The lingering trails of poverty in Bangladesh
"How has your analysis of poverty evolved over the last five decades?" I was asked recently. A simple question, but it requires a serious answer! I came to Bangladesh from NE Bihar, where poverty was firmly rooted in quasi-feudal, patron-client relations, reinforced by caste. The mushar—landless, untouchable labourers—were akin to serfs or even slaves in the early 70s. This did not prevent the mushar from receiving in-kind patronage in times of stress; after all, their labour had to be reproduced, not destroyed. Coming to Bangladesh meant initially the Dhaka-Cumilla minifundist belt where, in the village we studied intensively, there was poverty, but not really destitution. Because poverty was reflected in inequality and dependency, as well as specific family circumstances of morbidity, disabilities, high dependency ratios and land lost due to economic stress, it could still be understood significantly in class terms. However, it was not so stark as in NE Bihar or, as I was soon to learn, the districts of North Bengal (such as Dinajpur, Nilphamari, Thakurgaon and nearby such as Kurigram).
The work and friendship of Abu Abdullah at Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) was significant for any understanding I initially gained of agrarian political economy outside the Dhaka-Cumilla belt. Abu wrote a lot which never saw the light of day in publications. I was lucky to have access to that hidden writing (which is currently being assembled as a memoir). I could therefore see poverty in similar ways as in NE Bihar, and from what I was reading from West Bengal, as a function of stark class relations (landlords, tenant sharecroppers and landless labour of men and women) under conditions of low technologies and thus labour-intensive production. Such conditions to us Marxians are understood as intensifying the rate of surplus value of labour. In other words, appropriating the surplus value of labour through making it work harder and longer for the same returns, thereby intensifying the rate of exploitation.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. 
Inter alia, such understanding led me to write "Staying Secure, Staying Poor: The Faustian Bargain" (World Development, March 2003). Here, I argued, using case material, that the circumstances of poor people induced them to accept their dependency and inferiority as the price for some element of low-value security via client dependency when times were hard. In this way, they revealed an induced second preference for remaining in poverty in the longer term as the trade-off for short-term stress relief. This, together with the lack of control over their uncertain futures, meant they had a high discount rate of the future relative to richer classes who can save for and invest (e.g., via education of children) in their more certain futures. So beneath the general explanation of "class relations and exploitation" lies this socio-psychological detail. I have always been keen to go beyond the "what" question to the more intricate "how" question. Analysing deep structures, in other words.
More recently came the subject of "extreme poverty," which goes by other names too. The UK-DFID, as was, funded a large operational programme (Economic Empowerment of the Poorest, EEP-Shiree) for over eight years (2008-16), with a research element led by a few of us from the University of Bath in association with BIDS, especially Dr Zulfiqar Ali. Was extreme poverty just worse than moderate poverty measured by income or qualitatively different? We had many internal debates and with friends in Brac and so on, which opened up to exchanges between Amartya Sen and senior Bangladeshi academics, like Rehman Sobhan. Sen agreed with us: there is a categorical distinction. We were also helped by Ravi Kanbur's authorship of the 2001 "World (Bank) Poverty Report," in which he distinguished between non-idiosyncratic and idiosyncratic poverty, the former "moderate" poverty being more systemic and amenable to class analysis as well as inter-sectional, horizontal inequalities (e.g., gender, ethnic and religious minorities). "Extreme' poverty," in contrast to "moderate," can be more characterised by idiosyncratic explanations at the family level, entailing morbidity, disabilities, adverse dependency ratios, higher prevalence of female-headed households in patrilineal/patriarchal societies, etc. In his foreword to our study for the Planning Commission in 2021, titled "Extreme Poverty: the Challenges of Inclusion in Bangladesh," Prof Wahiduddin Mahmud wrote, quoting Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way"—i.e., it depends on "who they are." We identified a further categorical distinction between the moderate and extreme poor in terms of the security of their agency. The extreme poor do not have the same, or adequate, capabilities for counterpart social action when "participating" in external support programmes. Most NGOs in Bangladesh have worked with the moderate poor. You can see why.
While the term "development" can have many meanings, poverty remains a necessary issue for policy and action, which needs to reflect a useful understanding of socioeconomic processes and location. Any prospect of a linear downward trend in the incidence of poverty achieved through the magic of trickle-down capitalist economics and "leave no one behind" rhetoric is undermined by a set of uncertainties around.
