Is Bangladesh better than India now? | Dhruv Rathee - YouTube

Greetings, friends!

There was a time when we compared India to big, superpower countries

that one day, India would be able to compete with China and even surpass it in terms of economic growth

But the condition in 2020 is such that leave aside China, even countries like Bangladesh are faring far better than India

You must have heard about the latest IMF projections

The GDP per capita (that is, GDP per person) of Bangladesh is going to rise above India's GDP per capita

IMF has projected that this will happen by the end of the year

And this is just one data. The reality today is that Bangladesh has left India behind in several parameters

or is set to do so

Bangladesh, today, is setting a very great example for its neighboring countries on how development can really be achieved

How did this become possible?

How was Bangladesh able to forge ahead while India was busy dreaming about becoming a superpower by 2020?

What are the things that we can learn from Bangladesh?

Come, let us find it out in today's video

Let us talk about the IMF projections in detail because it throws up some very interesting things

IMF has said that by the end of 2020, the per capita GDP of Bangladesh will be higher than that of India

But IMF has also projected that in 2021, the per capita GDP of India will overtake that of Bangladesh again

2,030 dollars as compared to 1,989 dollars

Those who support the government concentrate on this part and claim that this is a short term phenomenon and we will be ahead again in future

But IMF has made projections of times even later than that

They have said that India's growth will not be sustained after 2021

Because in 2024, the per capita GDP of Bangladesh would again overtake that of India's and then would maintain its lead after that

Some would say that it would be incorrect to blame the government for this because this situation was a result of the corona virus

India is a very populated country and so corona virus spread more rampantly and hence India was more affected

But let me tell you one thing- Bangladesh is no less populated than India

Infact, Bangladesh is India's most densely populated country- three times more densely populated than India

So, according to that logic, corona virus should have spread faster in Bangladesh and should have affected them even worse

But while the projection of India's GDP due to corona virus is at -10%, the projection of Bangladesh's GDP due to corona virus is +4%!

India is not the only one facing the brunt of corona virus. Bangladesh had to face it too, but the latter is still in a better situation than India

As a matter of fact, let me tell you, five years ago, India’s per capita income was 40 per cent higher than Bangladesh’s.

40 per cent!

Just imagine- in these 5 years, so much must have gone wrong for India and so much must have gone right for Bangladesh

for such a situation to be created

There was a complete over turn within 5 years

We are not going to talk about what India did wrong in this video- I have already done that in the previous videos

And some people might start with their rant that Modiji has not done anything wrong and he must have a motive behind everything he's done

Therefore, in this video, I am only going to talk about what Bangladesh did right and what we can learn from it

GDP is just one indicator to judge how good the economic growth of a country is, in comparison to another country

and what the income and the quality of life of the people is- but that is not enough

We need to look at more indicators to come to a better conclusion

Female literacy-

What percentage of women in the country know how to read and write and have completed first 5 years of primary education?

According to a 2018 research, this statistic in India stands at 48%

Only 48% women in India, had completed five years of primary education

as compared to 92% in Nepal, 74% in Pakistan and 54% in Bangladesh

Life expectancy

On average, for how many years do the people in the country live?

This is a good indicator to judge the healthcare system of the country

and how it is affecting the people and whether the people are benefiting from it or not

An average Bangladeshi lives 3 years longer than an average Indian.

Life expectancy for males and females in Bangladesh is 71 and 74 respectively

In India, the corresponding figure is 67 and 70.

Infant mortality rate- another good indicator to judge the healthcare system of the country

How many children in the country die within one year of being born?

In India, this rate is 29.9 deaths per 1,000 live births

This figure is lower in Bangladesh- 22.1 deaths per 1,000 live births

So, it could be said that the healthcare system of Bangladesh is performing better than that of India

Another good indicator is the literacy rate

What percentage of people in the country are literate?

While India has a literacy rate of 74.4%., Bangladesh has a literacy rate of 73.9%

India is slightly ahead of Bangladesh

But the female literacy rate of Bangladesh is much higher than that of India

I told you that Bangladesh is very densely populated , but despite that, the fertility rate of Bangladesh

that is, on average how many children does a woman bear?

has reached the replacement level. Replacement level is the fertility rate

that once a country achieves it, then its population stops growing after a few years

and the population growth would touch zero after some time

Global Hunger Index, which judges the hunger of the people living in a country,

India ranked 94 among 107 nations in the Global Hunger Index 2020, making it one of the most bottom countries on the list

While Bangladesh is ranked at 75 on the same index of 2020

which is way ahead than India. Fewer people are dying of hunger in Bangladesh

Even on the 2019 World Happiness Index, Bangladesh scores better than India.

Bangladesh is ranked at 125, while India is ranked at 140

So, on average, the people living in Bangladesh are happier than the people living in India

Another shocking indicator which has a wide disparity is female labour participation

that is, how many women are engaged in work?

