UNNECESSARY HICCUPS IN INDIA-US RELATIONS

Nearly three months after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina as Bangladesh Prime Minister, and the installation of an unelected, military-backed interim regime headed by Muhammad Yunus, there is no indication that India's neighbour in the east will hold a general election anytime soon to return to the path of democracy.

- JOYEETA BASU

The world is being told that reforms must be carried out before elections can be held but there is no clear timeline about how long that process might take. There is speculation that elections might be held in a year's time, or even two years' time. As for the small matter of the Constitutional requirement of holding elections inside three months of a government going out of office, in the new kind of democracy that the United States is helping its friend Muhammad Yunus build, the Constitution is the last thing that one should be quibbling about. The reform process too is likely to be questionable if the Awami League is banned from contesting. A petition filed in court to ban the Awami League from participating in political activities was thrown out, but the possibility cannot be ruled out given that the Yunus government has already banned Awami League's students' wing. Amid this the students' union affiliated to the radical Jamaat is having a free run, trying to enforce its diktat, running kangaroo courts, encouraging violence against minorities and political opponents. Bangladesh has been witnessing murder and mayhem ever since Hasina's ouster. The whole country has come in the grip of jihadis and things are spiralling out of control. It's not good news for India to have such a huge swathe of radicalised population right on its border. But the problem is that the US, in its zeal to ensure a change of government in Bangladesh, handed the country on a pl