Anyone saying 'December is at the door' has no connection with Bangladesh, says adviser Titumir

Professor Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir, adviser on finance and planning to the prime minister, has said that those who talk about the Awami League returning in December have no connection with Bangladesh. In his view, there is now no one who can revive the Awami League, as was seen after 1975.

He made the remarks as chief guest at a discussion titled 'The Famine of 1974: The Post-Independence Economic Crisis' at the Monsoon Theatre Hall of the July Mass Uprising Memorial Museum on Sunday afternoon. The discussion, the fifth episode of the 'Democratic Journey' seminar series, was organised by the museum.

Titumir said, 'If anyone says December is knocking at the door, it must be understood that he has no connection with the soil of Bangladesh, the grass of Bangladesh, or the water of Bangladesh.'

Professor Titumir sees the people's ousting of the Awami League in 2024 as a victory for Bangladesh.

Titumir, a professor in the Department of Development Studies at the University of Dhaka, said the famine of 1974 was caused not only by a food shortage or the failure of the market system; behind it were the state's separation from the people, a crisis of the legitimacy of power, and the role of violence.

The prime minister's adviser said there is a continuity between the system of governance from 1972 to 1975 and the Awami League government's rule from 2009 to 2024. In his view, trying to stay in power through a culture of patronage and violence, cut off from the aspirations of the people, was a defining feature of both periods.

He said three theories are usually put forward to explain the 1974 famine — a fall in the overall availability of food, a crisis in people's ability or access to buy food, and the absence of a social contract against famine. The effects of international food aid and Cold War geopolitics are also mentioned. But in his view, these explanations do not adequately capture the crisis in the relationship between the state and the people.

He said that after independence, the running of the state did not reflect the aspirations of the people. A separation grew between those in power and the people, and in that situation a culture of patronage grew up to stay in power, extending from the villages to the centre. The influence of that patronage was also present in the rationing and food distribution systems, he said.

He said that, as in 1971 to 1975, the period from 2009 to 2024 also saw a tendency to hold on to power by suppressing opponents and misusing state power and violence. He said the situation in which rice prices rose in Bangladesh even when they fell in the international market also shows a similarity between the two periods. In 1972 the international price of rice was 147 dollars a tonne, but by 1974 it had risen to 542 dollars; during the same period, prices in Bangladesh were higher than in the international market.

Describing the 2024 mass uprising as a victory of the people, he said the people of Bangladesh have repeatedly reminded everyone of their sovereignty — in 1971, 1975, 1990 and 2024, the people played a role in establishing their rights. But to preserve this victory, the institutions of the state must be made effective, he said.

Emphasising the role of the national parliament in this regard, he said the state must have a monopoly on legitimate 'violence', but it must be kept within accountability. An effective parliament is needed for that; the national parliament is the place where the sovereignty of the people recognised in Article 7 of the Constitution is established. He said the challenge of building the state cannot be met through street movements without making parliament effective.

He said that when the state becomes separated from the people and resorts to violence to stay in power, negative situations such as famine and looting arise. Therefore, discussing the famine of 1974 requires considering not only economic statistics but also the state violence and loss of life of that time, he said.

The seminar was chaired by Ehsanul Mahmud, director general of the July Mass Uprising Memorial Museum. Writer and treasurer of the Panam Institute Asif Iqbal and economist and researcher Nahian Bin Khaled also spoke at the event.