B

• Bangladesh, Bangladesh
  Bangladesh, Bangladesh
  When the sun sinks in the west
  Die a million people of the Bangladesh
  • Joan Baez, in "Song for Bangladesh" (1971)

• Scholars, journalists, activists, and others have an almost knee-jerk tendency to praise Bangladesh's beginnings as a secular nation and trace its slide into Islamist domination from the 1975 assassination of its founding father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman. That praise is warranted - but only to a limited extent, for secularism and any semblance of democratic ideals were in their death throes long before Sheikh Mujib was.
  • Benkin, Richard L. (2012). A quiet case of ethnic cleansing: The murder of Bangladesh's Hindus. New Delhi: Akshaya Prakashan. p.167 Bangladesh is a poor country?

K

• Kissinger railed against the Indians: “Those sons-of-bitches, who never have lifted a finger for us, why should we get involved in the morass of East Pakistan?” He wrote off the future of Bangladesh before it had even been born: “if East Pakistan becomes independent, it is going to become a cesspool. It’s going be 100 million people, they have the lowest standard of living in Asia. No resources. They’re going to become a ripe field for Communist infiltration.”
  • Henry Kissinger, quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.

• Kissinger—in a tirade against liberals, intellectuals, and Democrats—angrily told Nixon, “Not one has yet understood what we did in India-Pakistan and how it saved the China option which we need for the bloody Russians. Why would we give a damn about Bangladesh?” “We don’t,” agreed Nixon.
  • Henry Kissinger, quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide. Epilogue

• People of East Pakistan were not given their rights. This is the main reason behind the creation of Bangladesh.
  • Imran Khan at a ceremony in Lahore on 23 December 2018, quoted in Oppression led to the birth of Bangladesh, says Imran Khan, 24 December 2018

L

• Cutting through this foreign policy jargon, what has actually happened has been a clear shift in Bangladesh’s international alignment since the coup against Mujib. The Mujib government’s orientation internationally was politically identified with India under Indira Gandhi’s premiership and with the Soviet Union. This alignment dated from the contingencies of the 1971 war and Kissinger’s tilt towards Pakistan. Today the new military regime’s orientation in Dacca is clearly towards the United States, the Islamic bloc as represented by America’s ally Saudi Arabia, and towards China to a degree similar to that of Ayub Khan’s regime in Pakistan during the 1960s, when Pakistan’s relations with Peking were utilized as a counterforce to New Delhi.
  • Lifschultz L. & Bird K. (1979). Bangladesh the unfinished revolution. page 110. In fact the entire country is in the grip of a conglomeration of politicians , police , army and bureaucracy that is pro-American , pro-Pakistan , pro-Saudi Arabia and highly inimical to India. Cited also in in Kamra A. J. (2000). The prolonged partition and its pogroms : testimonies on violence against Hindus in East Bengal 1946-64

R

• Many Bangladeshis are travelling abroad, taking holidays abroad. They are being exposed to how people in neighbouring countries live, what kind of clothes they wear... The increase in their expectations and growth in disposable income will create a situation and market for foreign branded items to come in here.
  • Prof Imran Rahman, vice chancellor and director of the School of Business at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh, quoted on BBC News, "Uniqlo looks to cash in on Bangladesh's middle class", July 11, 2013.

• Bangladesh inherited almost no tourist infrastructure either at the time of the formation of Pakistan or at the time of its establishment as the Republic of Bangladesh. Unlike West Pakistan, the East had no mountain scenery to lure the British to establish hill stations. Bangladesh is mostly delta; although it does have a cooler climate in the Chittagong Hills.
  • Linda K. Richter (1989). The Politics of Tourism in Asia. University of Hawaii Press. p. 150. ISBN 978-0-8248-1140-2. 

• Bangladesh is a majority Muslim country, with a significant, if shrinking Hindu minority—about twenty-five to thirty per cent at the time of Partition in 1947, but less than nine per cent remaining in 2003. The textbooks in Bangladesh are not predicated on an anti-Indian bias as are state sponsored textbooks in Pakistan. The social studies curriculum in Pakistan is premised on creating a national identity that is distinct from India, whereas Bangladeshi textbooks reflect a more pan-South Asian perspective, though completely Bengal-centric.
  • Y Rosser, Indoctrinating Minds: Politics of Education in Bangladesh. 2004 page 30

Z

• Bangladesh’s vision for becoming a middle-income country is ambitious, but not impossible. To achieve this goal, it will need to boost its competitiveness and grow at an even faster pace than the last decade. With nearly one-third of the population living in urban centres, they can become the engine of growth if local urban bodies are able to deliver essential services and make cities liveable.
  • Johanness Zutt, World Bank country director for Bangladesh, quoted on Public Finance International, "Bangladesh local government to get $410m infrastructure boost", February 10, 2014.