Bangladesh’s excellent human development/social indicators are deservedly lauded as far better than India’s, but I was curious how they compared to West Bengal, arguably a very good comparator. So here are some data. 1/
Total Fertility Rate: West Bengal - 1.6 (2016 estimate); Bangladesh - 2.17 (2017 estimate). So both Bengals have dramatically reduced their birth rates, but West Bengal has actually done even better and is now well below replacement levels of fertility. 2/
Literacy: West Bengal (77.1%) again higher than Bangladesh (72.8%). WB rate is from 2011 and Bangladesh’s is the UNESCO estimate for 2017, so the gap may have changed assuming both continued to become more literate. 3/
IMR (infant mortality rate): West Bengal - 25 per 1,000 live births; Bangladesh -26.9. Very similar, and impressive reductions in both! Bangladesh’s U5MR (under five mortality) is 32.9; WB’s seems to be a bit under 30 (can’t find exact figure). 4/
Underweight children: 31.6% in West Bengal; 54.6% in Bangladesh (all figures 2016-16). Here West Bengal seems to have done dramatically better than its cousin across the border, but these are still very high rates of child malnutrition. 5/
Fully immunized children,% of total: 84.4% in West Bengal, and 81% in Bangladesh (but Bangladesh data slightly older so the gap may be even smaller or may not exist). Both have expanded vaccination programs effectively. 5/
Maternal mortality rate: Bangladesh - 176 per 1,000 live births. West Bengal: 112. Here West Bengal seems to have done a lot better. 7/
Sex ratio at birth is 960 in West Bengal and 961 in Bangladesh- identical!! Neither is favorable, but neither is terrible by South Asian standards. 8/
Women’s labor force participation: Bangladesh (36%); West Bengal (25%). In this respect West Bengal has done far worse than Bangladesh (& WB’s female LFF is low even by India’s abysmal standards - only a few states fare worse. 9/
Sanitation coverage is much better in Bangladesh. 51% of households in West Bengal have “improved sanitation facilities” as of 2015-16, while the figure for Bangladesh is 61% (2015 figure).
Life expectancy at birth is 73.4 in Bangladesh and 70.2 in West Bengal, though these data are slightly older so the gap may be a bit smaller.
So West Bengal’s indicators are similar to Bangladesh’s - some better (e.g., MMR, TFR), some worse (e.g., sanitation, women’s LFF) - but perhaps the state deserves as much credit for human development as Bangladesh deservedly gets? Caveat: BD started out further behind on most.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
Logic behind India, a country of 1.3b with a high absolute COVID caseload and much better access to vaccines than most of the developing world, relying on apps/proactive registration to get the vaccine to its population eludes me. It’s reached ~6% of pop in ~3months. A thread. 1/
Insisting that people voluntarily and proactively sign up for and go to vaccination appointments is simply not using well-understood principles of how to conduct mass vaccination campaigns, many of which are based (formally or informally) on insights from behavioral science. 2/
Firstly, we know that small hassles or hurdles disproportionately deter take up of even beneficial services. This means that crashing websites, travel delays etc will be enough to deter even people who are not hesitant to take the vaccine from getting vaccinated. 3/
I was surprised that @sarkar_swati, who claims expertise on Bengali society/culture, was unaware of something as basic as castes in Bengal having been classified as “(A)Jol-chol”. Since she insisted I was somehow concocting this, here are some references for her edification. 1/
Dasgupta, A (2000), “In the Citadel of Bhadralok Politicians: The Scheduled Castes in West Bengal”. Journal of the Indian School of Political Economy. ispepune.org.in/PDF%20ISSUE/20…
Roy, U (2010), “Aestheticizing labor: an affective discourse of cooking in colonial Bengal”, South Asian History and Culture. “...the most significant distinction in caste status .... was in terms of jalchal and ajalchal...”.doi.org/10.1080/194724…
Hinduism has always policed temple entry & access to drinking water sources (think caste-segregated wells), punishing those who flout these “rules”. Poor Asif was “punished” for his “transgression”, as countless Dalits have before him. Be appalled, but spare me the surprise. 1/
I’ve been to many villages in Rajasthan and UP where people from disadvantaged castes would be risking death if they dared to try and drink water from a well earmarked for so-called “upper” castes. And the situation is no different elsewhere in the country. The entry of Dalits 2/
..into temples was fought tooth and nail by Brahmins and other “upper” castes. In Bengali, the term for castes who are of “similar” status is “jol-chol”, ie quite literally “those whom you can share water with”. Not sharing space, water and food: this is CENTRAL to caste.