Political Myth of „Shonar Bangla‟ and Rising Frustration in Bangladesh

The “Shonar Bangla” (Golden Bangla) political myth met some important historical needs during the time of the nationalistic movements in Bangladesh. However, it is likely to have created excessive expectations in regards to the managerial capability of the nationalists who successfully spearheaded the movements. Following independence in 1971, these nationalists could not translate even a tiny fraction of the myth into reality. Their dire failure in this regard might have produced a feeling of excessive frustration among Bangladeshis and as such, it may have adversely impacted the socioeconomic and political conditions in Bangladesh. By comparing some relevant data of Bangladesh and some of its peer countries (Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Turkey (MITT)), this study finds that the corruption perception index of the preceding year significantly and positively influences the current frustration level in Bangladesh. Despite some limitations of the data set, the findings are intuitively acceptable and instructive for all concerned.


Introduction
Bangladesh obtained independence in 1971 after a nine-month long bloody armed struggle. Prior to the 1971 Liberation War Bangladeshis (East Pakistanis) carried out nationalistic movements against the Pakistani neo-colonial regime for nearly 25 years with a noble mission and vision of transforming the exploitation-ridden destitute Bangladesh into "Shonar Bangla" -free from poverty, injustice and discrimination that were inflicted on Bangladeshis by the colonial regimes; blessed with democracy from which the Pakistani regime deprived Bangladeshis for nearly 25 years; unhindered development of the multicultural environment and the like. The Bangladeshi nationalists signalled that if they get the ruling power, Bangladesh would be again "Shonar Bangla". Unfortunately, after 50 years since independence, not a tiny fraction of the "Shonar Bangla" myth has come into fruition. For example, under the successive nationalist governments the income inequality increased rapidly despite high per capita gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates in Bangladesh. While the per capita GDP increased from US$ 378.09 in 1983 to US$1062 in 2016 (constant 2010 US$), the Gini coefficient -a measurement of income inequality -increased from 25.9 in 1983 to 32.4 in 2016 (worldbank.org/world-development-indicators/). It implies that economically, a very small section of the Bangladeshis has got "Shonar Bangla" at the expense of escalating poverty of the general masses who had been fighting for it for 25 years; politically, the same section gains "Shonar Bangla" by drifting away from the promised Western-style democratic practices ever since independence; and socially, this section dominates over other sections. These problematic developments brew an intense frustration among the general masses in Bangladesh (Hoque 2012, 109,124-5;Samaddar 2002, 16). Bangladeshis could not express their frustration during the 1972-1990 periods through ballot-boxes, because the elections held during that period were massively rigged by the incumbents (Barua 1978, 168;Khan 1980;Mydans 1988). Their frustration was manifested in the elections held between 1991 and 2008, because they were free and fair under the supervision of the non-partisan caretaker governments (Rashiduzzaman 2002). The incumbent government lost in each election held during that period. Many voters swung against them due to their failure to meet their expectations (Jahan 2005, 291). A bundle of reasons may be attributed to the failure of the governments, but one key reason may be the use of the political myths like "Shonar Bangla" which might have induced people to form a high level of expectation about the prospective performance of the nationalistic governments. When people compared the prospective and the retrospective performances of the governments and perceived a gulf of difference between them, they may have possibly become more frustrated than they would have been in the absence of those political myths. This excessive frustration has far-reaching adverse social, economic and political implications in Bangladesh.
Political myths have utilities to both the nationalist elites and the deprived people (Lugli 2014). They are necessary for igniting and sustaining the tempo of the nationalistic movements against the oppressive regimes (colonist/authoritarian/dictatorial). They are necessary, but they are evil too, because they make people euphoric in regards to the prospective performance of the nationalists. When the nationalists formed and ran the governments after overthrowing the colonial power by the armed struggle in 1971, they failed to transform the self-propagated political myths into reality. This likely frustrated the very people who rallied behind them risking their lives. Following independence, the public mandate was hijacked by the populist authoritarian nationalist regimes by rigging the elections held between 1972 and 1990. This could not be done in the elections held under the supervision of the non-partisan caretaker governments between 1991 and 2008. Many people voted against the incumbent nationalist governments out of frustration with a view to assassinate them politically. They were successful at least for a while, though not permanently.
The East Pakistani nationalists deliberately used the "Shonar Bangla" myth to rekindle the Bengali nationalistic spirit among Bangladeshis. They were successful in this regard, but those who formed the post-independent governments failed to translate the key substances of this myth -the substantive development of Bangladesh through establishing democracy, accountability, transparency and the like. The purposeful use of the "Shonar Bangla" myth by the nationalists during the nationalist movements was not a "big sin" for them, because it was vitally necessary to evoke Bengali nationalistic feeling among Bangladeshis. Their "big sin" was to drift away from those values for which they spearheaded people to fight against the oppressive Pakistani neo-colonial rule. After independence, people believed that within the lifetime of the current generation (30 to 40 years from independence) who fought for autonomy and eventually for independence, Bangladesh would be transformed into "Shonar Bangla". In other words, Bangladesh would be as good as MITT through establishment of the democratic rule as well as transparency and accountability in the functioning of the government. They became frustrated again and again due to the dire failure of successive governments to achieve these objectives. Among others, the myth of the "Shonar Bangla", might have played an important role in germinating excessive frustration among masses.
