“I have no home beyond the borders of Bangladesh.
I was born on this soil, and on this soil, among its people,
I shall one day die.”
— Begum Khaleda Zia
At six o’clock in the morning of December 30, 2025, as the first light of dawn broke over Dhaka and the faithful completed their Fajr prayers, Bangladesh lost its mother. Begum Khaleda Zia, the nation’s first female Prime Minister, passed away at Evercare Hospital at the age of 79. Her frail body finally surrendered after years of battle against cirrhosis, diabetes, arthritis, and the accumulated wounds of a lifetime spent in service to her people.
The news rippled through the city like a stone cast into still water, each concentric circle carrying grief outward until the entire nation was submerged in mourning. Thousands of weeping supporters gathered outside the hospital gates and the BNP central office at Naya Paltan, their voices rising in a sorrowful chorus of “Mother of Democracy,” a title she had earned not through proclamation, but through sacrifice. Three days of state mourning were declared. The flags hung at half-mast. And in the hearts of millions, something irreplaceable had been extinguished—not merely a political leader, but a living embodiment of resistance, resilience, and an uncompromising devotion to the ideals of freedom.
A Destiny Forged in Tragedy
Born Khaleda Khanam “Putul” in 1946, she entered the world in the twilight of British India, a daughter of a Bengali Muslim family from Fulgazi. Her early years were unremarkable in the way that most lives are unremarkable centered on family, school, and the simple rhythms of domestic life. At fifteen, she married Ziaur Rahman, a young army captain whose destiny would become fatally intertwined with the birth of a nation. She became Khaleda Zia and settled into the role expected of women of her generation: wife, mother, keeper of the home.
During Bangladesh’s Liberation War in 1971, she and her young sons were detained by Pakistani Forces while her husband fought for independence. These months of captivity were her first bitter taste of the price that freedom demands. Yet nothing could have prepared her for the night of May 30, 1981—the night that would shatter her private life and thrust her, unwilling and unprepared, onto the national stage.
President Ziaur Rahman was assassinated. The Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which he had founded, teetered on the brink of collapse. The widow, grief-stricken and politically inexperienced, suddenly found herself the only figure capable of holding together the fragmenting organization. In 1984, she was elected chairperson of the BNP, a position she would hold until her death, forty-one years later.
The Uncompromising Leader: Aposhhin Netri
History is not kind to the hesitant. It demands of its leaders a quality that transcends calculation—a willingness to stand when all counsel suggests submission. Khaleda Zia earned the title “Aposhhin Netri”—the uncompromising leader—because she consistently refused to participate in any election held under the military dictator Hussain Muhammad Ershad. When others negotiated, she resisted. Placed under house arrest multiple times for her defiance, her resolve only hardened.
Together with Sheikh Hasina—her future rival but then her ally—she helped lead the 1990 mass uprising that finally toppled Ershad’s authoritarian regime. In 1991, in Bangladesh’s first truly free election in over a decade, Khaleda Zia led the BNP to a landslide victory, becoming not only her nation’s first female Prime Minister but only the second woman to lead a Muslim-majority country. She had weathered every rack, and the prize was won.
Her first government expanded programs that dramatically increased girls’ enrollment in schools, replaced the presidential system with a parliamentary one, and made primary education compulsory and free. Yet even as she governed, the battles continued—against corruption allegations, political rivals, and the immense forces that sought to diminish her influence.
The Price of Power, The Cost of Conviction
For more than three decades, she and Sheikh Hasina dominated Bangladeshi politics. She lost power in 1996, regained it in 2001, and lost it again in 2006. In 2018, under Sheikh Hasina’s government, she was sentenced to seventeen years in prison for corruption charges her supporters denounced as politically motivated persecution. She was subjected to solitary confinement in appalling conditions. Her family sought permission eighteen times for her to receive medical treatment abroad; eighteen times, the requests were denied.
Even when the political tide turned in August 2024, and student-led protests forced Hasina to flee, Khaleda urged her supporters not to pursue retaliation. This capacity for magnanimity, even in victory, revealed something essential about her character. Freed from house arrest, acquitted of all charges, and reunited with her exiled son just five days before her death, she lived long enough to see vindication but not long enough to enjoy its peace.
A Legacy Beyond the Light and Shadow
She was not without contradictions. Her uncompromising style in opposition was matched by recurring allegations of corruption while in power. Some saw a champion of democracy; others, a dynasty politician contributing to instability. Leaders of nations are rarely saints, and saints rarely lead nations.
What cannot be disputed is her unwavering loyalty. She refused to leave Bangladesh even when offered safe passage, even when staying meant imprisonment and separation from her family. Her younger son, Arafat Rahman, died in 2015 while she was unable to be with him. Her elder son lived in exile for seventeen years. She was forcibly evicted from the home that held her husband’s memories. She endured it all. Through it all, she remained. “I have no home beyond the borders of Bangladesh. I was born on this soil, and on this soil, among its people, I shall one day die.” And so, she did.
Her son Tarique described her as “a tender and loving mother” who devoted her life to the country, standing firm against autocracy and for the restoration of democracy. These are a son’s words, but they are also the nation’s words about its guardian.
Lessons Etched in Sacrifice
What can those who come after learn from her life? Not the mechanics of power, but the deeper lessons of the human spirit.
The lesson of resilience: Thrust into public life by tragedy, she could have retreated. Instead, she rose. Broken again and again, she reassembled herself each time with greater resolve.
The lesson of sacrifice: She showed that democracy is not a birthright but a garden that must be tended with suffering willingly endured. The price she paid reminds us of freedom’s true cost.
The lesson of improbable leadership: She was not born to politics, yet when circumstance demanded a leader, she became one, proving to millions of girls and women that gender is no barrier to the highest office.
The lesson of loyalty: When asked about her political philosophy, she said it belonged “neither entirely to the left nor the right, but to Bangladesh”. In an age of extremes, her commitment to nation over party is a lesson in unity.
The lesson of reconciliation: The “Politics of Conflict” era paralyzed a nation. Future leaders must learn that democracy thrives not on the destruction of rivals, but on mutual respect.
The Ship is Anchored, The Captain at Rest
On this winter afternoon, as Begum Khaleda Zia was laid to rest beside her husband, as the prayers were recited and the earth closed over her, Bangladesh buried not just a leader but an era. Interim leader Muhammad Yunus expressed “profound sorrow,” saying, “Her role in the struggle to establish democracy…will be remembered forever.”
Is Bangladesh’s fearful trip through autocracy and back toward democracy truly done? The coming years will be the test. But this much is certain: Begum Khaleda Zia kept faith with her nation until her last breath. She did not flee. She did not compromise her principles. She did not surrender.
The keystone of the arch has fallen. Whether the structure stands or collapses depends on those who remain. But the keystone held for forty years, bearing the weight when no one else could, and that is a legacy enough for any life.
“Rest now, Deshnetri.
Rest, Mother of Democracy.
Rest, uncompromising leader.
Rest and let Bangladesh carry forward the democracy for which you gave your all. “
‘Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un.’ To God we belong, and to Him we return.
Begum Khaleda Zia survives by her son Tarique Rahman, daughter-in-law Dr. Zubaida Rahman, and granddaughter Zaima. She was predeceased by her husband, President Ziaur Rahman, and her younger son, Arafat Rahman.