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Saidur Rahman
CIVIL SOCIETY
IN
AND
FUTURE
BACKGROUND
Bangladesh is a low-income country with a staggering population of 157.6
million1 people within a land area of 147,570 sq. km2 (BBS 2013). Bangladesh
is the most densely populated country in the world with a population density
of 1,068 per sq. km (BBS 2013). Bangladesh is a riverine country with
predominantly agrarian society at the time of independence. With booming
industries like readymade garments, pharmaceutical and shipping, the
countrys economy is shifting toward manufacturing and service sector and a
rapid urbanization is in the process. The country is vulnerable to regular
natural disasters where climate change is making the situation worse by
increasing the intensity of disasters. 31.5% of the population live below the
poverty line (World Bank 2010), most of whom live in rural areas with limited
job opportunity or in geographically vulnerable coastal areas or in urban
slums. Though government managed to sustain a decent 6 percent economic
growth rate3 for last few years (World Bank 2013), the poverty reduction rate
is not impressive for Bangladesh. Political inefficiency and governments lack
of resources further contributes to the gloomy picture and calls for strong
civil society engagement.
POLITICAL HISTORY
OF
BANGLADESH
1 http://www.bbs.gov.bd/home.aspx
2 http://www.sid.gov.bd/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/BANGLADESH-at-a-glance-Census2011.pdf
3 http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG/countries/1W-BD?display=graph
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
(Lewis
2011).
During
2007-2009,
military
backed
caretaker
OF
VOLUNTARY ACTIONS
AND
CIVIL SOCIETY
IN
BANGLADESH
The earliest form of civil society in rural East Bengal known as samaj
(Society), local community established by the religious value. Samaj was
responsible to maintain the social order by employing matbars, elders of the
society, who would operate through shalish, village-level council, to manage
social issues and development (Lewis 2011). Lewis (2011) identified three
types of voluntary actions in East Bengal religious charity, philanthropy and
7 Bangladesh Nationalist Party, formed by General Ziaur Rahman. Khaleda Zia, Zias wife, later
became the chairperson of the party. Khaleda Zia became the prime minister of Bangladesh twice
1991-1996 and 2001-2006.
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
self-help. Religious charity included Islams provisions for zakat8 to help the
poor, Hindus customs to provide food to religious and spiritual personalities,
Christian missionaries voluntary activity in education and health sector.
Affluent people of the community would carry out philanthropic activity by
building mosque, school, madrasa or providing relief to disaster affected
people. Some limited self-help organizations like Palli Mangal Samitis (Village
Welfare Society), Cooperatives etc. also existed in the pre-independent
Bangladesh.
The history of civil society in Bangladesh is relevant since British colonial era
when Bengal civil society actively engaged in the independent movement.
Since then civil society of Bangladesh adopted an approach to confront the
state (Quadir 2003). The relationship between civil society and state further
deteriorated when a group of civil-military bureaucratic elites (Quadir
2003) captured the power in Pakistan period and exploited the people of East
Pakistan, which is the present day Bangladesh. Civil Societys language
movement in 1950s triggered the independence movement, which ultimately
resulted in the creation of Bangladesh. Even after the liberation, the
disentanglement between the state and civil society existed.
The civil society of Bangladesh experienced a transformation from preindependence period to post-independent period. Prior to independence, civil
society comprised of students, lawyers, journalists, cultural activists etc. and
focused on political movement i.e. language movement which are known as
8 According to the Islamic Law, Muslim people requires to give one-fortieth of ones income to
the poor, known as zakat one of the pillars of Islam religion.
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
old civil society (Hashemi and Hasan 1999). Immediately after the
independence, so-called civil-authoritarian government absorbed the old
civil society into state control civil society (Jalal 1995) by coopting them
into official organizations and party affiliated groups. Subsequently,
military governments further weakened civil society replacing the focus from
social to military (Jahangir 1986). Such coercion contributed to the
emergence
of
new
civil
society
organizations
like
nongovernmental
IN
BANGLADESH
The countrys civil society received widespread recognition soon after when
Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen bank received Nobel Prize in
2006. Over the years, civil society organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh
carried out extensive work in socio economic development on various issues
largely funded by donors. The number registered CSOs in Bangladesh is
259,774 (Tasnim 2012). Chart 1 gives an account of CSOs corresponding to
different types:
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
45,508
1,997
8,271 6,607
465
6,780
299
De ve lo p me n t NGOs Re c e ivin g Fo re ig n Fu n d in g
Source: Tasnim 2012 (Based on the statistics of different types of civil society
organization collected from the bookers of respective institutions and their
websites)
Different CSOs fall under different ministries and institutions like NGO Affairs
Bureau, Ministry of Social Welfare (MoSW), Ministry of Women and Childrens
Affairs (MoWCA), Ministry of Youth and Sports (MoYS), Ministry of Local
Government, Rural Development and Co-operations (MoLGRD) etc.
