Two years after being forced from power and fleeing to India, former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina returned to the public stage on Wednesday in an emotional first appearance since her ouster. In a virtual address from New Delhi, she alleged that the 2024 uprising which toppled her government was a "planned regime change" disguised as a student protest.
In her audio address, Hasina said the July-August 2024 movement was never a genuine student-led protest. Instead, she alleged it was a "meticulously designed" operation aimed at removing her government and installing a new regime outside the democratic process. The address came despite Dhaka's objections to her participation and India's clarification that the event was organised by a private entity with no government involvement.
She began her address by paying tribute to Bangladesh's founding leader and her father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the martyrs of the 1971 Liberation War and members of her own family who were killed during the August 1975 military coup.
Fighting back tears, Hasina remembered the massacre that killed her father and several close relatives. Saying she spoke with "love for Bangladesh", she described the country's current situation as deeply worrying before turning to the events that brought down her government.
Rejecting the widely accepted account of the 2024 unrest, Hasina insisted the movement had been carefully orchestrated long before it spilled onto the streets. She claimed the quota agitation was transformed into a single-point campaign to remove her from office and seize power without an electoral mandate.
According to Hasina, what appeared to be a student-led movement was, in reality, "a meticulously designed" operation. She alleged that Nobel laureate and then-interim chief Muhammad Yunus himself had exposed the truth behind the conspiracy after assuming charge of Bangladesh's interim administration.
Hasina rejected the claim that the protests began peacefully.
"July 2024 was not a peaceful student movement from the beginning," she said. According to the former prime minister, her government had tried to resolve the dispute through dialogue. She said the government appealed the High Court's quota verdict and invited student leaders for talks before the unrest escalated.
She further alleged that the protests were turned into a "one-point demand" for her removal and used by "organised groups" to capture power "outside the ballot box".
Launching a sharp attack on the interim administration, Hasina repeatedly described as an "illegal interim government". She alleged that one of its earliest decisions was to grant indemnity to those responsible for killing police personnel during the violence.
According to Hasina, her government had already constituted a judicial inquiry commission on July 18, 2024, to investigate every death and incident of violence linked to the unrest. She claimed the investigation was halted immediately after the interim government assumed office.
"If they weren't afraid, why did they not allow the truth to come out," she asked.
Hasina alleged that Bangladesh had witnessed political persecution since her removal from office. She claimed Awami League leaders and workers, police personnel, journalists, lawyers, judges and members of minority communities had faced arrests, violence and intimidation.
She further alleged that "convicted militants have been released" under the current administration.
Calling the post-uprising developments "a coordinated assault on the Constitution", Hasina accused the present dispensation of suppressing dissent and targeting people associated with Bangladesh's Liberation War ideals.
Turning to the economy, Hasina painted a bleak picture of Bangladesh under the present administration. She alleged that the BNP-led government was surviving by borrowing between 700 crore and 900 crore taka every month from Bangladesh Bank.
According to her, many factories had shut down while industrialists and business owners had either fled the country or gone into hiding. Hasina also claimed Bangladesh's economic indicators had deteriorated significantly since her departure from office.
She alleged GDP growth had slowed, industrial production had contracted for the first time in decades, bank loan defaults had increased sharply, poverty had risen and private investment had weakened.
Ending her address on a defiant note, Hasina vowed to return to Bangladesh despite the legal cases pending against her.
"I will return to my people. I trust them," she said.
Fear, she added, would not prevent her from fulfilling what she described as her duty towards the people of Bangladesh. Hasina insisted her return was "not about power" but about restoring "security, development, prosperity and peace" and putting Bangladesh "back on the right track".
The former prime minister has been living in exile in India since fleeing Bangladesh on August 5, 2024, after the student-led uprising forced her from power. Bangladesh has since sought her extradition, while Hasina has rejected the charges against her and continued to accuse the Bangladesh government of undermining democracy.
