\n<\/p>\n
In early December, 48-year-old Tipu Sultan, a grassroots activist of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) stood outside Dhaka\u2019s Evercare Hospital holding a placard that read: \u201cI want to donate my kidney to Begum Khaleda Zia\u201d.<\/p>\n
A video of Sultan and the placard went viral in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people that has been on edge since Khaleda, the BNP chairperson and former prime minister, was admitted to hospital on November 23. Tipu, too, has since spent his days on the pavement opposite the hospital gate, promising to stay put until he receives news of her recovery.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is like my mother. She sacrificed everything for democracy,\u201d he told Al Jazeera. \u201cMy only prayer is that God allows her to see the upcoming election\u201d he added, referring to the country\u2019s national elections scheduled for February 12.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t to be. Early in the morning on December 30,\u00a0the 80-year-old Khaleda passed away in hospital, her party announced.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur beloved national leader is no longer with us. She left us at 6am today\u201d the BNP said in the statement posted on Facebook.<\/p>\n
With her archrival and fellow former PM Sheikh Hasina now in exile in India, Khaleda\u2019s death closes a more than three-decade-long chapter when the two leaders \u2013 who came to be known as the \u2018battling begums\u2019 \u2013 an honorific traditionally reserved for Muslim women of authority \u2013 dominated Bangladeshi politics.<\/p>\n
But as with Hasina, Khaleda\u2019s legacy is grey: Both women fought for democracy, against authoritarianism. But while Khaleda \u2013 unlike Hasina \u2013 was never accused of carrying out mass atrocities against critics, she too was a polarising figure. Her uncompromising style while in opposition \u2013 leading election boycotts and prolonged street movements \u2013 combined with recurring allegations of corruption when she was in power, made her a figure who inspired intense loyalty among supporters and equal distrust among her critics.<\/p>\n
Begum Khaleda Zia was born on August 15, 1946, in Dinajpur \u2013 then part of British India\u2019s East Bengal, now northern Bangladesh.<\/p>\n
Her father, Iskandar Majumder, originally from Feni in the country\u2019s southeast, had previously run a tea business in Jalpaiguri (in present-day India) before relocating with his family to East Bengal, which would soon become East Pakistan after the 1947 partition of India.<\/p>\n
Khaleda spent her early years in Dinajpur, where she studied at the Dinajpur Government Girls\u2019 High School before enrolling at Surendranath College.<\/p>\n
Her entry into politics was shaped not by early ambition but by upheaval.<\/p>\n
The assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, in an abortive military mutiny in Chattogram on May 30, 1981, plunged Bangladesh into deep uncertainty. Rahman \u2013 who had stabilised the country after years of coups and counter-coups \u2013 left behind a fragile political order and a governing party, the BNP, that was suddenly without its founder.<\/p>\n
Although Khaleda Zia had not been politically active during her husband\u2019s presidency, senior BNP leaders saw her as the only figure who could unify the party\u2019s competing factions and preserve Ziaur Rahman\u2019s legacy. After his death, Vice President Abdus Sattar became acting president and later won an election. But within months, Army Chief Hussain Muhammad Ershad seized power in a bloodless coup in March 1982, imposing martial law. It was in this volatile context \u2013 with the military back in control and political parties fighting for survival \u2013 that Khaleda Zia began her ascent, eventually emerging as a central civilian figure challenging authoritarian rule.<\/p>\n
Khaleda joined the BNP as a general member in January 1982, became its vice chair in 1983, and was elected party chairperson in August 1984. In the decades that followed, she would win three elections to become prime minister in a political landscape that she dominated alongside her longtime rival, Sheikh Hasina, and her Awami League party.<\/p>\n
Her public life unfolded alongside personal struggles: her elder son, Tarique Rahman, went into exile in 2008 after being arrested during a military-backed caretaker government\u2019s anticorruption drive; her younger son, Arafat Rahman Koko, died of cardiac arrest in 2015 while living abroad. Khaleda herself later spent long periods in prison after her 2018 convictions in corruption cases brought under the Awami League government, followed by years of political isolation and deteriorating health.<\/p>\n
Tarique eventually returned to Dhaka on December 25, after the cases against him were dropped by the interim government of Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus that yook office after Hasina\u2019s ouster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer [Khaleda\u2019s] entire life was filled with hardship, yet she chose her country over personal comfort,\u201d said Dilara Choudhury, a political scientist who observed both Khaleda and her husband closely. \u201cThat is why she is remembered across political lines as one of the most emblematic leaders of her time.\u201d<\/p>\n
People who knew Khaleda Zia before she entered public life describe her as a woman who was reserved, soft-spoken and consistently courteous. She married army officer Ziaur Rahman in 1960 when she was about 15, long before he emerged as a national figure. Rahman rose to prominence after Bangladesh\u2019s 1971 independence war, later assuming the presidency in 1977 and founding the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1978. Zia would later inherit her husband\u2019s politics \u2013 centred on nationalism, multi-party democracy and a market-oriented economy.<\/p>\n
