Begum Khaleda Zia and Democracy

 

A Human Rights–Centred Reflection on Power, Persecution, and Political Dignity

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The passing of Khaleda Zia, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh and Chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), closes a defining chapter in the country’s political history. Beyond partisan loyalties and political rivalries, her life invites a deeper human-rights reflection on how power is contested, how dissent is treated, and how democratic institutions either protect or punish political opposition.

Khaleda Zia’s political journey was not born of ambition but of rupture. Thrust into public life after the assassination of her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, she entered politics at a moment when Bangladesh was struggling to recover from cycles of coups, countercoups, and authoritarian consolidation. Her subsequent rise—culminating in her election as the country’s first female Prime Minister—symbolised both democratic possibility and the fragility of constitutional order.

From a human-rights perspective, her most consequential legacy lies in her role during Bangladesh’s resistance to military rule. As an opposition leader under authoritarian conditions, she endured repeated detentions and political repression, contributing to the mass movement that ultimately restored electoral democracy in 1991. That transition marked a rare moment in which popular mobilisation, political compromise, and constitutional reform aligned to re-anchor civilian rule—an achievement of enduring democratic value.

Yet Khaleda Zia’s career also unfolded within a political culture increasingly defined by zero-sum rivalry. The prolonged and bitter antagonism between the country’s two dominant political camps hollowed out institutions, weakened media independence, and normalised the instrumental use of law enforcement and judicial processes against opponents. In this context, accountability often became selective, and governance drifted away from rights-based restraint toward partisan survival.

Her later years raise some of the most serious human rights concerns. Prolonged imprisonment, solitary confinement–like conditions, restrictions on medical treatment, and sustained political exclusion placed her treatment squarely within global debates on due process, humane detention, and the misuse of legal systems for political ends. These concerns were not merely personal; they reflected a broader pattern in which state power increasingly encroached upon political rights, media freedom, and civic space.

Importantly, her experience illustrates a universal human-rights principle: justice loses legitimacy when it is perceived as selective or vindictive. Democracies are tested not by how they treat allies, but by how they treat adversaries—especially former heads of government. In this sense, Khaleda Zia’s suffering became emblematic of a wider democratic deficit, where the boundary between accountability and retribution was dangerously blurred.

At the same time, her post-release conduct following the political upheavals of 2024 revealed a notable restraint. By refraining from calls for vengeance and urging political calm, she gestured—perhaps in the final phase of her public life—toward a politics less driven by retaliation. For human-rights advocates, this moment matters: it underscores the possibility of ethical leadership even after prolonged injustice.

Khaleda Zia’s legacy, therefore, should not be reduced to hagiography nor dismissed through partisan critique. It should be understood as a case study in democratic struggle under conditions of institutional weakness, where individual agency, structural failures, and state violence intersected. Her life reminds us that democracy without accountability breeds impunity, but accountability without fairness breeds oppression.

As Bangladesh reflects on her passing, the challenge is not to sanctify or vilify, but to learn. The protection of political rights, minority communities, independent media, and opposition voices is not a concession—it is the foundation of democratic legitimacy. If her life and death prompt renewed commitment to these principles, then her legacy may yet contribute to a more just political future.

May she rest in peace.

By Minhaz Samad Chowdhury
Independent Human Rights Defender and Policy Advocate
Focus Areas: State Violence • Media Freedom • Political Rights • Minority Protection • Democratic Accountability