In the early morning of the 30th of December, 2025, former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia transcended into immortality as a hero of Bangladesh, marking a decisive victory in the long political struggle she found herself thrust into. This victory is marked by the fact that she has left an entire country of 180 million in tears, even prompting condolences full of reverence from political enemies. She was thrust into this battle on the 30th of May, 1981, when her husband and the-then executive President Ziaur Rahman was assassinated. And she had been fighting it ever since.
Throughout all this time, she faced one insurmountable task after another, starting with the task of elevating the legacy left behind by her husband. Her husband casts a long shadow of his own as a premier Liberation War hero and a statesman who brought Bangladesh to a semblance of stability following its turbulent post-independence years. A key contribution of his is the introduction of a strong idea of what it means for Bangladesh to be sovereign in the global sphere. This has always mattered for Bangladesh as a small country without much capital to throw around on the global stage. At the same time, its domestic scene can be judged by some to be unmanageable.
Picking up from the work left behind by her husband, Khaleda Zia braved insurmountable odds and took leadership. One must be mindful of this undertaking, which had to have been extremely difficult from a fundamental, ontological point of view. From within a conservative society that promoted strict gender roles, Khaleda Zia set out as a female leader in her mid-30s caring for two children as a widow.
Against every conceivable odd, she was successful in transforming the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) into a legitimate, functional political party promoting Ziaur Rahman’s ideals, and she managed to organize it in a way that also captured his vision for BNP as a party. It became a big tent for people of all walks of life and ideologies who wanted to see a self-confident Bangladesh, and it also managed to reach the conservative masses. Over the course of protests against the autocracy of Hussain Muhammad Ershad, she had earned acclaim as an ‘uncompromising leader’, with the term in the Bengali language emphasizing her identity as an uncompromising female leader. This was earned particularly due to her refusal to accept Ershad’s proposals for the much-criticized 1986 Bangladeshi general elections. International observers termed it a ‘tragedy for democracy’ and a ‘cynically frustrated exercise’, meaning that it was simply meant to rubber-stamp Ershad’s credibility. Her decision to boycott the elections would foreshadow similar circumstances some 20 years later.
In 1991, she became the first female Prime Minister of Bangladesh following the fall of Ershad. Her refusal to make amends with Ershad certainly played a role in encouraging the popular vote, leading to a parliamentary majority. The country settled on the parliamentary system under her stewardship, believing that it was suitable for reflecting the democratic aspirations of the people.
Her first tenure remains notable for starting a true state-building project, making significant strides in improving literacy, improving access to education, and access to education for women and girls in particular. The period also saw the opening of remittance channels and baby steps towards economic liberalization. This was the beginning of the quintessentially Bangladeshi growth engine, the ready made garments (RMG) sector. Rural services were expanded, and the distance between the urban and rural regions of the country first began to be reduced during the 1991-1996 period as her government tolerated and often supported the operations of NGOs.
From the outset, Khaleda Zia promoted a pluralistic vision of Bangladeshi nationalism, integrating the country’s various ethnic and religious groups, emphasizing sovereignty and, eschewing close alignment to any power without equality. Of course, India frequently factored into the discourse regarding this. She wasted little time in bringing to the SAARC forum the issue of India’s operation of the Farakka Barrage. She adopted a measured approach to India with a view towards equalizing the relations as much as possible for mutual benefit. It was on that note that she held a critical view of the 1972 Treaty of Friendship & Cooperation, correctly judging it to be unequal. At the same time, she encouraged increased trade relations and regional engagement within the framework of SAARC.
It was also brought up repeatedly in bilateral meetings, and although a treaty was not signed during her tenure, she succeeded in establishing a precedent for Bangladesh to engage eye-to-eye with a country that is many times larger, brought more capital of all sorts to the playing table, and surrounded it on three axes. While a treaty was eventually signed during Sheikh Hasina’s tenure, it was criticized as being unequal, disadvantaging Bangladesh. What becomes apparent then is the fact that Khaleda Zia simply rejected an unfavorable deal, explaining why she could not present a treaty to the people.
She also expanded ties with the United States, timing it closely with the US’s post-Cold War focus towards democratic governance and free market economics. Khaleda Zia was open to these ideas, and Bangladesh started on these tracks. It would be soon after the start of her first tenure that the United States snowballed into becoming the single largest export market for Bangladesh, a position it holds to this day. On a very similar note, Bangladesh deepened relations with a Germany that had recently reunified through the annexation of the moribund German Democratic Republic (East Germany). It would also become one of the primary export destinations of Bangladeshi products, starting the stream of foreign remittance that would constitute significant revenue flows for successive Bangladeshi governments.
The end of the Cold War and the removal of constraints related to bloc politics also came off. China was normalized within the foreign policy of Bangladesh as an important trade partner for the first time, the relations would morph forward into the 2001-2006 period into a strategic partnership. Bangladesh became a key buyer of Chinese military hardware as it enabled the Bangladesh Armed Forces to reduce dependence on buyers that would have otherwise demanded too much. China represented a viable alternative that kept defense spending manageable in relation to other key economic sectors, striking a fine balance. A localized variant of the Type 81 assault rifle would go on to become the backbone of Bangladeshi forces, ensuring reliability for the common rifleman. Simply put, defense cooperation with China enabled Bangladesh to build a solid military bedrock from which to build upon.
