Posted by Radical Notes December 31, 2010 at 12:26 pm in Bangladesh, Economy, Imperialism, India, South Asia
For the full interview, click.
During the recent visit of India’s Finance Minister to Bangladesh, India signed an agreement offering $1-billion credit facility to Bangladesh at a particular interest rate, which many in Bangladesh have found “disgraceful” and “too high”. This line of credit for Bangladesh was the one-time single-largest credit package offered by New Delhi to any other country. And it has been frequently noted that through such lines of credit, India, like other more advanced countries, has been facilitating the overseas expansion of its domestic capital. What is your assessment of the present Indo-Bangladeshi relationship? Don’t you find streaks of sub-imperialism (both in economic and political terms) emerging in this relationship as in the case of India’s relationship with Nepal and Sri Lanka?
Anu Muhammad: The question of India is very important for us. Without locating India and the role of Indian corporate big capital we cannot get rid of overall hegemony of global capitalism. India has the highest number of rich people but contradictorily India also has the highest number of poor people. The current Indian state is not representing Indian people but is representing Indian big capital. India for South Asia is the same as what the US is for the world. It is hegemonic, oppressive and undemocratic. The present India should be characterised with the rise of big capital, unprecedented accumulation of wealth and power in few hands, and its linkages with global monopoly capital. This India can be termed as sub-imperialist within the global capitalist system, and within South Asia it is imperialist. This India has recently increased its military expenditure to a record high level, also building military alliances with the US. They are both now trying to take control of the Bay of Bengal. With the increasing interests of India, China and the US in Bay of Bengal, the possibility for creation of new alliances or conflicts is rather high. Either way, Bangladesh is going to suffer.
Now global corporate bodies including the ADB, the WB or MNCs consider India a regional centre. Therefore, their projects are selected in line with the interest and long-term programme of Indian big capital. For example, the coal that the British company, Asia Energy, wanted to extract, when it attempted to start open-pit mining in Phulbari, was supposed to be exported to India. When the US oil multinational UNOCAL was trying to export gas, the destination was once again India. Now a number of projects have been conceived to build new coal-based power plants in Khulna and Chittagong. It is apparently a joint project, but the result will be different for the two countries. Bangladesh will have carbon emissions and dispossession of farmers that will create social tension and human tragedy, but Indian companies will earn huge profits.
Indian big business has access to huge potential market in Bangladesh, especially after the SAP. India’s presence is very high in every sector in Bangladesh. It is trying to monopolise each of those sectors, started utilising aid or credit, very well-known instruments of imperialist control and influence. Recently, India granted 1 billion USD loan to Bangladesh for building its own transit facilities. This transit is going to change everything in South Asia. Bangladesh is entering into the ambit of India’s military, political and economic domination on a scale not seen before.
I don’t know, how far the military aspect of the domination will go, but economically India is going to have a commanding authority over Bangladesh. India is claiming that Bangladesh is the land of terrorists and they erected fences around border, then how can they feel comfortable in taking their goods through Bangladesh? Yes, it will be used as an excuse. So, they will demand more regional security coordination under India’s control. The security system of Bangladesh will be subordinated to India status and interests.
Indian sub-imperialism behaves similarly with Nepal, Sri Lanka and other smaller countries in the region. In this context, people’s movements of India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh and other neighbouring countries should have a very high level of cooperation and coordination to strengthen united struggles for building a free, democratic and different South Asia not polluted by Indian or big capital’s hegemony.
Posted by Radical Notes December 31, 2010 at 12:22 pm in Bangladesh, Economy, Finance, Imperialism
For the full interview, click.
How do you assess the role and performance of micro-credit? How much has it contributed to the capitalist penetration of rural Bangladesh and its integration in the global network of finance capital?
Anu Muhammad: Micro-credit in different forms has been in practice for long in this region. Dr. Muhammad Yunus (Grameen Bank) and Fazle Hasan Abed (BRAC) could institutionalise it and could attract global attention through its monetary success. Initially, their micro-credit programmes began with the promise of poverty alleviation, gradually its success showed its strength in other areas. Currently, BRAC, Grameen Bank and ASA control more than 80 per cent of the micro-credit market. From micro-credit business these organisations have accumulated a lot of capital and shown that micro-credit can become a corporate success. They have also linked multinational capital with the micro-credit network.
For instance, Grameenphone started its operation by relying on micro-credit, offered borrowers mobile phone as a commodity form of micro-credit, on condition of paying back in installments. Its initial declared aim was to ‘help poor’, ‘alleviate poverty’, now Grameenphone has become the largest company in Bangladesh with 90 per cent of its subscribers being non-poor urban people. Grameenphone is actually an entity of Telenor, Norway. They started with the poor and relied on micro-credit and then at one point migrated to more profitable areas. Grameen Bank has opened many other businesses, has developed joint venture companies with French companies such as Denon and Veolia (a water company), all in the name of poor. Intel and many other companies are coming to Grameen Bank to make use of its wide network through micro-credit.
