When it comes to the people's republic of Bangladesh, a country in southern Asia, most people will think of two words: poverty!
Just look at his neighboring countries, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Nibor, etc., are all underdeveloped and poor countries that everyone remembers.
Bangladesh was for a long time one of the poorest countries in the world, with GDP per capita not exceeding $800 until 2010.
Map of the world
But in fact they were once brilliant, and Bangladesh was the most economically developed of the southern Asian countries in the seventeenth century
Some historians even believe that the living standards and real wages of the inhabitants of this area can be called the world's first train.
So what happened in these hundreds of years has caused such a land that even God envies to decay!
Bangladesh Club Building
OK！ Let's start with a brief overview of the country's basics
To be precise, Bengal refers to an area mostly the Ganges Delta, which is divided into east and west sides
The west is called West Bengal, a state of India, and to the east is our protagonist Bangladesh
The land area of this country is about the size of our domestic Anhui Province
But with a population of as many as 1.6 billion people, it is one of the most densely populated countries in the world
The local natural resources are relatively rich, in addition to the land plains suitable for farming, there are also natural gas and coal and other energy minerals
But because of imperfect overall social planning, the United Nations has been ranking Bangladesh as one of the poorest countries for many years
They have a well-known scene called "Hanging Train" that reflects the local densely populated characteristics
When the Islamic Eid is approaching, a large number of Bangladeshi people will take a train back to their hometown for the festival, but what if the train is not enough?
People were seen climbing on top of the train, or standing on both sides of the train, and the whole train was full of people carrying weights.
Bangladesh's overwhelmed trains
Although they have alleviated many poverty problems in recent years with the development of the economy
However, in monastic big cities such as Dhaka
You'll still see dirty streets and extremely congested traffic
Outside the big cities, the local population suffers more from poverty
How serious is their current poverty problem?
Statistics show that 20% of the urban population of Bangladesh still live under poverty restrictions
Bengalis living in slums
As for rural areas, more than 30% have a chronic lack of food, education and medical resources
Even the paving of the roads is not perfect
In addition, 30% of the rural population is considered moderately poor
This means that although they own a small piece of land, the food still cannot meet the health needs
Now Bangladesh is trying to find a way to get out of the quagmire of poverty
Congested street traffic in Bangladesh
But if you turn back the clock to the seventeenth century
It is the promised land that even Europeans envy
This land arose early on because of the harbor trade
It reached its peak during the reign of the Mughal Empire
This Mughal Empire was created by the descendants of Genghis Khan's family
In Arabic it means Mongolia
In their heyday, their territory covered almost the entire region of South Asia
Territory of the Yuan Dynasty
And in the vast territory of the Mughal Empire, there is a place that is known as the head of all nations
This place is the area of present-day Bengal
Around the seventeenth century
The Mughal Empire ruled the Bengal region
They reformed local agriculture
A metropolis was also built
As the trading center of the Muslim world
This metropolis is now Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh
Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh
Bengal at that time was the richest province in the entire empire
It is also a major global trade exporter
Rich in cotton, cotton, silk, steel and shipbuilding, it is a world-renowned manufacturing center
Some experts even estimate that the living standards and real wages of Bangladeshi residents at that time were among the highest in the world
Local output accounted for 12% of global GDP at one time.
Crowds of people in the streets
Such a world-class city is ultimately invincible to the turmoil of the times
In the 18th century, Bangladesh was in a state of substantial independence, and its economy was still strong
But a bizarre war of 1757 turned the fate of the region around, called the Battle of Placi
When the British East India Company started a war with Menga, when the battle began, Bangladesh looked quite strong
Fifteen thousand cavalry and thirty-five thousand infantry, as well as Britain's sworn enemy France, secretly sent them 53 cannons and professional gunners, compared with less than 1,000 British soldiers and 2,000 Indian soldiers, plus 9 cannons
It seems that Britain will lose the battle in the far East
But in just one day of war, several strange things happened that reversed the tide of the war
The first was that the Bengal generals absconded with their troops, which seriously damaged their morale
The second thing is that France has become a pig teammate, not only the range of the cannon is not as far as britain, but the gunner is also because he did not help the cannon to cover the rain.
