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The rural-urban divide has always favoured towns and cities ever since human civilisation invented urbanisation as a way of life. It is because of this, the transition from an agrarian society to a manufacturing or industrial one was a giant leap for mankind to increase productivity and return on investments. The July-August uprising that began as an anti-quota movement ultimately made non-discrimination its cardinal point to master popular support and mass participation. Fair enough, but waging a war on discrimination is not necessarily a campaign for removal of existing socio-economic disparities.
In fact, non-discrimination refers to opening equal opportunities for all. But the crux of the problem concerns the point at which the opportunities are opened for all to avail of. Disparities in wealth distribution over decades and centuries have polarised society not only in this part of the world but also all across the globe. Yet the more developed nations have taken up social welfare programmes aimed at bridging inequality gap to a level where even the lowest segments of people can lead a modest life. The more unequal among them could do so by the resources they plundered from their colonies in Asia and Africa. Equal opportunities for such societies prove meaningful but not for the likes of Bangladesh where yawning disparities leave a significant proportion of people a hard choice for struggling to survive.
Those who are way behind and are discriminated against within a society riven by inequality find themselves in a vicious cycle of poverty, illiteracy and deprivation. Discrimination within discrimination has caused outrageous disparities in society. The most important question is, from where to start the fight against discrimination? Victims of endemic disparities cannot avail of the opportunities made accessible to all because of their all-encompassing backwardness. But disparities of different shapes and sizes have encumbered social progress. The first of the kinds to strike is household income disparity, localised or regional disparity, rural-urban disparity, gender-based financial and other discriminations etc. All forms of discrimination have their adverse impacts on society. Without bringing disparities down to a tolerable level, creation of equal opportunities can never serve the economic justice so crucial for building an equalitarian, prosperous and peaceful society.
Although successive governments have preached about bringing down or even eliminating disparities with the deposed one showcasing the country's fulfilling criteria for graduation to a developing country by 2026, in reality disparities widened. Economists and social scientists are also unanimous that industrialisation, export-oriented manufacturing and service sector have spurred the urban areas' economic growth over the past decades and rural Bangladesh has largely remained dependent on agriculture ---a sector that employs 40 per cent of labour force and contributes about 13 per cent of the GDP. A Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) survey carried out in 2022 found that the richest 10 per cent of the population have at their disposal 41 per cent of the nation's total income while the poorest 10 per cent have to be satisfied with a meagre 1.31 per cent.
The World Bank's observation also corroborates the fact. Per capita income in rural areas is nearly half that of metropolitan areas. Now this is a thorn in the neck of this country. The income inequality is endemic, made so or even acuter at a time of wealth creation over the past three decades with systemic distortion and weakness of administration and ill use of the demographic resource perpetuated by mindless politics. All such statistical analyses have missed a positive development in the country's rural setting. This is the extraordinary initiatives that rural people have taken to ameliorate their lot.
Reports of perishing lives of Bangladeshi youths in sea off the coast of Libya and Tunisia are more than enough to melt many hearts but social scientists and policymakers have hardly given enough thought to this phenomenon. Why do the youths embark on such an illegal and perilous expedition knowing full well how dangerous it can be? It is because in the absence of either qualification or opportunities, they follow in the path of those who have somehow successfully migrated to their desired destinations and are sending money home.
Do researchers know of any village from which as many as 30 young men have migrated to South Korea? Perhaps not. Well, these youths migrated legally and each one of them earn no less than Tk0.3 million a month. This means a village of 4,000-4,500 inhabitants receives remittance to the tune of Tk 7.5 million a month. That village focussed on the right kind of technical education and preparation for migration to that wealthy South-east Asian country.
The contention here is that if a village can plan for targeted migration, why cannot the government do so with resources at its disposal? Let it be recorded that the remittance received has boosted construction of buildings in that village and other neighbouring ones which also took the advantage of similar migration. The inflow of money has not only improved the living quarters in the shape of one-storey or two-storey buildings with almost all possible facilities inside but also spurred local trade and consumption pattern in the area.
So, it is important to create the right environment for youths to acquire the required education and right sets of skills for the countries they want to migrate to so that their desperation does not imperil their lives in the Mediterranean sea or elsewhere. If the disparities in education, health care and financial services facing villages are narrowed down, rural youths can prove their productivity and contribute far more to the country's economic development.