The same thing is true also for BRAC. BRAC was initially interested more in education, health and other essential public services. With its increasing accumulation of capital through micro-credit, it shifted to the business of textile, printing, education (including setting up of a university). It is also in business with multinational seed company Monsanto. In fact, its focus on education and health care for the poor shifted more towards commercial activity. Thus the micro-credit operation, in its process, has successfully been used as a weapon to make macro business to grow in tandem with global capital.
But question remains, what about the much publicised objective, i.e., poverty alleviation through micro-credit? If we look at the hard facts, compiled from different studies (not sponsored by BRAC or Grameen Bank), we find a new debt trap for the poor people has been created by micro-credit. You cannot find more than 5-10 per cent people who could change their economic conditions through micro-credit. The people who could change their economic conditions were those who had other sources of income. If we closely look into the system of micro-credit it appears clearly as a means to create a debt trap. If you take loan, you have to repay in weekly instalments and it means you have to be active, healthy and working all over the year, which is not possible. In fact, it is impossible for the poor millions, who constantly live in adverse conditions, to keep paying weekly instalments all over the year. If there are any unfavourable circumstances you are bound to be a defaulter. And once you become a defaulter it creates a chain and you have to take loan from another lender/NGO to repay the same. Micro-credit has connected the rural areas and the population with the market but has made done that by pushing them into a chronic debt trap.
Today Dr. Yunus is not talking any more about sending poverty to museum. He has come up with a ‘new’ idea of social business, which is also unclear and seems to be fraudulent. The impact of micro-credit is now well understood by people around, especially millions of victims. However, the IFIs and global corporations seem to be very happy with these experiments, as they find that the poor people can become very useful objects for profitable investment of finance capital. Thus the WB, HSBC, Citibank, and other multinational banks are entering into the micro-credit market. Bangladesh has given a gift to crisis-ridden global capitalism, which has consequently found the market of four billion poor through micro-credit. It is very relevant here to quote the Wall Street Journal, an important part of the global corporate media. It said: “Around the world, four billion people live in poverty. And western companies are struggling to turn them into customers.” (26 October, 2009). Obviously, micro-credit is a very useful instrument to go with this objective.
Posted by Radical Notes June 13, 2007 at 3:14 pm in Bangladesh, Economy
S. Nazrul Islam
Economists are famous for making ambiguous, guarded, and qualified statements. However, at times a spade needs to be called a spade. Press reports indicate that the wheels of the government machinery are turning towards an approval of the Tata investment proposal.
This is one such occasion when clear statements need to be made, and here is one statement — the Tata investment proposal is not good for Bangladesh, and neither the current (unelected) nor the future (elected) government should approve it. Since this is not the place for a detailed and technical discussion, I will present 5-points against the Tata investment proposal in the following blunt manner.
Export of gas in embodied form
The Tata investment proposal is basically a proposal to export Bangladesh’s gas in another form. Under this proposal, the gas will be used to produce steel and fertiliser, much of which will be exported to India and other parts of the world.
How can Bangladesh agree to such a proposal when she herself is in dire need of her limited gas reserves to meet current and, in particular, future domestic demand? According to reports, Tata is demanding a 20 year guarantee of gas supply at a concession price.
The Daily Star of May 15 reports that the executive chairman of the Board of Investment (BOI) is advocating Kafco formula as the model to follow in deciding the price at which gas will be supplied to Tata plants.
This is tragic indeed! He should read some of the articles written by Prof. Nurul Islam to know that Kafco has proved, and is proving, a bleeding wound for the government exchequer. Extension of the Kafco formula to Tata will simply increase the bleeding.
The proposed Tata investment is of the predatory type, aimed at taking away the limited amount of non-renewable mineral resource (namely gas and coal) that the country has. It is, therefore, not a good idea.
Very limited employment expansion
The proposed Tata investment will not lead to any sizeable employment expansion, and hence, there will not be any appreciable “trickle down” benefit from this investment. The steel plant, the fertiliser plant, and the power generation plant, are all very capital intensive, employing at best a few thousand people, many of whom will be coming from outside the country.
In a country of 150 million, several thousand jobs will hardly make an impact. Tata investment is not aimed at utilising Bangladesh’s renewable and abundant resource, namely the labour force.
The Tata investment is, therefore, entirely different from foreign investments coming to the garments, textile, and other labour-intensive industries (in SEZ and EPZs) which together are creating hundreds of thousands of job for Bangladeshis.
While Bangladesh may welcome foreign investment aimed at utilising the country’s renewable resource, labour, it should be equally wary about Tata’s predatory proposal. Equating these two types of foreign investments would be a grave mistake for Bangladesh.
