All this is very welcome. But unless accompanied by equally decisive measures to promote "economic democracy," the political and governance reforms will keep the feudal character of the political and economic functioning of the country intact.

The result will still be missing the great potential the nation has to be another "Asian Tiger," keeping the bulk of our people downtrodden, seeking favours of patrons for their survival against the odds and, essentially, opening the country more to foreign investment to exploit the cheap labour of our people.

Without decisive reforms to promote economic democracy we shall, at best, have "fair" elections and improved governance. The election of 2001 was generally considered to be fair. One rather comical trait of it was reported by our departed national poet Shamsur Rahman in a citizen's conference held after the election. He narrated a dialogue he had had with women in a village. Referring to the extraordinarily large turnout of women to vote in this election, he asked them what was their consideration in deciding whom to vote for. The reply, with a shy glimmer in the face, was: "Ranir lahan dekhtey (she looks like a queen)" Some indication, indeed, of "women power!"

Let us make no mistake about this: the nation remains, overwhelmingly, a country of economically and socially very disadvantaged people who are locked in patron-client relations with the well-to-do and powerful, essentially rentier, classes -- jotdars/middlemen/money-lenders. The economic and social institutions of the country are, as a rule, in the grip of such rentier classes, with a two-way relationship with the downtrodden: on the one hand the "master" exploits them in all sorts of ways to enjoy their cheap labour and appropriate their property with all kinds of manipulations, and, often, force; on the other hand when a downtrodden is in the direst distress a generous-looking hand may be extended to help him/her barely keep head above water, with exploitative money-lending kind, or even seemingly charitable kind of means making the victim infinitely grateful for the act, and hopeful that such help as a last resort to survive will continue to be available if one serves the kindly "master" well.

A fair contest for national elections essentially means extending a party's net to catch the largest number of such hapless clients without taking recourse to visible terrorism, and it is no secret that as little as Tk 20 and putting one on a truck on the way to the polling station is often sufficient to win a vote.

This kind of patron-client relation is actually the meaning of "large grass-roots base," that such-and-such a jotdar-middlemen-money lender party is said to have, in assessing a party's electoral prospects. And we know that the parties have no serious plans and programs to lead the nation to the path of high economic growth with equity that has characterized the performance of the "Asian Tigers" in recent times. Instead, all are dangerously over-relying on one single industrial sector -- the garments industry -- and remittances from our expatriates as growth engines. And we are wasting the potential our people have to join as major actors in the nation's entrepreneurship to fly much higher and show that we, too, can have spectacular growth with equity by following principles that are today well known in development thinking.

For shortage of space I shall not elaborate much on these principles, except to refer to Professor Rehman Sobhan's outstanding work some time back on "Agrarian Reform and Social Transformation." I have always maintained that this work was worthy of the Nobel in economics -- but, alas, this prize is never given to work with radical overtones.

Although it was the United States which was behind the progressive agrarian reforms in Japan and South Korea for strategic reasons, the interest of this global master in our economy today seems to be different -- to have a system of good governance in order that private capital can come and exploit our cheap labour which, therefore, has to be kept cheap. Therefore, no agrarian reform to liberate our rural workers, to bid as entrepreneurs themselves in our growth process and to give the nation both higher growth and equity, seems likely.

The country, indeed, was poised to take-off on a path to high growth with equity after independence. But alas, the first Planning Commission's proposals for land reform was turned down by the then ruling "jotdar party," an event that had made the architect of our liberation war and the then planning minister, Tajuddin Ahmed, literally break down in tears.

Will the present CTG and our patriotic army also fall into the trap of mere political democracy and good governance thinking? They have got this opportunity that does not come often in the lifetime of a nation, to help the country truly rise to its promise. This promise is not merely to raise the country's growth rate of GDP -- meaning gross domestic product -- by a couple of percentage points through greater inflow of foreign capital, for the bulk of this higher product will accrue to foreigners and will be taken out of the country. The task is to dramatically raise the country's growth rate of GNP -- gross national product -- i.e. the part of the product that accrues to nationals of the country.

This is a measure that the World Bank, following the interests of its financiers, does not use for assessing growth performances of its client states and, therefore, governments and national economists locked in donor-recipient or research relations with it also do not. And for a country's growth rate of national product to rise fast nationals of the country must, in a much larger measure, own the nation's entrepreneurships and not merely sweat in them.

The kind of agrarian reform we need may involve legal complications which may not be solvable under normal laws of the country. Nor may the initiation of such reform be expected from any party of "jotdar/money-lending" background. It is very important, therefore, that this be accomplished before the pitch is handed over to such parties again. The needed task may never be done, unless it is done now.

In a sense it has been made simpler, because the theoretical and experiential basis of this are by now well known from the experiences of the Asian Tigers, and volumes of analytical reflections on them, from whose plusses and minuses a lot has been learnt.

The first step now is to ask Professor Rehman Sobhan, the country's foremost expert on the subject, and its best ever teacher in development economics, to chair a Commission on Agrarian Reform and submit its recommendations in three months. Couldn't we expect this request to come from the two of his most brilliant and patriotic students who are heading the CTG and its finance ministry, respectively, and their equally patriotic associates in the government?

Md. Anisur Rahman is ex-Professor of Economics, University of Dhaka, and member of the first Planning Commission.