Speakers at a programme on Saturday emphasised that rebuilding Bangladesh after the fall of the authoritarian regime requires urgent focus on reform, and empowering new class of people to support the reform for July-uprising aspiring Bangladesh.
They said empowering small and medium enterprises (SMEs), entrepreneurial initiatives, and grassroots economic actors-key to both equitable growth and long-term democratic stability.
Addressing a packed auditorium of activists, students, professionals, and reform advocates, they stressed that the extreme concentration of economic power under the 15-year Awami League regime not only distorted markets and excluded value-generating small businesses but also facilitated political repression by consolidating economic and political control within powerful informal networks.
They came up with the observations at a multi-stakeholder dialogue styled “Democratic Transition and Institutional Erosion in Bangladesh: What’s the Way Forward” organised by The Dacca Institute of Research and Analytics (DAIRA) at Press Institute Bangladesh in the city.
“New laws and reforms alone will not prevent the return of such state capture,” said Dr. Mushtaq H Khan, Professor of Economics at SOAS University of London.
“Unless SMEs, small businesses, workers, and small farmers are politically and economically organised, they will remain vulnerable-and so will our democracy,” he said.
In his keynote presentation, Mr Khan highlighted how under the previous regime, banks, energy contracts, infrastructure megaprojects, and public resources were disproportionately captured by a handful of politically connected conglomerates.
“Meanwhile, the vast majority of Bangladesh’s real economy-comprising small enterprises, cooperatives, and farms-was sidelined, denied access to finance, policy influence, and institutional support.”
To correct this imbalance, he urged a long-term strategy to build the organisational strength of economic actors beyond big capital.
“We must help create new platforms for entrepreneurs, SMEs, and grassroots producers to have a collective voice-one that can influence rules, demand protection, and defend inclusive economic policies in their own interest and in the national interest,” he said.
Among others, Faruk Wasif, director general of the Press Institute of Bangladesh (PIB), and Barrister Asaduzzaman Fuaad, general secretary, Amar Bangladesh (AB) Party, spoke at the event.
bdsmile@gmail.com