New Delhi: Since she fled Dhaka in August 2024 during a huge student-led protest, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been leading a quiet life in India’s capital. Her presence in New Delhi is now very important for the future of democracy in Bangladesh. She is leading her party’s protest against the approaching national elections and is facing prosecution in absentia.
Living in Exile in Delhi
On August 5, 2024, Hasina, who had to leave power after a violent protest that ended with the invasion of her Dhaka palace, fled to India’s Hindon Air Force base on a Bangladesh Air Force plane with close friends. After spending two days at the airfield, where she is said to have met with National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and high-ranking military officials, the Indian government found her a safe place to stay in a high-security sector of the Lutyens Bungalow Zone in New Delhi.
She said that her life in exile was quiet, although she missed her country very much. In a recent interview, she said, “Of course, I would love to go home, as long as the government there was real, the constitution was being followed, and law and order really reigned.”
Hasina tries to keep things as normal as possible, even if there is a lot of political unrest. A few months ago, a reporter from Reuters saw her quietly walking through Delhi’s iconic Lodhi Garden with two people who looked like they were her bodyguards. She nodded to others who recognized her as she walked by.
The student-led protest that got her fired was a harsh reminder of the 1975 military coup that killed her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, and three brothers while she was in another country with her sister.
The Election Boycott That Is Coming Up
An interim government led by Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus is in charge of Bangladesh right now. They have promised to hold national elections in February 2027. But the political scene is very unstable:
The Election Commission stopped the registration of Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League party and stopped it from doing anything else, which means it can’t run in the 2027 elections.
Hasina’s Position: Even though she is living abroad and is on trial in absentia for crimes against humanity for her role in the crackdown on student protests, Hasina is still committed to “restoring democracy.” She said that the future government must have electoral legitimacy and that “millions of people support the Awami League, so as things stand, they will not vote.” If you want a political system that works, you can’t take away the right to vote from millions of people.
What the Yunus Government is worried about
The interim administration, on the other hand, is apprehensive about how fair the next election will be. On Wednesday, Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus said he was worried that “forces from home and abroad” would try to stop the forthcoming general elections. He especially mentioned the Awami League being barred from running.
Shafiqul Alam, Yunus’s press secretary, quoted the Chief Adviser in a high-level meeting about getting ready for the election: “Many forces from inside and outside the country will work to spoil the election.” Many powerful forces, not just small ones, will try to stop it. “Attacks may happen out of the blue.” Yunus is said to have said that the election will be “challenging” because there will be a planned campaign of propaganda from both inside and outside the country.