Untranquil Recollections: Nation Building in Post-Liberation Bangladesh

Rehman Sobhan was directly associated with Bangladesh’s liberation struggle. In this memoir, he provides an insightful, first-hand account of the challenges faced by the newly independent Bangladesh in the early years of its existence. This book attempts to capture the unique problems of reconstructing the war-devastated economy while building institutions from ground up for a nation which for 24 years had been run through a highly centralized system of colonial-style governance.  Untranquil Recollections gives special attention to the author’s involvement, as a Member of the Planning Commission, in addressing the problem of reconstruction while coping with the political challenges associated with building institutions, formulating economic policies and overseeing their implementation. The narrative attempts to identify the economic and political forces that were inimical to the radical direction of the national policy set by Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. The book concludes with a discussion of the dark events leading to Mujibur Rahman’s assassination along with his family and his closest political colleagues, which resulted in a change in the regime.

Table of Contents:
Preface Acknowledgements Introduction: Untranquil Recollections First Days in Liberated Bangladesh My First Exposure to Government The Political Leadership of the Planning Commission The Workings of the Planning Commission Discovering the Political Economy of Policymaking The Challenge of Delivering in the Five-year Plan Making the State Effective The Challenge of Improving the Performance of the Nationalized Sector My Return to Aid Diplomacy Laying the Foundations of Indo-Bangladesh Economic Relations The Gathering Storm Darkness at Noon: The Last Days of the Bangabandhu Era Recollections in Tranquility Index

About the Author :
Rehman Sobhan is a noted Bangladeshi economist and freedom fighter who played an active role in the Bangali national movement. He is currently the Chairman, Centre for Policy Dialogue, Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was educated at St. Paul’s School, Darjeeling; Aitchison College, Lahore; and the University of Cambridge. He was one of the several economists whose ideas influenced the 6-point programme of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, which became the basis for the struggle for self-rule for Bangladesh. A former Professor of Economics at Dhaka University, he has authored numerous books and articles on various developmental issues. The most recent of these, Challenging the Injustice of Poverty: Agendas for Inclusive Development in South Asia, was published by SAGE in 2010. He served the first Government of Bangladesh as Envoy Extraordinaire with special responsibility for Economic Affairs, during the Liberation War in 1971. He was a member of the first Bangladesh Planning Commission, and in the 1980s headed the premier development research facility, BIDS. In 1990–91, he became a Member of the Advisory Council of the President of Bangladesh in charge of the Ministry of Planning and the Economic Relations Division. In 1993, he founded and became the Chairman of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), one of Bangladesh’s most prestigious think tanks. He also headed the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS) from 2000 to 2005, one of the leading think tanks for promoting regional cooperation in South Asia.

Review :
This second volume of Rehman Sobhan’s memoirs spans four eventful years from 1972 to 1975 when an independent Bangladesh began life. For the author, it was a period that was preceded and followed by political exile from the country he loves. Its elegant prose and engaging narrative are oral history at its best from an activist, participant and witness to that era. It will be most valuable for readers in Bangladesh and South Asia as well as for those elsewhere who wish to understand the complexities of nation building. The third volume of his memoirs, spanning almost half a century since 1975, on the turbulent political evolution and impressive economic development of Bangladesh, through his eyes as a concerned citizen, is an exciting prospect. The first volume of Untranquil Recollections gave us a vivid account of Rehman Sobhan’s personal recollections of the liberation struggle in Bangladesh. From this volume, we can expect an equally vivid insider’s account of the first few years of the making of Bangladesh. At a time when Bangladesh’ s economic and social advance is being hailed, the publication of the second volume of Dr Rehman Sobhan’s memoirs is very timely. He was a pivotal policy figure in the 1970s and continued to be an influential scholar thereafter. This book is as much a rich personal narrative as it is a deep contribution to the understanding of a fascinating country that, even as it faces many challenges, has proved all prophets of gloom and doom wrong. ‘Witness and actor at the founding’ could be the title of this exciting story by one of the original architects of Bangladesh’s economy. This second volume, following the first on the struggle for Bangladesh’s independence, describes Rehman Sobhan’s experience as a member of the first Planning Commission that charted the early economy of Bangladesh. The memoir contains rich remembrances of challenges, issues, debates and actors that launched an independent Bangladesh. Especially illuminating is Sobhan’s description of the interfaces and interaction between economic and political leaders on national policies—linkage of theory and on-the-ground realities! Something must have been done right since Bangladesh’s GDP is now that of a middle-income country, having recently overtaken neighbouring India. Rehman Sobhan is a witness and vivid chronicler of one of the most tragic, turbulent and eventually triumphant episodes of the second half of the 20th century, the liberation struggle and the creation of the nation of Bangladesh. Sobhan played an important role in the independence movement, discussed in the first volume of these memoirs, and formulated economic policy for the Mujib government, which is the narrative of this present volume. This book describes the task of nation building in a country emerging from a searing trauma and shortly to be plunged into another crisis, whose many consequences endure to this day. Absorbing and essential reading for historians, economists and general readers. Rehman Sobhan is not just the most eminent social scientist in Bangladesh but, as we saw in Volume 1 of Untranquil Recollections, he can also write gripping accounts of important events. This second volume takes us inside the post-liberation government and provides a perceptive, compellingly readable assessment of the crucial drama that emerged. "This riveting memoir, well written and well published, with shafts of whimsical humour to lighten the sombre overall mood, is absolutely mandatory reading for anyone interested in the history of Bangladesh."