The alleged excessive frustration resulting from the use of the myths is likely to produce some adverse impacts on the socioeconomic and political systems in Bangladesh. In the short-run, the frustrated people usually turn out for voting but vote against the incumbent government in the hope of disciplining them. As such, the government loses in the election. The new government abandons the previous government"s policies disregarding their merits. It also fails to satisfy the peoples" expectations formed from their myths and fails to be re-elected in the following election. As a result, even the merit-based policies are discontinued leading to a chaotic situation. The long-run effects of excessive frustration are even worse. When the successive governments fail to satisfy the peoples" expectations, many people cease to turn out for voting. Consequently, the government becomes unrepresentative of the people. Moreover, given that people become uninterested to protest against the malpractices of the government, the government eventually becomes authoritarian and people tolerate it silently. In addition, when the government indulges in the malpractices such as massive misappropriation of public funds and vote rigging, and those go on unprotested for fear of persecution by the authoritarian government, people also become de-moralized. They may indulge in the malpractices, such as getting involved with the black economy and paying no taxes at all, or paying the least amount of taxes possibly by bribing the concerned officials. As a result, in the long run, the government does not receive enough tax-revenue necessary to meet basic public needs. The partisan politicians associated with the ruling party, and their cronies in the bureaucracy and business circles, become excessively rich at the expense of the abject poverty of the masses. All these factors combinedly contribute to perpetuate the authoritarian rule and development of crony capitalism, which are likely to produce a host of social, economic and political ills in Bangladesh. Bangladesh, therefore, is left with little chance to become "Shonar Bangla".
Researchers have advanced some theories of frustration, such as the theories of the rising expectation, the short-term setbacks and the relative deprivation (e.g., Coleman 1990, 472-474;Tripathi and Srivasta 1981;Gurr 1970). These theories explain sources of frustration from socio-psychological and psychological perspectives. However, none of these theories has included myths as a key source of frustration. Some electoral behaviour theories (e.g. Kay"s (1966) reward-punishment model; Downs" (1957) economic vote model; Fiorina"s (1981) retrospective vote model; Mueller"s (1970) asymmetric grievance vote model; Cox"s (1969) spatial (geographical) model; Besley and Case"s (1995) yardstick competition model; Nannestad and Paldam"s (1997) revised asymmetric grievance model; Ferejohn and Fiorina"s (1974) minimax regret model, Huntington"s (1968) modernisation theory, Brennan and Lomasky"s (1993) expressive vote model and the like) may indirectly provide some clues about the sources of frustration from the socioeconomic perspectives. However, none of them focus on the role of myths in generating high expectations about the governments" prospective performance and consequent frustration among people. In the case of Bangladesh, the sources of frustration of Bangladeshis can be derived indirectly from some empirical studies (e.g., Karim 2007;Jahan 2005, 291;Baldersheim, Ishtiaq and Salahuddin 2001;Blair 1979) that endeavour to find determinants of voter turnout in Bangladesh. They have identified some factors that dissuade voters to turn out for casting votes or motivate voters for casting negative votes in favour of the dominant opposition out of frustration. This implies that those factors directly or indirectly caused some kind of frustration among them. Their common finding is that the voters were frustrated, because the performance of the governments in terms of delivery of public goods and services fell short of their expected or promised level by a substantial margin. The people"s high expectation of the government"s performance may have been formed by many factors, including myths, which was not focused in these studies.
In this context, this study aims to identify factors that are likely to cause excessive frustration in Bangladesh. This study compares the real per capita GDP of Bangladesh with those of MITT, because MITT may be considered by Bangladeshis as good as the mythical "Shonar Bangla". This is because, at some points in time their real per capita GDPs and some other social, economic and political development indicators, were close to that of Bangladesh ( Figure 2). Since they have achieved their current higher status in fewer than 50 years after independence, Bangladesh should have attained a similar position by this time too. By analysing a data set consisting of real per capita GDP, Good Governance Indicator (GGI), Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and Human Development Index (HDI) of Bangladesh and MITT, we find that the current frustration level is influenced by the previous year"s frustration level and perception of corruption. The findings of this study may help the nationalists to identify potential factors that were likely to have pushed up peoples" frustration above the normal level. Thus, they may be able to balance between what they promise to do by "manufacturing" myths, and what they can do in reality when they gain the ruling power. This will help them to avoid their "political assassination" and prolong their political career far beyond the current electoral cycle. Alongside the nationalists, the people may be able to form rational expectations about the prospective performance of their "model" nationalists. Thus, they may be able to reduce their frustration and be motivated to participate in the socio-political affairs in Bangladesh. This will help the country to develop in the line with the rational expectations of the people of Bangladesh, as well as the actual accommodative capacity of the political institutions.
The following section reviews the theories that directly and indirectly explain the factors causing frustration. It also sheds light on empirical evidences regarding sources of frustration. In the third section, we have developed a theoretical model modifying Mallick and Hussain (1992) to explain the nationalists" attempts to gradually capitalize on the level of frustration of the people at different stages of the on-going nationalistic movements and beyond. The fourth section elaborates on the life-cycle of the "Shonar Bangla" myth. The potential factors affecting frustration are identified in the fifth section. The sixth section describes methodologies and the data set. While we discuss the descriptive statistics in the seventh section, we explain our empirical findings in the eighth section. The limitations and strengths of this study are explored in the ninth section, before we draw our conclusion in the tenth section.

