Assistance in terms of aid and grant assistance from bilateral and multilateral lending and financial agencies and institutions has reached millions of beneficiaries, including an estimated 500,000 poor rural women under the World Food Programme’s Vulnerable Group Development. Many more have benefited from the Public Food Distribution System while rural works programmes, assisted by foreign aid, employed not less than one to four million every year between 1980 and 1988.13

Indeed, according to the Bangladesh government, the country is dependent on foreign aid for about 50 per cent of its development outlay. Exports pay for less than 50 per cent of its imports.

More recent statistics tell a marginally different story.

Adult literacy was 35.3 per cent nationally, a small but significant increase from Sobhan’s 33 per cent. School attendance was up in spectacular fashion in the 5-year to 24-year group—from 8.92 million of the eligible population to 17.62 million in 1991. Yet, another 30 million did not go to school.14

Dwellings with electricity connections were listed at 19 million and acute malnutrition among children remained fairly high: about 14 per cent for those aged between six months and 71 months of age.15 Infant mortality for 1996 was placed at 67 per 1,000 live births; this figure has shown a steady downward trend since the 1980s, falling from 116 in 1988. This is a remarkable achievement by any standards and has taken place because Bangladesh’s rulers have given priority to child and women welfare.

Life expectancy was up from 56.4 in 1987 to 58.9 in 1996, again a very small rise in a decade.

The incidence of poverty (on the basis of a daily calorie intake of a minimum of 2,122 K. calories per person per day) was placed at 58.5 million in 1983-84, a figure that dropped steadily to 55.3 million in 1995-96. This means that Bangladesh has reduced the number of its absolute poor from 62.6 per cent to 47.5 per cent of the population, yet another major achievement.

But when it comes to population density per square kilometre and religious data, serious discrepancies begin to appear. Bangladesh’s population density is placed at 755 for 1991, a quantitative leap over the 590 of the previous census.16 In this demographic area, India’s figure is 261 while that of Pakistan is 153. A comparison with earlier data points to another problem with Bangladeshi figures: they appear to be, to use a mild word, flexible.

Thus, in the early 1990s, when I worked on my earlier book on insurgency and migration in the North East, the figures were the following for population density: 969 per square kilometre in 1991 and 624 in 1981.17 These were not disputed although the 1991 Census places population density at 755 per square kilometre.

Human Security and Bangladesh

What is the connection between acute poverty in Bangladesh—which may be improving marginally, year after year—and the concerns of this book?