New Delhi, July 17 -- DHAKA - Bangladesh would not exist without the Awami League. The League organized the liberation war, sheltered the independence movement, and sustained the nine-month resistance that turned the eastern half of Bengal into a sovereign nation in 1971. Fifty-three years later, Bangladesh has declared the Awami League a terrorist organization. The irony is not incidental. It is the entire story.

Nations carry obligations to their origins. Not uncritical ones, not permanent ones, but obligations that deserve at least the weight of acknowledgment before they are discarded. What Bangladesh has done with that obligation is not merely to discard it. It is to criminalize it.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman built the Awami League into...