But there is a further symptomatic aspect too, which is broadly shared by the moderate and extreme poor, while still remaining distinctive. This concerns what is measured (i.e., symptoms and indicators). If income or financial or asset wealth is measured using the HIES data, then one picture emerges both numerically and geographically. But income and wealth are only a means to an end—well-being, whereas capabilities to convert means into ends differ as a function of inequality, class, idiosyncrasies, and a present sense of security of agency. However, if we measure the actual experience of well-being through multidimensional indicators—from data in the multidimensional poverty index (MPI)—the picture is different both numerically and geographically. This analysis is laid out in our study for the Planning Commission mentioned above. Furthermore, with these MPI measures, we identify the poorest 20 upazilas, the next 20, and so on, because we disaggregated the data below the district level, which is rarely done and is misleading in terms of where poverty actually is and with what intensity. On this basis, we are critical of the World Bank's over-simplistic regional analysis that contrasts east and west of the country (2019 Poverty Assessment Report). Its diagnosis is misleading for policy.
There is still a significant presence of poverty in Bangladesh. According to the "Perspective Plan of Bangladesh" (GED, Planning Commission, March 2020), poverty was 20.5 percent in 2020, with extreme poverty at 10.5 percent, together with rising income inequality, indicated by a Gini coefficient measure close to 0.5. These translate into large numbers—36 million. Furthermore, the current poverty lines or thresholds reflecting international purchasing parity levels are unrealistically low for Bangladesh. If we move those thresholds up to a more realistic level to meet basic human needs and services, then the poverty reduction claims for Bangladesh look more precarious. The vulnerable strata above the present upper poverty line will quickly descend into poverty if a more realistic definition of poverty is applied, as was revealed starkly during Covid by the BIGD/PPRC findings. Add looming vulnerability to climate change, especially in the coastal belt, then we find there are no laurels to sit on. And relying upon trickle-down from economic growth is presently a very fragile dream given the current trends in the macroeconomy, not helped by global slowdowns, let alone if GSP sanctions are added in regard to labour rights and decent work (in the ILO sense).
For me, then, it is unwise and premature to move away from poverty as a development priority in Bangladesh. And it can always return as in the UK, where it is presently climbing to 18 percent by domestic measures. While the term "development" can have many meanings, poverty remains a necessary issue for policy and action, which needs to reflect a useful understanding of socioeconomic processes and location. Any prospect of a linear downward trend in the incidence of poverty achieved through the magic of trickle-down capitalist economics and "leave no one behind" rhetoric is undermined by a set of uncertainties around: climate change; rising income and wealth inequalities associated with LMIC status; low comparative levels of tax revenues and public spending as a percent of GDP; the consequent woeful underinvestment in vocational skills and secondary education sector; preferentialism in the various forms of social protection provision despite digitalisation; the precarious comparative advantage of the country in the global economy including the "single point of business failure" through overreliance on RMG for foreign exchange; and dangerous dependence upon the confronting neighbouring superpowers of China and India.
In a transitioning country like Bangladesh, there is a further issue about the heightened awareness of being poor relative to others, the sense of relative deprivation. This is a function of urbanisation in the growth of megacities as well as the "rurbanisation" of the countryside, reinforced by the integrating variables of communications infrastructure, digital access, and physical mobility, including international labour migration. The poor are no longer isolated in their villages, trapped within localised clientelist dependency upon immediate patrons controlling their livelihood options. They can compare their conditions and life chances to others who really are enjoying the benefits of growth. They have a daily reminder of marginalisation and low ceilings to their own aspirations. Their lives are insecure and precarious as they experience new forms of exploitation at the hands of employers, rent-seekers, and mastaan. There are profound implications for political volatility, where such alienation can easily convert into millenarian sentiment.
Dr Geof Wood is a development anthropologist and author of several books and numerous journal articles, with a regional focus on South Asia. He is also emeritus professor of international development at the University of Bath.
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
Follow The Daily Star Opinion on Facebook for the latest opinions, commentaries and analyses by experts and professionals. To contribute your article or letter to The Daily Star Opinion, see our guidelines for submission.
Comments