Very feeble forward and backward linkages
The Tata investment will benefit Bangladesh very little in terms of forward and backward linkages. The reach and width of the forward linkage is very limited because most of the steel and gas produced will actually be exported to India and other destinations.
There is not much of backward linkage either. All the machineries for the plants will basically come from outside. There will be very little input demand to be met from Bangladesh’s domestic sources, other than, of course, gas and coal.
So, instead of providing a big boost to the entire economy, the Tata plants will remain as an enclave without much of a link with the rest of the economy, an enclave whose main purpose will be to siphon away the country’s mineral energy resources.
Wrong industrial structure
Tata investment will be a step toward a wrong industrial structure in Bangladesh. The other day even Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lamented India’s oligopolistic and government patronage-dependent industrial structure (see The Daily Star of May 14). Being one of the largest industrial houses of India, Tata is the pre-eminent member of this oligarchy.
When India herself is regretting, it will be a grave mistake on the part of Bangladesh to gravitate toward an oligarchic industrial structure by approving the Tata investment proposal.
In the case of Bangladesh, the damage will be all the greater because Tata is a foreign entity. If allowed to go ahead, Tata investment will lead to a lopsided industrial structure dominated by a foreign giant.
This is exactly the kind of industrial structure that Bangladesh should avoid. Bangladesh may, instead, follow Taiwan’s example of fostering a non-oligarchic industrial structure populated by numerous small and medium sized plants and companies.
Taiwan’s non-oligarchic and more competitive industrial structure has served her well, as the comparative experiences of Taiwan and Korea in the face of the Asian financial crisis at the end of the 1990s amply demonstrated.
While the chaebols-dominated Korean economy plunged into a deep recession, Taiwan was hardly affected by the crisis. Chaebols were oligarchic and dependent on government patronage, exactly the characteristics of the proposed Tata investment.
In the case of Korea, at least the chaebols were national companies. In case of Bangladesh, Tata is a foreign company.
Worrisome influence on the nation’s body politic
The final point arises from the fact that, in many respects, Bangladesh is still a weak state. This state already finds it difficult to withstand the predatory onslaughts of domestic capitalists.
It will find it even more difficult to withstand the influence and pressure of a giant like Tata, which will in general enjoy the support and sympathy of the state of India. In fact, the commercial interest of Tata may emerge as an additional complication in the good neighbourly relationship between Bangladesh and India.
Having occupied a significant industrial and physical space inside the country, the company will be in a position to exert considerable influence on the state and body politic of this nation, and it is difficult to be sure that this influence will always be beneficial.
The way Tata is trying to get its investment proposal approved during the tenure of the current interim, unelected government does not bode well in that respect.
Above are the 5-points against Tata. Of course, all these points can be further elaborated and substantiated. In fact, Prof. Wahiduddin Mahmud’s report on the Tata investment proposal, published earlier by this newspaper, does so in many respects.
There are also other discussions and analyses available. However, the important point is that if bureaucrats and other decision makers develop private interests in the project, then no amount of argumentation and analyses will help, because they will simply play deaf and blind and do their own thing.
The current government’s anti-corruption drive has been targeted so far mainly toward politicians. However, many bureaucrats, too, had an important role in the corruption, embezzlement, and selling-out of national interests to foreign companies that the nation witnessed in the past years. It is difficult to believe that they have all rectified themselves.
The present government has set the good precedence of confiscating ill-gotten wealth and bringing such wealth back to the country from outside. What this means is that, sooner or later, those who want to enrich themselves at the expense of the nation can be brought to book.
They should know that the people of Bangladesh, including non-resident Bangladeshis (NRBs), are watching. The remittance money sent home by NRBs has now reached almost $6 billion per year, exceeding the country’s combined net export!
Tata’s total investment figure, which many suspect looks bigger on paper than its actual worth, pales by comparison with the investment that NRBs are making in their country each year, and they are not planning on remitting the investment income!
So, for the Bangladesh economy, NRB remittance is the real source of investment, and the authorities should try to make the best use of this resource.
NRB remittance, together with the garments export earning, is keeping Bangladesh afloat. Both of these owe to Bangladesh’s main renewable resource, namely labour. The government should focus on making the best use of investment, both domestic and foreign, that is labour-intensive.
It should save the country’s limited quantity of mineral resources for optimum domestic use. It should, therefore, say “Thank you, but no!” to the Tata investment proposal.
COURTESY: Meghbarta
Posted by Radical Notes June 13, 2007 at 1:17 pm in Agrarian Question, Bangladesh, Imperialism
Soumitra Bose
If things come the BUSH-BLAIR or rather EMPIRE way, we would have all over the earth what we now see in Bangladesh. The country is run now by what is eulogized as a “caretaker government”! Yes, care is what they are taking, of what, however is the question?
