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The changes in the urban landscape go mostly unnoticed compared to that in villages, especially in developing countries. The overall village scene appears with a new look after even minor changes occurring there. The rural look in Bangladesh has undergone radical transformations in the last 3-4 decades. Prior to this period, the villages virtually remained stuck in time, one that does not move.
Even the period shortly after the independence of Bangladesh has not seen much perceptible change in the rural panorama. The leftovers of the past squalor from colonial and neo-colonial rules still pervaded the scene. The rural masses were trapped in extreme poverty, economic hardship and scores of deprivations coupled with deep-seated helplessness. Feuds sparked by irrational acrimony and desperation ruled the roost, so did suspicion and the tendency to become spiteful for petty reasons. The days of these maladies were a reality in the period spanning from the 1970s to the 1980s.
In the days before independence, the chronic poverty in the country's villages comprised a dominant place among the common rural features. To the newer generations in the second decade of the 21st century many earlier rural scenes might seem incredible. During winters these days hardly any poor villager is found shivering in cold due to the dearth of warm clothing. Yet the whole season of winter used to be seen wear away with most of the villagers enduring the bite of cold. People wrapped in thin woolen shawl or wearing a shirt and shoes would be considered lucky or privileged. The elders' common winter wear in those days generally included a worn-out cotton 'chadar' and lungi. Most of them moved barefoot outside their homes, with an earthen pot filled with simmering bran ashes (Ailla) in their lap. Few small children owned a shirt. They would be found covered from ankle to neck with the lungis of their fathers or other elders. The upper end of the improvised winter garment remained tied in a knot at the neck. The thatched or mud-built huts were ramshackle, virtually ineffective in blocking the chilly air.
Winter in most of today's Bangladesh villages is full of colours, not much different from the urban spectacles. Males wearing coats, jackets and pullovers, women covered in fancifully designed shawls are a common view. In many rural areas, makeshift dwellings have been replaced by houses built with corrugated iron sheets. These are interspersed by brick-built buildings.
Bangladesh villages nowadays stand witness to the fruits of independence, which is more evident than seen in the cities. Many rural areas were once highly inaccessible. These swathes are now impressively complete with concrete roads, bridges and modern-style marketplaces. Apart from the previously unknown canned foods, racks in shops are filled with myriad types of fancy products. There are few urban-centred products which are not available at markets close to the cities. In fact, the overall view is one of solvency, leading to a radical uplift in the standard of life.
Even in the 1980s villages would be seen enveloped in darkness both in realistic and figurative senses. Rural electrification has triggered a revolution in the lifestyle of the villagers. Rural areas shining with electric lights are a normal scene these days. However, rural electrification authorities have yet to bring under its coverage all villages in the country. The gap has considerably been filled by solar power, which is now found in scores of remote areas.
The most noticeable feature that stands out in the changed look of villages is their progress in education. Illiteracy, accompanied by hundreds of social inhibitions and orthodoxies, was once inextricably linked to our villages. Thanks to the relentless efforts by successive governments and non-government organisations, literacy rate in the country has been on a steady upward trajectory. Owing to occasional confusions over policy and laidback attitude towards literacy by some administrations, the activities geared towards this national imperative have faltered at times. But the social forces remained committed to their goal, with boosts coming from a few populist governments. Villages in Bangladesh are now found immersed in the light of education at primary and secondary levels. Compared to the male children, the achievements made by girls appear to be striking. The scourge of marrying off under-aged girls still haunts the rural society; yet school education of girls appears to have taken root with potential force that has led to a remarkable decline in the tradition-dictated practice: child marriage.
This apart, the womenfolk in today's Bangladesh are increasingly learning how to speak up. This has resulted in the women becoming self-reliant financially. Female entrepreneurship, though mostly amateurish in nature, in the villages is a common phenomenon. The most significant mantra of women's liberation manifests itself in the widely available microcredit. In spite of its stringent regulations, the microcredit as a key to women's socio-economic uplift has taken off, and quite spectacularly at that.
The villages in Bangladesh in the past would stand for anything that doesn't move. They used to be equated with 'primitivism' and everything that takes nourishment from the darker sides of centuries-old tradition and heritage. This phase is fast receding into past. Villages in the country appear to have walked into an unexpected state of serendipity, with technological wonders one after another unfolding before them. Although the transistor radio was not too strange to affluent villagers in the immediate past, the later-day marvel of television entered the rural scenario with enormous potential for casting a spell on them. The people continue to be spell-bound with digital wonders, the most notably the mobile phone, coming within their easy reach. In the localities where the very electric light was a magic of sorts thirty to forty years ago, watching youths talking over smart phones or giving 'likes' on a Facebook post reminds one of a wholesale social transformation.
Spanning from the day-to-day life to the broader sectors of agriculture and other economic activities, the Bangladesh villages have long entered the phase of a revolution. One might call it by a different name, but he or she is set to admit the changes occurring around them. Even the rural feuds have changed their old style. In place of bruised ego or recrimination, the fracas or fierce encounters are nowadays caused by reasons with root in socio-political disagreements. They are, on occasions, accompanied by a lot of menaces and vices encroaching on the values-bound rural society.
The popular view that the agro-based greater Bengal was a land of utopian happiness and contentment in the past is still a subject of debate. Many historians rule out the very notion of the proverbial Golden Bengal. Others locate this state of society faintly in the medieval times. As per records, poverty had been synonymous with Bengal since ancient periods. Many colonial East India and British government officials portrayed Bengal, especially today's Bangladesh, as a land plagued by perennial poverty. The great Bengalee poet Rabindranath Tagore chronicled this wretched state of the then East Bengal villages in his letters written from areas under the jurisdiction of his ancestral 'zeminderi'. As many put it, despite the onslaughts of poverty and deprivations, Bangladesh had been a land of peace since the ancient times. They blame the desperate quest for material happiness for the eventual petering-out of peace. The modern-day consumerists will, however, dismiss the argument as simplistic, especially in this juncture of the 21st century. As a pragmatic way out, many might suggest going for a humble and self-reliant life as advocated by the proponents of 'people's economy' like Gandhi and economist E.F. Scumacher.