Dr. Foqan Uddin Ahmed :
The impact of the West on Bangladesh as a result of the British occupation of this subcontinent has been broad and deep. The western culture, education and fashions influenced a large number of people. Many men and women were attracted to western ideals of education, ways of life and fashions and had even pooh-poohed the culture and ways of life handed down to our country people through the hoary tradition of this region. Thus an elitist culture had grown up and caused a rift between those who were brought up in western ways of life and those who had clinged to local ideas of life and education. As a matter of fact the former got the advantage over the latter for the simple reason that they enjoyed the privileges of western education and culture in the British regime. Education did not reach the masses, and villages were neglected. Those who favoured western ideals clinged to the corridors of power and rejected the local tradition. To them, modernity meant western ideals of life.
With the invasion of western ideals and ideas in Bangladesh, dichotomy has arisen in our society. Capitalistic, industrialized urban societies have generated individualistic philosophy but Bangladesh’s socio-economic conditions do not support this philosophy, although our country has sought to implement her policies on the basis of this philosophy. Moreover, this philosophy prevails in industrial, urban community and has not percolated to the bulk of people living in remote rural areas.
The extreme elitism of the metropolitan cities is in glaring contrast to the extreme backwardness of many villages. Lack of education, disparity of economic privileges inequality of conditions and pluralism of social system and traditions account for inadequacy of responses to the challenges and changes of life and society in the modern age.
In Bangladesh, there is a new process of adjustment and adaptation taking place between the rights and obligations of a modern state in an old society. But those who emphasis citizen participation and administrative responsiveness for this process of adjustment and adaptation ignore deeper adjustments necessary for the transformation of the society into a new one appropriate to the needs of a modern state.
Bangladesh has yet to implement certain fundamental programmes for accomplishing the task of social changes appropriate to a modern state. Social services like education, health, family planning, nutrition and housing have to be expanded and their quality improved so that all men and women can cooperate in the transformation of the society into a modern one. In Bangladesh there are people of backward classes like scheduled castes and tribal people.
They are to be pulled up through economic facilities and educational opportunities into the mainstream of national life. The village upliftment programmes have to be intensified, and all impediments to the implementation to those programmes (corruptions, incompetence and group rivalry) have to be removed so that welfare services at the level of the local area and the local community are successfully carried out. Social security and economic equality have to be ensured as far as practicable. Poverty is the greatest curse of our society, and with poverty has come the concomitant evil of illiteracy.
These twin enemies oppose all attempts at social reforms. Crude and cruel social practices like dowry system, child marriages, child labour and event sale of children are operative in this modern age. There are oppositions to intercast marriage and sex education.
Education is the most important component of social development programme. Compulsory free primary education, adult education and family planning and improved health service can guarantee people’s responsiveness to social changes that are necessary for the transformation of our society into a modern one. Backward classes living mainly in the villages are to be economically and culturally uplifted.
Their backwardness poses a serious obstacle to social changes. They cling to conventional morality and beliefs, and are averse to education and culture. Industrial manual and other workers in the towns who form a kind of urban proletariat and who are increasing in numbers and live mostly in slum areas.
Present social problems which call for broader public policy and for specific local action. They remain socially a non integrated group in the rural community. In spite of measures taken by the government to ameliorate their conditions, they remain culturally and economically far behind the mainstream of national life. Effective social policy and educational programmes have to initiated to deal with the problems of this group.
Indeed, in the absence of any institutional discipline, people behave divergently and suffer from the stress of contradictions. They cannot achieve proper harmony between tradition and modernity. Conformism to tradition often clashes with modern outlook.
They are often hypocritical as many middle class men were in the Victorian age. Conservatism is more often grounded in immediate self-interest than in any deliberate preference for the traditional way of life.
Thus their indifference to social reforms like the abolition of untouchability or the dowry system is more due to immediate material gain than to loyalty to tradition. They support women taking up employment because it promises financial advantage but they cannot approve free mixing as it prevails in western society.
The so-called metropolitan intellectuals are more conservative in this regard than the rural people who have always responded to new ideas and programmes provided they have got facilities and imaginative leadership.
The failure of family planning programme and panchayat system in many village is to be attributed to the wrong leadership and corruptions at the higher levels. The failure of poverty alleviation scheme is responsible for the half-hearted approach to compulsory primary education in the villages. Poverty and illiteracy account for the backwardness of our people in many areas.
It is a pity that instead of giving vigorous initiative and leadership the leaders of our country are indulging in corruption and malpractices are thus retarding the proper economic growth of the country in all spheres of life.
The existence of local development authority in the villages is highly beneficial to the all-round awakening of the villagers and to nation building activities in all spheres-political, social, economic.
It provides a great motivation to all villagers who can exercise an acute sense of responsibility even when not sufficiently educated in urban standards. However, the villagers are actuated with new zeal for social development.
It is necessary to provide adequate funds so that infrastructures of development are built up. The government has to induce an element of more purposeful planning for the expansion of infrastructure in different spheres of social development so that the march to social progress in the countryside’s is accelerated.
The inequality between the elite classes and the poorer sections has to be reduced by removing the regional imbalances in respect of economic conditions and educational opportunities. The economic and cultural disparities are the causes of unrest and violence in different areas and account for the growth of divisive forces that stand in the way of uniform and consistent social changes and development.
