The army in Bangladesh, like its counterpart in Pakistan, never had any love lost for the country’s politicians. Fifteen years of democratic governments in Dhaka, from 1991 to 2006, were an interregnum in a country that had mostly been ruled by the military. But what the army-backed administration is trying to do now is new to the country. All its moves are aimed at setting a new agenda for the country’s politics and politicians. The arrest of the former prime minister, Begum Khaleda Zia, is part of that agenda. Her predecessor and main political rival, Sheikh Hasina Wajed, has also been in jail for the past two months. When the army took over all powers in Dhaka after the promulgation of the Emergency in February, its first aim was to remove the two leaders from the political scene. Irrespective of their legal merits, the corruption charges against them are part of this larger plan. If that goal is achieved, the army’s next step — of breaking up the parties they lead — will be easier to take. The strategy seems to have started working as both Ms Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party and Ms Wajed’s Bangladesh Awami League are on the verge of a split.

All this is being done in the name of cleaning up Bangladesh’s politics. Few would deny that criminality and corruption had reduced the country’s young democracy to a sham. If the public responses to the arrest of the two leaders have been rather lukewarm, it is because the people blame both for the collapse of democracy. Their rules were marked by endless political violence and shutdowns that crippled Bangladesh’s economy. The collapse of the rule of law helped Islamist terrorists strike roots in the country. The interim government earned the international community’s confidence by acting tough against terrorist groups. But it is one thing to try and cleanse a corrupt political system and quite another to sabotage democracy in the process. If they destroy parliamentary democracy, the present rulers in Dhaka may end up pushing the country to a dangerous void. The weakening of the democratic institutions will only strengthen extremist groups. It is time that curbs on political activities were withdrawn in Bangladesh. If democracy is unsafe in the hands of corrupt politicians, it is even more so under the control of power-hungry generals.