Farewell

Bangladesh's first female prime minister and a lasting political icon, Khaleda Zia died yesterday in a Dhaka hospital after a long bout of old age illness. The 79-year-old BNP chief had been suffering from a number of complications for long. She was admitted to Evercare Hospital on November 23.

Revered by politicians and loved by the masses, Khaleda's popularity was evident even as her doctor Professor Shahabuddin Talukder choked with emotion as he told journalists that he had pronounced her dead at 6:00am on December 30.

Party leaders, activists, supporters and admirers began to crowd the streets around the hospital in Bashundhara, and around the BNP offices in Dhaka. Some offered their prayers. Some wept quietly. Elderly party stalwarts lamented her demise as if they had been orphaned again. "She left us when we needed her the most," said Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, the party's secretary general.

Tarique Rahman, Khaleda's elder was called early on Tuesday soon after 4:00am as her condition deteriorated. Currently BNP's number 2, Tarique had only arrived in Bangladesh with his wife and daughter on December 25 after 17 years in exile.

At the time of her passing, Khaleda's younger brother Shamim Iskander; his wife Kaniz Fatema; her two daughters-in-law, Zubaida Rahman and Syeda Sharmila Rahman; Tarique's daughter, Zaima Rahman; and late Arafat Rahman Koko's younger daughter, Zahia Rahman, were present.

Tarique's younger brother Arafat Rahman passed away in 2015 when Khaleda was virtually cut off from the world and had to grieve her loss virtually by herself.

Most often dubbed as the uncompromising leader for her role during the anti-autocracy campaign against general Ershad's regime, the three-time premier had first come to office with an unexpected victory in 1991 against the more formidable Sheikh Hasina and her seasoned Awami League.

Bangladesh's journey into modern democracy coincided with Khaleda's tenure as she stewarded the resumption of parliamentary democracy from the prevailing presidential system. Having spent most of her life as an army officer's wife and later in the shadow of a military strongman, no one had expected Khaleda to sweep into office in the general election.

Imprisoned since 2018, her party and family members repeatedly urged the government to allow Khaleda to go abroad for better treatment but the government rejected the pleas. Initially the sole inmate of the abandoned central jail in old Dhaka, Khaleda Zia was released from jail and put under house arrest at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

In her passing, Khaleda leaves behind a nation that she helped shape—first as an icon of democracy, and later as an enduring leader in a fiercely contested political sphere.

She was not groomed for the jagged edges of politics. Yet, she became a defining figure of Bangladesh's democratic struggle, navigating the transition from a domestic life in the shadows to the very centre of power.

It was only after the assassination of her husband in 1981—with the BNP leaderless and fractured—that she stepped in. At the time, she had little political experience, facing stiff opposition from factions within her own party. Senior BNP leaders, many of whom were seasoned politicians, doubted her capability, and the party was on the brink of disintegration after the elderly Justice Abdus Sattar was ousted. Despite this internal scepticism and the formidable might of HM Ershad's military regime, she took the helm in 1984.

What emerged from her personal tragedy, her husband's death, was a leader of startling resolve. On the streets of Dhaka in the 1980s, Khaleda became the "uncompromising leader," a moniker earned by her refusal to negotiate with the Ershad regime. She was detained repeatedly, yet her obduracy became her greatest political asset. It culminated in the 1991 general election, where she led the BNP to a stunning victory, becoming Bangladesh's first female prime minister.

In a rare moment of unity that altered the course of Bangladesh's history, Khaleda made one of her most significant political compromises by joining forces with her arch-rival, Sheikh Hasina, in 1990. She agreed to a strategic liaison to oust Ershad. This decision to sit at the same table and formulate a joint declaration was significant. That period also marked a seminal shift in the country's history. Khaleda presided over the transition from presidential to parliamentary government, a structural change intended to anchor democracy.

Khaleda has long battled multiple health complications, including liver cirrhosis, arthritis, diabetes, and ailments affecting her kidneys, lungs, heart and eyes. She had a pacemaker and undergone stent placement in her heart.

Khaleda's eldest son, Tarique Rahman, remains the undisputed heir apparent to her political dynasty, serving as the acting chairman of the BNP from London, where he was in exile since 2008. The fall of the Hasina regime in August 2024 led to his acquittal in multiple cases and he returned home on December 25. In January 2025, Khaleda travelled to the UK for advanced medical treatment.

Khaleda was freed in August 2024 after Prof Muhammad Yunus took over as the country's interim leader. She witnessed the fall of the government that had jailed her. She also saw her arch rival Sheikh Hasina flee the country.

In the days following the dramatic collapse of the Awami League government in 2024, Khaleda's most defining political act was perhaps her silence. While her party faithfuls celebrated the ouster of Hasina in the streets, Khaleda refrained from issuing a single public statement of personal gloating or vindictiveness against the woman who had jailed her.

Even in her first public address after six years of silence—delivered via video link from a hospital bed—she notably held on to her dignity and called for calm and unity at a time when others might have settled scores. She urged the nation to reject the "politics of vengeance" and destruction. She chose to focus her fading energy on a call for peace rather than settling the score with the nemesis who had fled.

Born in then Jalpaiguri in Dinajpur district on August 15, 1946. Khaleda's father Iskandar Mazumder was a businessman and her mother Tayeba Mazumder was a homemaker. Khaleda's nickname is Putul. Among three sisters and two brothers, Khaleda was second.

She was married to the then Captain Ziaur Rahman in 1960, who later became the country's president.

When the country's Liberation War started in 1971, Khaleda's husband Ziaur Rahman revolted and participated in the war while Khaleda Zia was under custody of Pakistani army.

She was freed in Dhaka only after Bangladesh achieved victory on December, 16, 1971. After the assassination of Ziaur Rahman on May, 30, 1981, the BNP faced a serious crisis. She took over the helm of the party and took on the autocratic regime of Ershad.

Khaleda Zia became the prime minister for a second consecutive term for the 6th Jatiya Sangsad held on February 15, 1996. All major opposition parties, however, boycotted the elections. She relented to enact the caretaker government amendment of the constitution which has proven to be perhaps the most significant democratic safeguard of Bangladesh till the Awami League regime annulled it.

BNP lost the following election in June 1996 only to return to power with a handsome majority in 2001 when Khaleda was sworn in as prime minister for a third time. This tenure was, however, marked by corruption, nepotism and parallel power structure run out of Hawa Bhaban. It was also a time that witnessed emergence of extremism, not to mention the brutal grenade attack on Awami League rally, where Hasina was present, which left 24 dead.

Khaleda was sent to jail along with a number of other political leaders including her arch rival Awami League President Sheikh Hasina in 2007 when an army-backed caretaker government assumed office. BNP never returned to power since its humiliating loss in the 2009 parliamentary election. The following three elections were widely criticised as rigged but Khaleda Zia remained a force to reckon with that ruling government was keen to silence.

Even as her party activists, as well as the nation, ponder over the void Khaleda leaves, we pause to remember that she became the glue that held together a fractured BNP. As a mother, she was forced to grieve for her son's death almost by herself. As a leader, she had to see her party almost destroyed while she was in prison.

Yet, when she emerged again, it was not as a bitter political player but more as a guiding voice that urged for calm.

Khaleda Zia has passed away but the place she carved into Bangladesh's history will remain.