Sheikh Hasina's Planned Return to Bangladesh Is a Calculated Destabilization Play, Not a Homecoming

A convicted, exiled autocrat applies for a passport she legally cannot receive, banking on India's protection and Awami League's underground network to pressure a fragile new democracy.

Sheikh Hasina, the former prime minister of Bangladesh convicted of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death, is actively planning a return to Bangladesh by December 2025. Her British lawyer has formally requested a new passport from the Bangladesh high commission in Delhi — a document the chief prosecutor says she has no legal standing to receive as a convicted fugitive. The move is less about logistics and more about signaling: Hasina is telling her base she's coming back, and telling the new government she won't disappear quietly.

Hasina was toppled in August 2024 by a mass student uprising after her crackdown killed an estimated 1,400 people. She fled to India, which has sheltered her in Delhi ever since, ignoring Dhaka's extradition demands. A tribunal convicted her of crimes against humanity last November. The appeal deadline has passed. Bangladesh's government says she can only return via a formal prisoner exchange under the India-Bangladesh extradition treaty — effectively calling her a terrorist, not a returning politician. The timing is deliberate. Bangladesh held its first democratic election in decades in February 2025, bringing Tarique Rahman's government to power. That government is now struggling with inflation and garment-factory protests — precisely the kind of instability Hasina's Awami League hopes to exploit. Exiled party leaders in Kolkata confirm that several figures have already returned to Bangladesh in anticipation of Hasina's move, and that underground cadres inside the country remain loyal. India's role is the structural enabler. Delhi was close to Hasina during her rule and has refused to extradite her despite repeated demands from the Bangladesh government. This has strained bilateral ties significantly. India's calculation appears to be that maintaining leverage over a potential future Bangladeshi ally is worth the diplomatic friction with the current government. Hasina's continued freedom in Delhi is itself a geopolitical signal. The Awami League's strategy is openly confrontational. Senior exiled leaders acknowledge they face serious criminal charges and lengthy prison sentences but say they will return anyway. Former MP Mustaque Ahmed Ruhi was arrested immediately upon returning in September and faces murder prosecution. The party is framing this as political martyrdom — a deliberate provocation designed to test the new government's judicial and security apparatus. Hasina herself has cast the return in existential terms, telling the Associated Press: "If death is my destiny, I would rather die on the soil of my own country, among my own people." This is rhetoric calibrated for her domestic base, not for legal proceedings. She has rejected the charges, called the tribunal illegitimate, and shows no interest in engaging with the judicial process that convicted her. The core question is whether this destabilizes Bangladesh's fragile democratic transition or whether the new government can absorb the pressure. A returning convicted leader with a still-loyal underground network, backed implicitly by a neighboring superpower, is a stress test few young democracies are designed to handle.