Sheikh Hasina–World’s Longest Serving Female Head of Government Has Faced Very Unfair Criticism

When a top national-level woman leader succeeds in increasing human development indicators to a remarkable extent in the middle of the most difficult conditions, should sections of big media treat her most unfairly just because she dared to openly say that some very powerful forces in the west were trying to harm or topple her government? This is an important question that needs to be raised particularly when she has been forced into exile, her political party has been banned recently and her supporters have been widely victimized and attacked.

It is increasingly agreed that women’s leadership should be encouraged. In some countries, including the USA, the top political post has never been held by a woman. On the other hand Bangladesh provides an inspirational example where for the greater part of the 53 years of the nation’s history, the top post has been held by women leaders. While some military dictators have also ruled this country, they were all men. On the other hand all the women who occupied the top job of the Prime Minister were elected to their top post.

By far the woman leader who held the top job for the longest years is Sheikh Hasina (now living in exile). She also holds the world record as the woman leader who has been the top national woman leader for the longest time. She held the top spot for 20 years, followed by Indira Gandhi (India), Angela Merkel (Germany) and V. Finnbogadottir (Iceland), each of whom held the top job for about 16 years.

Instead of expressing special appreciation for the contributions of Sheikh Hasina, whose years in the top job were marked by remarkable improvements in several important human development indicators, dominant sections of media have increasingly focused only on the negative sides of her years in power, and that too in highly exaggerated and sometimes outright false ways. In this highly distorted discourse secular and relatively well governing forces have been turned into villains while fundamentalist, extremist and corrupt forces (including those who carry out imperialism’s bidding) have been turned into heroes. Why are sections of dominant world media indulging in such serious distortions? The answer is clear. Once the forces of imperialism decide to go after a leader then dominant sections of media also start seeing only evil in that particular leader, ignoring all the good work she may have done over the years or decades. This becomes even more pronounced if the leader has dared to say clearly that certain powerful forces are behind the attempts to harm and oust her.

It is therefore very important to set the record straight. In the middle of all the allegations thrown indiscriminately against Sheikh Hasina in recent times, how many people remember that she had won worldwide praise for reaching the Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Accord and then for providing shelter and relief to nearly a million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, that in 1998 she had received the M.K. Gandhi Award from the M.K.Gandhi Foundation in Oslo and also the UNESCO Award for Women’s Empowerment and Girls’ Education, apart from numerous other honors from prestigious institutions in many parts of the world.

What is even more important is the significant progress in human development indicators during her years as Prime Minister. Her most powerful opposition consisted mostly of extremist fundamentalist forces and forces allied to military dictators, including those who were collaborators in the 1971 genocide and ethnic cleansing which killed over a million people and externally displaced about ten million. (of course the opposition also included some sincere democratic forces). Hence the credit for progress in human development indicators on the government side mainly goes to the work done when Sheikh Hasina was heading the government.

To get an idea of the extent of this achievement, a comparison with Pakistan may be made. As is well-known, when Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan, was a part of Pakistan for about 24 years, it faced regional discrimination. On top of this, there was the extreme harm done in the genocidal conditions of 1971 and later in the highly disturbed conditions following the assassination of the first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (father of Sheikh Hasina) along with other family members in 1975. Despite this, in recent times Bangladesh has surged ahead of Pakistan in important human development indicators, particularly those relating to women. According to recent estimates of around 2022-23, female adult literacy in Bangladesh is 74% compared to 53% for Pakistan. Even more tellingly, the infant mortality rate in Bangladesh is 25 compared to about 50 for Pakistan. Such improvement was achieved despite the population density in Bangladesh being over double that of Pakistan as well as several other adverse conditions faced by Bangladesh.

Also the adversities in the middle of which Sheikh Hasina could retain her leadership for so long and contribute to the progress of her country were of an extreme kind. One can understand the extreme shock and distress she must have undergone when her father, mother, brothers and other family members were all assassinated in a most cruel way in 1975. According to the research of several senior persons, the forces behind this assassination were more or less the same whom she identified in 2023-24 to be plotting for her ouster.

After most of her family members were murdered, she sought asylum in India in 1975. Meanwhile in Bangladesh highly corrupt police officers linked to forces of genocide carried out earlier had taken over and the extent of their ethical bankruptcy is evident from the fact that they enacted an indemnity law providing immunity from prosecution to those who were involved in the most cruel anti-national crime of assassination of the country’s first prime minister, also called the father of the nation by many people, and his family members including children.

Despite knowing that the country had fallen into such hands for the time being, this brave lady Sheikh Hasina took the highly courageous step of returning to Bangladesh and assuming the leadership of her father’s party, the country’s oldest political party Awami League, around the year 1981.

In the course of her numerous struggles here, several assassination attempts targeting her were made. It has been estimated that 19 such attempts were made. Several of her close associates were actually killed. She was sent to jail several times where her ailments remained unattended.

It was in the middle of such circumstances that she braved on, also taking strong actions against the perpetrators of previous assassinations , murders and other such crimes who had been living in comfort before she took over.

She won many elections but her critics have stated that these were boycotted by some other political parties. However there has been quite a history of some parties boycotting elections. Even if they had fought, the likelihood of the Awami League still winning was high.

Of course it is quite possible that, particularly in its later days, the government led by Sheikh Hasina actually made some serious mistakes as long years of power often bring in some corrupt persons. Another factor is that when you are facing many threats from dangerous forces and you have already faced assassination attempts and very tragic loss of family members in assassinations, you tend to take some harsh steps while in milder circumstances you may not have taken these.

Threatened by extremist and fundamentalist forces most of the time, Sheikh Hasina felt additional danger from powerful western forces around 2023-24 when she stated that these forces wanted to create an air base and perhaps even a smaller separate country and she was opposing all this.

After this the protests against her became much more intense, frequent and persistent.

When there are spontaneous internal protests by people to find solutions for their problems, almost always these end in some sort of settlement as both the people and the government want and need a settlement.

However when the protests are instigated by the most powerful foreign (western) forces, then these forces who are pulling the strings from behind do not desire a settlement. They want regime change and ouster of the most prominent leader (and other related objectives) and this is what they achieved in the form of the ouster of Sheikh Hasina.

After Sheikh Hasina started living in exile in India, one after another cases of serious crimes were registered against her in Bangladesh so that now there may be perhaps a hundred cases of murder or such serious crimes against the 77 year old grandmother with several ailments. Her associates and members of the Awami League are being targeted and victimized in Bangladesh. Religious minorities are facing increasing attacks and violence. Recently the Awami League has been banned from contesting elections.

Should the media keep on adding to this injustice by continuing to be highly unjust in its depiction and understanding of the work of Sheikh Hasina?

The way forward is to bring out the truthful state of affairs and thereby contribute to the progress of Bangladesh on the path of genuine democracy, peace and justice.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Man over Machine—A Path to Peace.