Political activities are banned. It is still an “ideal democracy”. No one is allowed to spell ill about the government, no one can and will criticize those handfuls that are running the show, or rather are seen as running the show. Show, however is actually run by the army, and everyone in the street knows it. There are “wise” men – a handful, who decide or decree whatever will be next step and there would not be anyone who can question.
The middle class, who has lived and thrived in Bangladesh for more than 35 years now is happy and even conceited as ever, because they feel and “see” that corruption is not there, political Mafiosi are all behind bars and yet the middle class as it is always throughout the world do not see what they do not want to! Just today, news came out that the Chief of the caretaker government is willy-nilly [as no one is allowed to directly mention even the name of the person for any allegation processing] involved in a huge financial scam. Social laws never go wrong… one has to give some time to prove them! When supreme power is bestowed on some one and the person is not answerable especially in the perspective of the most corrupt economy then obviously power would corrupt and absolute power would corrupt absolutely.
Democracy, of whatever sham form brings out the news some time down the line and makes powerful ones accountable in whatever inadequate way it can, but when democracy is shelved and withheld, it becomes the golf-lawn for political oligarchy.
Every one in the streets knew what happened in Bangladesh was a coup masterminded by US consulate. It all started like the following. The US under the aegis of their war against terrorism found out that Bangladesh housing all different hues of fundamentalists and Islamist terrorist and even some other terrorist whom the US considers dangerous. The US intelligence found additionally that the Bangladesh army is the most corrupt institution and Taliban literature and demagogy and pornography. Bangladesh army and the embedded pro-Taliban functionaries were looking up to a hypothetical situation of attacking India with the help of Pakistan and other Middle Eastern Muslim countries. Things did not turn up as they planned. Musharraf fell to US game plan and turned his guns against Taliban and fundamentalists. So the Bangladesh army functionaries who were polishing their armaments toward an imaginary India-attack lost the steam.
Meanwhile the US sprang into action. The US consulate increased the efforts of negotiating and coaxing and cajoling the political leaders, but could not get very favourable responses despite their bribing and threats. This was because of the incendiary situation created on one hand by the growing labour unrest and other political movements of the people against globalisation and the growing dismay of the people against the anti-Muslim US policies. Faced with this situation, the US slashed the final threat to Bangladesh army. They said all foreign stints for Bangladesh army personnel in peacekeeping missions abroad will be terminated if Bangladesh army does not clear the fundamentalists from within its ranks. Money became more critical factor than baseless dreams of creating Muslim Umma in South Asia. Almost overnight the army decided to take on the chaotic political turmoil. They moved straight to the capital, made the then caretaker government sign on a draft that is now the writ. This draft was written allegedly [as you would get the information from the streets] by Md. Yunus and Justice Debopriyo Bhattacharya. Yunus the Nobel Prize winner always nurtured the dream of becoming the supreme man and yet could not cope with political criticism. Bhattacharya, a Hindu fundamentalist, would champion the cause of the Hindu minority. A new government was formed whose members were nominated by the US consulate. The new government arrested the main political leaders on account of some or the other corruption and criminal charges. The way Bangladesh was running all these charges are actually true. But the ulterior motive was to stop all political activities, which they promulgated and did and every kind of manifestation or organization was banned. People found overnight the local political Mafiosi quelled and they hailed the military. The bite was realized later. The prices soared up, economy dwindled, and administration anarchy shot up and the producing forces found their voices gagged. All came very soon on the heels of the famous and heroic people’s upsurge of Phulbari and Kansat. People took up arms against the imperialist marauders and trans-nationals. TATA’s project was shelved and very interestingly and very co-incidentally those upsurges took place when across the border the other Bengal took up arms with iconic presentation of Singur and Nandigram. The South Asian intellectuals and the conscious people equated Phulbari, Kansat, Singur and Nandigram in the same line against imperialism and globalisation. This was too much. Messages need to be sent and liberalism was inadequate. US sent a message across the border within India and very concomitantly they pressurized Musharraf. When Leftists in Pakistan are jailed the ploy of “war against fundamentalism” fell flat. Peasants’ upsurge in the North West Frontier Province and Punjab in Pakistan, the Anti-SEZ movement in India, the rise of the Maoists in Nepal and the recent setbacks of the Lankan Army sent a counter message to PAX AMERICANA that people are now ready to take up arms at the drop of a hat. Bangladesh is the message of US imperialism. Phulbari, Kansat, Singur and Nandigram is the message of the people. Battle lines are drawn, the struggle will go on!. People of this vivisected sub-continent have lost all hopes on neo-liberal governance of repeated changes in form and essentially the same imperialist extraction. They are taking the path of massive militant upsurge. The future is going to be a totally unforeseen chapter of human history. What started in 1857 may spread like wild fire once again toward a second Freedom struggle.