Literature Review
Frustration of the people, whether that be at the personal, group or societal level, may arise from multiple sources including socioeconomic, psychological, socio-psychological and the like. The government influences these sources of frustration through its policies and as a result, it may be blamed for brewing frustration among the people or appreciated for lowering it.
An important limitation of their models is that they fail to recognize that any shortfall in the government"s performance is unlikely to generate frustration. The people may forgive the government for a reasonably small-scale shortfall. Secondly, Kay (1966) and Fiorina (1981) do not specify the exact criteria of assessing the government"s performance. As a result, there is a large grey area in their theories. Downs (1957) narrows down the array of performance measurements of the government to economic issues only and as such, his theory is more instrumentalist than Key"s (1966). However, Downs (1957) also adds some elements of expressiveness (e.g., turning out for voting is a civic duty) in his model to resolve the paradox of voting. When Downs (1957) assumes that civic duty of a voter is constant, his suggestions become similar to Kay"s (1966) and Fiorina"s (1981). A key limitation of Downs" (1957) theory is that socio-political and some other issues might overpower economic issues in some contexts and as such, they cannot be undermined. Mueller"s (1977) asymmetric grievance model and Nannestad and Paldam"s (1997) revised asymmetric grievance model are extensions of Downs" (1957) economic vote model. Mueller (1977) improves Downs" (1957) theory by arguing that people get frustrated only when the government"s performance falls below a threshold level. Nannestad and Paldam (1997) enrich our understanding further by suggesting that when the government"s performance level keeps falling, people"s frustration grows at an increasing rate. On the other hand, when the same starts creeping up, their frustration falls at a decreasing rate. Thus, changes in frustration respond at asymmetric speeds with changes in the government"s performance. Ferejohn and Fiorina"s (1974) minimax regret model approaches this issue from a different perspective. They hypothesise that when a person perceives that his candidate is most likely to lose in the election by a narrow margin, he suffers from frustration. This is because he is unlikely to receive as much constituency services from his disliked candidate as he expects from his preferred candidate. However, Ferejohn and Fiorina (1974) do not discern whether the candidate belongs to the same or cross-ethnic groups, which is the focus of Kay"s (1949) ethnic vote model. Kay (1949) distinguishes candidates in the ethnic line and suggests that people suffer from frustration when their co-ethnic political elites: (a) are not the "right" candidates, but they cannot cross the ethnic line due to pressure of the other members of their ethnic-groups; and (b) fail to deliver them the "right" type and "right" amount of constituency services and project works in return for their votes. It is important to note that all the aforementioned theories treat a person in isolation of society, which does not capture the reality. Cox"s (1969) spatial (geographical) model and Besley and Case"s (1995) yardstick competition model bring inter-personal comparison into consideration and suggest that people do not assess performance of the government on the basis of their absolute personal condition, but rather on their personal condition in comparison to their intra-group or inter-group peers in neighbouring areas. While the aforementioned theories are built predominantly on the basis of instrumentalism, Brennan and Lomasky"s (1993) expressive vote model is purely expressive. A derivative of their model is that the frustrated people gain relief from their frustration by not turning out for voting, or by turning out for voting for other candidates who have little chance to win but who stand for something worthy to be supported. As a result, it may be argued that people become frustrated when the candidates do not stand for what those people look for in the candidates" agendas.
In contrast to the socioeconomic models, the sociological model (Lazarsfeld 1944) suggests that people feel the need to align their behaviour with their peers in their own socioeconomic group. In doing so, people suffer from frustration when they wish to change their behaviour from the social norm but cannot due to social pressure. Similarly, the psycho-sociological (Campbell, Phillip, Warren, and Donald 1966) models suggest that people"s attitude is developed under the influence of people they are surrounded by since their childhood. When people wish to deviate from their ingrained social norms, but cannot do so due to social pressure, they suffer from frustration. It is important to note that these theories do not make it clear whether people become frustrated due to worsening of their inter-temporal personal condition or social condition. They also do not make it clear as to whether the time period is short or long; or how "short" is short and how "long" is long. The empirical evidences available are of mixed nature (e.g., Stigler 1973;Kramer 1971).
According to the frustration theories, people become frustrated under the following conditions: (a) expectation of the people is rising at a higher rate than the rate the government can ensure (Coleman 1990, 472); (b) sudden brakes in the rate of improvement (Coleman 1990, 472-474); and (c) maldistribution of benefits arising from socioeconomic development (Tripathi and Srivasta 1981). While the frustration theories have not explicitly outlined the assumptions on which they are built, the relative deprivation theory has done so. These assumptions include: (a) some vital needs of the people are not satisfied by the government; (b) people compare inter-and/or intra-group socioeconomic conditions; (c) people feel that they have a right to possess them; (d) people strongly believe that it is feasible to acquire them; (e) under the current situation the prospect of owning them in the future is bleak; and (f) people do not blame themselves for not currently possessing it (Alain 1985). When these conditions prevail, people feel relatively deprived and hence may experience frustration. The theory has been tested empirically using data collected from laboratory experiments and the working and social environments. However, the results of the laboratory experiments are not especially reliable, because feelings of deprivation in the real and hypothetical situations are not the same. While some studies (Butler 1976;Hill 1974) that have used data from working and social environments support this theory, some (e.g., Knies, Simon, and Carol 2008) do not. Results from these studies differ because: (a) different people understand the theory differently; and (b) some studies use aggregate-level data instead of individual-level one (Bernstein and Crosby 1980). Overall, intra-and inter-personal socioeconomic comparisons within a country and cross-national socioeconomic comparison in different nationalistic contexts are important factors that give birth to frustration (Guimond and Dubé -Simard 1983). Yet no theories have focussed on political myths as a source of frustration. As a result, there is a gap left unexplored in the theories.
Contrary to the explanation of frustration from the socioeconomic, sociological, psycho-sociological and cognitive perspectives, Huntington"s (1968, 1-5) modernization theory explains sources of frustration from the politico-institutional perspective. He argues that as the country develops socioeconomically, more people become educated and wealthy, and as such they become more aware of their social, political and economic rights. If these rights are not satisfied by the traditional political institutions, people become frustrated. While the economic deprivation does play an important role in generating frustration, Huntington"s modernization theory has marginalized its role by overwhelmingly emphasizing politico-institutional development. Moreover, modernization takes place in a step-up fashion (Rostow 1959) whereas Huntington"s (1968) modernization takes place in one-go. The modernization theory is tested empirically as to whether or not it leads to democracy and the results are mixed (Treisman 2015). While the theory is not tested as to whether or not it leads to more frustration, it seems to have some usefulness in explaining frustration itself.
Thus far, theoretical developments and empirical studies related to the development of frustration in Bangladesh, have left untouched the concept of a political myth potentially serving as a potent source of frustration. The sources of frustration in Bangladeshis can be traced back in some empirical studies (e.g., Karim 2007;Jahan 2005, 291;Baldersheim, Ishtiaq and Salahuddin 2001;Blair 1979) related to potential determinants of voter turnout in Bangladesh. The general finding of these studies is that voters were frustrated because the performance of the governments in terms of delivering the public goods and services, fell shorter than the voters" expected level by a significant margin. The voters" expected performance may be formed by many factors, including myths, which these studies have not addressed. Bhattacherjee (2018) finds that Bangladeshis in general become frustrated when: (a) they cannot express their grievances against the poor performance of the government through ballot-boxes; (b) the government fails to provide security of life and property to the people; (c) the people lose trust in the government and its institutions; (d) the government becomes intolerant of constructive criticisms; (e) the income inequality increases at a faster rate in spite of moderate economic growth; and (f) the government does not keep its promises, and so on. In particular, the Bangladeshi farmers become frustrated when harvests are destroyed by natural calamities and prices of crops fall by large margins (The Independent, 19 September, 2020). The Bangladeshi youths become frustrated when they do not secure expected jobs after graduation (Financial Express, 19 September, 2020). By using highly standardized data sets no prior empirical studies have explored, the sources of frustration in Bangladesh arising from the use of political myths like "Shonar Bangla" are investigated in this study.

