The death sentence handed down to Bangladesh’s former and ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina – delivered in absentia by the International Crimes Tribunal, Bangladesh’s domestic war crimes court, for her role in last year’s brutal crackdown on student protesters – should be seen as a moment of sobering caution for leaders everywhere who begin their political journeys with democratic promises but lose their way to the temptations of power. Hasina’s long political arc is itself steeped in the struggle for democracy. Her early life was marked by trauma and exile, her rise by defiance of authoritarian rule and her initial premiership by popular support. Yet the very leader who fought for democratic rights eventually presided over a political order that became increasingly intolerant of dissent. Her fourth consecutive term in office was in many ways defined by a systematic hollowing out of opposition, institutional independence and political freedoms. Bangladesh under Hasina became, for all practical purposes, a one-party state. That absence of political space contributed to the combustible environment in which the 2024 student-led uprising erupted. According to a UN report, as many as 1,400 people may have been killed in the crackdown that followed, most from gunfire by security forces. It is this ‘official policy’ of lethal repression that the tribunal now holds Hasina responsible for. The former prime minister has rejected the trial as politically motivated and unjust. The appeal process may eventually test these claims, but the message from the streets of Dhaka to leaders across the region is unmistakable: public trust cannot be sustained through force.
Bangladesh’s interim administration – headed by Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus – was meant to stabilise the country after Hasina fled in August 2024. That has largely been true though Human Rights Watch and others warn that arbitrary detentions and politically motivated prosecutions continue. Amid all the uncertainty, one factor remains clear: for now at least, India appears unlikely to abandon Hasina. Her continued stay in India keeps her physically safe, even as political and legal storms rage back home. It bears recalling that years ago, when Hasina’s own government pushed for the death penalty for ageing Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, this newspaper warned that capital punishment – especially when wielded amid political contestation – could not be the foundation of justice. That principle stands today. Accountability for grave abuses is necessary; the death penalty is not the way to achieve it. Unfortunately, Hasina’s undoing was not merely the violence of 2024. It was her near-singleminded focus on neutralising political rivals, her zeal to consolidate power, and the corrosive belief that electoral mandates grant unchecked authority. For democratic leaders who drift towards authoritarian instincts, her fall should serve as a lesson: when you erode the very institutions meant to check your power, you ultimately erode your own legitimacy.
Bangladesh today needs healing, institutional reform and a return to a genuinely inclusive democratic tradition. That requires political competition, not political purges; and elections that carry the credibility of broad participation and not exclusion. President Muhammad Yunus now faces the immense challenge of steering the country towards a peaceful and legitimate transfer of power in February – a task for which, given his international standing and domestic credibility, he may well be uniquely suited. Meanwhile, let no one forget that going the Hasina route – for any leader – is a bad idea.