In India, this rate used to be higher, around 30% in the 1990s

This rate has fallen to 20% in India today

The exact opposite happened in Bangladesh- earlier it was 20% and now, it has crossed even 30%

Bangladesh has been consistently outperforming India as far as women empowerment and upliftment is concerned

According to a UNDP report, 2016, Bangladeshi women have higher average incomes than their Indian counterparts

At the same time, the unemployment rate in Bangladesh is better off at around 5% while in India it is around 8.5%

There are fewer unemployed people in Bangladesh as a percentage of their population as compared to India

Be it unemployment, women empowerment life expectancy or economic growth,

Bangladesh either already has become or is steadily becoming more developed than India in almost all of the indicators

What's surprising is that Bangladesh used to be far poorer than India, just 20 years ago

India got its independence in 1947, while Bangladesh got its independence in 1971 and that too, with India’s help.

Right after its fight for independence, Bangladesh registered a tremendous economic crash

The country’s GDP growth rate in 1972 was recorded at negative 14 per cent.

Two years later, Bangladesh faced a catastrophic famine, which killed an estimated 1.5 million people

The ensuing economic crash saw the GDP growth rate slip to a negative 4 per cent.

For the most part,in every chart comparing the two- India was always ahead of Bangladesh

But India picked up pace in the last 5-10 years and is now competing with India

How did this become possible?

One of the main reasons for this is that Bangladesh focused on getting the women out of the houses and providing them employment

A key driver of growth of Bangladesh was their garment industry

You might come across a lot of "made in Bangladesh" clothes these days

Women workforce was employed to run this garment industry

The women were employed

In 2017, Bangladesh was the world’s second-largest apparel supplier after China

occupying 6.5 percent of the market, outpacing even India

Take a look at the following chart, which compares India and Bangladesh’s garment exports

Second- Bangladesh focused on its Manufacturing sector. They decided to manufacture things within their own country

and export to the other countries

Bangladesh’s GDP growth is led by the industrial sector, followed by the services sector- which created a lot of jobs

India tried to do this too, but failed to

That is, it could not match the level of Bangladesh

Today, in Bangladesh, 39.4% of the country’s employment is in the services sector

against India’s 31.5%.

In India, a huge portion of the population is still dependent on agricultural sector

Next- Bangladesh focussed on its basics- healthcare, sanitation, financial inclusion, and women’s political representation.

While India and Pakistan were busy fighting in the name of religion and nationalism

and their media was busy in distracting the, Bangladesh on the other hand,

it focussed on important things and overtook both of them

But it is not that it has not flourished in the field of agriculture

Bangladesh also focussed on its agricultural sector. It is fast-moving to achieve self-sufficiency in food production

producing 41.3 million ton (MT) in FY18 against the target of 41.57 MT.

When a country focusses on its basics like healthcare and education, then its effects begin to be seen on the population as well

The population growth rate declines. If people are educated, they would realise that they need not have so many children

If healthcare facilities are good then the infant mortality rate would drop

this would also cause the population growth rate

While people in India were squabbling about whether Hindus should produce more children or Muslims should

Bangladesh, on the other hand, brought its population down so much so that their fertility rate today is beneath the replacement level

Credit also goes to Nobel Prize winner Muhammad Yunus who founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh

This was the key driver in the micro-finance revolution

which gave collateral-free small loans, predominantly to the poor and especially to women.

and the loans were used for household micro-enterprises like dairy, poultry, farming, handicrafts.

They set up their small businesses. The repayment rates were more than 99 per cent

Compare this to our country- the rich billionaires take loans, flee the country and the loans are never repaid

Credit must also be given NGOs for the turnaround in Bangladesh’s fortunes

Non-government organisations have played a critical and complementary role to the state in reducing poverty

and in expanding social and economic opportunities for a vast majority of Bangladeshis.

Compare this to what is happening with NGOs in India

They are being targeted and called anti national

The government is passing laws that makes it difficult for NGOs to function in India

The media also creates an image that all NGOs are anti national and their ulterior motive is to convert people to Christianity

and that they should be thrown out as there is no need for them in the country

But no country can run without the aid of NGOs

The government cannot single handedly ensure development

You can read the school NCERT books to read about how important NGOs are for the development of a country

These are some positive things in which we can take inspiration from countries like Bangladesh

and can learn from them

I'm not saying that Bangladesh has definitely become a better developed country than India, but

Bangladesh has definitely surpassed India in some respects

where India needs to learn from it, for sure

But every coin has two sides- there are some aspects in which India is better than Bangladesh

For example, the press Freedom Index

The media in Bangladesh is worse than Indian media

Their press Freedom Index is worse than India's

Several incidents have been seen in which Bangladesh has clamped down on freedom of speech

The public does not have freedom to criticize the government

But that's for another video. If you liked this video, then share it

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I hope you would have liked this video. We will meet again in the next video

Thank you