A Model of Political Myths and Progression of the Nationalistic Movements
We build up a step-up political myth model (figure 1) on the basis of some important assumptions: i. Politicking is the prime motive of involvement with political affairs. The accrual of national benefits from politicking is a by-product in the course of the pursuit of personal benefits.
ii. The demand for myths increases at an increasing rate.
iii. The supply of myths increases at a decreasing rate.
iv. The total population consists of three major socioeconomic status (SES) groups: (a) Lower; (b) Middle; and (c) Higher. Figure 1 shows that the timeline of the nation X is divided into two parts: the colonial and the independent periods consist of many illusions and disillusions respectively. The nation achieves independence from the colonial rule by following a zigzag path (o-b-c-d-e-f-g-h-i-j).

First Phase: Demand for Poverty Eradication
The lower SES group usually suffers from abject poverty under a colonial rule. A section of the middle SES group, the self-declared vanguard of the nation, blames the colonial rule for their poverty and as such, mobilizes them against the regime. The nationalists manufacture some myths to rally more people behind them. A myth, for example, may be aired that the nation was very resourceful before the regime"s oppressive rule. The regime has been making the country poorer over time through exploitation. The country may have in fact been always poor and as such, resourcefulness of the country in the retrospect may be a myth. By presenting it repeatedly, the nationalists make the people believe it. Thus, at some point (e.g., at point a 0 ) the supply of myths exceeds their demand (a 0 c>a 0 b).

Second Phase: Demand for Democracy
The middle SES group has grievances against the regime, because the educated people do not have access to jobs; and the small traders encounter problems in running their businesses due to lack of support from the regime. This and the lower SES group form the largest group in the population. The nationalists realize that they can position themselves in running the country if democracy is introduced and as such, they demand for democratic reforms. However, they try to make democracy a myth too. They claim that in democracy all are equal and so, once democracy is enrooted in the polity of the nation under their leadership, all existing social, economic and political ills will disappear.

Third Phase: Demand for Autonomy
The nationalists want to broaden their support base further and launch a popular upsurge. They try to include some people from the upper SES group who are not cronies of the regime and as such, are deprived of the state"s spoils. These people can provide the nationalists with the political finances needed for launching vigorous movements against the regime. The nationalists add another myth to motivate peopleautonomy is a cure for all socioeconomic ills. They argue that democracy under a colonial regime is in fact a "hollow democracy". The nation, therefore, needs autonomy which would empower the nationalists to frame good policies for the nation. This demand impresses the people and as such, the supply of the myths exceeds their demand (a 2 g>a 2 f).

