Dhaka, Bangladesh – Bangladesh’s ousted leader Sheikh Hasina wants a new passport to return to the country next month, more than two years after fleeing to India following a mass uprising that forced her from power.
The 79-year-old former prime minister was sentenced to death in absentia last year for crimes against humanity over a deadly crackdown on the student-led protests in 2024, a charge she denies.
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She faces the prospect of being hanged upon her return, as the government that succeeded her remains a staunch political opponent.
Dhaka has already rejected the passport request and has challenged Hasina to seek extradition from India if she is serious about returning home.
“Bangladesh does not give passports to terrorists who kill thousands of people and flee. It will work under the current extradition arrangements with India to pursue and get the terrorist Hasina handed over,” State Minister for Foreign Affairs Humaiun Kobir told Al Jazeera.
On Tuesday, the Bangladeshi prosecutor Md Aminul Islam, who secured the death sentence for Hasina at the Dhaka-based International Crimes Tribunal, said she will be executed if she returns home.
“Sheikh Hasina has no option but to face the execution of the verdict,” Islam told reporters.
So, what led Hasina to approach the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi, seeking a new passport and a national identity card since her existing documents have been revoked, and what is her game plan?
‘She knows what her fate is’
Hasina ruled Bangladesh with an iron fist for nearly 20 years and still enjoys support among a section of its population, while many others want to see her hanged.
Her return could worsen political tensions as Prime Minister Tarique Rahman’s government tries to restore stability two years on from the 2024 uprising that led to the killing of more than 1,400 people, according to the United Nations.
But analysts question whether Hasina genuinely intends to return to face the law, or is using the promise to revive her political fortunes from self-imposed exile in India.
For Zillur Rahman, president of the Centre for Governance Studies, a Dhaka-based think tank, Hasina’s passport request is less about an imminent plan to return and more about keeping herself politically relevant as she tries to retain control of her Awami League party.
“I think she knows what her fate is. But what she wants is to keep Awami League leaders and activists politically engaged,” he said, referring to Hasina’s party, which was founded by her father and Bangladesh independence movement leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman.
“As far as I understand, she does not want to hand over the party’s leadership to anyone else under any circumstances. I think that is a major problem for her and for the party. Otherwise, the party might have tried to find a way to survive.”
Jon F Danilowicz, a retired United States diplomat who once served as deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Dhaka, was more categorical.
“There is zero chance that Hasina will return to Bangladesh in December. In my view, this has all been a bluff intended to rally her supporters and shift the narrative regarding her increasing irrelevance at home,” he told Al Jazeera.
Faiz Sobhan, senior research director at the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute research centre, also sees Hasina’s promise as an effort to lift the morale of her party, which is now banned, with many of its leaders in jail or in exile.
“The announcement keeps Sheikh Hasina politically relevant and lets her gauge the mood at home,” he said. “An actual return seems inconceivable, since it would mean facing the gallows or spending the rest of her life behind bars.”
Despite analysts casting doubt on the prospect of Hasina’s return, her announcement appears to have energised some Awami League leaders and supporters.
“Our leader will return. They have tried to stop her before, but they could not stop her. They are conspiring against her again, but she will overcome these conspiracies and return,” an organising secretary of the party’s central executive committee told Al Jazeera, speaking on condition of anonymity from exile in India.
When asked how Hasina would return and what steps the party was taking to facilitate it, many Awami League leaders and supporters said they had no clear idea about her game plan.
“But she has announced that she will return, and I believe she will come back in December, no matter what,” Arman Rahman, a Dhaka-based Awami League activist and former leader of its student wing, told Al Jazeera.
The India question
Hasina’s future is also tied to India’s calculations.
New Delhi, her close ally for decades, has sheltered her since she fled Dhaka in August 2024. But her continued presence has become a point of contention between the two countries.
Dhaka has repeatedly sought Hasina’s extradition under a bilateral treaty. New Delhi says it has been examining the requests, with India’s foreign ministry in April saying it wants to “engage constructively with the new government and further strengthen bilateral ties”.
Meanwhile, both countries have signalled an interest in repairing strained ties.
Sreeradha Datta, professor of international affairs at O P Jindal Global University near New Delhi, told Al Jazeera that India regards Hasina as a longstanding friend, even as it tries to separate her presence in the country from its diplomatic engagement with Dhaka.
“Sheikh Hasina is a very good friend of India. [New] Delhi looks at her as a friend whom it will always support. That is our official position,” she said.
Former US diplomat Danilowicz believes New Delhi is increasingly aware of the diplomatic cost of continuing to host Hasina, but is “unlikely to facilitate” her return to Bangladesh.
“While there may be some in India who still believe that Hasina and her party provide them leverage, by now the [Narendra] Modi government must understand the damage that her continued presence in New Delhi is doing to efforts to normalise relations with Bangladesh,” he said.
“I am certain the Modi government would love to see the Hasina problem go away, including by having her find a third country to reside.”
Rahman, of the Centre for Governance Studies, offered a different explanation for why India may continue to shelter Hasina despite the diplomatic complications.
“I think India is finding it difficult to digest her presence, but at the same time, it cannot let her go either,” he said.
“If India does not take responsibility for protecting her now, its other allies in South Asia and elsewhere may lose trust in New Delhi. They may feel that India does not ultimately protect those who have stood by it.”
Rahman believes India may continue to offer Hasina refuge, but is unlikely to help restore her political domain in Bangladesh.
“I don’t think India will abandon her. But at the same time, I don’t think it will provide her with all forms of political protection, particularly by helping her return to Bangladesh and reestablish herself here,” he said.
Datta, meanwhile, does not expect imminent improvement in relations between the neighbours. “I don’t think Bangladesh-India relations will return to normalisation very soon,” he said.
Is a deal with BNP possible?
Many are also asking if Hasina could enter into some kind of a political understanding with the governing Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), now controlled by Prime Minister Rahman, son of Hasina’s longtime rival, Khaleda Zia, who passed away a year ago. Rahman himself lived in exile in London when Hasina was in power.
But analysts see little possibility of such a deal, with the Bangladesh Enterprise Institute’s Sobhan describing the idea as a “non-starter”.
“The BNP has little to gain and much to lose from any accommodation with the Awami League. Its base spent 16-plus years being jailed, harassed and sidelined [by Hasina], and any hint of a deal would be seen as a betrayal,” he told Al Jazeera.
On Monday, BNP acting secretary general and Prime Minister Rahman’s political adviser, Ruhul Kabir Rizvi, also dismissed the prospect of Hasina’s return.
“She is deluding herself if she thinks she can return, reimpose fascism and reclaim her throne,” Rizvi said at an event in Dhaka.
Sobhan said the BNP government had little room to act outside the verdict delivered by the International Crimes Tribunal.
“A broader settlement to stabilise the country is hard to imagine, and reconciliation without accountability or an apology is harder still,” he said.
Extradition was the “only formal route” available to Dhaka, Sobhan added. “And it means being dragged back [to Bangladesh], not choosing to return.”
