But through a combination of sheer courage and obdurate obstinacy we confronted their overbearing military might and at a cost of three million lives, that brought nothing but shame to Yahya Khan, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and their killing machine, we won our independence.

With the return of the one man, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who had united the whole country under his banner some thirteen months before, when we voted for his 6 point program and constitutionally and democratically elected him in a general election as the undisputed leader of the whole of Pakistan in probably the most free and fair elections ever held in our part of the world, our nation seemed now to have carte blanche to create a system that would rectify and erase the ills and iniquities of the previous twenty four years of West Pakistan hegemony, extortion and exploitation.

Within a short period of time we had restored parliamentary democracy, one of the axioms of the Awami League constitution, to our political structure. At the same time we produced one of the finest Constitutions ever drafted. The world seemed to be our oyster. The country was replete with self-belief and optimism. Within two years all our earlier hopes and aspirations were dashed on an anvil of corruption, mismanagement and incompetence.

The nation was once again becoming polarized as paramilitary forces began to dominate. In an effort to unite the country Sheikh Mujib conceived the (at least, what I regard it to be) dysfunctional and autocratic system of Baksal. A year later he and most of his family were brutally murdered, a stain that will never be expunged from the fabric of this nation.

The significant point of all this is that we had a unique opportunity to bring cohesion, fairness and stability to the country. We failed, and have suffered the consequences for the next thirty-five years. Six months ago, through a series of well-organized maneuvers, we overthrew the most inept caretaker government in our history and replaced it with, what at first appeared to be, an interim government of sobriety and integrity.

Apart from the obvious miscreants and felons, who were undeniable targets of this new government, the whole nation rose, as it did in 1971, in unconditional support of the new regime. We eagerly anticipated, as we had done in 1972, a rectification of the evils and injustices of the past few years.

After a highly competent anti-corruption drive against many of the most notorious offenders, after a highly profiled and acclamatory declaration of the separation of the judiciary from the executive, after an impeccable clean out of the Election Commission and Secretariat, after assuring the nation that the modus operandi of this government was to oversee and create conditions for a totally free and fair election, you are getting dangerously close to reproducing the debacle and incompetence of our first government.

You are in serious danger of missing the wonderful opportunity you have given yourselves of purging Bangladesh of the numerous iniquities and abominations that have become part of our culture, and of restoring pride and integrity to the nation.

Moreover, your honeymoon period with the people is quickly coming to an end. The rest of the world, at first keen to support your program provided you followed a reasonable road map and operated within the legal parameters of even emergency conditions, is witnessing a slow and cynical disintegration within your political fabric.

It saw you make complete fools of yourselves over Sheikh Hasina's return to Dhaka some two and a half months ago. It is watching you prosecute and (in absentia) hand out draconian sentences to individuals for possessing a few bottles and cans of contraband liquor. These people should be fined for their infraction of the law, not imprisoned!

For heaven's sake, Bangladesh is not a "dry" country, and these ridiculous sentences are nothing more than a cynical attempt to hold certain individuals until fresh charges of a far more serious and acceptable nature are brought against them. In the meantime, the rest of the world wonders what kind of justice any individual can obtain if the courts are going to behave in this manner (so much for the separation of the judiciary from the executive).

In an effort to isolate the two ladies from the political scene you have managed to seduce, and negotiate with, certain leading political players. I really don't care, nor do I know a great deal of the BNP renegades, but "the rats leaving the sinking ship of the Awami League" had better watch out.

They may be buoyed up and feel secure within your mutual covenant, but our party has been around for nearly sixty years and people have long memories. As you approach the border line of McCarthyism, and the Salem Witch Hunts of the 17th Century, where an accusation of being a communist or a witch meant immediate indictment (no different from any individual bringing an extortion charge, with usually the flimsiest evidence, against another), your arrest of Sheikh Hasina may be your biggest mistake yet (and these appear to be mounting with each day).

Yes, there will be some, outside the interim government, who will be rejoicing, who have been maneuvering in this direction for some months now. But there are many more, both at home and abroad, who will regard her arrest as nothing more than cynical politicizing.

Moreover, her arrest will have the effect of bringing even the most ambitious and recalcitrant party leaders to heel, as her supporters all over the world observe the modus operandi of the dissident Awami League leaders (please note Razzak's retraction of his earlier criticism of Zillur Rahman's position as acting president of the party, and Tofael's conciliatory television interview).

However, I say to Dr Fakhruddin, to my good friend Mainul Hossein, and to all the members of this interim government, the ball is now very much in your court. If you want to promote yourselves as the purveyors of justice and rectitude you had better deal with this case with the gossamer touch of complete scrupulousness.

You step one inch out of line and you will be no different from all the other autocratic regimes which have blighted our lives over the past seven decades and which, full of early good intentions, turned out to be nothing more than vulgar and incompetent impostors.

Rashid Suhrawardy is the son of Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, former prime minister of undivided Bengal, former prime minister of Pakistan, and the founder of the Awami League in 1949.