Fourth Phase: Aspiration for a Unique National Identity
Having increased their power base, the nationalists raise the demand for independence (a 3 h) from the colonists. They identify independence as the most powerful tool to establish themselves as a dignified nation in the world.
This demand is indivisible and invaluable. The nationalists make independence a myth that it would transform the country into a heaven-like place characterized by economic affluency, freedom of choice, good governance, accountability, transparency, fair elections, rule of law and the like. This fascinates the people and leads them to participate in the independence movement, which may also involve risking their lives. At this stage (a 3 ) demands of the people for myths and the supply of myths by the nationalists become equal (a 3 h).

Fifth Stage: Test of Managerial Capability
After having independence from the colonial power, the nationalists need to translate myths into reality (a 4 j) starting from complete poverty eradication to establishment of democracy, accountability and transparency and so on, as epitomised in the myths (a 4 j). Through the national movements, they try to demonstrate that they have potential acumen to realise the myths into reality. The reality, however, is dismal. Following independence, people do not gain an iota of these myths in most cases. Consequently, the promised old myths lose their appeal, and the gulf between peoples" expectation from the nationalists and their translation of myths into reality keeps increasing. As such, this leads to mounting frustration among the common people. In response, the nationalists then indulge in the creation of even more myths such as: i.
Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon and as such multidisciplinary and multi-prong approaches are necessary to eradicate it. So, the nation will have wait for another century to see it happen. ii.
The condition of the country does not allow democracy to practise.
iii. It would take several generations to erase the toxic legacies of the colonial rule.
iv. People have a "long" wish list and as such no government can "shop" for them.
The cronies of the regimes propagate these myths, but very few believe them.

Life-Cycle of the "Shonar Bangla" Political Myth
The seed of the independence movement of Bangladesh was planted with the national language movement in 1948. As the mother tongue of over fifty percent of the people of United Pakistan was Bengali, it deserved to be one of its national languages according to the democratic norms. When this democratic demand was thrashed by the then Pakistani regime, East Pakistanis started the language movement against it. As the Pakistani regime became increasingly more repressive in dealing with the language issue, the movement against it resultantly became stronger. Within a few years, after partition of British India in 1947, the then East Pakistan became a neo-colony of the West Punjabis and newly immigrants from Northern India who settled in erstwhile West Pakistan (now Pakistan). The demand for regional autonomy, therefore, was added along with the demand for Bengali as one of the national languages of Pakistan. By this time, the myth of the two-nation theory (i.e., Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations and as such they cannot live together) on which Pakistan was curved out of British India lost appeal to Bengalis due to repression upon them in the name of Islamic brotherhood. Hence, the nationalistic movement continued to flourish in East Pakistan on the basis of secular Bengali nationalism reinforced by the myth "Shonar Bangla".
The secular Bengali nationalism based on the Bengali language and culture had been thriving since 756 AD when the indigenous Pala dynastic rule was established in Bengal through consensus among Bengali Chieftains. Under the alien Brahminic Sen dynastic rule which ended partially in 1203, the Bengali language and culture declined in importance due to over-Sanskritization of Bengali literature. Bakhtiyar Khilji, an Afghan Muslim commander, overthrew the Sen dynastic rule from present West Bengal of India and established an alien Muslim rule there. For a long time, they tried to establish their sociocultural and political hegemony in Bengal by coercion but failed. They, therefore, indigenised themselves and started to patronise Bengalis and their language and culture since 1441 (Eaton 1993, 55-66 Bengali language and culture received a sharp jolt during the anti-partition movement, as it was proliferated with a host of patriotic songs and poems. Among others, Rabindranath Tagore, a Noble Laureate poet in Bengali literature, wrote multiple songs in protest against the Bengal-partition. One of his famous songs was "Amar Shonar Bangla" which depicts Bengal as a peaceful, tranquil and harmonious land; a land which is blessed with endless bounties and captivating beauty; and a land where people and nature coexist amicably (Siddiqi, 2003). Being a "son of the soil", the Bengal-partition hurt Rabindranath"s feelings of Bengali nationalism. This song along with other nationalistic songs was sung by the supporters of the anti-partition movement to evoke nationalistic sentiments among Bengalis, especially Bengali Hindus. Thus, Rabindranath elevated Bengal to the mythical status of "Shonar Bangla", whereas historically Bengal was never a "Shonar Bangla" except during the indigenous Pala dynastic rule over the 756 AD-1143 AD period (Khan 1992). "Shonar Bangla" became a myth only to the middle-class Hindus. It did not become so to Bengali Muslims during the anti-British movement. Following violent Hindu-Muslim conflicts and riots around the mid-40s, the middle-class West Bengal Hindus opted to split United Bengal to form Hindu-dominant West Bengal and Muslim-dominant East Bengal. This time they did not regard the Bengal-partition as tearing of their goddess Kali. In 1947 British India was partitioned in the communal line -India and Pakistan. As a result, the United Bengal was partitioned in the communal line too, and with this Bengal-partition, the "Shonar Bangla" myth was reduced to ashes.
Rabindranath"s mythical "Shonar Bangla" saw a phoenix re-birth in East Pakistan when East Pakistani Bengalis started to protest against the Pakistani oppressive regime which planned to transform East Pakistan into a land of destitute "Kangal Bangla" (meaning hungry and poor Bangla). The Bengali nationalists used the "Shonar Bangla" myth to rekindle secular nationalistic spirit among Bengalis during all nationalistic movements, including the 1948 language movement, 1962 anti-Ayub movement and the 1969 non-cooperation movement ( Figure 2). The 21-point charter of the coalition of nationalist parties of East Pakistan (United Front) formed before the 1954 general election and the East Pakistan Awami League (EPAL)"s six-point charter aimed to transform "Kangal Bangla" into "Shonar Bangla". During the 1970 election, the EPAL circulated a poster with the heading: "Why is Shonar Bangla a crematorium?" (Shonar Bangla Shashan keno?). The poster showed wide discrepancies between prices of some basic necessities between two wings of Pakistan. Among others, the "Shonar Bangla" myth worked like a silver bullet in the 1970 general election helping the EPAL to win a landslide victory in East Pakistan. While the EPAL received the popular mandate to form the government, the Pakistani regime did not allow it to do so. Consequently, a civil war broke out and Bangladesh emerged as an independent nation in December 1991. The first ten lines of the "Amar Shonar Bangla" song became the national anthem of the new nation. The EPAL, which spearheaded the Bangladesh Liberation Movement, formed the immediate post-independent government. During the anti-Pakistani nationalist movements, the leaders of the EPAL demonstrated capability to run the newly independent country efficiently. While it was successful to rehabilitate the war-torn economy, it failed to establish democracy, transparency and accountability epitomised in the "Shonar Bangla" myth. As a result, this myth started to lose its appeal to the Bengalis who soon turned their backs to the incumbent Bangladesh Awami League (AL).

