New Delhi, Oct. 4 -- Bangladesh's Mohammad Yunus government is playing a dangerous game. By refusing to address the deep alienation in the country's Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and casting its indigenous people as outsiders or even conspirators, it is pushing the tribals into the role of the "new Jews" of Bangladesh - an internally othered minority, demonised by the state, and convenient to scapegoat in moments of crisis.

That strategy may win Dhaka short-term political cover, but it risks setting ablaze not just the hills but the country's fragile equilibrium in a volatile neighbourhood.

The spark came this Dussehra week, as the rest of the subcontinent celebrated the symbolic triumph of good over evil. In Khagragachi, a Chakma school...