Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, is a Bangladeshi economist and
social scientist
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of socie ...
. He is faculty member of
Monash University
Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university has a ...
,
In 1971, he participated in the
Liberation War of Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Liberation War ( bn, মুক্তিযুদ্ধ, , also known as the Bangladesh War of Independence, or simply the Liberation War in Bangladesh) was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali n ...
. A career civil servant, he served as the principal secretary to the Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia
Khaleda Zia (; born Khaleda Khanam Putul in 1945) is a Bangladeshi politician who served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from March 1991 to March 1996, and again from June 2001 to October 2006. She was the first female prime minister of Ba ...
until 2006. He was nominated by Bangladesh for election to the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a body of experts that monitor and report on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Committee also monitors the Convention's three optional protoco ...
, and served from 2005 to 2009.
He was until 2006 chief editor of the ''Encyclopedia of Flora and Fauna of Bangladesh'', the first volumes of which were published in 2008 by
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh is a non political and non profit research organisation registered under both Society Act of 1864 and NGO Bureau, Government of Bangladesh. The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh was established as the Asiatic Society ...
.
Participation in War of Liberation
Bangladesh's war of liberation commenced on 25 March 1971. At that time, Siddiqui was serving as the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) of
Norail. He quit his job and walked to
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
to participate in the war against the Pakistani army. After the establishment of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971, he returned home and was appointed as the
Deputy Commissioner (DC) and
District Magistrate
A District Collector-cum-District Magistrate (also known as Deputy Commissioner in some states) is an All India Service officer of the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) cadre who is responsible for ''land revenue collection'', ''canal reven ...
of the
Khulna District
Khulna District ( bn, খুলনা জেলা , ''Khulna Jela'' also ''Khulna Zila'') is a district of Bangladesh. It is located in the Khulna Division. It is bordered on the north by the Jessore District and the Narail District, on the south ...
.
Research
Latest work
While teaching at Monash University, Siddiqui co-authored a book on diplomacy which was published in 2009.
Cocktail ideology and poverty
Recently he completed a project on "Deadly Sins of Cocktail Ideology and the Vicious Cycle of Poverty in Developing Countries". The objective of the research was to delineate the processes which cause, maintain, aggravate and reduce poverty in a typical village in
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
, based on field work. The project evaluates the impact of economic and non-economic factors on poverty and establishes the role of ideology and beliefs in the whole process.
Siddiqui coined the term "cocktail ideology" to characterise the cultural profile of the Bangladeshi people in the 21st century. A "cocktail ideology", combining the retrogressive interpretation of religion and tradition with vulgar elements of the so-called
modernity
Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norm (social), norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissancein the " ...
, has emerged in many
developing countries
A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...
since the 1960s and the population of Bangladesh, among other developing courtiers, reflects uneasy and tense co-existence of these two components. Women and middle-aged men are, in general, the bearers of tradition and religious orthodoxy, while the younger generation tends to carry the flag for "decadent modernity". It has been found that the poor tend to be more affected by this "cocktail ideology" than any other class of society.
MegaCity governance
The term
megalopolis
A megalopolis () or a supercity, also called a megaregion, is a group of metropolitan areas which are perceived as a continuous urban area through common systems of transport, economy, resources, ecology, and so on. They are integrated enoug ...
was first used in 1940 by
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a wr ...
to refer to the great mega cities growing uncontrollably.
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells Oliván (; ; born 9 February 1942) is a Spanish sociology, sociologist. He is well known for his authorship of a trilogy of works, entitled The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture. He is a scholar of the information soc ...
called the emergence of such mega cities of eight illion or more people a feature of 21st century urbanisation. Kamal Siddiqui, in association with Archana Ghosh, Sharit K. Bhowmik, Shahid A Siddiqi, Madhulika Mitra, Shchi Kapuria, Nilay Ranjan and Jamshed Ahmed researched the growth of mega cities in South Asia, namely
Mumbai
Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
,
Delhi
Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
,
Dhaka
Dhaka ( or ; bn, ঢাকা, Ḍhākā, ), formerly known as Dacca, is the capital and largest city of Bangladesh, as well as the world's largest Bengali-speaking city. It is the eighth largest and sixth most densely populated city ...
,
Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
and
Karachi
Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...
which will have in 2015 a population of 23 million, 21 million, 18 million, 17 million and 16 million respectively.
Kamal Siddiqui and his team identified the characteristics of these mega cities, marked with corruption, poor accountability, lack of transparency and perverse prioritisation.
Work for children's rights
Siddiqui acted as Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee on Child Rights of the government of Bangladesh from January 2002. On 12 March 2003 he organised an International Workshop on Child Labour in Dhaka under the auspices of Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD). In September 2003 he led the Bangladesh delegation to the meeting of the
Committee on the Rights of the Child
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a body of experts that monitor and report on the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The Committee also monitors the Convention's three optional protoco ...
in Geneva to review the second periodic report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Bangladesh.
Since March 2004, he acted as the Chairman of the National Committee to suggest the organizational set-up of the office of Independent Children Commissioner for Bangladesh. He led a Bangladesh Government delegation to France, Norway and Sweden in February 2004 to study the Children Ombudsman institution in these countries with a view to setting up such an institution in Bangladesh.