Potential Factors Affecting Political Myth-Induced Frustration
We include the real per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the Human Development Index (HDI), the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) and the Good Governance Index (GGI) to measure the extent of frustration arising from the "Shonar Bangla" myth. The GGI consists of six ingredients, such as voice and accountability, political stability and absence of violence/terrorism, government effectiveness, regulatory quality, rule of law and control of corruption. Although they are not comprehensive enough to capture the real economic, social and political conditions of the country in totality, these indices capture most elements of substantive development of a country. Since human beings are the most important and basic resources of a country, their capabilities must be expanded to develop the country to the level as envisioned in the myth. The HDI captures this aspect of the population of the country (Human Development Report, 2019:13, 301-303). However, it has its limitations. It does not encapsulate many factors that people value and have reasons to value, such as inequalities, poverty, human insecurity, economic, social and political freedom, protection against violence and discrimination and so forth (UNDP Human Development Report 2015).
The government is responsible for allocating funds for public welfare as per public choices to elevate the country to the level depicted by the myths. Free and fair elections reveal public choices and ensure the government"s accountability. Abraham Lincoln famously envisioned, the government should be "of the people, by the people and for the people". Governments that embody Lincoln"s vision are accountable to the people and keep their functions transparent (Kaufmann 2020). These dimensions are captured by the GGI. When the government is elected by free and fair elections, it invests more public resources for further improvement of the HDI. It is likely to improve the standard of governance (GGI) to deliver public services at the minimum costs, which in turn reduces corruption (CPI). Thus, a true democratic system sets into motion a circular and cumulative causation process among the HDI, the GGI and the CPI and takes the country gradually to higher levels over time.
Ironically, many nationalists seek personal benefits after forming the government and as such, they are eager to misappropriate public resources in collaboration with business houses, bureaucrats and their allies. They allocate more funds for education and health sectors, which lead to a higher level of the HDI in the short run. However, they have the ulterior motive to misappropriate a large part of it (Transparency International, 2013). The government, therefore, does not bother with the falling standard of governance (GGI) and rising CPI. As a result, contrary to our expectation, a higher CPI and a lower GGI may lead to a higher HDI in the short-run, but lower HDI in the long-run. This is because, when people realize that the government misappropriates their hard-earned tax-revenues, they are likely to become de-moralized leading to avoidance of civic duties such as tax evasions, non-voting and so forth. This chain reaction eventually leads to a declining HDI and a rise of authoritarian rule in the long-run.

Theoretical Model
We are not aware of any studies that deal with political myths as a key factor in generating frustration in a nation. We, therefore, build up our own model on the basis of our intuitions. In this study, myths are defined as some kind of cognitive beliefs among the people. They neither exist in reality to the fullest extent nor are they absolutely imaginary. In the case of political myths, they are a mixture of both (Lugli 2014). We have seen in our graphical model (Figure 1) that people become frustrated when a gulf exists between what the government promises in the form of myths before coming to power (y t m ) and what the government delivers in reality after assuming power (y t r ). This perceived gap (y t m -y t r =Δy t ) may be the extent of frustration. In order to measure it objectively, let us assume that the vision and mission of the "Shonar Bangla" myth are equivalent to the contemporary status of MITT. As such, the per capita GDP of the mythical "Shonar Bangla" would be close to their levels within 50 years after their independence. With that level of GDP, Bangladesh would be able to achieve HDI, CPI and GGI levels as good as MITT. When Bangladesh"s per capita GDP as well as HDI, CPI and GGI fall short of the levels attained by these countries, the people of Bangladesh are likely to become frustrated.

