The latest World Economic Outlook published by the International Monetary Fund makes projections for economic growth for 2020 and extends its forecasts till 2025. One piece of evidence being talked about is the estimation that India will become poorer than Bangladesh by 2025. The statistics are quite sobering. During the last five years, India’s per capita gross domestic product was, on an average, 40 per cent higher than that of Bangladesh. This, undoubtedly, is a significant difference. However, by 2019, India grew at 4.2 while Bangladesh grew at 8.2 per cent. Compare this with the figures for 2014 when India was growing at 7.4 per cent and Bangladesh at 6.1 per cent. India slid down while Bangladesh continued to grow at a brisk pace. This year, the pandemic will cause a 10.3 per cent decline (negative growth) in GDP in India, while Bangladesh will continue to grow at (positive) 3.8 per cent. It may be noted that very few countries are expected to clock a positive GDP growth this year. By 2025, India and Bangladesh will grow at rates that are pretty close according to the IMF: India at 7.2 per cent and Bangladesh at 7.3 per cent. However, looking at the levels of per capita income, Bangladesh will have a higher per capita income than that of India. Bangladesh will be at $2,756.11 while India will be at $2,729.24.

There are some important lessons for the Indian government in these figures. First, even as Indian political leaders were busy comparing the nation with those of China, Japan and the United States of America and while the prime minister was promising a $5 trillion economy in five years, a small, neighbouring nation was forging ahead in economic terms. The Bharatiya Janata Party-led government has done all the wrong things possible as far as economic policies are concerned. A number of its slogans have come to naught. Second, the pandemic cannot be entirely blamed for the plummeting growth rate. The economic trends before 2020 were fairly discouraging. Indeed, India’s bilateral relationship with Bangladesh deteriorated substantially on account of rash comments made by the powers concerning illegal migrants from Bangladesh. In the light of the IMF data, it will be difficult for these hot heads in power to provide an economic rationale for Bangladesh’s citizens migrating to India. Unlike its bigger neighbour, Bangladesh, despite its many internal problems, has concentrated on economic reforms and export markets. It has also taken efforts to channel a part of its sizeable international remittances into productive investments.