From 1978 to 1981, she lived with her family in a modest military residence at 6 Moinul Road in Dhaka Cantonment, then designated as the residence of the deputy chief of the army, where then-Captain (later Colonel) Harunur Rashid Khan served as aide-de-camp to her husband, President Rahman.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe coordinated the house herself, welcomed guests and managed family matters,\u201d Colonel Khan told Al Jazeera. \u201cI never saw her raise her voice. She was humble, kind and thoughtful.\u201d<\/p>\n
He recalled her calm approach to parenting: When her younger son, Arafat, then aged 7, struggled to gain admission to a school, she asked only for other alternative school options; when the boy later injured himself imitating a television stunt, she expressed no anger towards the staff who were supposed to be minding him.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was the kind of person she was,\u201d Khan said. \u201cGraceful, composed and considerate.\u201d<\/p>\n
But everything changed on May 30, 1981.<\/p>\n
At dawn that day, Khan learned President Rahman had been assassinated in the port city of Chattogram, in an attempted coup by a group of army officers that would eventually be crushed by Ershad, Rahman\u2019s army chief, though Ershad would himself grab power months later.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a moment [after learning of the assassination], I felt the ground slip beneath my feet; but I did not share the information with Madam [Begum Zia] for moments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Fearing that the family residence might be the next target, he immediately ordered an entire company of about 120 soldiers to be ready to defend the family.<\/p>\n
In the early morning, the two boys came out of their bedrooms, preparing to leave for school, but he stopped them. Minutes later, Khaleda Zia stepped out of her bedroom. \u201cShe asked me, \u2018What has happened?\u2019 I told her there was unrest outside,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Without asking anything else, she retreated to her bedroom as a member of the house staff switched on the radio \u2013 and the announcement of her husband\u2019s death filled the room.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe stepped back, looked at my eyes \u2013 and she understood,\u201d the former aide-de-camp said. \u201cShe sank into the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khan remained to support the family for two more months. \u201cShe was mentally shattered,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As Ziaur Rahman had left no other personal residence for his family, the government later permanently allocated the house at 6 Moinul Road to Khaleda Zia, and she lived there until she was evicted in 2010 by Sheikh Hasina\u2019s administration.<\/p>\n
Following Ziaur Rahman\u2019s assassination in 1981, senior leaders of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) urged Khaleda Zia \u2013 who was not even a party member at the time \u2013 to take on a public role.<\/p>\n
Her rise coincided with growing public sentiments against Ershad\u2019s military rule: After taking over as president, the army chief suspended the constitution and imposed martial law.<\/p>\n
Throughout the 1980s, the BNP and the Awami League \u2013 the two largest political parties \u2013 led parallel but often coordinated street movements calling for the restoration of parliamentary democracy.<\/p>\n
According to Choudhury, the political scientist, a key turning point arrived in 1986, when Ershad announced a national election that the opposition denounced as unconstitutional because martial law remained in force and political freedoms were restricted. While the Awami League eventually chose to contest the polls, the BNP under Khaleda\u2019s stewardship boycotted the election entirely.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer decision to boycott the 1986 election \u2013 which she denounced as illegal even as the Awami League participated \u2013 reinforced her public image as someone unwilling to trade principle for expediency,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Repeated house arrests under the Ershad regime cemented this perception about her. \u201cKhaleda Zia was unwavering in her objective to remove Ershad and restore democracy,\u201d Choudhury said. \u201cHer readiness to endure arrest, even in ill health, earned her respect.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 1991 election \u2013 the first after the end of military rule in December 1990 \u2013 produced a hung parliament.<\/p>\n
The BNP won 140 seats, short of the 151 needed to form a government. The Awami League won 88 seats, the Jatiya Party 35 and Jamaat-e-Islami 18.<\/p>\n
Jamaat chief Ghulam Azam opened negotiations with Sheikh Hasina. Meanwhile, Golam Wahed Choudhury, the husband of Dilara Choudhury, and a former minister of communications of undivided Pakistan, arranged a discreet meeting at his Dhaka residence, bringing together Khaleda Zia, Jamaat leaders Ghulam Azam and Motiur Rahman Nizami, and the army chief, Lieutenant General Nuruddin.<\/p>\n
Khaleda arrived alone, without informing other BNP leaders. The negotiations ultimately paved the way to allow Bangladeshi citizenship for two very contrasting political figures. Jamaat chief Azam, who had supported Pakistan during the war of independence, had previously been stripped of his citizenship as a result. Kader Siddique, a prominent 1971 war hero aligned with the Awami League\u2019s political legacy, had been in exile in India after leading his private militia against the government and military following the 1975 assassination of Sheikh Hasina\u2019s husband, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman \u2013 the leader of the country\u2019s independence struggle and its first prime minister and president.<\/p>\n
