Analysis, Bangladesh, China, Current Affairs, India, Myanmar, Proxy War, USA, War

The Corridor of Complicity: Bangladesh at the Edge of a Proxy War

Iconus Clustus

In the shadow of Myanmar’s civil conflict and the ongoing humanitarian tragedy of the Rohingya, a new geopolitical proposition emerges: the creation of a humanitarian corridor through Bangladesh. While clothed in the language of compassion, this proposition is anything but innocent. This piece examines the philosophical and ethical stakes of such a corridor, the actors involved—state and non-state, regional and global—and the legitimacy crisis of Bangladesh's interim regime. It warns that the corridor risks becoming a conduit for proxy warfare, drawing Bangladesh into a dangerous entanglement, compromising its moral identity and national sovereignty.

1. Setting the Stage: The Specter of the Corridor The emergence of a proposed "humanitarian corridor" connecting the Arakan region of Myanmar to the outside world through Bangladesh is not an isolated gesture of international goodwill. Instead, it harks back to historical precedents where similar rhetoric masked hard geopolitical motives. Corridors have often functioned as the thin edge of interventionist wedges, paving the way for foreign involvement, regime change, or the legitimization of proxy actors. In this context, the corridor risks becoming a gateway for U.S.-led strategic penetration, not just into Myanmar, but into the heart of South Asian balance. The alignment of the corridor with insurgent activity and covert arms movement under the guise of humanitarianism bears striking resemblance to past interventions in Iraq, Syria, and Libya. 2. An Illegitimate Regime, An Unrepresentative Gamble At the heart of this unfolding dilemma lies Bangladesh – a nation whose current government holds no electoral mandate. The Yunus-led interim regime, installed following

the ousting of the elected government, lacks constitutional legitimacy. It neither represents the will of the people nor adheres to the foundational principles upon which Bangladesh was founded. Any decision it takes, especially those with massive geopolitical and ethical consequences, must be questioned not only for their outcomes but for the very authority under which they are made. The regime’s submission to U.S. designs casts a long shadow on national sovereignty, one that cannot be overlooked or excused. 3. The Chorus of Actors: State and Non-State Entanglements The scenario brings together a complex cast of actors: the United States with its strategic doctrines; China, wary and watchful; Myanmar, whose sovereignty is directly endangered; the Arakan Army (AA), a non-state military actor now courted by Western support; India, in whose backyard the entire drama is being played out; and Bangladesh, which finds itself caught in a web of foreign interests and domestic instability. Crucially, the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), another…

Political Memoir

DIPLOMACY: The Scandal at the Bay

Jahanara Nuri

This article delves into the intricate web of political and social upheaval in Bangladesh, set against a backdrop of international diplomacy and internal strife. Following a scandal that rocked the nation, the narrative captures the tension and chaos that ensued, highlighting the swift actions of the ruling party and the subsequent crackdown on opposition members. The story unfolds through the eyes of the narrator, who reflects on the broader implications of these events, both locally and globally.

Graffiti-style-artwork-with-the-words-Political-Memoir-and-a-city-skyline-of-Sweden

PART 2  EIGHT  In the hours that followed, headlines screamed, advisors, king's party NCP, their street fighting brotherhoods and influencers ─ home and abroad ─ scrambled like startled crows of Dhaka.  Spaces in prisons, emptied since July by convicted Islamists and criminals, were now being filled with detainees from the opposition Awami League. The grass pellets of the plain-lands suddenly began revealing deceased bodies, hidden among small bushes and gardens — like decayed morals pouring out from a collapsing social status quo.  The air felt thick. Not with dust, nor with smog, but with something slower, heavier. A silence pressed against people's skin.  Tension stirred underneath, slipped between tea stalls in narrow lanes, breathed across newsroom floors in Kawran Bazaar, leaned against embassy gates in Baridhara, and spilled like floating things from a vandalised fair of the new year into the restless currents of social media.  It threaded from the heart of the Delta to places the stars barely knew. 

