Rehman Sobhan, a prominent economist, played a significant role in the nationalist movement of Bangladesh. Professor Sobhan along with other nationalist economists contributed to the drafting of six-points programme that became the basis for the struggle for autonomy in the then East Pakistan. The various writings of the young Cambridge trained economist Sobhan on regional disparity between West Pakistan (present day Pakistan) and East Pakistan (present day Bangladesh) played a successful role in fomenting nationalist aspiration. During the liberation war for Bangladesh (March 26, 1971 to December 16, 1971) he was a roving ambassador of Bangladesh lobbying for Bangladesh in the United States. After the independence of Bangladesh he was made a member of the Planning Commission. He was in self-exile after the military coup of August 1975. Upon his return to Bangladesh, he continued to be active in economic research and policy debates first with Bangladesh Institute of Development Studies (BIDS) and later he founded the Centre for Policy Dialogue, a leading Think Tank in South Asia. He authored over two dozens books and numerous articles both in professional journals as well as popular media. He was also made an an advisor of the Caretaker Governemnt in Bangladesh in 1990-91.
Professor Sobhan's cohorts at Cambridge included prominent economists of the Indian subcontinent such as Amartya Sen, Manomohan Singh, and Mahbub-ul Haque. Sobhan continues to play an active role in the civil society movement in South Asia. He is a leading public intellectual in Bangladesh.
Chief Adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed yesterday lauded Prof RehmanSobhan for his 'immense contribution' to Bangladesh's independence and to the country's development through highlighting a myriad of problems and their solutions in his academic and popular writings.
Sobhan said the selected collection of his popular writings, stretching from 1958 to 2006, have the notion of justice at the core and express his ideas on political economy of the society.
Prof Sobhan was born in Kolkata in 1935 and taught economics at Dhaka University between 1957 and 1971.
RehmanSobhan and I were then working for -- in fact running -- the active South Asian students' society called the Majlis: I think Rehman was the president, and I was the general secretary.
Salma smiled as Rehman unleashed his well-rehearsed chain of arguments on why a newly arrived South Asian at Cambridge must join the Majlis immediately, or else her life would be culturally and politically ruined.
The Ain O Salish Kendra, founded by Salma Sobhan, is active in the specific context of Bangladesh and the developing countries of today, whereas Mary Wollstonecraft's efforts related to the debates and programmes at the time of the French Revolution in Europe and US independence in America.
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