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My Bengal of Gold, I love you
Forever your skies,
Your air set my heart in tune
As if it were a flute.
The above lines are from a 1905 song Amar Shonar Bangla written and composed by the Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore. The first ten lines of which were adopted in 1972 as the Bangladesh national anthem. The word shonar literally means ‘made of gold’, but in the song shonar Bangla may be interpreted to either express the preciousness of Bengal or a reference to the color of paddy fields before harvest.
Bangladesh today has come a long way from the struggling economy of its initial years, when it was considered as a “basket case.” Although Bengalis were the forerunners of the Pakistan movement, yet they got disenchanted by the West Pakistanis’ condescending attitude and broke away in 1971. Pakistan’s two wings were united by religion but their people were separated by culture, physical features, and 1,000 miles of Indian territory. What is now called Bangladesh is part of the historic region of Bengal, the northeast portion of the Indian subcontinent. Bangladesh consists primarily of East Bengal plus the Sylhet district of the Indian state of Assam. The earliest reference to the region was to a kingdom called Vanga, or Banga (c. 1000 B.C.). Buddhists ruled for centuries, but by the 10th century Bengal was primarily Hindu. In 1576, Bengal became part of the Mogul Empire, and the majority of East Bengalis converted to Islam. Bengal was ruled by British India from 1757 until Britain withdrew in 1947, and Pakistan was founded out of the two predominantly Muslim regions of the Indian subcontinent. Strife and turmoil have been the destiny of Bangladeshi history. Its founding president Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was assassinated in 1975, as was the next president, General Zia ur-Rahman. On March 24, 1982, General Hossain Mohammad Ershad, chief of army staff, took control in a bloodless coup but was forced to resign on December 6, 1990, amid violent protests and numerous allegations of corruption. A succession of prime ministers governed in the 1990s, including Khaleda Zia, wife of the assassinated president Zia ur-Rahman, and Sheikh Hasina Wajid, the daughter of Sheik Mujibur Rahman. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina completed her five-year term as prime minister in July 2000—the first leader to do so since the country gained independence from Pakistan in 1974. In October 2006 violence erupted when Zia’s term ended and President Ahmed took over as the head of a caretaker administration. After a two year period, despite the country having been inflicted by cyclones and torrential rains, elections were held and Sheikh Hasina Wajid was elected as the Prime Minister in January 2009.
Despite serious problems related to a dysfunctional political system, weak governance, and pervasive corruption, Bangladesh remains one of the few democracies in the Muslim world. Bangladeshis regard democracy as an important legacy of their bloody war for independence, and they vote in large numbers. Bangladesh is generally a force for moderation in international forums, and it is also a long-time leader in international peacekeeping operations. Its activities in international organizations, with other governments, and with its regional partners to promote human rights, democracy, and free markets are coordinated and high-profile. Bangladesh became a member of the UN Human Rights Council in May 2006, and began a second term in 2009. However, an explicit goal of its foreign policy has been to strengthen relations with Islamic states, leading to actions such as voting against a December 2009 UN resolution to improve human rights conditions in Iran.
Bangladesh lies at the strategic crossroads of South and Southeast Asia. Potential terrorist movements and activities in or through Bangladesh pose a potentially serious threat to India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Burma, as well as Bangladesh itself. Consequentially, the Bangladesh Government has banned a number of Islamic extremist groups in recent years.
Although one of the world’s poorest and most densely populated countries, Bangladesh has made major strides to meet the food needs of its increasing population, through increased domestic production augmented by imports. The land is devoted mainly to rice and jute cultivation, although wheat production has increased in recent years; the country is largely self-sufficient in rice production. Fortunately for Bangladesh, many new jobs—1.8 million, mostly for women—have been created by the country’s dynamic private ready-made garment industry, which grew at double-digit rates through most of the 1990s. The labor-intensive process of ship-breaking for scrap has developed to the point where it now meets most of Bangladesh’s domestic steel needs. Other industries include sugar, tea, leather goods, newsprint, pharmaceutical, and fertilizer production.
The land is interspersed by a network of rivers, which have a tourist attraction. The people of Bengal enjoy a rich culture, which they inherited from their Hindu forefathers; dance, music and poetry form a major part of this cultural heritage. Arts and craft, painting and literature add to the colorful palette of Bangladeshi mosaic. Nature however, wreaks havoc at times since its location near the Bay of Bengal; make the land prone to cyclones, floods and storms, claiming huge tolls of human life and property.
Pakistan and Bangladesh enjoy close relations; the only bone of contention being the plight of Biharis or those Urdu speaking Pakistanis who migrated from India and settled in then East Pakistan. During the war for liberation in 1971, these Biharis sided with the Pakistan Army causing them to be dubbed as traitors by the Bengalis. After the fall of Dhaka, the Biharis were moved to a camp near Dhaka, where they live in squalor, having been abandoned by Pakistan and disowned by Bangladesh. Their predicament needs international attention.
With an annual GDP growth rate of 6.2% (FY 2008), a GDP of $84.2 billion (2008 est.) and an annual budget of $12.54 billion, Bangladesh, with a vibrant and rising economy, is raring to take its rightful place in the comity of nations. Its spirited and lively media ensures that it gets its due respect in the world. 
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