False Propaganda about India’s Remittance from Bangladesh
https://www.daily-sun.com/printversion/details/331504/2018/08/26/False-Propaganda-about-India%E2%80%99s-Remittance-from-Bangladesh
Md Enamul Hassan
26 August, 2018 12:00 AM
Md Enamul Hassan
India is one of the largest foreign exchange earners in the world. The country has also been recognized as the highest foreign exchange earner during the last fiscal year according to a report published in ‘The Economic Times’ and the latest report by the World Bank.
For the last few years, India has taken its position as the highest remittance earner in history. The UAE is the first among the countries that contribute to this remittance earning followed by USA, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, England, Oman, Nepal, Canada and Australia.
India earns the highest amount of remittance from these top ten countries.
It is a matter of surprise that, on July 2, an unknown online magazine called ‘The Industry News’ published a baseless report on India’s remittance income from Bangladesh. This propaganda based website claimed that India has got USD 10 billion dollars remittance from Bangladesh in 2017. The matter has already gone viral on Facebook. Moreover this news is being spread in social media without verification. Many sensible citizens have shared this news. Many have already written about this; thus, my writing is a post mortem of this baseless news.
Firstly, let us focus on this online newspaper. I have never heard of any newspaper named ‘The Industry News’. This is the first time I have heard of this newspaper. Even I came to know that this newspaper is published from Bangladesh! Please inform me in case anyone has the address of this newspaper.
Now let us focus on the language of the report. There is more than one mistake in every sentence of the said report! The language is also strange! How can a newspaper unknown to the people get news from confidential sources of India's central bank! Not only that, some information has been presented in the report quoting the World Bank, the United Nations International Migration Organisation and the Central Reserve Bank of India.
The report contains a list which says, 'Bangladesh is the fourth largest remittance source of India.' It also mentions that India has earned USD 10 billion remittance from Bangladesh in 2017.
This amount was USD 832 million in 2016 and USD 450 million in 2014. However, there is no specific statement or reference of that organisation. No information was found in the Reserve Bank of India, the World Bank or IMO in this regard. The report has quoted a private development research institute named CPD. But no such statement was issued by CPD. This has not been mentioned in its website. Then where did they get this information from!
The ‘Pew Research Centre' is an organisation known to carry reliable information on remittance and migration issues. The organisation uses the World Bank's information. Therefore, any information related to remittance can be easily verified at the Pew Research Centre website. This website has information and list on incoming and outgoing remittances of India. One will not be able to believe his/her eyes after witnessing the huge difference between this list and the alleged news! The list first shows all foreign remittance from India. This shows Bangladesh’s position at the top. Bangladesh earns USD 4 billion remittance from the neighbouring country. And in the incoming remittance, the UAE comes first and Bangladesh is at the 25th place.
India earns USD 114, 000,000 remittances from Bangladesh, whereas the alleged report mentions this amount as USD 10 billion. On the other hand, Bangladesh earned USD 406 crore from India. It is to mention that Bangladesh gains the highest remittance from India. You can verify the authenticity of this information through the provided web link of Pew Research Centre (
http://www.pewglobal.org/interactives/remittance-map/)1. According to the report of ‘Times of India’ carried by April 25, 2018, the main sources of India’s remittance earning are United Arab Emirates (13.8 billion), United States (11.7 billion), Saudi Arabia (11.2 billion), Kuwait (4.6 billion) and Qatar (4.1 billion). The Times of India report also mentioned that Indian citizens are also living in Bangladesh and Pakistan but its impact on remittance is not very reflective.
India also earns remittance from two other neighbouring countries – Nepal and Bhutan. Bangladesh’s position is below these two countries as a source of India’s remittance. It is also clear from this statement that this online news portal has published confusing reports regarding remittances of India.
According to the report of top Indian media, Bangladesh’s position as a source of remittances earning is at the 25th place and the total amount of money is USD 114 million, which is similar to Pew Research Centre’s report; even according to the ‘Times of India’ report, India is the 1st source where Bangladesh earns remittance and its amount is USD 4 billion which is 35 times more than incoming and outgoing remittances of India.
The highest number of remittance comes in Bangladesh from India, which is 71% of their total remittances; 4 billion out of total 5 billion; that means Bangladesh earns 35 times more than what India takes from us. The calculation of this income can be considered very naturally.
India is the largest country and many people from Bangladesh go to the neighbouring country for employment purposes. So, the total amount of this highest population’s remittance will be huge. On the other hand, Bangladesh is a small country and the people of India are not migrants to Bangladesh rather than they are migrants to the Middle East countries like United Arab Emirates, or European countries. So, it is clear that a report carried by an online media about Bangladesh regarding India’s remittance earning is absolutely baseless and deliberate.
Many are mentioning Wikipedia’s references, but Wikipedia can never be an authentic database. This is because anyone can make addition or disseminate information in Wikipedia. So if anybody wants to present Wikipedia’s information on remittance as authentic, then it should be said that there is a limitation in his knowledge of technology and information.
In addition, it is also seen that Bangladesh’s position in Wikipedia is the 25th. So it is better to provide the right information rather than misleading someone with false information. In spite of being a smaller country than India, Bangladesh has recently reached the enviable level in the world on earning remittance. Over five million Bangladeshis working abroad send remittance to the country every year. It has already been mentioned in the list of foreign remittance earning sectors.
According to the World Bank report of the year, Bangladesh is currently one of the world’s top ten remittance earning nations. I have said earlier that Bangladesh has earned the highest amount of remittance from India. But after having such a good relationship with this country, this report has been published unexpectedly and goes viral through online. There is no reason to take this blown out information as normal.
It may be mentioned that Pakistan’s on-line news portal ‘defense.pk’ run by ISI has made the biggest publicity of the false news. Pakistan based online media, IDs and some pro-Pakistan individuals were the biggest publishers of this news in the social media.
Confusion will be created among the public where the governments of Bangladesh and India and political parties of the two countries are trying hard to bring India-Bangladesh relations to a unique height. Every citizen should write against this baseless report. It should be kept in mind that no nation can strengthen its position remaining hostile to its neighbouring country.
Everyone should be aware of the individuals who are trying to strengthen their position by weakening the relationship between Bangladesh and India. On the other hand, the government should bring to book the persons who have published this report through their website.
The opportunity to gain political interest by misguiding the people through spreading false information should end forever.
The writer is the diplomatic correspondent of the daily sun.