Resulting in a no-launch at all
As a result, Britain won a beautiful victory and occupied the country of nations
During the British rule, due to the use of local revenue to invest in their own country's industrial revolution, the result was that the Bangladesh textile industry was deindustrialization due to insufficient investment funds, technological strength did not rise, and the phenomenon of deindustrialization occurred
In addition, poor management in Britain, coupled with natural disasters such as smallpox and drought, led to the Great Famine in Bengal in 1770
An estimated 1 million to 10 million people died, and the chaos led to a local rebellion in the early 19th century
Although the British later changed their ruling policies, they built electricity and water systems in the area, opened large seaports, and laid railways that were considered quite early in Asia
But that didn't bring Bangladesh back to glory. And soon another big thing happened, forming today's Bangladesh
Water levels in Bangladesh continue to rise during the rainy season
In the vast southern region of Asia, where there were Hindus and Muslims, the British had been unable to find a way to deal with the antagonism between religions
As a result, in 1947, British India disintegrated and split into the Union of India and the Autonomous Territories of Pakistan.
The western part of the Bengal region was owned by India, which is today the Indian state of West Bengal
To the east, it is part of the autonomous territory of Pakistan
Friends who are familiar with the history of the world will know that if the division of political territories does not refer to peoples and cultures, then struggles will surely follow
Bangladesh is also one of the birthplaces of Mahayana Buddhism
This is the case with the Government of Bangladesh and Pakistan
In 1971, Bangladesh declared its independence, and India followed suit in the Civil War, where Bengalis were severely persecuted
Many high intellectuals were killed or fled their homes, and eventually Bangladesh was successfully established as a republic
But because the country was founded in the midst of war, the political situation was quite unstable, first the first president was killed by coup soldiers, and then the successor president was also killed, and the vicious struggle between the political party and the military continued, and it was almost until 2010 that the local politics was relatively stable
Aerial photo of dhaka river port
In addition, the dense local population and lack of industrial technology made them dubbed "international wastewood" by the United States at the beginning of independence.
It was not until the political stability that the local economy was given the opportunity to develop, and Bangladesh went from prosperity to colonization, and then from colonization to post-independence political turmoil, which is finally picking up again today
First, per capita GDP quietly surpassed India, and the United Nations officially separated from the world's 46 least developed countries through Bangladesh, Laos and Nepal last year
The reason why Bangladesh has made progress has been analyzed by domestic university scholars: the key lies in their learning from the rise models of some Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea
The development model of these countries is basically export-oriented policies
Scenes of Bengali prayer
Generally speaking, it can be divided into three parts: the establishment of processing export zones, the attraction of foreign investment and the development of light industry
Experts pointed out that after Independence, Bangladesh nationalized many industries and implemented a planned economy, but the effect of the planned economy was not good
So the Bangladeshi government began economic reforms, but as I said, the politics in Bangladesh were too chaotic, and the economic reforms were very slow
It was not until 1980 that a processing and export zone was established, and in 1982, an export-oriented policy was launched, and the textile industry was developed in cooperation with Korean companies
People working in factories in Bangladesh
Due to the cheap local labor and convenient location, Bangladesh's textile industry has soared, and it is now one of the world's top textile exporters, attracting many foreign investors
On the one hand, Bangladesh still has the problem of poverty, but on the other hand, its economic growth performance is indeed not bad
The case of Bangladesh can also answer another question, which is why poverty is widespread in countries such as Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam in the southern Asian countries
Spreading out the per capita GDP of laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, Bangladesh and other countries in southern Asia, few countries can exceed ten thousand US dollars
It is widely accepted that the main cause of these povertys is political instability
Political tensions and even civil wars are common in most South Asian countries
Bangladeshi policewoman
The story of Bangladesh teaches us that political unrest, on the one hand, leads to the inability of economic policy to advance
On the other hand, it will lead to the inability of people to receive normal education, and the horror is that poverty is both the cause of lack of education
It is also the result of a lack of education, and the lack of education of the people will prevent them from obtaining high-paying jobs
Moreover, the state does not have a highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce, thereby reducing the attractiveness of foreign investment
Dragging down economic growth is the biggest dilemma in Bangladesh and these southern countries right now
In addition, the poverty of these countries is also related to the history of colonization, although the colonial government has brought opportunities for modernization to the local area
But the colonial economy often has its after-effects, such as Britain's focus on cash crops in Bangladesh
Traditional Bengali wedding
This led to uneven industrial development or the hollowing out of local economic output by the British in Bangladesh and India
As a result, the colonized powers lost the impetus to grow
Studies have found that the total amount of money that the British plundered from India during the colonial period was at least tens of trillion dollars
In addition, the colonial powers were not familiar with the local humanities and had to divide the administrative districts, which resulted in laying the fuse of regional conflicts
This phenomenon occurs not only in the southern Asian countries, but also in the Middle East, which is the reason for the slow development of the region