Untranquil Recollections attempts to capture the unique problems of reconstructing the war-devastated economy while building institutions from the ground up for a nation which, for 24 years, had been run through a highly centralized system of colonial-style governance. Given the inherent difficulties of this endeavour, classifying Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's time of leadership as a 'failure' would be a misconception. His regime started out with high hopes, and Rehman Sobhan discusses why those hopes never came to fruition.
The book gives special attention to the author's involvement, as a Member of the Planning Commission, in addressing the problem of reconstruction while coping with the political challenges. The direction of the national policy set by Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was fairly radical. The narrative attempts to identify the economic and political forces inimical to this and related efforts. The book concludes with the discussion of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman's assassination along with his family and his closest political colleagues, which resulted in a change of regime.
Contents
Abbreviations
Preface
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction: Untranquil Recollections
2 First Days in Liberated Bangladesh
3 My First Exposure to Government
4 The Political leadership of the Planning Commission
5 The Workings of the Planning Commission
6 Discovering the Political Economy of Policymaking
7 The Challenge of Delivering the Five-Year Plan
8 Making the State Effective
9 The Challenge of Improving the Performance of the Nationalised Sector
10 Outcomes from Our Efforts to Improve the Performance of the Nationalised Sector
11 My Return to Aid Diplomacy
12 Laying the Foundations of Indo-Bangladesh Economic Relations
13 Re-entry into Civilian Life
14 The Gathering Storm
15 Darkness at Noon: The End of an Era
16 Recollections in Tranquillity
Name Index
Subject Index