HASINA: AFTER POWER

A martyr's daughter turned strongman, Sheikh Hasina's legacy spans nation-building, economic growth, authoritarian rule, and a brutal crackdown that led to her 2025 death sentence. Her story is both a symbol of resilience and a warning about power.

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In a packed Dhaka courtroom on November 17, 2025, Bangladesh witnessed an extraordinary reversal of fortune. Judges of a special tribunal pronounced a death sentence on Sheikh Hasina, the country's 78-year-old former prime minister, after finding her guilty of ordering a lethal crackdown on student protesters in 2024.

Cheers erupted among victims' families as the verdict - the harshest ever against a Bangladeshi leader - was delivered in absentia. For Hasina, watching from exile in India, this moment marked the dramatic culmination of a life that has mirrored her nation's turbulent journey. Once lauded as the “Iron Lady” who helped build modern Bangladesh, she is also decried as an autocrat whose appetite for power blinded her to the cries of the streets. It is a story of dizzying highs and devastating lows - of a revered martyr's daughter turned dominant leader, now cast as a defendant in the very tribunal she created years ago to try others.

the torchbearer of a murdered dynasty. Reeling from shock, she found refuge in India under the protection of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. For six long years, Sheikh Hasina lived in exile, mostly in New Delhi, grieving her lost loved ones and pondering the future of her father's unfinished dreams. It was a baptism by blood that would harden her resolve. In those years, the young widow (her husband Wazed Miah remained a quiet pillar of support until his death in 2009) slowly embraced the role of her father's political heir. Despite the danger back home, Hasina kept ties with Bangladesh's banned Awami League party - the movement her father once led to independence.

EXILE AND RETURN: A POLITICAL AWAKENING