To be sure, posterity will still judge Prof. Nurul Islam as the architect of Bangladesh's initial strategy of economic development: first, in recovering from the devastation left from the war of independence; and then giving the economy the direction to grow out of poverty at a rapid rate. With respect to the first, the economy did recover somewhat with ad hoc measures and policies to tide over the trauma that a bloody independence struggle left behind. Policy choices about the role of state and market, aid dependence versus self-reliance, open trade or closed economy approach, were made in the first days and months with immediate solutions in mind.
It was in the longer-term approach to growth and poverty reduction that required policy choices under the guidance and direction of the planners. For readers interested, details on these policy choices are more thoroughly discussed by Professor Islam in his Making of a Nation: An Economist's Tale. It may be said in passing that the major critique about the policies of those times rested on the strategy of nationalisation of industries coupled with the predominant role given to the public sector overall (monopoly control over industry, trade and investment) with cumbersome regulations that stifled economic dynamism for a long time. Of course, economists in the Planning Commission had to go along with the doctrine of socialism espoused by the political leadership. We learn from other sources that Nurul Islam was probably a reluctant "convert" to the kind of radicalised socialism that was being preached by the political regime.
For Dr. Islam's book -- An Odyssey: The Journey of My Life -- under review we are given a glimpse of the personalities involved in the new institution of planning and the tensions arising therefrom. Two tensions leave a lasting impression on the reader. There was the proverbial status issue between civil servants and planners, most of whom were economists. And Dr. Islam had assembled around him the best economists available in Bangladesh, giving them the status they deserved in keeping with their technical competence rather than length of service. That brought some unease among civil servants who were traditionally wedded to status that went with their jobs. Given his closeness to the political powers that be, it appeared that in the tussle, civil servants were losing out and heading for the exit door - even those who were his former students.
In hindsight, it is not difficult to surmise how it all ended in the longer term. Even in the short-term, he acknowledges that Bangabandhu was impressed by the competence of CSP officials with whom he soon surrounded himself besides appointing them secretaries in the different ministries, thus paving the way for the exit of several non-CSP secretaries. Reading between the lines, one can discern that it was the appointment by Bangabandhu of Mr. A. K. M. Ahsan, a highly regarded senior CSP officer, as Member in the Planning Commission, that was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Dr. Islam notes with regret that he was not consulted. The realisation dawned on him that the days of technocrat planners were over. Most of his colleagues, one after another, had already left the Planning Commission by that time. Professor Islam, the last one to leave, departed for Oxford University in early 1975 with a fellowship at St. Anthony's College.
His two-year sojourn at Oxford can be assessed as a quiet uneventful time mostly out of the limelight spent in research and writing. His notable contribution of the time was to induct Bangladesh as a least developed country (LDC) in the UN system in 1975 while he was a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy, the UN agency that was established to look after the development interests of vulnerable economies described as least developed countries.
The second tension noted in the book arose from the role of the Planning Commission in Government decision-making. It was not just the civil servants who had a gripe about the role of experts in the Commission. Leading politicians of the ruling party perceived the Commission as a supra-government, almost as a parallel government run by technocrats. Because of the presence of Nurul Islam in all cabinet meetings and the warmth with which Bangabandhu sought his views gave political leaders the impression that all critical decisions were coming from the Commission, not just in the matter of resource allocation across ministries, at a time when resources were rather scarce relative to needs. Islam makes a valiant effort to absolve the Commission from blame first by suggesting that the widely held perception was far from reality. National policies were actually decided by Bangabandhu after he had reviewed pros and cons of the proposals and consulted with politicians. He was even surprised when someone like Foreign Minister Kamal Hossain complained to Bangabandhu that the Planning Commission had usurped the role of the Foreign Ministry in single-handedly negotiating foreign aid - a subject that should have had the input of his ministry.
