Chief architect of Bangladesh's turnaround

At 76, Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is now the oldest and also the longest-serving woman leader in the world, largely credited for turning around her country, once left bloodied and devastated by Pakistani occupational forces.

She has been Bangladesh's Prime Minister since January 2009, and if one were to add her 1996-2001 tenure, she has overtaken Germany's former Chancellor Angela Merkel for her time in the top job.

No top leader in Bangladesh has served this long since the birth of South Asia's youngest nation in 1971, following a bitter and bloody civil war with Pakistan that left nearly three million dead in eight months.

The war left Bangladesh in shambles but her father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, in 1972, took over the charge to rebuild the nation, a daunting task surely but left unfinished. In 1975, a bloody military coup left the country's founder Mujibur Rahman dead with almost his entire family. Only his two daughters, Sheikh Hasina and Sheikh Rehana, survived because they were away in Europe.

Many detractors argued that Bangladesh, as it hurtled from one disaster to another, was not a 'sustainable country'. Mujib's death sealed the fate of democracy as two successive military dictators — General Ziaur Rahman and HM Ershad — launched Bangladesh back on the road to Pakistan-type military-sponsored theocracy by legitimising Islamist parties and declaring Islam as state religion, undoing secularism as a basic precept enshrined in Bangladesh's 1972 Constitution. No wonder, American author Lawrence Lifschultz sub-titled his book on Bangladesh as the 'Unfinished Revolution.'

A fierce nationwide street agitation brought down the military dictatorship of Gen Ershad in 1991, after which Mujib's Awami League, now helmed by daughter Sheikh Hasina, and Ziaur Rahman's Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), led by his widow Khaleda Zia, took turns to head the government every five years.

That changed in the last decade when the Awami League, under Hasina's leadership, managed to win three successive elections. For Hasina who, as opposition leader, had survived a grenade attack in Aug 2004 and served time in prison during the military-backed caretaker government (2007-08), this has been an unbelievable dream run.

Not only has Bangladesh witnessed an amazing economic turnaround during Hasina's long time in power, with its per capita income soaring past giant neighbour India and its human development indicators leaving other South Asian nations behind, but Hasina has also been able to successfully control a spurt in Islamic radicalism that had begun to look dangerous during her predecessor Khaleda's 2001-06 tenure.

"Just when it looked Bangladesh was headed the Pakistan way and Islamist terrorism was looking dangerous, Hasina controlled it ruthlessly. Relative social peace has helped Bangladesh's success in no small measure", says Sukharanjan Dasgupta, author of 'Midnight Massacre' on the 1975 Bangladesh coup.

Hasina's achievements are manifold — a phenomenal growth of development infrastructure like new ports, roads and bridges, a new wave of gender empowerment unique in any Muslim dominated country, a sustained growth in all economic indices like GDP, exports and manufacturing, controlling the Islamist terror groups after some deadly attacks and also dealing with the attacks against the country's Hindu and Buddhist minorities.

A key success of Sheikh Hasina is that how the country managed to ride out the pandemic on healthcare and economic fronts. Under her watch, Bangladesh has emerged out as a top performer in Covid management, as evidenced by a number of international outlets including the likes of Bloomberg index. Despite no local vaccine production capability, Bangladesh has achieved the World Health Organisation's (WHO) goal of bringing 70 per cent of the total population under universal vaccination coverage, outshining its neighbours. Moreover, lower death tolls than many developed economies and rolling out of stimulus packages in the wake of the lockdown, clearly validated the farsightedness in Sheikh Hasina's leadership skills.

Yet her opponents blame her for undermining democracy and even accuse her of turning Bangladesh into a police state. The Awami League's victory in 2014 was due to a boycott of the Parliament polls by leading opposition parties, which had expected to bring down her government by violent street agitations. Five years later, the opposition pulled out after few hours of polling, accusing ruling party functionaries of rigging the polls.

Now the Opposition has announced it will not participate in the 2023 Parliament polls, alleging "no fair poll was possible under the Hasina government." They have also started violent street agitations to oust the government at a time when Hasina is under considerable pressure from the West and the UN to hold "fair and inclusive polls."

US sanctions against seven Bangladesh security officials for alleged human rights violations have come as a shot in the arm for the opposition and the civil society groups.