According to Tasnim (2012), the civil society in Bangladesh is considerably
vibrant in term of density after the Philippines among different Asian
countries. Chart 2 provides a comparison of CSOs among selected Asian
countries between 2001 and 2005.
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
Chart 2: Number of Registered CSOs and CSO Per 1000 Inhabitants in Selected Asian Countries (2000-1005)
700,000
600,000
500,000
400,000
300,000
200,000
100,000
0
604,800
259,774
249,000
12,000
12,000
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
Source: Tasnim 2012 (Collected from various websites, reports and journal articles)
IN
BANGLADESH
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
FOR
CIVIL SOCIETY
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
activities.
However,
most
business
and
professional
organizations are in reality front organizations for the major political parties
(Quadir 2003). Similar trends exist in terms of various other associational,
educational, ethnic and religious organizations all of which belongs to any
of the three different fronts secular (AL), nationalist (BNP) and Islamist.
Apart from these, some organizations operate based on communist value.
Generally CSOs backed by opposition critics against the state only to gain
their political objective while CSOs backed by ruling party support
government. The only exception is the NGO sector that is still non-partisan in
nature. The relation of NGOs with the state has improved recently due to
increased recognition and collaboration. However, any criticism of state by
CSOs are not welcoming at all i.e. Khaleda Zia cancelled the registration of
Association of Development Agencies of Bangladesh (ADAB) on the ground of
political involvement in 1992 or recent corruption report by Transparency
International Bangladesh reported corruption by state officials which several
AL government ministers severely criticized.
Civil Society and Democracy: The role of civil society in Bangladesh has
been crucial in the struggle against military regime when people from
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
different social sectors came together. Civil society played instrumental role
to establish a provision for ninety-day caretaker government during the
election period to ensure a fair election and smooth power transfer. However,
the democracy at present, in Bangladesh is far from ideal. At the beginning,
the country ensured only minimalist democracy regular elections,
peaceful transfer of government power, guarantee of basic freedom and
civilian control over institutions and policy (BRAC 2009). Later, disruption of
the law and order, party favored political and legal institutions and misused
state power contributed to illiberal democracy (Lewis 2011). Different
international organization like World Bank, International Monetary Fund,
UNDP are funding CSOs to push the agency of good governance to ensure
transparency and tackle corruption (Parnini 2006). Transparency International
Bangladesh (TIB), local edition of Transparency International (TI), runs
several campaigns like Youth Engagement and Support (YES), Shojon
(Citizens for Transparency), Young Professionals against Corruption (YPAC)
etc. and publish various reports regularly regarding corruption 9. Till to date,
the success to minimize corruption is little as Bangladesh ranks 145 10 among
175 countries in Corruption Perception Index by TI. A local think tank Institute
of Governance Studies (IGS) mentioned that the parliament is not
representative of the electorates , public policies only fulfils interest of party
9 http://www.ti-bangladesh.org/beta3/index.php/en/
10 http://www.transparency.org/country#BGD
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
people and widespread regional disparity exists across the nation in their
recent report11 The State of Governance in Bangladesh 2012.
Civil Society and Economic Development: NGOs like BRAC, the Grameen
Bank, and Association for Social Advancement, one of the civils societys
dominant actor in Bangladesh, involved in large microfinance sector to
provide microcredit to poor people in rural and urban areas. Microcredit has
been a largely debated issue. Opponents of microcredit criticized for its high
interest rate, continuous borrowing by clients, suicide by borrowers etc.
Proponents of microcredit argued that the social indicators like health status,
education status, women empowerment etc. is better among the borrowers.
Nonetheless, microcredit schemes provided loan to millions of poor people
who were left out from the financial sector to be the victim moneylenders.
Other than this, NGOs like Proshika ran a campaign on budget in 1997 (Lewis
2011), think-tank like Centre for Policy Dialogue regularly publishes reports
on budget to inform citizens etc.
