Kamal Uddin Siddiqui
Encyclopedia
Working as faculty at the Monash University
, Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, popularly known as Kamal Siddiqui, is an economist
and social scientist
from Bangladesh
.
In 1971, he participated in the Liberation War of Bangladesh. A career civil servant by profession, he served as the Principal Secretary to the government of Bangladesh until 2006. He was nominated by Bangladesh for election to the United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child
, and served from 2005-09. 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
.
. He quit his job and walked to India
to participate in the war of liberation. He took arms in hand and participated in battles with occupational Pakistan
army. After the establishment of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971, he returned home and was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner
(DC) and District Magistrate of the Khulna district
.
which was published in 2009 (see link).
, 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.
Kamal Siddiqui has coined a term cocktail ideology to characterize the cultural profile of the Bangladesh
i people in the twenty first century. A "cocktail ideology", combining the retrogressive interpretation of religion
and tradition
with vulgar elements of the so-called modernity
, has emerged in many developing countries since 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 tends to be more affected by this "cocktail ideology" than any other class of the society.
was first used in 1940 by Lewis Mumford
to refer to the great mega cities growing uncontrollably. Manuel Castells
called the emergence of such mega cities of eight illion or more people a feature of 21st century urbanization. Kamal Siddiqui, in association with Archana Ghosh, Sharit K. Bhowmik, Shahid A Siddiqi, Madhulika Mitra, Shchi Kapuria, Nilay Ranjan, Jamshed Ahmed researched the growth of mega cities in South Asia
, namely Mumbai
, Delhi
, Dhaka
, Kolkata
and Karachi
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 prioritization.
in Geneva to review the implementation status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Bangladesh (second periodic report review session), held in September 2003.
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
in its landmark judgement in a child rights case in 2003, owing to these activities.
and of Bangladesh
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.
Monash University
Monash University is a public university based in Melbourne, Victoria. It was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. Monash is a member of Australia's Group of Eight and the ASAIHL....
, Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, popularly known as Kamal Siddiqui, is an economist
Economist
An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...
and social scientist
Social Scientist
Social Scientist is a New Delhi based journal in social sciences and humanities published since 1972....
from Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
.
In 1971, he participated in the Liberation War of Bangladesh. A career civil servant by profession, he served as the Principal Secretary to the government of Bangladesh until 2006. He was nominated by Bangladesh for election to the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
Committee on the Rights of the Child
Committee on the Rights of the Child
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is a body of independent experts that monitors and reports on implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by governments that ratify the Convention...
, and served from 2005-09. 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
Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
The Asiatic Society of Bangladesh was established as the Asiatic Society of Pakistan in Dhaka in 1952. It was renamed as the Asiatic Society of Bangladesh in 1972. Ahmed Hasan Dani, a noted historian and archaeologist of Pakistan played an important role in founding this society. He was assisted by...
.
Participation in War of Liberation
Bangladesh's war of liberation commenced on 25 March 1971. At that time Kamal Siddiqui was serving as the Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) of NorailNarail District
Narail is a district in South-western in Bangladesh. It is a part of the Khulna Division.-Geography:Narail District with an area of 990.23 km², is bounded by Magura District on the north, Khulna District on the south, Faridpur District and Gopalganj District on the east, and by Jessore...
. He quit his job and walked to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
to participate in the war of liberation. He took arms in hand and participated in battles with occupational Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
army. After the establishment of Bangladesh on 16 December 1971, he returned home and was appointed as the Deputy Commissioner
Deputy Commissioner
A deputy commissioner is a police or administrative official in many different countries.-Australia:In all Australian police forces, deputy commissioner is the rank directly below that of commissioner and senior to the rank of assistant commissioner except in the New South Wales Police Force, where...
(DC) and District Magistrate of the Khulna district
Khulna District
The district of Khulna consists 10859 mosques, 680 temples, 81 churches, 15 Buddhist temples and 9 tombs.-Places of interest:*The Sundarbans is the largest mangrove forest in the world. The royal Bengal tiger inhabits the area; it is said that seeing the tiger enables a person to understand what a...
.
Latest work
While teaching at Monash University, Kamal Siddiqui has co-authored a book on diplomacyDiplomacy
Diplomacy is the art and practice of conducting negotiations between representatives of groups or states...
which was published in 2009 (see link).
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 BangladeshBangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, 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.
Kamal Siddiqui has coined a term cocktail ideology to characterize the cultural profile of the Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
i people in the twenty first century. A "cocktail ideology", combining the retrogressive interpretation of religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
and tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
with vulgar elements of the so-called modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
, has emerged in many developing countries since 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 tends to be more affected by this "cocktail ideology" than any other class of the society.
MegaCity governance
The term megalopolisMegalopolis (city type)
A megalopolis is typically defined as a chain of roughly adjacent metropolitan areas. The term was used by Oswald Spengler in his 1918 book, The Decline of the West, and Lewis Mumford in his 1938 book, The Culture of Cities, which described it as the first stage in urban overdevelopment and...
was first used in 1940 by Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford was an American historian, philosopher of technology, and influential literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a writer...
to refer to the great mega cities growing uncontrollably. Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells
Manuel Castells is a sociologist especially associated with information society and communication research....
called the emergence of such mega cities of eight illion or more people a feature of 21st century urbanization. Kamal Siddiqui, in association with Archana Ghosh, Sharit K. Bhowmik, Shahid A Siddiqi, Madhulika Mitra, Shchi Kapuria, Nilay Ranjan, Jamshed Ahmed researched the growth of mega cities in South Asia
South Asia
South Asia, also known as Southern Asia, is the southern region of the Asian continent, which comprises the sub-Himalayan countries and, for some authorities , also includes the adjoining countries to the west and the east...
, namely Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...
, Delhi
Delhi
Delhi , officially National Capital Territory of Delhi , is the largest metropolis by area and the second-largest by population in India, next to Mumbai. It is the eighth largest metropolis in the world by population with 16,753,265 inhabitants in the Territory at the 2011 Census...
, Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
, Kolkata
Kolkata
Kolkata , formerly known as Calcutta, is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. Located on the east bank of the Hooghly River, it was the commercial capital of East India...
and Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
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 prioritization.
Work for children's rights
He has worked for children’s rights and has acted as Chairman of the Inter-Ministerial Standing Committee on Child Rights of the government of Bangladesh since January 2002. On 12 March 2003 he organized an International Workshop on Child Labour in Dhaka under the auspices of Asian Cooperation Dialogue (ACD). He led the Bangladesh delegation to the meeting of the Committee on the Rights of the ChildCommittee on the Rights of the Child
The Committee on the Rights of the Child is a body of independent experts that monitors and reports on implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by governments that ratify the Convention...
in Geneva to review the implementation status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Bangladesh (second periodic report review session), held in September 2003.
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
Supreme Court of Bangladesh
The Supreme Court of Bangladesh 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 Chapter I of the Constitution of Bangladesh adopted in 1972. This is also the office of the Chief Justice, Appellate Division...
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 PakistanEast Pakistan
East Pakistan was a provincial state of Pakistan established in 14 August 1947. The provincial state existed until its declaration of independence on 26 March 1971 as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan recognized the new nation on 16 December 1971. East Pakistan was created from Bengal...
and of Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
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 BankGrameen BankThe Grameen Bank is a microfinance organization and community development bank started in Bangladesh that makes small loans to the impoverished without requiring collateral...
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.