Sheikh Hasina's announcement of a December return draws interest, doubt and disbelief in Bangladesh politics

Doubt, disbelief and many questions have followed Sheikh Hasina's announcement that she will return home in December. The ousted prime minister of Bangladesh, now living in India, has repeatedly restated the same position: she will return in December.

But her political opponents doubt whether she will actually return in an adverse political situation and with a death sentence over her head.

BNP acting secretary general Ruhul Kabir Rizvi has been saying that Sheikh Hasina is talking about returning to lift the morale of her workers, but that she will not return taking the risk.

Her party, the Awami League, whose political activities are banned in the country, has been seen staging sudden flash processions to signal its presence, but beyond that it has not been able to show major organisational strength in public.

Since 5 August 2024, the field of politics in the country has been controlled by the Awami League's opponents in its absence. Analysts say the ruling BNP, the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami and the NCP, the party of the July student movement leaders, control politics, and there is a kind of consensus among the currently active parties against Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League.

Questions are also being raised on the legal side. On charges of killings and crimes against humanity during the July uprising, 663 cases had been filed against Sheikh Hasina by 19 November last year, of which 453 are murder cases, according to a report published last February by the anti-corruption organisation TIB. She also has a death sentence in one crimes against humanity case.

The BNP government wants to bring Sheikh Hasina back from India under the extradition treaty. In the 10 months since forming government, it has written several times to India's BJP government. Before that, the interim government also wrote several times during its 18 months in power and pressed the matter, but received no answer, neither yes nor no.

India's foreign ministry spokesman Randhir Jaiswal has continued to describe the matter as purely a legal issue. Home Minister Salahuddin Ahmed said India has given no reply and has not said it will not return Sheikh Hasina either. Late last December, towards the end of the interim government, foreign adviser Touhid Hossain had said, “Sheikh Hasina's extradition will ultimately depend on New Delhi's decision.”

Bangladesh and India have had a treaty since 2013 for handing over accused persons, fugitive offenders and prisoners in extraditable offences; under it, Assam's ULFA leader Anup Chetia was handed over to India in 2015. However, several sources at the BNP government's policymaking level say there is effectively no possibility of bringing Sheikh Hasina back under that treaty, and many former diplomats also believe India will not take that path.

One clause of the treaty says a request can be rejected if the offence against the person is of a “political nature”. But the list of offences that cannot be called political includes murder, enforced disappearance, culpable homicide, bombings and terrorism, on the basis of which the Bangladesh government has the right to request her handover.

Mohammad Ali Arafat, a spokesman of the Awami League living abroad, said Sheikh Hasina will return in December despite the risks and remains firm in that position, claiming the party has been organised across the country. He believes it will be very difficult for the BNP government to bring her back under the extradition treaty, and that she will return under her own announcement.

An Awami League leader living in India said their leader is now nearly eighty years old and cannot remain active in politics for long at this age, so she wants to take any risk to return to politics inside the country. According to that leader, before deciding she spoke with her family and even with India, and over the past few months held rounds of meetings with leaders at various levels of the party. But those leaders say she has still not discussed the process or the date of her return with anyone else.

Analysts believe leaders and activists of the Awami League inside the country have been somewhat encouraged since her announcement; flash processions have increased in Dhaka and elsewhere, and arrests have also risen. Altogether, many questions and complications remain over implementing Sheikh Hasina's decision to return.