Paradox of rural development in Bangladesh: A focus on poverty alleviation and triangular policy manipulation

This paper is about the dynamics of rural development in Bangladesh. The purpose of this paper is to epitomize the scenario of manipulative design in the presence of three influential policy actors, such as bureaucracy, political leadership and tycoons.

Political economy approach has been followed, by and large, to epitomize the dimension of exploitation and manipulation at the micro level. Secondary data were used for the purpose. Also, the author used his understanding of the dynamics of rural development.

Under the circumstances, it seems difficult for the incumbents on the supply side to break the “political vicious circle” protecting the rights of the peasants through projected safety nets against the domineering political and economic forces. When such forces coalesce to render distribution process all but skewed, the market as a socially construed mechanism functions to drain the surplus from the rural to the metropolitan areas. A similar situation exists in India, where sweeping changes of the social action by action from above were squandered, despite repeated ideological assertions of the policy makers for developing a socialistic pattern of economy. This is due largely to the lack of explicit political commitment and the domination of the propertied class over political leadership. Elitist orientation of bureaucracy, with its close linkage with the local elite, is responsible for making things worse. On the one hand, the hidden subsidies on food and other inputs are phased out in rural Bangladesh. On the other hand, a major percentage of aid funds earmarked for poverty alleviation is absorbed in paying high salaries to project consultants – both local and foreign – and defraying the cost of contracting the project/sub‐projects through underhand deals with bureaucratic incumbents. Only a small percentage is spent on the target beneficiaries.

The research is original, intended to address the issues that have not been addressed before. The author has tried to fill the gap in the state of knowledge about rural socio‐political formation, with emphasis on what is wrong with malfeasance in governance, which accounts for much triangular manipulation and corruption.