For the discerning reader the two tensions described in great detail by Professor Islam reveal the significant opposition that emerged from civil servants and politicians alike to the ubiquitous influence, real or perceived, of technocrat economists on critical national decisions some of which (e.g. resource allocation across regions, sectors and projects) had significant political ramifications. There was a growing impression among keen observers that the Planning Commission had indeed become too big for its shoes. Given that it was a new institution, as Islam admits, one feels that it was imperative on the part of the technocratic community - rather small in size compared to its critiques - to build bridges (in diplomatic parlance) with the rest under the leadership of Professor Islam. My own understanding based on views gathered over previous decades from a variety of observers of the Bangladesh scene is that this potential rapprochement was scarcely evident.
Nevertheless, to this day, the "professors" who ran the Planning Commission during the early years of Bangladesh are held to account by most analysts for the major folly of nationalising all large-scale industries (which included abandoned enterprises of West Pakistani owners and those privately owned by Bangladeshis) and adopting an industrial and trade strategy that stifled economic growth over the long term. To his utter dismay, no less a person than Sir F.H. Abed, founder of BRAC, pointed this to him as late as in 2014, though Professor Rehman Sobhan was a close associate of Sir Abed and known to be the foremost proponent of state enterprises.
As students of Professor Sobhan, we were aware of his unflinching faith in the capacity of the state and its ability to run public enterprises, whereas close associates of Professor Islam tell us he was the sceptic among the "professors" in this particular view of the state's capability. That being said, the Nationalisation Policy of 1972 still remains a stigma on the then Government, if not the Planning Commission per se. As history shows, there were few economic policies of those times that have stood the test of time. Within three years of its founding, the Planning Commission began to lose its shine as all the "professors" moved on to other pastures, with Professor Islam being the last to leave.
Following the brief sojourn at Oxford University, Professor Nurul Islam moved on to become at that time the highest ranking Bangladeshi in the UN system, as Assistant Director General at the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in Rome. This proved to be his longest tenure with any institution, a period of 10 years during 1977-87. With this assignment, he recalls that his days of penury ended thanks to the generous compensation received as a UN official. He was now an economist turned international civil servant, the first economist from a developing country to have held that position. It was still not the kind of employment that would give him time and scope for conducting path-breaking research, something he continued to miss. The focus of his job was on agriculture, food security, agrarian reform and related subjects, all in a global context. There was internal strife in the organisation, to be managed or ignored. Known to be a workaholic, it is evident that he excelled in this assignment by dint of hard work leaving a positive impression of a Bangladeshi economist at the helm of a major international organisation.
His next career move was to the USA as Senior Policy Advisor at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington. Far removed from administrative responsibilities, this assignment gave him the time and scope that he needed to put some of his thoughts and ideas that lay dormant for many years into research output. But one suspects that these were also his twilight years after a long career filled with stress and strains of intense professional activity. During this stint at IFPRI, and subsequently as an IFPRI Research Fellow Emeritus (a retirement designation), he became prolific in producing research papers and publications based on piles of records of events and notes that he so diligently preserved so that later generations of economists and social scientists could benefit from. I had the privilege of reading all his publications which comprise two things: first, there are detailed record of events of historical importance; second, his role, contribution and interactions with personalities are clarified to allay doubts and remove any misperceptions. That is exactly what inspired me to read this latest book of his, an introspective record of so many personal events that made history.
For the workaholic, when work becomes the prima donna of life, as it did for Professor Nurul Islam, families bear the brunt of consequential oversight that goes with intense devotion to research and professional responsibilities. So it was in the case of Professor Islam who does not mince words, several times over, in being apologetic to his wife and children for this predicament.
I conclude with the belief that this book is much more than the life story of a distinguished and iconic Bangladeshi economist, an account of whose professional life, filled with daunting challenges, severe disappointments, and notable accomplishments, will remain worthwhile reading for generations of Bangladeshis - economists and non-economists alike. Development economist Keith Griffin summed up Nurul Islam best: "he was a builder of institutions and a compassionate nationalist. …a man of peace in a turbulent and dangerous world".
Dr. Sattar, founder Chairman, Policy Research Institute of Bangladesh, is a former member of the erstwhile Civil Service of Pakistan(CSP), former teacher of economics at Dhaka University, Boston University, University of Massachusetts, and Catholic University of America, and a former World Bank economist.
