As giants fight, small nations should unite
Devendra Gautam Call it sheer confidence. Just days after an internationally-educated and renowned economist floated a Monroe doctrine 2.0 projecting the sphere of influence of the world’s largest democracy and the fifth largest economy with smaller nations from the neighbourhood forming the periphery and the semiperiphery, Bangladesh erupted. There’s no dearth of experts, who call it the corollary of the Sri Lankan crisis that erupted two years ago, and those who differ, arguing that Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are like chalk and cheese. This scribe leaves it to experts par excellence to conclude whether or not it’s a domino effect playing out in our neighbourhood. A groundswell of protests against the Sheikh Hasina government, especially over her labelling of those protesting against the generous job quotas for the children and the grandchildren of the 1971 war of independence against Pakistan as the Razakars (the collaborators of Pakistan in that war) brought her regime char...