality. Dhaka is perhaps the only capital that has this incredibly large number of newspapers. It is equally exceptional in writing graphic reports on murders that occur in this large metropolis every day with grotesque pictures as flag-ship stories. Anybody reading these newspapers headlines, like Mr. Agarwalla, and the TIME reporter would reach wrong conclusions that in Dhaka, nothing else but murders take place in large numbers every day, unless that person or reporter is willing to see Bangladesh in its totality. In fact, in a city with over 10 million people, a death or two every night, unfortunate as it may be, is not abnormal. Then again, we should not forget the nature of our politics where all political parties participate actively in the criminalisation of our politics. Finally, those who are murdered are almost always those who have themselves indulged in criminal activities. The TIME reporter showed no understanding of these causes while reaching his unfortunate conclusions on Bangladesh.

The TIME report used corruption as the other basis to call Bangladesh dysfunctional. Yes, corruption is bad in Bangladesh but this is unavoidable in a system where the bureaucracy is perhaps the most underpaid in the world. Any country trying to establish a democratic system under the same set of circumstances that we are facing in Bangladesh cannot avoid corruption. This will be sorted with time and development of the country.

Bangladesh depends a lot on international support and untruthful stories as this TIME report cause us immense harm by creating an image problem.