A city's growth in historical perspective

The development spree that the city of Dhaka is passing through in the recent years might elude the average Dhaka dwellers. But the spectacular views cannot evade the sharp observers. Compared to the period a few decades ago, the 400-year-old city in the 21st century shows signs and emblems of all-round progress. The forward march of the capital of the 16th century Subah Bengal, has been etched out on the pages of history. Despite being the capital of a humbly placed country in the world map, the historic city of Dhaka enjoys a unique status thanks to the turbulent times it has passed through. These phases have visited it since its birth as an independent nation 52 years ago. Its background played a great role in its early emergence as a distinctive socio-political and cultural entity. The stage Bangladesh has reached in the 21st century speaks about an unbeatable spirit of the nation, its capital in particular.

The changes Dhaka has undergone over the decades are no humble ones. They become clear after their comparison with those of the times in the 1940s to 1950s. Those were the decades passed under the façade of 'independence' under the Pakistani oligarchic rule. A phase of turbulent history and a people's movement followed, which ended in the 1971 Liberation War and the independence of Bangladesh.

The fact that Dhaka is a city with enormous prospects showed faint signs in the 1990s. Those started materialising in a couple of decades. Focusing on a field belonging to urban development, the policymakers of the time put emphasis on the communication infrastructure. Against the near-installation of these infrastructures, the optimist segments can only look forward to many a massive communication means like Dhaka's Uttara-Motijheel elevated metro rail project (MRT-6) which is likely to roll in next October. Prior to it, the Airport-Farmgate segment of the 19.73 km Dhaka Elevated Expressway is set to open in September. Its three-phase installation will include Airport-Banani Railway Station, Banani Station-Moghbazar Level Crossing and Moghbazar Crossing-Kutubkhali. For a city that remains veritably crippled with traffic gridlocks, the metro rail and the elevated expressway will serve as two grand remedies. The traffic jams and tailbacks have been afflicting Dhaka commutes since the 1980s. The travels became unbearably time-consuming, and they continued to kill precious working hours.

People moving between different destinations within the Dhaka metropolis at one point made them feel they had reached their tether's end. Despite being caught in a seemingly chronic traffic quagmire, the Uttara-Dhaka bus-riding commuters and others on roads in different city parts had to put up with this plight of theirs for long. The 20.10 km Uttara-Motijheel travels have been declared to take 40 minutes for each trip. The traditional commutes on the route normally take two to two-and-half hours at rush time. The government has plans to set up a citywide broad network of elevated metro rail and underground subway. People aware of the government's ambitious projects eagerly look forward to these communication projects.

To most of the average people, the fruits of these and other new frontiers in Dhaka's communication plans remain elusive. But those with foresight remain optimistic about the city's all-round development in the coming days. They predict that the tense situation prevailing in the socio-political areas in the present Bangladesh, especially in its capital Dhaka, is set to be over in the near future. Thanks to the world's prime focus being drawn to trade and commerce, and also increased industrial growth, the country will be busy tuning away from hostilities and divisiveness. With this remarkable change in the national character, Bangladesh will presumably emerge as an economy-centric nation. The setting up of trade and commerce-related entrepreneurship and industrial ventures stands proof to this new national character. Apart from the massive communication infrastructure, the city of Dhaka has been seeing how high-rise commercial and residential buildings have started changing the capital's skyline. Given the frenzied competition of dwarfing others in buildings' height, town-planners have started warning of a catastrophic turn of things in the future. Given the present situation, the burst of development and urbanisation runs the risk of going out of control. It calls for enforcement of restrictive rules, which can effectively cope with the building of high-rise structures without proper planning.

The urban growth of Dhaka began tentatively in the then East Pakistan in the late 1940s. It gained speed in the early 1950s. But a veiled hostility towards the city, and East Bengal and its people, didn't remain hidden. It finally burst out in the great Language Movement of 1952. However, the great prospects for Bangladesh notwithstanding, the land had continued to remain a victim of circumstances. It started with the shifting of Subah Bangla's capital to Murshidabad from Dhaka in 1704. The capital remained there till 1772, Nawab Murshid Kuli Khan being the architect of the change in the Bengal capital's venue. Murshidabad remained the capital of Bengal for 68 long years. The event was the first blow dealt to the dignity and importance of Bengal.

Time has played some other unwarranted tricks in the making of Bangladesh history. It began with the start of the process of making Bangladesh a separate independent land. A section of Bengalee leaders, both Muslim and Hindu, expressed their camaraderie on the question of an independent Bengal. But the insidious creeping of communal feelings later led to premature demise of the dream of United Sovereign Bengal. In fact, the pan-Indian leaders in the 1940s were too busy with the creation of the two states of Pakistan and India to give serious thoughts to the case for Bengal. Afterwards, the part of East Bengal, later East Pakistan and followed by Bangladesh, became the reality. However, sincere and last-ditch efforts taken by some Bengalee leaders to create a separate land of Bengal, apart from Pakistan and India, ended in futility. The whole plan was termed too late. Prior to these efforts, the British rulers' 1905 plan for the independence of Bengal by creating a Bengal Province ended in failure. Under the plan, East Bengal was earmarked as an autonomous territory with Dhaka being the administrative centre. The people of East Bengal warmly welcomed the British initiative to the vehement opposition voiced by the people elsewhere in Bengal. After a protracted period of unrest over the Partition of Bengal, the plan was shelved. East Bengal had to accept Kolkata as their administrative centre, thus sacrificing, unwillingly, the dream of seeing Dhaka as its capital. The later part of this historical process came to be known as the Annulment of Bengal Partition. Regional historians are divided over the losses and gains on the part of the East Bengal people in the long process of the execution of Bengal Partition and its Annulment.

After the creation of the two-wing Pakistan in 1947, the non-Bengalee Pakistani rulers showed their ugly, exploitative face to the people in East Pakistan. The political, economic and social oppression continued unabated till the emergence of East Pakistan as sovereign Bangladesh in 1971. The birth of Bangladesh along with its capital Dhaka is a watershed in the South Asian perspective. Thanks to the perseverance coupled with resoluteness demonstrated by the capital Dhaka, the city stands out among the fast emerging megacities.

shihabskr@ymail.com