By Mahendra Ved
New Delhi, Dec 30 . The five-decade-old political rivalry of Bangladesh’s “battling Begums” has ended. In what can be considered a ‘draw’, Begum Khaleda Zia, 80, the two-term prime minister, lost her battle for life this morning, and Sheikh Hasina, who ruled longer, is exiled in India after being ousted last year.
But while Hasina and her Awami League are barred from contesting the elections next February, Zia’s Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) is perceived as the likely winner.
Zia’s death, notionally though, clears the leadership line for her son Tarique Rahman. Poignantly, his reunion with the ailing mother after 17 years’ exile in London occurred barely five days ago, as if in time to bid farewell.
Conventional thinking in times of elections would give the Zia family the advantage of the “sympathy factor”. But BNP, now the largest mainstream force and an early starter in the poll campaign, is bidding seriously. It submitted Tarique’s nomination papers, and according to one report, also a set for the mother’s re-election.
Besides bestowing honour on the ailing party chief, this may well be part of the election strategy. Most prominent leaders in Bangladesh contest from multiple constituencies in the quest for the numbers.
Back to the two women and the family legacies they inherit. Hasina’s father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, was assassinated in 1975. Khaleda led that of her husband, General Ziaur Rahman, also the President, who was killed in 1981. The rival legacies clashed for political primacy and power, of which bad personal vibes were a natural corollary.
The only time the two Begums– Hasina never uses this prefix while Zia did – joined a larger political alliance was in the late 1980s, to oust General H M Ershad. In the election that followed in 1991, Zia won, and Hasina lost. The tables turned in 1996, but Zia was back in power in 2001.
Rivalries sharpened over these years. One pushed the other to jail with graft charges. Dhaka’s Zia International Airport was renamed after Shah Jalal, a revered saint. Three attempts were made on Hasina’s life. She paid Zia back in the same political coin during 2009-2024.
The two rarely met or shared a public platform. Rare was Hasina’s visit to the Zia home to console the death of her younger son, Arafat. Kept waiting, Zia’s staff told Hasina that, under sedation, she was resting and unable to receive her.
Both women were out of power in 2006-08 when the military-backed caretaker government did not hold the elections as prescribed under the Constitution. But that government failed to exile them. Hasina, in America to meet her family, was denied re-entry. She fought her way back home from London. Public opinion in Britain helped. Khaleda, too, was offered freedom from jail and immunity for her sons. But refused to be exiled. The bizarre “minus-2” attempt failed, and Bangladesh was back to the “Battling Begums”.
In fairness to Zia, she did not express joy at Hasina’s ouster. Her party, advocating “inclusive politics”, initially opposed the Awami League’s ban. The switch-over has come only after it became clear that the Yunus regime is bent on a vengeful course against Hasina.
Although destiny denied her a third term as the PM, Zia received immense support in her last days. Yunus lent official support. A special prayer was organised at the Dhakeshwari temple in Dhaka, Bangladesh’s most prominent shrine of the largest minority community.
It reflected, besides respect for a woman leader, which is typical of Bangladesh but rare in the Islamic world, how the political wind is blowing.
Perhaps it is appropriate to record some flashbacks.
In the years following independence, a bespectacled Hasina alternated between a housewife who took an interest in students’ politics and a low-profile daughter of the prime minister. Deeply political, she would watch her father at work. Comparisons were drawn, in whispers, though, with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.
Khaleda, a vivacious army wife, was then in her late twenties, the cynosure of many eyes at diplomatic events as she walked with her soldier/freedom fighter husband. As the army’s Number 2 man, he was rising in influence. Mujib was known to have been fond of the couple.
Hasina launched active politics on her return to Dhaka from her earlier exile in New Delhi (1975-81). Khaleda was compelled, after her husband’s assassination in May 1981, to lead the BNP that he had founded.
Like any Bangladeshi politician, they figured out India. The rival legacies meant that Hasina was, and remains, friendly to India, paying a political cost, being maligned by her critics at home and in the West. That also shaped the Awami League’s relatively secular politics. Khaleda carried no such baggage.
Even before Hasina was ousted, questions were asked why India had put all its eggs in her basket. It rankled with Zia, who once complained about it to Pranab Mukherjee. The former President of India, a deft politician, although he had close ties with Hasina’s family, was for striking a semblance of political balance. “But you will always support Hasina,” Khaleda had said. Mukherjee later told this writer: “I told her, when did I ever say that you are not my younger sister?”
(The author is a veteran journalist and views are personal)
