Bracing for face-off in Dhaka

India, as the responsible and interested neighbour, must ensure that Bangladesh sorts out its own mess without causing a humanitarian crisis

- JAYANTA ROY CHOWDHURY

AMIDST THE DRAMA of a tense power struggle between Bangladesh's interim government and the army and multiple political and humanitarian crises, the former South Asian "tiger economy" is experiencing a continued economic meltdown.

For India, its nearest neighbour, both the political crisis and the economic disaster in the making can have huge repercussions which need to be understood and managed in New Delhi's own self-interest.

The Bangladesh army is patrolling the streets of Dhaka after a stand-off with the Muhammad Yunus regime, sparked in part by the latter's desire to grant a passage—through Chittagong to Myanmar's Rakhine state—to the United Nations at the insistence of US diplomats.

The army fears the "humanitarian corridor" through which supplies would be taken to the Arakanese people who have been rebelling against Myanmar will draw it into a regional war in which it sees no stakes for Bangladesh. It also deeply resents suspected efforts to change its power structure by replacing its chief, General Waker uz Zaman, with an ambitious pro-Islamist staff officer favoured by Yunus and by placing a newly appointed National Security Adviser who possibly holds an American citizenship over him in the chain of command.

To force out the interim government, the army has made it clear that major issues like the Arakan corridor can only be decided by an elected government and that must be put in place by end-December, a call which seems to have unnerved Yunus.