India, May 11 -- Bangladesh's caretaker administration has banned Awami League, even as a special tribunal investigates and tries the party's senior leadership over the deaths of hundreds of protesters before party chief Sheikh Hasina was ousted as prime minister last year by a popular uprising. It has offered "protection of activists" who participated in the anti-Hasina protests, and "plaintiffs and witnesses in the trial" as justification for the move. However, several concerns arise from the drastic step.

First, the Awami League, whose history is inextricably tied to the creation of Bangladesh and the country's foundational vision as a nation centred on Bengali linguistic identity, represents a particular line of political thought in ...