Empirical Models
Our empirical models are based on the Cobb-Douglas production function which are as follows: (1) We assume that frustration among Bangladeshis in year t is a function of differences between HDI, GGI (all constituents) and CPI, and other variables of Bangladesh and those of MITT in year t.
(3) Additionally, we assume that frustration among Bangladeshis in year t is a function of frustration in year t-1 and differences between the HDI, GGI (all constituents) and CPI, and other variables of Bangladesh and MITT in year t.
Where, Δ = Difference between mythical countries and Bangladesh; y = Real per capita GDP; CPI = Corruption perception index; HDI = Human development index; VA = Voice and accountability; PS = Political stability and absence of violence/terrorism; GE = Government effectiveness; RQ = Regulatory quality; RL = Rule of law; CC = Control of corruption; YI = Ratio of years since independence between MITT and Bangladesh; t = Year; ɛ, μ and ʋ are error terms.

Data and Their Sources
Our data set consists of per capita GDP (constant 2010 US$), HDI, CPI and GGI of Bangladesh and MITT over the 1990-2020 periods. We have chosen the MITT countries, because they can be in their imagination as "Shonar Bangla" countries when they fought for autonomy during the 1950s and 1960s, and during their independence movement in 1971. With the exception of Turkey and Malaysia, Bangladesh"s real per capita GDP was close to Indonesia and Thailand during the early 1970s. However, by the late 2010s, Bangladesh fell far behind Indonesia and Thailand, and consequently, even further behind Turkey and Malaysia (Figure 3). The outperformance of MITT countries in comparison to Bangladesh (in terms of the real per capita GDP) by a considerable margin may be attributed to MITT having done something outstanding in terms of their HDI, GGI and CPI. This is because, these indices are the drivers of the substantive development. We also include the ratios of years since independence between Bangladesh and those of MITT, because we believe temporal ratios might matter when we look into the past. It is expected that a country, which acquires independence before another country, is likely to have more opportunities to develop itself socioeconomically and politically in line with the peoples" expectations, as well as the accommodative capacity of their political institutions. We have collected CPI indices from the Transparency International, GGI from the Worldwide Governance Indicators of the World Bank, HDI from the UNDP and years of independence from miscellaneous sources. It is noted that the 30 percent of required values was missing from the data collected. These values were filled using a variety of methods as we deemed appropriate.  Table 1 shows that there are wide variations in every variable contained in the data set. However, these descriptive statistics do not reveal variations in the values of the variables over time. As such, it is important to look at the variations over time in the data set to uncover some additional facts (Appendix 1.a-1. g).
The CPIs of Indonesia and Bangladesh were very close during the 1990-1996 periods, while those of Malaysia, Turkey and Thailand were much lower than them during the same periods. Between 1997 and2001, both Bangladesh and Indonesia continued to perform worse than Turkey, Malaysia and Thailand. Although there is a converging trend among MITT and Bangladesh since 2001, Bangladesh continues to underperform than others (Appendix 1.a).
The values of the constituents of the GGI range from -2.5 to +2.5. Therefore, the average of the constituents becomes meaningless and as such, we use the constituents as they are. It is observed that most constituents of the GGI in Bangladesh have been hovering around the (-) 0.8 level which implies that Bangladesh"s performance has been poor. While some constituents are improving, others are deteriorating over time (Appendix 1.b). The constituents of the GGI in Indonesia have been converging towards the 0-level from large negative levels, suggesting that its overall GGI has been improving over time (Appendix 1.c). All constituents of the GGI of Malaysia, except political stability and absence of violence, have been above the 0-line, signifying that Malaysia has been doing better (Appendix 1.d). Thailand has trended worse in some cases, albeit maintained the status quo in some other cases (Appendix 1.e). While Turkey has also been able to hold its position in some cases, its position is seen to have been worsening in three cases (Appendix 1.f). While the CPI and the constituents of the GGI follow random walks, the HDI of each country has an increasing trend (Appendix 1.g). The countries" performances in terms of GGI and CPI have been mixed, whereas they have been doing better in terms of HDI. This is, however, counter-intuitive, as it is expected that when the HDI develops over a long period of time, the constituents of GGI should improve while the CPI should decline with some time lag. As noted, this did not take place. While the higher HDI seems to be contributing to the improvement in the higher per capita GDP, it is not contributing to reduce the CPI and improve the GGI.
The constituents of the HDI include: (a) life expectancy at birth to capture longevity and healthfulness of people; (b) expected years of schooling to signify stock of knowledge of people; and (c) gross per capita national income to measure the standard of living of the people (Roser, 2014). The developing countries are investing more public resources to improve medical and educational facilities. They have been doing so, not with a view to meet the basic human needs of their population, but to siphon off public funds into private consumption. These constituents are contributing to the improvement in the HDI which in turn, may increase the per capita GDP. It is most likely that the causality works in both directions. In addition, due to the existence of massive corruption in those sectors, the HDI scores may be shoddy (Mauro, 1997). Corruption remains unabated, because its costs are borne by the people while a large part of benefits accrue to its administrators, bureaucrats and incumbent parties (Lewis, 2006). As the governments are reluctant to take measures against corruption for reaping personal and partisan political and financial benefits, the unwarranted political connection of business houses with nationalists deteriorates the GGI and increases the CPI.

