A peoples’ perspective of rights centric industrial restructuring and sustainability: a case study on the state owned jute mills of Bangladesh.
Creators: name: Alamgir, Fahreen
Publisher: name: RMIT University
Year: 2024

description: This study explores peoples’ perceptions of their possible, desirable engagement and involvement in the industrial restructuring process initiated by the discourse of globalisation in the postcolonial state Bangladesh, presenting a case study from the state owned jute mills (SOJMs).Jute industries had been established in the Indian subcontinent during the British period as a part of industrial capitalism (Chakrabarty, 1989; Sen, 1999). Now, as the major industrial sector in Bangladesh it has been restructured under the policy of the Jute Sector Adjustment Credit Program (JSAC). This commenced in 1991, as prescribed by the global policy regime of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The year 1991 also marks the start of a democratic regime for the first time in the political history of Bangladesh. The discourse of globalisation as a derivation of neo-liberalism has brought the discourse of development, sustainability, efficiency, human rights and issues of good governance in Bangladesh. While industrialisation had led to evictions in peasants’ communities during the colonial period, currently under the JSAC the SOJMs have been privatised and a huge number of workers have been retrenched. In 2007 during the regime of army-backed caretaker government, the final phase of JSAC faced massive challenges by the community of Khalishpur. Currently under the democratic government, the SOJMs have been in revival mode. Hence, analysis of the context reveals there is a gap between the discourse and practices regarding development, sustainability, rights and good governance. Second, there is a juxtaposition of regimes. The political regimes are either democratic or despotic. Then the eventalisation process of JSAC indicates fulfilment of the global order of the global policy regime, for Bangladesh gaining membership in the global forum. Third, the development agencies, taking the concept of rights-based approach to development of Amartya Sen as fulcrum, have initiated another regime in the name of ensuing good governance by constituting non–governmental organisations as civil society (Kabeer, 2003). <br><br>Within this context the explored concept is grounded. Subaltern studies underpin the arguments of the paper and along with this I draw from the theory of critical political economy for revisiting the country’s historical, political, social and cultural construction, to find out which conditions drive the conformity towards the global order of restructuring the SOJMs. For the concept of rights and with it rights-centric restructuring, I consider the rights-based approach to development of Sen. Concepts underpinning the arguments of Sen are that economic, social and cultural rights are internally related and intrinsically linked with civil and political rights in order to be realised (Sen, 1999). According to Sen (1999) the constitutive elements of rights-based approach are; systematic accountability, equality, entitlement and equity. Findings suggest that the community’s perspectives denote first, the aspired role of the state and then their relations with the state. The thesis contributes in the context of fluid sovereignties of a postcolonial state, how people relate their role, and capacity as electoral agents in defining the aspired role of the state through presenting an ethnographic case study on restructuring of the SOJMs.