But what has been conveniently ignored in that anti-Hasina rhetoric was how the opposition founded by the country's first military dictator Gen Ziaur Rahman, later succeeded by his wife Begum Zia and now run by their fugitive son Tarique Rahman, embraced the killers of Mujib and plunged the country into a pit of pro-Pakistanisation, in a stark betrayal to the country's founding bedrocks.

Under his watch, Gen Zia had overseen at least 19 coups within the armed forces to purge off officers, mostly freedom fighters who fought and won against the Pakistani forces in 1971, but later joined the country's armed forces to keep up with the spirit to serve their motherland. Moreover, four key leaders of Mujib's party were gunned down even after they were imprisoned, another marker of the sheer brand of terrorism championed by the opposition.

On the other hand, both the military dictators were responsible for scrapping "secularism" from the Constitution and later installing "Islam" as a state religion, the biggest boost for the radical forces that still holds considerable influence over BNP. The same force unleashed as many as 19 attempts to physically liquidate Sheikh Hasina, modelled after the 15th august massacre that eliminated almost all the Mujib family members.

When Begum Zia was at the helm, militancy raised its ugly head under direct state patronage, while in corruption index the country topped five times, another pointer that testifies to the rampant corruption by top leaders of the party. Both her tenures (1991—1996, 2001—2006) marked unprecedented attacks on minorities, progressive thinkers and AL leaders — most glaring case of trampling of rights and blatant disregard for law and order. Even the celebration of arrival of Bangla new year, known as Pahela Boishak, which heralded a new dawn of the country's syncretic culture, has not been spared.

Even after boycotting the elections in 2013 and aiming to foil the war crimes trial that ended the long agonising 40-year wait of millions of families awaiting justice, the same group perpetuated arson attacks on public and private vehicles, resulting in hundreds of innocent lives burnt alive and targeted attacks on law enforcers. That worst bout of violence required tough policing to stymie the tide of firebombing, while another bout of terrorist attack including the one on an upscale restaurant in the capital back in 2015 when foreign nationals dining at the restaurant were slayed, has been successfully neutralised, another vindication of the premier's steely resolve to take those radicals head on.

It is the same group that took to the streets in demand of the boycott of French products, deemed westerners as apostates, cheered on social media over Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, dubbed India-made Covid vaccine as nothing but an Israel plot of injecting spy cams inside human body and called for removal of Mujib's statue in his birth centenary and ran amok to dismantle temples during the last Durga Puja triggered by the rumours of a Hindu devotee putting an Islamic Holy book on the lap of a Hindu goddess.

As Bangladesh's growing economy runs into adverse global headwinds and Dhaka seeks IMF and World Bank loans, much will depend on how well Hasina can manage the economy.

"If the Ukraine war continues and Hasina finds it difficult to manage an economic recovery, she will lose the trump card in her sleeves," says Sukharanjan Dasgupta. "But if she can handle the economy well, the tide will turn in her favour."

"God willing, Hasina will complete her remaining year in office and lead her party to victory in the next elections as well," says Shahanaz Parvin Dolly, joint secretary of the ruling Awami League's women wing.

"She is one leader you can sacrifice your life for," Dolly told this writer. "She is so inspirational like her great father."

Hasina is every inch her father's daughter, whose memory both troubles and inspires her.

"She never gives up," says another party loyalist Sufi Farooq.

As Hasina is already 76, she also needs to address the succession question. Whether she looks to someone in the family or some trusted political loyalist, this is an issue that needs attention.

On the foreign policy front, Hasina faces two major challenges — to get the repatriation of one million Rohingya Muslims started and to get a water-sharing deal on Teesta River signed with India.

During her recent India visit, seven Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) were signed between the two countries but the elusive Teesta agreement was not one of them. She insisted that should be done on 'an early date' but without getting a firm commitment from India. That spurred opposition's allegation that she has given India much and got little in return.

Similarly, failure to get the process to send back the Rohingyas is held out against Hasina because she opened her borders to take them in 2017.

With its all-weather ally Jamaat, BNP cadres and rioters have been hitting the streets with rods and sticks, attacking law enforcers and even swooping on journalists, let alone a veiled threat by a top leader of BNP's affiliated body to restage another 1975.

Amid such a sea of challenges, Sheikh Hasina remains as the only hope for pro-liberation people who have been witnessing their country taking the path of a prosperous nation in its 50 years of independence, and the next phase of elevation for their posterity.

"There is no doubt that Hasina has delivered on many fronts, particularly the economy and human development. Poverty has sharply dwindled during her time. But she faces considerable challenges," says Dasgupta.

Views expressed are personal