The rise and fall of Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh's 'Iron Lady'

Sheikh Hasina has fled Bangladesh.

The Bangladesh Army chief Waker Uz Zaman has confirmed that Hasina has resigned as prime minister and left the country.

Zaman said an interim government is being formed and asked for the public to cooperate peacefully.

Hasina, who left in a military helicopter along with her sister, is reportedly in India’s Agartala.

Bangladesh has been engulfed by protests and violence that began last month after student groups demanded scrapping of a controversial quota system in government jobs.

That escalated into a campaign to seek the ouster of Hasina, who won a fourth straight term in January in an election boycotted by the opposition.

Let’s take a closer look at the rise and fall of the ‘Iron Lady’ of Bangladesh:

Early years and political plunge

As per Al Jazeera, Hasina was born in 1947 in what was then East Pakistan.

Her parents were Begum Sheikh Fazilatunnesa Mujib and Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.

Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the founding father of Bangladesh, played a crucial role in securing the country’s independence from Pakistan and served as the country’s first president.

Hasina was the oldest of five children.

She studied at Dhaka University and graduated with a degree in Bengali literature.

Hasina initially gained political experience by serving as a liaison between her father and his student followers during his imprisonment by the Pakistani government, as per Indian Express.

Then, in 1975, tragedy struck.

Hasina’s father, mother and three brothers – as well as a number of her relatives – were murdered in a coup.

Hasina, 27, only survived because she was travelling abroad with her sister Sheikh Rehana.

She then went into exile in India – where she lived for half a dozen years, as per Al Jazeera.

In 1981, Hasina finally returned to Bangladesh to take the reins of her father’s Awami League party.

Hasina’s tenure as Awami League party president kicked off a decade-long struggle that saw her subjected to lengthy stretches of house arrest.

In November 1987, Hasina was targeted by military dictator Muhammad Ershad, as per The Hindu.

Three of members of the Awami League’s student wing were killed in the incident.

Hasina then surprised many by joining hands with Khaleda Zia – the widow of former army chief and BNP founder Ziaur Rahman – and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) to oust Ershad.

According to The Hindu, the Hasina and Zia combine worked.

By 1990, lakhs of people had taken to the streets of Dhaka to demand Ershad’s resignation.

Though Ershad tried to cling to power by declared an emergency, he was forced to resign on December 4.

However, the pact between Hasina and Zia wouldn’t last.

By 1991, the BNP had taken power and Hasina had become the main opposition leader.

It was a 1991 cyclone which slammed into Bangladesh and left 140,000 people dead that would give Hasina’s career a new dimension, as per The Hindu.

Images of Hasina walking through the devastation left in the cyclone’s wake shone a spotlight on her.

Five years later, in 1996, Hasina would be sworn-in as prime minister of Bangladesh.

According to Indian Express, Hasina’s first term saw Bangladesh make major strides in economic liberalisation, increased foreign investment and increasing living standards including improvements in healthcare and education.

Bangladesh also became a major power in the global garment industry.

However, despite these achievements, Hasina was voted out of office in favour of Zia in 2001.

In 2004, Hasina narrowly survived an assassination attempt after a grenade exploded at a rally.

In 2007, both Hasina and Zia were imprisoned on corruption charges in 2007 after a coup by the military.

However, the charges were ultimately dropped – leaving them free to contest the next election.

Hasina won in a landslide in 2008 and had held on to power ever since.

Hasina has been praised by supporters for leading Bangladesh through a remarkable economic boom, largely on the back of the mostly female factory workforce powering its garment export industry.

Bangladesh, one of the world’s poorest countries when it gained independence from Pakistan in 1971, has grown an average of more than six percent each year since 2009.

Poverty has plummeted and more than 95 per cent of the country’s 170 million people now have access to electricity, with per capita income overtaking India in 2021.

But issues with the economy persisted

As per Time Magazine, Bangladesh remained over-reliant on agriculture, cheap garment exports, and the around $25 billion remittances sent home from abroad every year.

Hasina also received international acclaim for opening Bangladesh’s doors to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees fleeing a 2017 military crackdown in neighbouring Myanmar.

However, Hasina’s latest statements had suggested the refugees had worn out their welcome.

“It’s a big burden for us,” she told Time Magazine in November. “The UN and other organisations that are supporting [the Rohingya] here can also do the same inside Myanmar.”

And she has been hailed for a decisive crackdown on Islamist militants in the Muslim-majority nation after five homegrown extremists stormed a Dhaka cafe popular with Western expatriates and killed 22 people in 2016.

The Fall

But her government’s intolerance towards dissent has given rise to resentment at home and expressions of concern from Washington and elsewhere.

Soon after coming to power in 2009, Hasina set up a tribunal to try 1971 war crimes cases. The tribunal convicted some high-profile members of the opposition, sparking violent protests.

Jamaat-e-Islami, an Islamist party and a key ally of BNP, was banned from participating in elections in 2013. BNP chief Khaleda Zia was sentenced to 17 years in prison on corruption charges.

The BNP boycotted the 2014 elections but joined the one in 2018, which party leaders later said was a mistake, alleging that the voting was marred with widespread rigging and intimidation.

Five top Islamist leaders and a senior opposition figure were executed over the past decade after convictions for crimes against humanity committed during the country’s brutal 1971 liberation war.

Instead of healing the wounds of that conflict, the trials triggered mass protests and deadly clashes.

Her opponents branded them a farce, saying they were a politically motivated exercise to silence dissent.

“Dhaka has used counterterrorism imperatives as a pretext to crack down harder on the Islamist elements of the opposition,” Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center told Time Magazine.

The United States imposed sanctions in 2021 on an elite branch of Bangladesh’s security forces and seven of its top officers over charges of widespread human rights abuses.

Hasina had also been branded a dictator by her critics.

Some had labelled her regime ‘Baskal 2.0’ – after her father Mujibur Rahman’s one-party state in 1975.

“Democracy has a different definition that varies country to country,” Hasina said ahead of the polls.

As per Time Magazine, Freedom House says Bangladesh is only “partially free.”

Hasina, ahead of the January election, espoused confidence.

“I am confident that my people are with me,” she told Time Magazine. “They’re my main strength.”

In January, Hasina was elected for a record fourth straight term.

In the 2024 elections, the BNP and its allies boycotted the votes, demanding polls under a non-party caretaker government. They alleged that Hasina cannot deliver credible voting.

The polls were fought by 27 political parties, including the parliamentary opposition Jatiya Party. The rest were members of the ruling Awami League-led coalition, which experts dubbed as the “satellite parties.”

The BNP’s boycott, however, raised questions about the credibility of the polls, which registered a low turnout.

And then everything went wrong.

Six months after the elections, a massive protest erupted against her government over a controversial quota system that reserved 30 per cent of government jobs for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s War of Independence in 1971.

Over 300 protesters were killed in violence during the protests that led to her dramatic ouster.

Last month she toured areas of Dhaka damaged during days of deadly unrest, including a metro station that was among several government buildings torched or vandalised.

In the face of mounting protests, Hasina has insisted she has worked for her nation.

“Over 15 years, I’ve built this country,” she told reporters, condemning the damage to infrastructure. “What didn’t I do for the people?

Now, Hasina is gone.

And with the 78-year-old Zia in ailing health and confined to hospital after graft charges saw her sentenced to a 17-year prison term in 2018, Bangladesh is staring at an uncertain future.

With inputs from agencies