Her 2001-2006 tenure is generally seen with much more suspicion and debate, yet her refusal to let the country’s right wing and Islamist-oriented political factions be ‘othered’ simply on the basis of beliefs stands out. It was a point of view taken from the perspective that she wanted to engage in the political process with all sorts of beliefs and with people from all walks of life, as long as they were willing to respect the democratic process. The fact that she insisted on this path during the height of the Global War on Terror deserves high credit. It was a time in which it was easy to paint Bangladesh negatively in the eyes of the world’s sole superpower at the time, and there was no shortage of attempts in doing so. She managed the insecurities of the United States and India in relation to terrorism as best as she could, as the spectre of terrorism itself struck blows at Bangladesh. Response was swift and direct, with the formation of the Rapid Action Battalion in 2004, though later gaining infamy, standing out as a critical instrument in her government’s campaigns against terrorism. She managed all this while remaining strict to her adherence to the sovereignty of Bangladesh.
Dealings with Pakistan, a key lynchpin of the Global War on Terror, expanded further along with trade relations. Of course, Bangladesh has always had its own baggage of issues with Pakistan, and one of those happened to be the fate of Biharis who had emigrated to East Bengal wishing to be a part of Pakistan, and yet Pakistan no longer existed there after 1971. She attempted to engage Pervez Musharraf on the issue, but could not reach an agreement as he cynically but subtly threatened to deport low-income undocumented Bengalis to Bangladesh, who to this day still majorly live in the city of Karachi. She had signaled her unwillingness to appease Pakistani ambitions or views surrounding Bangladesh as a ‘lost younger brother’, and yet again emphasized Bangladesh’s independence.
This tenure also saw the formalization of a Look East policy for Bangladesh, which emphasized deepened ties with the ASEAN member states, Japan, Korea, and Australia. Myanmar was also a subject of this policy, as she tried to explore avenues of cooperation with the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) junta ruling Myanmar at that time. Khaleda Zia had previously managed a major influx of Rohingya refugees during her 1991-1996 tenure. She had engaged Myanmar bilaterally and also dealt with the UNHCR, which provided aid, and successfully arranged for their return by the tenure. This ought to be seen in contrast to how a different Rohingya refugee influx would be handled later on in 2017.
Unfortunately, she would shortly fall victim to political machinations that delayed the 2006 elections to 2008, and placed the caretaker government in between that relentlessly pursued her to give up. This period also marked the beginning of the exile of her son and successor, Tareque Rahman. It would not be until 2025 that he was finally able to return to Bangladesh.
It is a cruel twist of fate that she could not live to see Bangladesh complete its upcoming election cycle, which is set to be one of the most important in its history, as it is set to bring the country out of 16 years of autocratic rule and carry forward the renewed understanding of the importance of Bangladesh’s sovereignty post-5th August.
It was a period in which she was targeted, hearkening back to the situation she found herself in during the times of the autocracy of Hussain Muhammad Ershad. Except this time around, her persecution and that of the party she led turned out to be exponentially worse.
The 2010s saw her in and out of jail as she refused to bend the knee towards legitimizing Sheikh Hasina’s autocratic rule and her subversion of the electoral process. Her son and his family were forced to remain in exile for years, unable to return to Bangladesh upon pain of immediate imprisonment or worse. State institutions were let loose like attack dogs on her and the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, its allies, and any critics. Allies dedicated to the vision of a truly sovereign Bangladesh were being silenced left and right. The legacy left behind by her husband and herself was sidelined and insulted at every turn. Key party men had begun to desert her for various reasons, frequent among them being personal gain. She had contracted liver cirrhosis at an advanced age in 2019 during imprisonment. By November 2023, it appeared as if her entire platform was about to be pummeled into non-existence.
Yet, none of that could convince Khaleda Zia to give up and accept defeat. Time has a habit of making a mockery out of the arrogant, and she was rewarded for her faith after the 5th of August. In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Hasina, she became prominent in the Bangladeshi political scene once more as exactly the symbol of Bangladeshi sovereignty that her entire life revolved around being. The people of Bangladesh have been fiercely questioning the logic behind the Hasina regime’s closeness to India with renewed vigor in recent times, and during such discussions, Khaleda Zia is never far off as a hero of an independent Bangladesh. Since then, her party has been resurgent, and her son has successfully made his homecoming to take the party forward into the future.
It is exceptionally remarkable that she is the only politician in Bangladeshi history to have consistently won all parliamentary seats contested across five general elections. It is a strong reflection of the respect and adoration enjoyed by Khaleda Zia by virtue of the strength of her character and her reputation as a people’s leader.
Thus, she finds herself victorious in death following a life of struggle against rather powerful foes, as opposed to Sheikh Hasina living in exile while being greatly reviled. Indeed, Khaleda Zia had always refused to accept exile, proving her commitment to patriotism and the brand of nationalism that she had always espoused.
Through and through, her banner and her standard had always been home for Bangladeshis who valued the idea of a pluralistic nationalism and the honor of the country above all as a sovereign state. It would be criminal to understate the impact she had as a first of many things, being the first female chief executive of the country. Even the United States is yet to have its first female chief executive! And she was left to make something out of a country that anyone else would have considered chaotically unmanageable in 1991.
A true pioneer of shattering negative expectations about Bangladesh, she proved that she could organize a political party on a principled platform, carry it forward to electoral victory, and work tirelessly to make sure that Bangladesh enjoyed equal relations as much as possible with powers that could not be bothered to care about it at the outset. She leaves behind a shining example for future generations of patriots to follow, as an immortal symbol, and as a standard bearer of Bangladesh’s sovereignty.
