RUNNING WITH HARES, HUNTING WITH HOUNDS

Yunus is keeping a statesman-like posture in public, but supporting some extreme demands of Jamaat and the students. With his US backers out of power, the wind in his sails is weaker

- PINAK RANJAN CHAKRAVARTY

ANGLADESH is going through an existential struggle to establish a new political order; old ghosts are proving tough to banish altogether. One of the student leaders working in tandem with Muhammad Yunus, chief advisor to the interim government, recently alleged a conspiracy to bring back the Awami League (AL) in a new form, with a new leadership. A proposal for sharing seats with this new mutation of the AL has allegedly been conveyed to student leaders at a meeting held in the 'cantonment', euphemism for the army, at the behest of India. The same formula had been proposed to other political parties too.

These student leaders are members of a new political party—National Citizens Party—that has been launched to fight the next elections. One leader publicly said that he had rejected the army's proposal despite a warning that any political crisis resulting out of the rejection would devolve on the student leaders. The student leaders are still demanding an outright ban on the AL and bringing their leaders back to Bangladesh to face justice.

Yunus and Jamaat-e-Islami (Jel) are on the same page regarding the AL, and both are wary of the army. They view the army chief, General Waker-uz-Zaman, as an impediment to their objectives. After Sheikh Hasina's forced departure from Dhaka, the agitating students had sought to remove President Mohammed Shahabuddin Chuppu too, having called him a "slave" of Hasina. They failed in their attempt because the service chiefs firmly opposed the move, since the president is the commander-in-chief of the defence forces.