[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The flag still flutters over the Parliament building in Dhaka. Inside, there are no lawmakers and democracy has left the building. The void has been filled by a ruthless political strongman cloaked in the legitimacy of a Nobel laureate. From her safe house in India, Hasina says this is no accident of transition—but a vacuum deliberately engineered, tightly controlled, and growing more dangerous by the day.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]In written responses to BW Businessworld, the former Bangladesh Prime Minister of Bangladesh lays out a narrative is a geopolitical thriller: a state captured without a vote, an interim ruler fronting unseen hands, and a country sliding into the cross-currents of great-power rivalry.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]What follows is her account—with regional anxieties and global stakes—of how Bangladesh reached this moment.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The Vanishing Mandate
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Bangladesh, Hasina argues, is being governed by absence. No election. No parliamentary check. No public consent.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“Not a single person has voted for this government,” she writes, referring to the interim dispensation led by Muhammad Yunus. In her telling, Yunus is not the architect but the façade—“the acceptable face” of a system run by extremist factions that thrive in the dark spaces left by suspended democracy.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Power, she claims, now flows through informal channels: cabinets stocked without ballots, constitutional changes without debate, security decisions without oversight. It is, she suggests, a state that moves—decides, arrests, realigns—without ever asking permission.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Manufacturing an Enemy
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Every vacuum needs a distraction. Hasina’s most pointed allegation is that anti-India sentiment has been engineered to fill the void.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]She accuses hardline groups elevated to authority of orchestrating embassy marches, intimidating journalists, and enabling violence against minorities—acts she says are designed to erase pluralism and redirect public rage outward.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“India has been Bangladesh’s most steadfast friend,” she insists, describing the sudden hostility as a political instrument rather than a popular impulse. By turning New Delhi into the villain, she argues, the regime shields itself from the one question it cannot answer: who elected you?
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Indian officials, speaking privately, have echoed concerns about instability in Dhaka—citing stalled energy cooperation, intelligence chatter about militant regrouping, and an atmosphere of strategic drift that complicates regional security.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The Quiet Realignment
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]In Hasina’s account, the power vacuum is not merely domestic—it is geopolitical.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]She warns of a rushed embrace of China and Pakistan, undertaken without electoral legitimacy and driven by a need for international validation. Strategic realignments, she says, are being negotiated by a government that lacks the authority to make them.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“No unelected regime has the right to redraw a nation’s strategic future,” she writes.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The timing matters. As Washington calibrates its response to democratic backsliding across the Indo-Pacific, Beijing has moved decisively—offering infrastructure, capital, and diplomatic cover. Bangladesh, perched on the Bay of Bengal, is a prize location. In a vacuum, leverage multiplies.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Hasina stops short of naming the United States, but the subtext is clear: silence creates space, and space invites influence.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]From Growth Engine to Economic Freeze
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The vacuum extends to the economy. Hasina contrasts two Bangladeshes: one that rose on the back of domestic industry, and another now stalled by uncertainty.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Under the Awami League, the garment sector powered years of high growth—lifting millions out of poverty, expanding women’s employment, and placing the country on track to graduate from developing-nation status. That momentum, she argues, is now ebbing.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Investment has slowed. Jobs have thinned. Youth confidence has drained. IMF reviews have flagged elevated risks and productivity disruptions. Foreign capital still knocks—but, Hasina warns, often with conditions that erode sovereignty rather than build capacity.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]A vacuum, in economics as in politics, repels patience.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Violence as Signal
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Then there is the fear.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Hasina’s most incendiary claims involve what she calls state-sanctioned violence against minorities and political opponents—Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, indigenous communities, and supporters of her party. She alleges mass arrests without warrants, overcrowded detention, denial of medical care, and deaths in custody—figures she says point to repression as policy, not excess.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Human-rights organisations have reported widespread detentions since the July 2025 transition, though independent verification remains constrained by limited access. Hasina’s point is not the tally, but the message: in a power vacuum, violence becomes the language of control.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The Regional Stakes
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Why does this matter beyond Bangladesh?
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Because vacuums do not remain empty. They are filled—by ideology, by capital, by influence. For India, an unstable eastern neighbour is a strategic risk. For China, it is an opening. For the wider Indo-Pacific, it is a test of whether democratic erosion is treated as an internal affair or a regional vulnerability.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Hasina frames the moment as one of choice, not fate. Elections, she argues, are the only antidote—restoring accountability before instability hardens into permanence.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“No country can remain sovereign without the consent of its people,” she writes. “Our independence was hard won.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]The Countdown
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]From exile, Sheikh Hasina is not campaigning. She is narrating a countdown.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]In her version of events, Bangladesh is not collapsing in a blaze, but hollowing out—authority drained from institutions, legitimacy replaced by force, foreign policy written without a mandate. A power vacuum, once entrenched, rarely announces its end.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Whether her warning is heeded—in Dhaka, Delhi, Washington, or Beijing—may determine whether Bangladesh emerges as a sovereign actor once more, or as the next arena where geopolitics fills the silence left by democracy.
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Sheikh Hasina in Her Own Words
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Edited excerpts from her written responses to BW Businessworld
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On anti-India sentiment
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“Anti-India sentiment has been deliberately manufactured by extremist forces elevated to positions of power. Their objective is not diplomacy but distraction—marches on the Indian embassy, attacks on the media, and violence against minorities are used to erase pluralism and redirect public anger away from an unelected administration that lacks any democratic mandate. India has been Bangladesh’s most steadfast friend and partner.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On who controls Bangladesh today
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“Bangladesh today is ruled by a small, unelected circle with no democratic legitimacy. Not a single person has voted for Muhammad Yunus or his government. My concern is that Yunus has become the acceptable face of a regime controlled by extremist factions intent on radicalising institutions, persecuting citizens, and sabotaging Bangladesh’s diplomatic foundations.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On governance and responsibility
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“This tragedy goes beyond incompetence. It is the result of deliberate choices—elevating extremists to cabinet positions, releasing convicted terrorists, rewriting the constitution without mandate, and turning a blind eye to mob violence. These actions have set our nation on a path toward destruction. What matters now is that the international community is beginning to recognise the realities of Yunus’ rule.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On China, Pakistan, and foreign-policy realignment
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“Bangladesh has always believed in friendship with all and malice towards none. But strategic realignments can only be made by an elected government. What we are witnessing now is a rushed embrace of unlikely allies in a desperate search for validation. No unelected regime has the authority to realign our foreign policy while undermining decades of carefully constructed relationships with lasting implications for regional stability.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On the economy, textiles, and sovereignty
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“When the Awami League came to power, our economy was fragile. Through the garment sector—built on the strength of our domestic workforce—we achieved 7.2% growth, lifted millions out of poverty, and created opportunities for women. Today, under Yunus, our economy has been downgraded multiple times, employment has collapsed, and investment has stalled. Foreign investment is welcome, but only if it strengthens domestic industry and respects our sovereignty.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]On violence, repression, and Bangladesh’s future
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]“The violence targeting Hindus, Buddhists, Christians, peace-loving Muslims, indigenous communities, and supporters of the Awami League is not random—it is state-sanctioned and carried out with impunity. Over 152,000 people remain in custody on fabricated charges. This is not law enforcement; it is mass repression. Without urgent, free, and participatory elections, Bangladesh risks self-sustaining instability. Our independence was hard won, and I have faith that we will overcome unconstitutional forces again.”
[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)]Note: These excerpts reflect the views of Sheikh Hasina, currently in exile in India, responding in writing to questions from BW Businessworld about Bangladesh’s political, economic, and geopolitical trajectory.[color=hsl(0, 0%, 0%)] |