In return, Jamaat agreed to back the BNP in parliament, giving Khaleda Zia the numbers needed to form a government.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis negotiation showed her political prudence and firmness,\u201d Choudhury said. \u201cIt could easily have failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Khaleda Zia was sworn in as Bangladesh\u2019s first elected female prime minister \u2013 joining a line of South Asian women who had already held the region\u2019s highest offices, including Indira Gandhi, Sirimavo Bandaranaike and Benazir Bhutto.<\/p>\n
Khaleda Zia led Bangladesh thrice: first between 1991 and 1996, then for a few months in 1996 during a short-lived second term, and finally between 2001 and 2006.<\/p>\n
Recalling the negotiation mediated by her husband in early 1991, Choudhury, the political scientist, said that as Khaleda Zia was leaving the meeting, she paused to speak with the women of the household and asked what they expected from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy elder sister, Professor Husneara Khan, replied, \u2018We want you to give the country a comparatively honest and corruption-free administration\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whether she ultimately delivered on that, Choudhury said, is a complex question. \u201cShe genuinely had that intention \u2013 inspired by her husband\u2019s nationalist philosophy. She succeeded in many areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supporters credit her government with policies aimed at stabilising a state emerging from years of authoritarian rule. Her administration pursued economic liberalisation, export-led growth, revival of industry, expansion of the garment sector, and wider access to education \u2013 particularly for girls. Her tenure also coincided with the expansion of a relatively free press.<\/p>\n
When her last elected term ended in 2006, Bangladesh\u2019s gross domestic product (GDP) growth rate stood at about 7 percent \u2013 one of the highest in the country\u2019s post-independence history and well above the average of roughly 4.8 percent in the 1990s and about 3.8 percent in the 1980s. At that time, the World Bank described Bangladesh as \u201cAsia\u2019s next tiger economy\u201d.<\/p>\n
Her administrations, however, did draw criticism too.<\/p>\n
In 1995, an acute fertiliser shortage and a resulting sharp increase in prices \u2013 driven by hoarding and distribution failures at a crucial time for the winter paddy crop \u2013 led to protests by thousands of farmers. Police opened fire in several districts: At least a dozen farmers and one officer died in clashes, a moment that damaged her government\u2019s reputation amid widespread rural frustration.<\/p>\n
During her 2001\u20132006 term, critics accused her elder son, Tarique Rahman, of building an alleged parallel centre of influence around his political office, widely known as Hawa Bhaban.<\/p>\n
Allegations of corruption and claims that key decisions were being influenced through this parallel structure fuelled persistent questions about governance under her watch.<\/p>\n
Chaudhury pointed to two episodes in which Khaleda Zia\u2019s governments were also accused of trying to influence electoral outcomes. A 1994 by-election in the Magura-2 parliamentary constituency was widely criticised as having been manipulated to benefit the BNP.\u00a0Later, towards the end of her 2001\u201306 term, Zia was accused of trying to install a partisan caretaker government tasked with carrying out the next election.<\/p>\n
Political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed, the author of the book Khaleda \u2013 an independent historical account of the former PM\u2019s legacy \u2013 pointed to other instances too that he said hurt her credibility.<\/p>\n
A grenade attack on a rally of Sheikh Hasina\u2019s then-opposition Awami League on August 21, 2004, in Dhaka, killed at least 24 people and injured hundreds. The investigation under the BNP-led government was widely criticised for failing to promptly pursue credible leads into the role of Islamist armed groups that were ultimately blamed by investigators. These include the Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami group.<\/p>\n
A Dhaka court in 2018 convicted several individuals in connection with the attack. However, subsequent appeals and High Court rulings have overturned some convictions, acquitting others, and questions about accountability for the 2004 attack remain unresolved for many Bangladeshis.<\/p>\n
In another incident in April 2004, police and coastguard intercepted a large consignment of illegal weapons believed to be destined for the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), an armed separatist group in India\u2019s Assam region.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese incidents deepened political hostility at home and created significant discomfort in Bangladesh\u2019s relations with neighbouring India,\u201d Ahmed\u00a0told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n
Zia\u2019s missteps during her 2001-06 rule contributed to the political instability that culminated in a military-backed takeover of power on January 11, 2007.<\/p>\n
The army\u2019s senior leadership pressed then-President Iajuddin Ahmed to declare a state of emergency, resign as chief adviser of the sitting caretaker government and cancel elections scheduled for later that month. With the armed forces\u2019 backing, former Bangladesh Bank governor Fakhruddin Ahmed was appointed chief adviser of a new interim caretaker government tasked with stabilising the country and preparing for future elections. The move effectively sidelined both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina from front-line politics for nearly two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer [Khaleda Zia\u2019s] party created the circumstances [for the events of January 11, 2007], and the party \u2013 as well as her family \u2013 eventually became the victims of it,\u201d Ahmed, the political historian, said.<\/p>\n
But Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, a former commerce minister in Khaleda Zia\u2019s 2001\u201304 cabinet, and a current BNP leader, said that his former boss never wavered from her political positions even when she was under immense pressure to compromise.<\/p>\n
\u201cHer commitment to democracy and her patriotism had a profound impact on party workers,\u201d he said. \u201cAttempts to break the BNP \u2013 during 1\/11 and later under Sheikh Hasina \u2013 never succeeded because her ideals held the organisation together,\u201d he added, referring to the events of January 11, 2007.<\/p>\n
Ahmed, the political historian, also said that while \u201cmany have benefitted from politics in recent decades,\u201d Khaleda had \u201cpaid a very high price, especially after 2006\u2033. He was referring to the years of imprisonment, political persecution and sustained pressure endured by her and her family.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight or wrong, she rarely walked back from her stated positions, which we did not see among other contemporary politicians,\u201d Ahmed said, citing her firmness during the anti-Ershad movement and her insistence on elections only under caretaker governments.<\/p>\n
That she became the first woman to occupy the nation\u2019s highest elected office, in a socially conservative society traditionally sceptical of female leadership, will always also remain a part of her legacy.<\/p>\n
Her refusal to flee the country during crises \u2013 whether after January 11, 2007, when her elder son was forced into exile, as they faced numerous cases, or when she faced retribution under Hasina \u2013 also helped hold the BNP together, say analysts. \u201cShe could have left, but she chose to stay and face the consequences. That determination set her apart,\u201d Ahmed said.<\/p>\n
The political historian also pointed to Khaleda\u2019s restraint in political language. \u201cEven when she was targeted with harsh propaganda and abusive remarks, she did not respond in that manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her message following the fall of Sheikh Hasina in August 2024 was an example.<\/p>\n
Freed from house arrest on August 6 after student-led protests forced Hasina to flee to India, Khaleda urged her supporters not to pursue retaliation. \u201cFor many, it was an almost unimaginable moment,\u201d Mohiuddin says. \u201cShe avoided inflammatory language even when the political tide turned in her favour.\u201d<\/p>\n
For many ordinary Bangladeshis, this trait is central to how she will be remembered. \u201cBoth Hasina and Khaleda ruled the country well, but in my opinion, Khaleda did better,\u201d said 77-year-old Nazim Uddin, speaking to Al Jazeera in early December while chatting with friends outside a commercial complex about 300 metres south of Evercare Hospital.<\/p>\n
But a key question now looms: What awaits the BNP in a post-Khaleda era?<\/p>\n
At the centre of any answer to that question is Khaleda\u2019s only surviving son, Tarique Rahman.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike the Awami League, the BNP has become a one-person-centric party,\u201d political historian Mohiuddin Ahmed says. \u201cWith Tarique Rahman\u2019s leadership still untested, the BNP is likely to face a serious leadership crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dilara Choudhury, the political scientist who knew Khaleda well, offered a sharper assessment: \u201cLeaders in the post-Khaleda BNP will likely split into two or three factions, as she served as a symbol of unity for party members. That fragmentation, I fear, will create a serious political vacuum in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
But others disagree.<\/p>\n
Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, the former minister under Khaleda, said that he believes Tarique, who has led the party as acting chair since 2018 from exile in the United Kingdom, has already \u201ctaken up the torch that his mother carried from his father, Ziaur Rahman\u201d.<\/p>\n
Tarique was greeted with a massive show of support by the party faithful when he returned to Dhaka from exile on Christmas day, weeks ahead of the national elections where the BNP is in a close race for poll position with its former ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami.<\/p>\n
In his first comments since returning, Tarique spoke of wanting to build an inclusive Bangladesh. Some experts believe the 60-year-old might also be able to repair ties with India, which have suffered since Hasina\u2019s removal and her decision to flee to New Delhi. Though India and the BNP have traditionally not enjoyed warm ties, with New Delhi preferring Hasina\u2019s Awami League as its partner in Dhaka, both have sent overtures to each each other in recent days.<\/p>\n
Now the BNP\u2019s \u2014 and Tarique\u2019s \u2014 big test awaits: February\u2019s elections won\u2019t just determine who leads Bangladesh, but could reveal whether the country trusts Khaleda Zia\u2019s heir to continue her legacy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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In early December, 48-year-old Tipu Sultan, a grassroots activist of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) stood outside Dhaka\u2019s Evercare Hospital holding a placard that read: \u201cI want to donate my kidney to Begum Khaleda Zia\u201d. A video of Sultan and the placard went viral in Bangladesh, a country of 170 million people that has been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6914","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}