পাতা:বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্র (তৃতীয় খণ্ড).pdf/২৫২

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বাংলাদেশের স্বাধীনতা যুদ্ধ দলিলপত্রঃ তৃতীয় পত্র
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executive shall be responsible. On the political plane this is the programme to translate into reality the two basic democratic values, liberty and equality.

 The Awami League Government knows and believes that the liberty and equality of political democracy are hollow unless they are completed by economic liberty and equality. Freedom, if it is to be real, implies freedom from the economic constraint of want, poverty, and hunger, and this is as much fundamental as freedom from the political constraint of military autocracy and dictatorship. To establish economic justice and to give fruition to the longing of the common men for freedom from want, the Awami League is committed to a socialist economic order. In the Awami League manifesto it is laid down, “the basic aim of the economic programme is the creation of a just and egalitarian society free from exploitation. The vision is that of a socialist economic order, in which economic injustice will be removed, rapid economic growth will be promoted and provision shall be made for the just distribution of the fruits of such growth among all sections of the people". To realize this objectives some specific proposals are embodied into the manifesto and these are: private enterprise as the sole vehicle of economic, growth with private profit as the main motive leads to the concentration of wealth in a few hands and to the control of the key sectors of the economy by powerful private coteries, making it impossible for the goal of social justice and equality to be realized; this is to be altered and removed by nationalization and extension of the public sector, by the development of cooperation enterprises, and by the evolution of new institutional arrangements.

 The Awami League Government is thus committed to a socialist cconomic order based on democratic principles and values. Its main task is bring about a social and economic revolution through democratic process.

 The villages, more than 65,000 in numbers, seem to be the appropriate centre where these political, economic, and social goals can be translated into action. Let us have a hard look at the objective conditions prevailing in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is predominantly a rural and agrarian society, depending on agriculture for its sustenance, employment, and exports. Nearly 65 per cent (department of agriculture) of the national income of Bangladesh is derived from agriculture, and the industrial sector contributes only 10 per cent to the total national income. Only 5.9 per cent (1961 census) of the total population lives in the urban areas and 94.8 per cent in the villages. It has one of the highest densities of population 922 persons per sq. milc. The percapita income is only 5.56 (Dr. H. Huq). Its industrialization is rudimentary, its monetization limited, and its financial superstencture inadequate. On top of it there is a chronic shortage of food which has been aggravated by the cyclone of 1970 and by the present genocidal war with unparalleled brutalities unleashed on 'Bangladesh by the West Pakistani military rulers.

 The real Bangladesh lies in these villages, more than 65,000 villages. Our people are condemned to an unimaginable alyss of poverty due to the criminal negligence of past governments to agriculture, and, the pursuit of a capitalist economy which has the effect of transferring the purchasing power of the community to the members of some 22 familics. Our lands are the most fertile ones in the world, and yet our people are the poor-