India’s per capita gross domestic product (GDP) is about to take a hit this year – so much so that it will slip below that of Bangladesh, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). While the immediate cause of India’s economic slump may be attributed to the nationwide lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, it cannot afford to ignore the slow but steady progress Bangladesh has shown in social indicators over the years.
While India’s per capita GDP will again climb ahead of Bangladesh the following year, the latter will overtake India in per capita GDP once again in 2025, if IMF’s latest World Economic Outlook is to be believed.
One of the most densely populated countries in the world, Bangladesh has been battling poverty and under-development for almost five decades. It was India which played a key role in Bangladesh gaining independence from Pakistan in 1971. Since then, New Delhi has been generously extending economic assistance to its next-door neighbour.
Between 2010 and 2017, India extended three lines of credit (LOCs) amounting to $8 billion to Dhaka, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. “This makes Bangladesh the largest recipient of LOC funds from India till date,” an MEA statement said.
However, within Bangladesh, things had started to change in the past two decades or so. The country has made substantial progress in several social indicators, including education, sanitation and health. The country, which has one-third of its population below 14 years, has seen strong economic growth as well. In 2018, its GDP growth was 7.9 percent compared to India’s 6.8 percent and 2.9 percent for the United States.
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The services sector contributes to over 50 per cent of GDP in Bangladesh although agriculture is the largest employer, the International Labour Organization (ILO) has observed. Even the impact of the 2007-08 global financial crisis was muted by the strength of the low-cost garment industry, ILO’s Monitoring and Assessing Progress on Decent Work (MAP) programme has noted.
Strides made on social indicators
One of Bangladesh’s key achievements is curbing infant mortality rate (IMR) the fastest among the developing nations. The IMR (in deaths per 1000 live births) has fallen steeply in the past decade -- from 40.5 in 2009 to 25.6 in 2019. Last year, India’s IMR stood at 28.
Another success story is arresting population growth through the adoption of birth control methods. Besides, Bangladesh has virtually eliminated the practice of open defecation through a sustained campaign, much before India launched its ambitious ‘Swachh Bharat’ (Clean India) mission. By 2016, 99 percent of Bangladeshi citizens had access to toilets. On other hand, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had in October 2019 declared India free from open defecation, a claim that some experts have contested. They argued that government’s efforts were focused on building toilets, rather than making sure people actually used them.
Education is yet another area where Bangladesh has made remarkable progress. It has ensured “universal access, gender parity in classrooms and reasonably high levels of completion”, says UNICEF.
Much of this has been attributed to adoption of low-cost solutions such as the “use of oral rehydration saline (ORS) for diarrhoea treatment leading to a decrease in child mortality, and due to increased awareness created by effective social mobilisation campaigns such as for immunization or contraceptive use or girls’ schooling,” says a study titled ‘Bangladesh’s Achievements in Social Development Indicators’, published by policy think tank International Growth Centre.
Migration and economic growth
Despite these achievements, Bangladesh often finds itself in the news over the issue of legal/illegal migration of its nationals to other countries, including India. The fact is that working-class migrants, mostly uneducated, are a major contributor to Bangladesh’s economic growth. A 2017 World Bank report says international migration eases the pressure on the domestic economy by absorbing up to 500,000 workers each year. Remittances from migrant workers combined with garment exports account for almost a quarter of the country’s GDP.
India is home to a large number of suspected illegal Bangladeshi immigrants, something Dhaka never officially acknowledges. Even the World Bank report cited above admits that only 10 per cent of Bangladeshi workers migrate through formal channels. “As a result, a vast majority frequently fall victim to fraudulent middlemen and exploitative employers, leading to loss of their lifetime savings and assets; harassment; abuse and imprisonment,” it reads.
Policy analysts have argued India may consider issuing work permits to illegal Bangladeshi migrants with assistance from the neighbouring country. At the same time, the government must ensure that sensitive areas such as Jammu and Kashmir and Northeast are out of bounds for such people, Sanjeev Tripathi, former head of the Research and Analysis Wing, wrote in an article for Carnegie India.
(Jayanta Kalita is a senior journalist and author based in Delhi. He writes on issues related to India’s Northeast. The views expressed are personal.)
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