Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who heads the ruling Awami League, and Opposition leader Khaleda Zia, president of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), exuded genuine sorrow. Sheikh Hasina told me that Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee had asked her on the phone: "Aap kab aiyenge (when will you come?)." Khaleda Zia said: "We must do something; probably send two MPs of our party." The government response, keeping in view resources in Bangladesh, was generous. Even the BNP sent saris and foodstuff.

Very rarely are Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia on the same wave-length. The Gujarat tragedy made them echo similar sympathetic notes. They have seldom joined hands, even at the time of disasters in Bangladesh. The two leaders have differences because both stand for different things. But their dislike for each other verges on pathological hatred.

The Gujarat earthquake was a natural calamity. But I see a man-made disaster building up in Bangladesh, and hitting it later in the year in the shape of elections to the one-chamber Sangsad (Parliament). The signs were visible: amassing of weapons, recurring violation of law and order and tempers flying high.

Fundamentalism is thickening by the day. Mosques and madrasas have come up at nearly at every place. Fanaticism claimed the lives of three communists a few days ago. A policeman, too, was not spared this week in a hartal against the court's ban on fatwas-edicts by Islamic clerics that prevented women from mixing and working with men outside their families. One got the feeling that society was being held hostage by the two parties, which were on the road to destruction.

The Awami League and the BNP put the blame on each other for the eerie atmosphere in the country. While talking to Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia, separately, I found them fearing large-scale violence before and during the elections. But both seemed prepared to live with it. Why couldn't they meet to settle the rules of the game?

Sheikh Hasina said she even offered to resign last year to meet the Opposition's demand for fresh elections. Khaleda Zia said that they did not press the demand because her party was participating in the deliberations of the parliamentary standing committees and was, in a way, co-operating with the government. However, the main reason for the BNP not pressing for agitations is people's exasperation. They are tired of hartals and processions.

The real danger that has emerged after a pause in demonstrations is that the cadres of both the parties have been arming themselves, and have been settling scores through violence. There are too many illicit guns and every college hostel is a mini-arsenal. The responsibility for this can be put on two fundamentalist organisations, the Jamiat-i-Islami and the Islami Oikya Jote.

Both Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia allege that `outsiders' are sending arms. Sheikh Hasina did not name Pakistan but made it obvious when she said that old forces that opposed the birth of Bangladesh were instigating anti-liberation elements and fundamentalists. "Their supporters are trying to uproot democracy from Bangladesh," she said. "I had to legislate the Public Safety Act (PSA) to stall violence." (The Act allows police to detain anyone for months before charging them formally.)

A product of the Bangladesh freedom movement, which was based on the right to differ from the western wing of Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina defended the draconian legislation. Maybe the Opposition drove her to the wall. Or, the anti-liberation elements and fundamentalists tired her out. Whatever the reason, the legislation is reprehensible. There is no doubt that she must have become a prisoner to the authoritarian way of thinking. Her critics have suffered the most from the PSA.

Another questionable measure introduced by her is that no person can pass "insulting remarks" against Bangabandhu (Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman) or any comment amounting to "disrespect" either in writing or verbally. Being the founder of Bangladesh he should command respect and he does. But this has to come from heart and cannot be imposed. For example, the steps he took to have only one political party and one newspaper in the country would evoke criticism anywhere in the world because it amounted to negating democracy, the ideal for which he sacrificed his life. Why should anyone be gagged on that point, supporters or opponents of Bangladesh's freedom?

"There are no anti-liberation forces," Khaleda Zia said emphatically. "Sheikh Mujib himself declared amnesty. So all are equal." She claimed that she had more freedom fighters on her side than the Awami League. She may say so, but the general impression is that the BNP has given cover to all those who did not participate in the freedom struggle against Pakistan and who did not like Bangladesh to be a non-communal polity. The BNP has given credence to this belief in two ways: one, by joining hands with General Ershad, not by any stretch of imagination from among liberators and, two, by having a common front with Jamiat-i-Islami and Islami Oikya Jote.

The Awami League is free from such a taint. It is bound to gain if the vote is cast for liberation and against fundamentalism. Yet, when it comes to Muslim sentiment, Sheikh Hasina is going too far to appease. She says she will begin her poll campaign only after the Haj. At the entrance of her residence, Allah is written in bold Arabic words. Till recently she donned a headgear to placate fundamentalists.

There is, however, no doubt that the liberals tend to prefer her to Khaleda Zia because they fear the old atmosphere of anti-liberation and communalism might be back with BNP's return. "I want one more term," Sheikh Hasina told me. "Then I will be sure that democracy in my country is on a firm footing." What she probably means, among other things, is that the sentence against the killers of Sheikh Mujib would have been carried out by that time because their cases are still pending in the appellate court. Khaleda Zia does not support them if they are the `real killers.' But it is expected that they would be released once BNP comes to power.

Khaleda Zia was at pains to explain to me that her criticism of the Ganges Water Treaty or the Chittagong Hill Tract agreement was aimed at the Awami League government, not at India. Even when she repeated the charge that the guns were coming from India, she watered it down by saying the Naxalites were doing so, not New Delhi. She does not want to efface her anti-India image.

She may be honestly wanting elections in Bangadesh to be fought on the merits and demerits of various programmes and policies of her party as well as the Awami League's. But her links with the pro-Pakistan elements are being openly discussed. One gets the nagging feeling that the shadow of both Pakistan and India may darken even the brightest spots of both parties. The real issues may not come to the fore. But then, are there any issues that are devoid of pulls from New Delhi and Islamabad?