HEADLINES OF THE DAY: ANOTHER 15,000 PEOPLE DIED YESTERDAY BECAUSE THEY WERE TOO POOR TO LIVE. THE RICH INCREASED THEIR WEALTH YESTERDAY BY $0.3 BILLION. THE 21st CENTURY VERSION OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION IS ONE DAY NEARER.
A preview of the unpublished book A CIVILIZATION WITHOUT A VISION WILL PERISH: AN INDEPENDENT SEARCH FOR THE TRUTH by David Willis at willisdavid167@gmail.com. CHAPTER 1: INDIFFERENCE TO POVERTY (Part 66). This blog is a continuation of the review of FREEDOM FROM WANT: THE REMARKABLE SUCCESS STORY OF BRAC, THE GLOBAL GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATION THAT’S WINNING THE FIGHT AGAINST POVERTY by Ian Smillie published 2009.
Chapter 1: Sonar Bangla
Bangladesh is a flat land
With the exception of the Chittagong Hill Tracts and the rolling hills of Sylhet and Mymensingh, Bangladesh is a flat land, a vast delta through which two of the great rivers of the world flow. The Ganges enters Bangladesh from the west, while the Brahmaputra, here known as the Jamuna, enters from the north, draining the melting snows of the high Himalayas. They meet near Faridpur; take on a new name, Padma; and wash as much as 2.5 million tons of rich sediment across the countryside when they are in full spate, reinvigorating the land each year for the next season’s crops.
As fertile as it is dangerous
Other rivers join them and have been the country’s highway since time immemorial, transporting goods and travelers, traders, explorers and invaders. The rivers feed the crops and nurture the country’s bounteous fishery. They are its life line and, at times, its greatest peril. Each summer and autumn, Bangladesh is lashed by cyclones and tornadoes, sometimes accompanied by tidal surges that sweep up from the bay, wiping out everything on newly formed char land. Farmers with short memories often settle this area because the land is new and free – and as fertile as it is dangerous.
Peace and stability for almost 400 years
But there is another Bangladesh, the Bangladesh of late autumn, winter, and spring. This is when the floods recede and the sun shines. This is when evenings are cool and the days are warm and bright. A hundred years ago, the great Bengali poet, Tagore, wrote about his Bengal of gold. In its earliest days of recorded history, the area in which Bangla came to be spoken was a series of principalities with frequently changing borders and allegiances. The oldest archeological remains in Bangladesh date from 700 BC. The Gupta Empire, one of the largest in ancient India, annexed most of the area, bringing it under a single political system some time after 550 AD. The territory was not fully unified until the advent of a Buddhist Empire that was established in 750. The Pala brought relative peace and stability to the region for almost 400 years.
Power passed to the British East India Company
The early Muslim rulers in Delhi overran Bengal in the 12th century, other dynasties followed, and the Grand Trunk Road was constructed. A series of independent Nawabs ruled until the Battle of Plassey in 1757. Power over the region then passed to new invaders, the British East India Company, heralding a general economic decline, made more precipitous by the introduction of British yarn in the 1780s. Until then, growing cotton, spinning, weaving muslins, and creating fine embroideries had accounted for a large part of the economy and huge volumes of exports to Europe. The British Industrial Revolution, founded on steam and the manufacture of ever-cheaper cloth and supported by a 75% duty on imported cotton, ended the Bengal muslin trade in less than three decades.