Be it growth, enhanced investment, life expectancy, literacy, and health, Bangladesh is doing well
Frankly, I blame Henry Kissinger. Way back in the 1970s, he called Bangladesh “an international basket case”. At the time, no doubt, it was. Television images of the frequent devastating floods it suffered confirmed this characterisation. So the description stuck.
Today, Bangladesh is a different country. The world may be slow in changing its opinion — although I am not so sure of that — but we in India have no right to be trapped in the 1970s. Yet, that’s precisely what the junior home minister revealed last weekend.
“Half of Bangladesh will be empty (vacant) if India offers citizenship to them,” said minister of state for home, G Kishan Reddy. “Half of Bangladeshis will come over to India if citizenship is promised.” Apart from the fact that he was undiplomatic and offensive, Reddy also revealed that he’s ignorant of the true state of Bangladesh. Worse, he doesn’t know that, in comparison to India, Bangladesh is performing far better on many, if not most, of the indices that determine quality of life.
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