Political parties should go to people with concrete programmes

A roundtable discussion in the capital has made note of the rise in the poverty level in Bangladesh in recent times. The two reasons that have been cited to explain the predicament are high prices of essentials and natural calamities. One oilier reason, unemployment, could have been added to these two factors.

That brings us, necessarily, to the question of what needs to be done about tackling the poverty issues. Campaign for good governance, which organised the discussion, has noted that poverty exists more in the rural regions than in the urban areas. That being the reality, it is now time for us to go back to the perennial question of land reforms and especially the issue of addressing die needs of the landless and marginal farmers. There is little question that the numbers of those who own no land or are being compelled to sell off land have in die past few years has been going up. Such a situation holds the very dangerous potential of social disorder in the future unless it is handled sagaciously. The government must go seriously into the business of devising social security programmes in a manner that will gradually cover all vulnerable groups in die country.

Providing subsidies to the farmers is a crucial necessity. Apparently die figures for subsidies go up regularly, but to what extent such subsidies actually percolate down to the really poor and needy farmers remains a question. Widiout adequate guarantees that locally influential and partisan people will not lay their hands on what should be going to the poor, die campaign against poverty will not make any headway.

In a larger sense, poverty alleviation is dependent on grassroots participation in the drive to lift the poor out of their misery trap. Unless the people are involved, through local bodies and odier means, in poverty alleviation programmes, a sustainable economic development process cannot be ensured. It is here that the political parties have a clear responsibility to carry out. With the general elections approaching, they ought to be giving out a clear sense of direction through incorporating in their manifestoes specifics-based poverty reduction programmes. With the nature and substance of politics hopefully changing for the better, the political parties should be able to understand the realities on the ground and formulate effective responses to them. The realities are simple: unless the poor can find a way out of their despair, progress in all other areas will remain a misnomer.