We want to live in a country where the jails are not filled with innocent men and women. This is a basic measure of the probity of any government. This is the rule of law. If there is one thing that the government can deliver for the Bangladeshi people it is this.
The people of Bangladesh do not ask that the government solve all or even any of their problems. They ask only that the government not be the source of their problems and that it simply does its job without favour or fanfare. And above all, they want normalcy, they want civility, they want decency.
At the end of the day, the final test of this government is not whether the referendum passes or not, but whether they have been able to hold a credible election and whether the referendum process itself was managed without a hitch.
The time has come for us to once again turn our attention and divert our resources to a truly global world sport: football.
What this latest interview has shown is that even 18 months after the uprising that unseated them from power, the party has not changed one iota. The party remains exactly as it was prior to August 5, 2024, save for the fact that it is no longer in power.
A yes vote is only the beginning, not the end. The real work of implementation of the reform agenda is what matters. Similarly, we should not interpret a no vote to suggest that the voters are against reform or that the reform agenda dies there.
We cannot let the Bangladesh-India relationship and discourse be hijacked by the hard-liners on either side of the border who favour hostility and antagonism over cordiality and cooperation.
For the Interim Government, this election will be how their legacy is viewed by posterity. Whatever they have achieved and whatever mistakes they have made, everything will be subsumed by this election. If they are able to preside over a good election and hand over power without incident to an elected government, then they will be judged a success.
We are glad that she breathed her last a free woman, surrounded by her loved ones, and that she lived to see the end of the despotism that blighted the last years of her life.
From a modest housewife to a widowed national leader who rose to the highest political office in the country, Begum Zia’s life was a testament to resilience and moral fortitude.
But to me, she remains the woman who could slip through a military blockade as easily as she could appreciate the simple sanctuary of a family meal. She taught us that true power doesn’t come from the title you hold, but from the responsibility you carry for those you love.
This piece was originally published on July 27, 2008, at rumiahmed.wordpress.com during a time when both sons of Begum Khaleda Zia were in detention in Dhaka and both were reportedly being tortured. Khaleda Zia was facing intense pressure to leave the country for Saudi Arabia.
Khaleda Zia’s moral authority came not just from her political positions, but also from her very persona. She was the epitome of dignity and grace. Authenticity is a virtue in politics, something she exhibited all her political life.
When the history of modern Bangladesh is eventually written with the clarity that distance allows, Khaleda Zia will not appear only as a former prime minister or as the chairperson of a major political party. She will appear as a woman who challenged inherited assumptions about power in a society unprepared for her presence.
She now walks the pathways of the afterlife, while we who remain must honor her legacy by continuing the struggle she led: the struggle for democracy, for justice, and for the betterment of the people of Bangladesh.
Debate is one thing. Disinformation is quite another. Let us have an open, honest, nuanced conversation about the Liberation War, but let us always be guided by the truth.
