Prof. Nazrul Islam :Professor Nazrul Islam is an eminent geographer and urbanist. He was appointed Chairman of the University Grants Commission of Bangladesh by the caretaker government headed by Dr. Fakhruddin Ahmed in 2007 and played an influential role in containing prevailing student unrest at that time. Earlier he was the Chairman of the Board of Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority DWASA during 1999-2002. On 15th December 2015 he delivered Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed memorial lecture 2015 organised by the Trust in the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh on Urbanisation and Urban Poverty in Bangladesh: Issues in Disparities, Deprivations and Rights. Following is the text of his lecture: When Bangladesh achieved its independence in December 1971, the war ravaged country began with such a poor and fragile economy and a totally shatterd physical infrastructure, low level of social development and weak and inexperienced administrative and managerial structure, that some of its unfriendly western critics labeled the country as a “bottomless basket” or a little later, as a “Test case for development”. But only some four decades since then , one finds that Bangladesh was not at all a bottomless basket, in fact far from it, and that Bangladesh has passed the ‘test of development’ very well. It now puzzles its friendly critics as a case of ‘surprise’ or ‘paradox’ in development, particularly because of the fact that its economic and social development has not been matched or supported by the indicators of ‘good governance’. Although compared to some of its regional neighbours, Bangladesh has been a little tardy in its journey to economic progress, the country is now definitely in a growth track. The credit for such progress, must be gratefully acknowledged to the Father of the Nation, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who not only made Bangladesh a free land of the Bangalees, a reality but also laid the foundation to its development with the four fundamental principles of state policy. The framers (the legal and political experts) of the Constitution of the free country and the authors (all university professors) of the First 5-Year Plan deserve the credit for guiding the path to national development with dignity. Notwithstanding the many subsequent political adventures and adversaries, the country is on a path of steady growth, though not without major threats or challenges, natural and socio- political. In the little over four decades of independent political history, the economy of Bangladesh has undergone some radical shifts, from a predominantly agriculture based economy to an industrial and service based economy. The proportionate shares of contribution to the national economy from the agriculture and the non-agriculture sectors has simply reversed in the four decades, from 70% in agriculture in the early’ 70s, to less than 20% in the second decade of the present century. The gradual growth of the non-agricultural sector is almost synonymous with the growth of the urban sector, as non-agricultural activities largely take place in the urban areas, more particularly in the large metropolitan centres like Dhaka and Chittagong. The urban sector in Bangladesh is already responsible for over 65% of the GDP of the country (Asian Development Bank, 2011, City Cluster Economic Development: Bangladesh Case, Manila, 2010. P. 6), although in terms of its share of the national population (i.e., level of urbanization) it is less than 30%. Similarly Megacity Dhaka, with 13% of the population contributes at least 36% of the national GDP (Dr. Zahid Hassan, Lead Economist, World Bank, Dhaka in an Interview on Shomoy TV, 3 December, 2015). The economic importance of the urban sector is globally and historically recognized, similar is the case in Bangladesh. Urbanization is very much a driving force in the economic development in our country. The role of urbanization in social, political and cultural development is also an acknowledged fact. However, the same cannot be said about its impact on the environment-globally, regionally or even locally. True, too, is the fact that the impact of urbanization on economic, social and cultural development, is not necessarily all positive. There are obvious negative impacts too, specially, when urbanization takes place much too rapidly, in an unregulated manner, and under a poor governance system, it can have much undesirable results. Disparities and inequalities appear regionally, or spatially within the country, or even within a city. Class differences accentuate, when economic system is too free and too liberal (and far far from being socialist, as promised in the Constitution). Poverty and deprivation become realities along with growth and prosperity. ‘Rights’ of the poor or the not-so privileged, are more often than not, forgotten by the ‘movers’ and ‘shakers’ of economic growth and achievement. For both good reasons and for the bad, urbanization is a now a subject of serious attention including that of our own. In the present lecture, I will try to talk briefly about the nature of urbanization in Bangladesh and highlight the disparity issue on a broad national scale and also about urban poverty and the deprivations of the urban poor. An issue in the urban poverty discussion obviously is the ‘rights’ of the urban poor, such as their right to stay in the city, right to work for their livelihood, right to the basic needs and right to participate in democratic urban governance. I will focus more on the right to shelter. I do hope the lecture pays due respect to the memory of Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed, a great advocate of people’s rights and justice. I feel very honoured that I have been asked to speak by the Barrister