Civil Society and Religion: The World Bank identified 189,000 not-for-profit
organizations as religious of the 206,000 not-for-profit organization in
Bangladesh. This indicates that religion is a strong force of association in
Bangladesh. However, some of the religious organizations took a stand
against social issues like dowry and organized crime. One such example is
Brahmanbaria12 Islamic Foundation targeted around 3,317 mosques in
Brahmanbaria to deliver anti-dowry sermons in different religious gatherings.
11 http://www.igs-bracu.ac.bd/images/stories/Publications/sog-2012%20full%20book.pdf
12 Brahmanbaria is district in the east-central part of Bangladesh.
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
However, the clash between government and religious CSOs are also present
in Bangladesh.
protest against the Women Inheritance Law that will allow women to get
equal share of her parents property, which they thought against Islamic
Law13. Simultaneously, the attack on religious minority within the country
increased in recent times. In 2013, one person was killed, 188 persons were
injured and statues, houses and businesses were demolished 14. With the rise
of Islamist groups and countrys drive toward secular nationalism may put
secular and religious CSOs in difficult situation in near future.
FUTURE DIRECTION
OF
CIVIL SOCIETY
There are several future concerns for future civil society in Bangladesh:
Accountability: Currently there is no proper accountability mechanism in
place to monitor and evaluate civil society performance. A new law for NGOs
are going to be adopted that will ask NGOs about the source of foreign fund
and program performance. The policy may ensure CSO performance but also
will reduce their funding options due to additional requirement. A balanced
accountability mechanism for CSO is necessary to overcome this issue.
Youth
Empowerment:
Increasing
youth
empowerment
and
their
13 According to Islamic Law, women get only half of what her brothers get from their parents
property. Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12956907
14 http://www.thedailystar.net/attacks-on-minorities-increased-35336
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CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
activities, which will make citizen movement stronger and create a balance
with the other two sectors.
Urban Middle Class: The middle class in urban areas are increasing due to
their higher education and income level, which is shifting the middle class
indicator upwards. The urban middle class are more vocal and resourceful,
who have the ability to mobilize the resources fast. They have the potential
to become an important civil society groups in the power struggle.
Rural Areas and Coastal Areas: The expansion and activities of civil
society is mostly limited in urban areas. Rural people do not have strong civil
society representations to articulate their concerns to wider society. Coastal
areas, the most disaster vulnerable areas in Bangladesh, also suffer from
lack of strong presence of civil society. Civil society needs to address this
issue seriously to prevent unequal civil society, which may create another
type of patron-client relationship.
Bengali Nationalism, Islam and Ethnic Identity: In recent years, these
three issue have sparkled different types of conflict within the country. Civil
society, with the help of government, requires to take immediate steps to
solve
the
disparities
among
secular
nationalist,
religious
and
tribal
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman
REFERENCES
Blair, H. (2005). Civil Society and Propoor Initiatives in Rural Bangladesh:
Finding a Workable Strategy. World Development, 33(6), 921-936.
Gauri, V., & Galef, J. (2005). NGOs in Bangladesh: Activities, Resources, and
Governance. World Development, 33(12), 20452065.
Lewis, D. (2004). Old and new civil societies in Bangladesh. In M. Glasius,
D. Lewis, & H. Seckinelgin (Eds.), Exploring Civil Society: Political and
Cultural Contexts (pp. 100-106). New York: Routledge.
Lewis, D. (2011). Bangladesh: Politics, Economy and Civil Society. New York:
Cambridge.
Parnini, S. N. (2006). Civil Society and Good Governance in Bangladesh.
Asian Journal of Political Science, 14(2), 189-211.
Quadir, F. (2003). How Civil is Civil Society? Authoritarian State, Partisan
Civil Society, and the Struggle for Democratic Development in
Bangladesh. Canadian Journal of Development Studies, 24(3), 425-438.
Rahman, S. (2006). Development, Democracy and the NGO Sector: Theory
and Evidence from Bangladesh. Journal of Developing Societies, 22(4),
451-273.
Tasnim, F. (2012). How Vigilant is the Vibrant Civil Society in Bangladesh? A
Survey-based Analysis. Journal of Civil Society, 8(2), 155-183.
CIVIL SOCIETY IN BANGLADESH: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE Md. Saidur Rahman