Sheikh Hasina’s Return: What’s the Ground Reality?

For the past few days, a specific topic has been heavily discussed across the country's political landscape, stirring intense debates. The subject of discussion is the return of Awami League leader Sheikh Hasina, who lost power in the face of the July mass uprising and fled the country, leaving thousands of party leaders and activists in severe jeopardy.

Fugitive leaders of the Awami League—who have already drawn immense resentment from their own grassroots activists—are posting provocative messages on social media, claiming that their leader will soon return to the country with her entourage. Some over-enthusiastic leaders are even circulating specific timelines for her return.

Consequently, innocent and politically naive grassroots workers are taking to the field with renewed enthusiasm, only to face fresh waves of danger, arrests by law enforcement, and new legal charges, while the provoking leaders live luxurious lives abroad with laundered money.

There is a proverb: "An outsider cannot cause a downfall unless the person steps into the trap themselves." The same has happened to Sheikh Hasina. Known widely among the public as a dramatic and arrogant leader, Hasina used to display a facade of words, often quoting, "I am destitute, I am broke, I have nothing to give; I only have love, and that is what I leave behind."

In reality, driven by her own hubris, she not only fled herself but also completely ruined the Awami League. Stubbornness destroys a person, and this extreme obstinacy proved fatal for Sheikh Hasina. Surprisingly, even in her exiled life on Indian soil after losing power in the mass uprising, her stubbornness has not diminished in the slightest.

It is precisely this arrogance that has pushed the Awami League—one of the largest and oldest political parties in the subcontinent—to the brink of destruction. Blinded by personal interest and the pride of power, she has not hesitated to cast the party that led the Liberation War into the dustbin of history, prioritizing her absolute dominance over the safety of millions of grassroots workers and supporters remaining in the country.

The India Paradigm and Rejected Structural Refinement

Following her dramatic escape on August 5, 2024, many believed Sheikh Hasina would engage in self-reflection and realize why lakhs of people took to the streets against her, and why her 16-year-old carefully arranged empire crumbled in an instant.

However, even from her safe haven in India, she retains her old mindset. Recent media reports reveal a highly disappointing scenario for the Awami League. The Indian government reportedly offered her two distinct alternatives: first, to move honorably to Qatar and live out her exile there; second, to greenlight the formation of a "refined" or reformed Awami League under clean-image leaders to keep the party alive in Bangladesh, removing the leadership responsible for the July-August atrocities.

Yet, Hasina remains rigidly defensive, operating under the mantra, "If I am not there, my party will not exist either." She believes moving to Qatar equates to political retirement and the end of her absolute leadership. She fails to comprehend that the resurgence of the Awami League under her leadership on Bangladeshi soil is now a far-fetched fantasy. The brutal suppression during the bloody days of July has left deep wounds in the hearts of the people, and instead of healing those wounds, she is desperate to save her own position.

While a prudent politician knows when to retreat, Hasina is walking the opposite path. When India realized that Hasina had become irrelevant, they attempted to reorganize the party using an internationally acceptable figure close to the party, aiming to sustain the Awami League as a democratic force ahead of the elections. Reports indicate that Sheikh Hasina not only rejected the proposal but was also infuriated by it, burning down the party's final chance to reconstruct itself.

Grassroots Despair and Growing Isolation

The leaders whose names were being floated for the restructuring of the Awami League have dramatically vanished from the scene, proving that Hasina prioritizes her own authority over the party or the nation. She presumably believes that without her, the Awami League is a vacuum, ignoring the historical reality that no individual is greater than the party.

She intended to place someone from her family as her successor, but even there, complications arose. Although there was positive internal consensus regarding her sister Sheikh Rehana’s son, Radwan Mujib Siddiq Bobby, Hasina herself did not give the green signal, likely because she cannot tolerate anyone else—even from her own family—occupying the center of power.

Today, the party's leaders and activists are utterly disoriented, living as fugitives in India or other countries, while ordinary workers bear the brunt of legal cases and attacks. Hasina has no time to think of them as she remains preoccupied with maintaining her obstinacy. Meanwhile, India’s stance is shifting as they realize that carrying the burden of Hasina is proving highly costly. Her complete absence from recent bilateral discussions signals that even her closest ally has begun turning its back on her.

When a political party becomes isolated from the masses, its leadership’s primary task is self-purification. However, words like "apology" or "admission of mistakes" do not exist in Hasina's vocabulary. She still erroneously believes that she will return using administrative backing and foreign support, but reality dictating otherwise. The memory of the genocide has not faded from the public mind, the party has no visible existence left, and India is actively exploring alternative strategies.

Many within the Awami League now believe that Sheikh Hasina is not only drowning herself but is also dragging a historic party founded in 1949 down with her. If her stubbornness continues, the Awami League may soon face the same historical irrelevance as the Muslim League.

The growing frustration and anger among the rank and file may explode like a volcano one day, leaving Sheikh Hasina entirely isolated with nothing but her rigid pride, stripped of all followers. Active members of the Awami League themselves are now pointing out that if she truly loved the party, she would have stepped aside to give it a chance to survive. Her current stance proves that her true devotion is not to the Awami League, but to her own absolute authority over it, making this self-destructive obstinacy the final chapter of her political career.