Syed Ishtiaq Ahmed Memorial Foundation at the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh. I have chosen to speak on a theme I feel comfortable with and which is socially very relevant. Urbanization in Bangladesh: Recent Trends Historically known as a rural-agrarian country, Bangladesh today is experiencing rapid transformation towards an urban society. However, the style and nature of urbanization in Bangladesh are not necessarily similar to those in other countries. We are experiencing an extraordinary mix of urban-rural functions and traits m both metropolitan cities and rural towns as well as in villages. Bangladesh has a long urban history, possibly of over 2000 years, starting with Gangaridhi, Wari Bateswar, Mahasthan, Kotalipara and other places, but urbanization on a large scale is more a twentieth century phenomenon and more specifically a significant process since the liberation of Bangladesh. The urban population of Bangladesh was only 6.27 million in 1974 but grew to over 39 million in 2011. The urbanization level (meaning percentatge of population living in urban areas) has jumped from 8.78 percent to 27.66 percent in this period (Table 1, and BBS, 2014).Table 1: Trends of Urbanization in Bangladesh (1974-2011)Source: BBS, 2014The long run exponential growth rate of urban population over the period 1974-2011 has been 5.18 per cent, as against only 1.36 per cent of the rural population. This when seen in conjunction with the fact that in the period 1974-2011, the long run trend of growth of the total population has been only 2.18 per cent, gives an idea of the rapidity of the pace of urbanization. The urban rural growth differential in terms of the annual exponential growth rates has averaged a sizeable 4.25 per cent in the last 37 years illustrating the transformation of the country towards urbanization at a remarkable pace. Absolute increase in urban population outstripping that of rural population: For the first time in Bangladesh, the absolute increase in population in the decade 2001-11 is more in the urban areas than that in the rural areas.Table 2: Decadal Urban, Rural and Total absolute increases in population in million, 1974-2011Source: Mathur, Islam, Samanta and Shafi, 2013.This increase of 14.1 million persons to urban population during 2001-2011 is not only the highest registered thus far (by a huge margin) it is also higher than the increase of 12.5 million persons to rural population. This can be rightly said to be a turning point in Bangladesh’s demographical transition (Mathur, Islam, Samanta and Shafi,2013).From now on, population growth in Bangladesh is expected to be largely an urban phenomenon, and by 2047, 50 per cent of Bangladesh’s population is estimated to live in urban areas. Chart 1: Projected Rural and Urban Population: Bangladesh: 2011-2051Source: Mathur, Islam, Samanta and Shafi, 2013.The actual size of the urban population at that time would simply be staggering, being more than 120 million, and the national population even more so with nearly 240 million people. The implications of the massive size of the national population and that of the urban population are manifold and extremely critical and challenging. I am not quite certain if our policy makers, planners or even the intelligentian present in this auditorium are sufficiently concerned about the challenge. Components of Urban Growth: Rapid growth of the urban population in Bangladesh has taken place during the last four decades. The components of such rapid urban growth are i) A persistently high natural increase of native urban population, ii) The territorial extension of existing urban areas with conversion of rural centres to urban, iii) Re-definition of urban areas, and iv) Rural to urban migration. Migration, of course, has been the most dominant component of urban population growth. For large cities like Dhaka this share could be even higher, up to 60% among the heads of household. In a recent study of Korail, the largest slum in Dhaka with over 100,000 population, it has been found that nearly 100 percent of the heads of household were migrants (Ghosh, 2014). Migration is the combined effect of both push and pull factors and it is often difficult to separate the individual role in Bangladesh, where both these factors are operating simultaneously. Migrants responding to the positive factors at destination are always positively selected from the origin, whereas migrants responding to the negative factors at origin are always negatively selected from there (Islam and Saleheen, 2006). The push factors (at rural end) may be identified for Bangladesh as: a) Population pressure, adverse man-land ratio, landlessness and poverty; unemployment; b) Frequent and severe natural disasters like riverbank erosion, floods, and cyclones; c) Lack of adequate educational and health facilities; d) Lack of social and cultural opportunities; and e) Law and order situation; The pull factors are operative at the urban destination. Real or perceived job opportunities and higher wages in the city are the main causes of urban pull. Dhaka’s agglomeration economy for example provides diverse opportunities and hence, attract the rural outmigrants, both rich and poor. Besides the economic factors, social opportunities, particularly better educational facilities, are strong pull factors. Basically, the disparity in development between urban and rural areas, explain the massive rural to urban migration. Although Article 16 of our Constitution, pledges reduction of rural urban disparity, the reality is quite the contrary. Such disparity has in fact increased over time, although certain traditionally urban facilities and services are today available also in rural areas. Most notable of these being electricity, TV, Mobile phone and internet services. (To be continued)