Since February 2005 he has been serving as the Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child of United Nations High Commission for Human Rights. His achievements during the last three years include the release of a large number of children from jails, establishment of nurseries in prisons and safe homes, raising the age of criminal liability and converting correction centres for children into development centres. Recognized as a champion of children by the High Court Division of the
Supreme Court of Bangladesh
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh ( bn, বাংলাদেশ সুপ্রীম কোর্ট) is the highest court of law in Bangladesh. It is composed of the High Court Division and the Appellate Division, and was created by Part VI C ...
in its landmark judgement in a child rights case in 2003, owing to these activities.
Social formation in Dhaka City
This is a study which takes stock of the social formation of Dhaka city as it has evolved in the latter half of the 20th century. Kamal Siddiqui has carried out this research in association with Sayeda Rowshan Qadir, Sitara Alamgir and Sayeedul Huq.
While the book sets out with a focus on the historical background of Dhaka, its objective is to prepare an account of social structure of Dhaka, first as the provincial capital of the then
East Pakistan
East Pakistan was a Pakistani province established in 1955 by the One Unit Scheme, One Unit Policy, renaming the province as such from East Bengal, which, in modern times, is split between India and Bangladesh. Its land borders were with India ...
and of
Bangladesh
Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...
since latter's emergence in 1971. As it has been observed, "the growth of Dhaka city has been predominantly the result of net migration, which accounted for 62.9 per cent of population growth between 1961 and 1974 and 70.5 percent between 1974 and 1981 ..., about 60 percent of Dhaka's population growth between 1981 and 2000 is anticipated to be the result of net migration ... The push factors in connection with migration include over-population, floods and natural disasters, erosion, growing landlessness and exploitation, by the rural elites and money lenders. The pull factors are employment opportunities in the informal sector, relief activities and the statutory ration system in Dhaka city under which, until recently, foodstuffs were sold at substantially subsidised prices." (p. 16). As many as ten thousand households of the city have been investigated to deduce the true class of different classes of people. In addition, special account was taken of certain selected groups, namely, the residents of Dhaka government colonies, the "richest people" of Dhaka city, the beggars, prostitutes and criminals.
Local government in Bangladesh
The revised third edition of the book was published in 2005. The book covers urban and rural local government systems of Bangladesh. It focuses on the initiation, evolution, structure and composition, functions, finance, national-local relations, personnel management and major issues and problems of local government system of the country. The introductory chapter of the book undertakes a theoretical treatment of local government while the concluding chapter offers a summary of the major trends in Bangladesh's local government system.
Publications
* Kamal Siddiqui (Editor in Chief) ''Encyclopaedia of Flora and Fauna of Bangladesh'': 2008; Asiatic Society, Dhaka.
* ''Megacity Governance in South Asia : A Comparative Study'', 2004, University Press Ltd., Dhaka.
* ''Better days, better lives: Towards a strategy for implementing the convention on the rights of the child in Bangladesh'', 2001, University Press Ltd., Dhaka.
* ''Local governance in Bangladesh: Leading issues and major challenges'', 2000, University Press Ltd., Dhaka.(The third edition of the book was published in 2005).
* ''Jagatpur, 1977–97: Poverty and social change in rural Bangladesh'', 2000, University Press Ltd., Dhaka.
* ''Land Management in South Asia: A Comparative Study'', 1997, Dhaka.
* ''Fiscal decentralisation in Bangladesh'', 1991, National Institute of Local Government, Dhaka.
* ''An evaluation of the
Grameen Bank
Grameen Bank ( bn, গ্রামীণ ব্যাংক) is a microfinance organisation and community development bank founded in Bangladesh. It makes small loans (known as microcredit or "grameencredit") to the impoverished without requi ...
operation'', 1984, Dhaka.
* ''Towards good governance in Bangladesh: Fifty unpleasant Essays'', 1996, Dhaka.
* ''Local Government in Bangladesh'', 1994, Dhaka.
* ''Social Formation in Dhaka City'', 1993, University Press Ltd., Dhaka.
* ''Implementation of land reform in four villages of Bangladesh'' (APDAC's policies and implementation of land reform series), 1980, Dhaka.
* ''The political economy of land reforms in Bangladesh'', 1979, Dhaka.
* ''Bāṃlādeśe bhūmi-saṃskārera rājanaitika arthanīti'', 1981, Bāṃlādeśa Unnaẏana Gabeshaṇā Saṃsthā, Dhaka.
References
External links
Office of the High Commissioner for Human RightsA review by Archana Ghosh of ''Mega City Governance in South Asia''*
The Social Investment Program Project : Welcome Message
{{DEFAULTSORT:Siddiqui, Kamal Uddin
1945 births
Living people
Bangladeshi economists
Bangladeshi male writers
Bangladeshi civil servants
Bangladeshi sociologists
Bengali-language writers
Bangladeshi revolutionaries
People from Comilla District
University of Dhaka alumni
Bangladesh Liberation War
Children's rights in Bangladesh