Something quieter set in. Something had shifted. Something had begun.  Between official denials and unofficial panics, I found myself stepping out of the noise and into something else entirely. A slower current. A deeper breath to pause. The kind of pause that comes just before time changes shape─softly, almost imperceptibly─and no one notices until the change is visible.   In Delta, that March morning was warmer─the kind where rickshaw bells ring like distant memories, and in the gloomy air of dawn, people begin to miss the sight of tea steam rising as it does in winter ─ like incense offered before a headless god, a haunting symbol of the ongoing wave of temple attacks across the country.   But here, far away, the cold made a different kind of presence. I cracked open the French window of a flat the Swedes call a lägenhet, and an emboldened icy air froze me almost instantly. My hot lal cha was moments away from freezing.…

Analysis, Bangladesh, Current Affairs, India, Opinion, Pakistan, Politics, Secularism, War

A Region Unravels: From the Indus to the Bay of Bengal, the Secular Order Faces Its Greatest Test

Iconus Clustus

The Indus Treaty has collapsed. The Shimla Agreement lies suspended. From Pakistan’s proxy warfare to Bangladesh’s creeping Islamism and great power maneuvering, South Asia is entering not just a geopolitical spiral—but a civilizational eclipse. What we’re witnessing is the slow disintegration of the pluralist soul that once defined this region.

I. Introduction: The Breaking of a Compact When India suspended the Indus Waters Treaty following the terror attack in Pahalgam—carried out by The Resistance Front (TRF), a group with clear operational and ideological ties to Pakistan's deep state—it did more than nullify a water-sharing agreement. It shattered one of the few remaining symbols of post-Partition cooperation between the two nuclear-armed rivals. For decades, the treaty withstood wars, diplomatic breakdowns, and public rage. That it should now collapse in response to yet another incident of state-proxied terror speaks volumes—not only about India’s strategic posture but about the region’s crumbling secular compact. Now, that compact has fractured even further. In a retaliatory gesture of its own, Pakistan has suspended the Shimla Agreement (1972)—a foundational accord that once governed diplomatic protocols, bilateralism, and conflict resolution between India and Pakistan. If the Indus Waters Treaty was the hydrological pillar of cooperation, the Shimla Agreement was its diplomatic spine. Together, these two treaties formed the

last architecture of mutual restraint between nuclear neighbors. Their dual collapse signals a freefall into a pre-1970s strategic environment—one where war, not negotiation, is again the default setting. However, to treat the Treaty’s dissolution as a bilateral escalation alone would be myopic. It is better understood as the tremor before a regional quake. From the Indus in the West to the Bay of Bengal in the East, a new geopolitical alignment is taking shape—an alignment that threatens to undo the fragile, secular, and postcolonial order that had once offered a vision of stability. Across South Asia, terror proxies are resurgent, Islamist politics is infiltrating interim governments, and foreign powers are circling zones of instability under the guise of humanitarian concern. India, at the heart of it all, finds itself in a two-front dilemma. In the West, Pakistan continues to serve as an incubator for transnational jihadist ambitions. In the East, Bangladesh’s descent into political instability and Islamist resurgence—combined with creeping…

Bangladesh, Dr Yunus, Journalism, Liberation War, Politics, Secularism

Shahriar Kabir’s Pen Refused to Bow

Sherlock Holmes

The Yunus regime stands condemned for unjustly imprisoning freedom fighter Shahriar Kabir, a steadfast symbol of secularism, on baseless charges. He is enduring torture behind bars and being denied critical medical care after experiencing a cardiac arrest. His plight underscores the blatant cruelty of this unconstitutional government, which serves the interests of war criminals and extremist leaders.

