Colonialism is still the Big Elephant in the Room

Part of my thesis work is to analyse the of speeches of Leaders in small South Asian nations, nations like Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh. And, beneath what they said out loud, you can check what they don’t say when you compare themselves against each other. Of course, they had common features where they talked about their development story and the infrastructural and commercial help they needed in order to build a better country. Despite that, these small countries have some uncommon features among them. Which makes them really interesting to compare.

To understand the difference, we must understand the context of these countries that sets them apart. Nepal and Bhutan were never fully colonised, whereas Bangladesh was colonised many times, and this is basically where colonialism in India began. So the question then becomes how colonialism can affect one country and how the lack of it will advance the other.

Well, for starters, when we talk in terms of climate change. Both Nepal and Bhutan are not net emitters. They have zero per cent and negative contributions to global warming, respectively.

Nepal is a leader in conservation because 47 per cent of its land is covered by forests. While Bhutan is a Carbon sink, absorbing three times more Carbon-Di-Oxide than it produces. This sets an interesting benchmark for…