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justification
Biru Paksha Paul
Bangladesh separated itself from Pakistan and embarked on a Liberation War 43 years ago. A valid question may arise: Does our
present economic performance justify the decision of our great leaders to be separated from Pakistan in 1971? While independence
is always a basic right and has no alternative, this question may be answered from a purely economic point of view. Accordingly,
comparing Bangladesh's economy with Pakistan's becomes imperative. Although there are numerous variables to compare two
economies, this writing focuses only on the major macro variables: gross domestic product (GDP) and per capita income (PCI).
Using the World Bank data for these two countries, three phases have been demarcated for comparison, as shown in the diagram.
The first phase includes policy changes from socialist planning to capitalist transition by comprising the regimes of Bangabandhu,
General Zia, and General Ershad. The second phase marks the reforms spreading over multiple regimes of Khaleda Zia and Sheikh
Hasina. The third phase is constructed on projection by using the data of the 2001-2012 period.
The diagram shows that in 1972, Bangladesh's GDP was three-fourth the size of Pakistan's GDP. Pakistan overgrew Bangladesh in
the years since until the early 1990s. Despite postwar anomalies, Bangladesh grew at 4% over the 1972-1979 period when Pakistan
grew at 5%, making the relative output comparison even worse for us. Bangladesh's GDP volume slid down to 60% of the