It has been more than seven months1 since Shahriar Kabir, an eminent writer, journalist, filmmaker and intellectual of Bangladesh, was arrested by the unconstitutional interim Government2 led by Dr. Muhammad Yunus on false allegations. Unlike him, during this despicable Yunus regime, many journalists, writers and political-cultural activists are either behind bars, indicted on false accusations or flying the coop3. In the last seven months of 75-year-old Shahriar Kabir's imprisonment, he, who cannot move without a wheelchair, has faced grim conditions as Yunus's phoney Government shows a complete lack of rule of law, resembling the law of the jungle. Futility in case filing, multiple impertinent remands, hare-brained judicial process, and naked violation of the Prisons Act of Bangladesh are pointed out. Significantly, the Yunus Government is going ape to hinder the basic treatment process of Shahriar Kabir, which is considered a fundamental responsibility of the state according to the de jure constitution of Bangladesh. Even after the second cardiac arrest of

Shahriar Kabir in jail4, the Yunus Government fiddled with the treatment. The corporate media has not reported, editorialised, post-editorialised, or discussed Shahriar Kabir's sufferings in newspapers or on talk shows, and there is no patina of so-called intellectuals' or human rights organisations' statements. Only social media activists, secular bloggers, and a single news portal, BD Digest, have broken Yunus's iron curtain against the media5 to crack the news and are up in arms about the megalomaniac Yunus administration. Shahriar Kabir, a freedom fighter in Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971, dedicated his life to promoting and preserving the spirit of Bangladesh's liberation movement. He has been dry behind his ears for five decades of Bengali children's literature6. Being a nonpareil storyteller, his hearkening back to the wartime memoir and the bedrock of 1971 and writing in pellucid prose for young minds becomes the panacea for all communal and compromised ills. In his novels and short stories written for children, the fastidious…

Dr Yunus, Opinion, Politics

The Scandal at the Bay: How Dhaka’s Diplomacy unravelled

Jahanara Nuri

A storm erupted when Bangladesh's Press Wing hastily responded to Tulsi Gabbard’s comments on minority issues. Ignoring protocol, the response fuelled ongoing "hate India" sentiments, deepening political and religious divides. Gabbard’s oversimplification of the 1971 Liberation War clashed with its complex realities, creating further misunderstanding. Islamists seized the moment, adding fuel to the fire. As crackdowns on the Awami League intensified, Dhaka’s diplomatic fragility was exposed— a bitter lesson in the dangers of reckless rhetoric. The Head of the Press Wing of the Interim Government received a new crown: "Enemy of the People", whose mantra became: "Blame your opposition for the crimes you commit."

PART 1   One.  A single spark can set a forest ablaze. A single word, misplaced, can unravel years of diplomacy. What unfolded was no ordinary misstep─ it was an act of unchecked enthusiasm, a leap before looking, A whisper that turned into crying in the middle of the night.   The storm began with a statement—seemingly harmless. It was meant to fall into the right hands, yet perhaps because it landed in the wrong ones, it became a matchstick struck against dry kindling. Neither the Press Secretary, who played a starring role in this drama, nor his employer, Dr. Muhammad Yunus, seemed to remember this childhood lesson: Too much of anything is perilous. With one impulsive stroke, Dhaka’s diplomacy was cast into turbulent waters. Some whispered it was reckless; others suspected it was deliberate.  Two. An encounter with a spy chief  March 12, 2025 - South Asia.  In the front page splash of Indian media heat a news─ Ms. Tulsi Gabbard,

the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, the first woman to hold the role, and a combat veteran─ was the first Trump administration official to set foot in India, since January, 2020.   India, a pivotal U.S. partner in the Indo-Pacific, was poised to play a central role in Tulsi Gabbard's diplomatic agenda. On February 12, she etched her name in history as the first U.S. official to meet with India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Blair House, just days before his high-stakes discussions with President Donald Trump.   On March 18, 2025, she delivered a significant address at the esteemed Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi, focusing on "Global Security and Minority Protection in South Asia." As India's premier conference on geopolitics and geo-economics, the Raisina Dialogue brings together global leaders to discuss pressing international issues. (Rezaul H. Lashkar, Mar 12, 2025, Hindustan Times).  ***  Her personal connection to Hinduism runs deep. Raised by a mother who embraced the faith and passed it…

Lost your password? Please enter your username or email address. You will receive a link to create a new password via email.
We do not share your personal details with anyone.