Empirical Findings
The ordinary least squared (OLS) estimations of our base model in the Table 2 show that it explains 65.50 percent of the variation in the current frustration level of Bangladeshis. The HDI-gap is significant at a 1 percent level of significance and its positive sign is expected. This implies that when the HDI-gap is higher, Bangladeshis suffer from higher frustration. The ratio of the years since independence is also significant at a 1 percent level of significance, but its positive sign is unexpected. This suggests that when the years of independence of MITT is longer than that of Bangladesh, Bangladeshis become more frustrated. Intuitively, this is unacceptable, because it is expected that since Bangladesh gained independence after MITT, Bangladeshis should be less frustrated. As a late-starter, Bangladesh could not reap benefits from its resources as much as MITT could, and as such, their living standard did not improve as much as MITT"s. The GE-gap is significant at a 1 percent level of significance and its positive sign is expected. This indicates that when the GE-gap is higher, Bangladeshis become more frustrated. This observation is intuitively supportable, as the higher GE-gap means that the government"s effectiveness is poorer in Bangladesh with respect to those of MITT. The RQ-gap is significant at a 1 percent level of significance and its positive sign is expected. This is also intuitively acceptable. The higher RQ-gap means that the regulatory system in Bangladesh is fraught with more irregularities than they are in MITT and as such, Bangladeshis are more frustrated. The RL-gap is significant at a 1 percent level of significance and its negative sign is expected. This is convincing, because when the Bangladesh Notes: Dependent variable: Frustration level measured by the gap between real per capita GDP of Bangladesh and those of MITT; The figures in parentheses are t-value; *** significance at 1%, ** significance at 5% and * significance at 10%; N/A-Not applicable.
Government performs poorly with respect to MITT governments in regard to maintenance of the rule of law, Bangladeshis are more frustrated. The CC-gap is significant at a 10 percent level of significance and its negative sign is intuitively unacceptable. This is because Bangladeshis are likely to be more frustrated when corruption is less controlled in Bangladesh with respect to MITT. Above all, the HDI-gap, ratio of years since independence, GE-gap, RQ-gap, RL-gap and CC-gap are all significant. With the exception of the CC-gap and the ratio of years since independence, all have expected signs.
The OLS estimations of our baseline model in Table 2 are less acceptable, because we do not control heteroskedasticity in the standard errors and time-invariant unobserved characteristics of countries. Therefore, we run several fixed effect models which address those issues, noting that we cannot control the time fixed effect due to the long-time horizon and the country-fixed effect due to having too few countries in the data set. The fixed effect model 1 shows that the CPI-gap is significant at a 10 percent level of significance with a positive sign which is expected. This implies that when Bangladeshis perceive that Bangladesh is plagued with more corruption than MITT, they become more frustrated. The ratio of the years since independence is significant at a 1 percent level of significance and the sign is negative, which is expected. This is because, it signifies that when the years of independence of MITT is longer than that of Bangladesh, Bangladeshis are less frustrated. This is also intuitively acceptable, as Bangladesh gained independence after MITT and as such, Bangladeshis could not utilize their resources and improve their standard of living as much as MITT could. The GE-gap is significant at a 5 percent level of significance and its sign is positive, which is expected. The possible reasons are explained earlier. The CC-gap is also significant at a 5 percent level of significance but its sign is a negative, which is unexpected. The possible reason is also explained earlier. The estimations of this model show that gaps in HDI, CPI, GE and CC affect the frustration level, and with the exception of the CC-gap, the signs of all others are intuitively acceptable.
The second fixed effect model includes a one-year lag of frustration, because we expect that frustration would be autocorrelated. We find it significant at a 1 percent level of significance with a positive sign. As expected, this implies that frustration explodes over time. The RQ-gap is significant at a 10 percent level of significance and its positive sign is expected. The possible reason is also explained earlier. significant at a 5 percent level of significance and its sign is also positive, which is expected. It implies that the CPI-gaps are also correlated which is intuitively acceptable.
The key finding of this study is that the current level of frustration is affected by the previous-year frustration and the CPI-gap between MITT and Bangladesh. We are not able to compare our estimations with any other studies, because as far as we are aware, this issue has hitherto been unexplored.

Conclusion
The current socioeconomic and political development indices of Bangladesh are worse than those of MITT. In the near-past they were very close to those of Indonesia and Thailand, and not so far from those of Malaysia and Turkey. When Bangladeshis reflect on these ever-widening gaps, they are likely to become frustrated as it is believed Bangladesh possesses, to the same calibre of MITT, the potential capability for development. The falling behind of Bangladesh in comparison to MITT and the resultant frustration of Bangladeshis, may be attributed to many sources. One of the key sources of frustration for Bangladeshis may have been the use of political myths like "Shonar Bangla". These myths might have generated excessive expectations about the prospective performance of the nationalist governments, in comparison to what these governments were actually able to achieve. This excessive frustration is likely to cause some adverse social, economic and political impacts in Bangladesh as mentioned earlier.
We take Bangladesh as a case study and find that the current frustration is caused by the previous year"s frustration and levels of the perception of corruption. The frustration is positively autoregressive and hence exploding over time. These findings are credible, because we use internationally recognized well-standardized data sets collated by the international bodies and sound econometric techniques. However, our findings need to be treated with caution. This is because our data set has just enough observations to be suitable for econometric analysis, noting that 29.84 percent of the data is missing due to no collection of this data before 1995. The missing data was, therefore, filled by following a variety of techniques which may be questioned. In addition, some sort of multicollinearity problem may exist which are obvious for any socioeconomic variables. These limitations are likely to reduce credibility of the estimations.