Her last stint as the prime minister, between 2001 and 2006, has bitter memories for India, as anti-India terrorist groups and insurgent groups in the northeast got a free run in Bangladesh after she joined hands with the right-wing Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami. That affected her and the party’s ties with the Indian government, which welcomed Hasina’s return in 2008 and imposed a clampdown on anti-India activities.

Wife of Ziaur Rahman, who became the President in 1977 after Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s assassination in 1975, Zia grew into the role of First Lady of Bangladesh. After her husband’s assassination in 1981, she joined politics and came to lead the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in 1984.

Two terms as PM and allegations of son running govt

A political novice, she led the movement against General Hussain Muhammad Ershad’s military-led government, which came to power in 1982, and protested for the restoration of democracy.

At this point, after leading the struggle against the military-led government for about eight years, she demonstrated strategic political thinking by joining hands with her arch-rival, Hasina, to oust Ershad. Their rivalry resumed later and became legendary as the ‘Battle of the Begums’.

She won the 1991 elections and became prime minister for the first time, presided over the transition from a presidential to a parliamentary system of governance, introduced the value-added tax (VAT) in 1991, made secondary education free for girls in rural areas, and institutionalised the caretaker government system.

But there were also allegations that her government was run by her son Tarique Rahman between 2001 and 2006, at the infamous Hawa Bhaban, where deals were struck.

Zia also navigated the undercurrents of Hindu-Muslim politics in India, as she was in power when the Babri Masjid demolition took place in 1992 and the Gujarat riots in 2002.

This reporter met Zia for an interview at the BNP’s office in June 2014 — when she was leading the Opposition and challenging the Hasina government — within a month of the PM Narendra Modi-led government being sworn in. This was during India’s then external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj’s first visit to Dhaka, and Zia also met her.

This was Zia’s first sit-down interview with an Indian mainstream newspaper after being out of power, and she had rarely given interviews to Bangladeshi media outlets as well.

In the interview conducted well past midnight —she was famously known to be a late-riser and used to do her meetings from afternoon till late night — Zia told The Indian Express, “When the Babri masjid demolition took place, I was PM, and I immediately clamped down on elements trying to incite communal tension in the country. We blocked TV coverage of the demolition. My ministers spent sleepless nights guarding the Hindu community.”

That was her pitch towards the new Indian government, as she met Modi a year later during his first visit to Bangladesh.

In the interview, which several Bangladesh newspapers republished, when asked about her assessment of the Modi government, she was diplomatic.

“It is too early to make any definite judgment. It is again up to the people of India to make that judgment. However, any change raises hope for something better. Our interest is to see what happens in the area of our bilateral relations and in the region as a whole… His government’s focus on building relations with people in neighbouring countries and not just with any particular political party is a significant change,” she said.

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‘Political blunder’ in 2013

If Zia’s rare moment of political unity in 1990 with Hasina changed the arc of Bangladesh and her fate as the first woman PM, her decision in 2013 to boycott the elections, since Hasina did not conduct the elections under the caretaker government, was seen as a “political blunder” by many of her colleagues and analysts in Bangladesh.

Her party, which had high support of popularity on the streets in the political landscape where Bangladesh used to give both parties, Awami League and the BNP, a chance alternatively in the elections as per the “revolving door convention” — remained in the Opposition, as Hasina tightened her grip on power thereafter and defeated the BNP in 2018 and 2024 in what are called as “rigged” elections.

Zia’s BNP came under intense attack and scrutiny from the Hasina regime in the next 10 years, from 2014 to 2024, where she, along with many of the BNP leaders and activists, was in jail. They were denied space and permission to even hold protest demonstrations against the government’s policies.

In 2018, she was sentenced to prison on corruption charges involving the Zia Orphanage Trust and was housed in the abandoned Old Dhaka Central Jail. Even after a conditional release in 2020 amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the ailing leader remained confined to her home in Gulshan.

In August 2024, when Hasina’s regime collapsed after protests by students and backed by the BNP and Jamaat activists, she made a call for “rejecting the politics of vengeance”.

Her son Tarique Rahman returned to Dhaka on December 25, as her health condition deteriorated in the last few weeks.

In her interview with The Indian Express, she countered the perception that in Bangladesh, two families have dominated politics, and wondered whether that would continue in the years to come.

“This is not correct. Families are respected because Mujibur Rahman had a contribution, Ziaur Rahman had a contribution. From there, people have faith in them… Look, this is not just about politics — a barrister’s son becomes a barrister, a doctor’s son becomes a doctor, a businessman’s son becomes a businessman. So, politicians generate that interest in their family members. And then, it comes to the people — whom do they accept, that is the key. If they don’t accept, they will be out,” was Zia’s sharp response.

While her legacy is contested, her party, the BNP, appears poised to lead in the Bangladesh elections in February 2026. The above line could well be her wise words for her son Tarique, who is now expected to lead the BNP to the polls.