Officers, not gentlemen

Dhaka and many other cities of Bangladesh appear to be returning to normal after an intense bout of student violence and government crackdown last week. It is unlikely, however, that the caretaker government backed by the army will recover its credibility any time soon. When it took charge in January this year and postponed the general elections, the caretaker government offered a welcome relief from the mindless confrontation between the two politicians 8212; Khalida Zia and Sheikh Hasina8212;- that had wrecked the immense promise of the country to emerge as a prosperous democracy in the Islamic world. The caretaker government8217;s agenda for political reform was received with much hope within Bangladesh and empathy from the international community.

Since then, the caretaker government has fallen into the familiar pattern of military sponsored political coups around the worl8212; 8211; a short political honeymoon followed by a long period of disillusionment as the new establishment loses the plot and begins to misrule. The suspension of constitutional politics works only if the pause is brief and utilised for a limited set of objectives. But in biting more than it could chew, stretching out the road map for restoration of democracy, and proscribing all manner of political activity, the Army has put itself into an inevitable confrontation with the civil society in Bangladesh. That the Army now has to violently put down student protests, arrest university teachers, muzzle the press, and slap cases against thousands of unnamed citizens indicates the moment of truth is at hand for the caretaker government.

With the epicentre of the current trouble located in the Dhaka University, whose students and teachers are so deeply associated with the history of political change in Bangladesh, the Army leadership needs to step back and take a deep breath. Resisting the temptation to impose a martial law and sink the nation into a deeper quagmire, it must announce early elections. For the Army and the caretaker government have demonstrated they neither have the competence nor the moderation to make the January coup a success.