Exclusive:  Sheikh Hasina Speaks Out

In an exclusive interview with Sri Lanka Guardian, former Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina has delivered some of her strongest criticisms yet of the country’s current interim administration. Speaking to our Special Correspondent in New Delhi, Ayanjit Sen, Sheikh Hasina outlined what she described as a grave political, economic, and humanitarian crisis unfolding under the leadership of Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus. Her remarks come at a critical juncture for Bangladesh, as the nation prepares for elections amid mounting instability and international concern.

Sheikh Hasina accused the Yunus administration of lacking democratic legitimacy, undermining Bangladesh’s founding principles, and pursuing a reckless foreign policy that threatens regional stability. Central to her critique is the claim that the interim government has fostered ties with extremist elements, weakened relations with key allies such as India and the United Kingdom, and attempted to erase the legacy of Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman from the national consciousness. She argues that these actions not only distort Bangladesh’s history but also endanger its secular and constitutional foundations.

Beyond geopolitics, the former Prime Minister raised serious allegations regarding economic mismanagement, human rights violations, and the erosion of the rule of law. She painted a stark picture of declining public confidence, repression of political opponents and journalists, and growing fear among religious minorities. In her view, Muhammad Yunus must step aside before any credible elections can take place, warning that without his departure, Bangladesh risks further democratic backsliding and long-term damage to its social fabric.

Excerpts of the interview are as follows:

How do you evaluate the Yunus administration’s geopolitical positioning? Do you think Yunus’s departure from his position is important before elections are held in Bangladesh?

Sheikh Hasina: Yunus’s rapprochement with certain foreign powers in our region is a desperate scramble for international validation by an unelected regime. When we talk about Bangladesh’s relations with other nations, our guiding principle has always been friendship to all, malice towards none. However, Yunus’s rushed embrace of Pakistan signifies desperation—an unstrategic desire for any form of international validation. Pakistan has never apologised for 1971, yet Yunus courts Islamabad while trying to erase Sheikh Mujib’s name from our history.

His foreign policy, if you can call it a policy, does not serve Bangladesh’s national interests. He has sponsored extremists, failed to protect religious minorities, and issued hostile rhetoric towards our closest ally, India, undermining this partnership, unravelling trade ties and destabilising our region.

The Awami League has been elected nine times by the people’s vote. Yet here we have an interim government, itself completely unelected, prohibiting the party that was democratically chosen by the people at the last election. It is an absurd situation entirely of Yunus’s making. He must depart before the elections and hand over control to an impartial electoral commission. You cannot have free, fair or inclusive elections when the person overseeing them has no electoral mandate himself and has banned the country’s largest political party.

The current downfall of the economic situation of Bangladesh vis-à-vis the common man’s silent roar against Yunus is slowly building up. Do you think this will help your party?

Sheikh Hasina: The economic crisis gripping our country since Yunus took power speaks for itself. When I was in office, our economy grew by more than 450 per cent over 15 years, a verified fact endorsed by the IMF. We quadrupled food production, cut poverty from over 40 per cent to 18 per cent, empowered women, created jobs for the youth, and brought in foreign and domestic investment. The nation was full of energy and optimism.

Today, that hard work is being put into reverse. The economy is frozen, confidence is gone, and people are losing hope. Factories have been shuttered while the regime engages in revenge campaigns against business owners. International investors see the growing lawlessness and are deterred from renewing their partnerships with our garment industries. The interim government issues statements that give offence to India, our principal trading partner, and Great Britain, an important investor and development partner.

Thankfully, our people are resilient and will weather this storm. But while the country’s economic horizon narrows, the same cannot be said for Yunus’s personal fortune. He has reportedly and allegedly acquired 4,080 kathas of land in Purbachal and holds fixed deposits worth approximately 5,000 crore Bangladeshi taka. He began at Grameen Bank in 1990 with a salary of only 6,000 Bangladeshi taka. How did he amass such vast wealth while ordinary Bangladeshis struggle?

What is your view on the role of Pakistan in spreading their terror network inside Bangladesh with the help of the Yunus administration?

Sheikh Hasina: Under Yunus, Bangladesh is being transformed into a safe haven for extremists and a launching pad for regional destabilisation. When the BNP and Jamaat were ruling the country from 2001 to 2006, they used Bangladesh as a transit point to export arms, weaponry, and terrorism into India. I fear a repeat of that dark moment now.

Yunus has placed extremists into cabinet positions, facilitated attacks on religious minorities, and released criminals known for their affiliation with international terrorist organisations such as Hizb ut-Tahrir. Both India and the United States have voiced justifiable concern at these developments.

Bangladesh needs a constructive relationship with Pakistan, but we need to proceed cautiously down that path. When we started the process of bringing the perpetrators of genocide to accountability and justice, Pakistan vehemently protested. Now those perpetrators are being welcomed back with open arms.

Yunus is not a politician. My fear is that extremists are using him to project an acceptable face internationally, to provide them with cover while they target minorities and radicalise our institutions domestically. This should worry all of us. One of Bangladesh’s great strengths over the years has been the specifically secular nature of its politics, which is protected by our Constitution. Yunus is trying to replace that with his own charter and must not succeed.

There have been many cases of human rights violations in the last 17 months in Bangladesh. Your views, Ma’am.

Sheikh Hasina: What we are witnessing in Bangladesh is not merely a political crisis; it is a humanitarian catastrophe.

Under Yunus’s rule, we have seen thousands of well-documented attacks against religious minorities, state-sponsored repression of any journalist who dares to criticise the unelected interim regime, and the arbitrary detention of thousands of innocent Awami League supporters, some of whom have died in custody. These are not statistics; they are our citizens, our people, whose fundamental rights have been systematically destroyed.

I receive reports daily that are deeply disturbing. Hindu families are unable to observe Durga Puja, their holiest festival, out of fear. Journalists have been silenced, dismissed or detained on fabricated charges. When I learned that our Chief Justice was forced to resign under the threat of mob violence, I understood that the very foundations of civilised governance had collapsed.

Particularly shocking is the moral inversion that has taken place. Those who burned police stations, lynched law enforcement officers, and destroyed public infrastructure—these individuals have been granted blanket immunity and glorified as “July warriors”.

Meanwhile, those who served their country and upheld the law face persecution, torture, and death. This represents something far more sinister than political revenge. This is the deliberate dismantling of Bangladesh’s Constitution; the death of the Bangladesh we fought to create in 1971.

What were the key security assessments that influenced your decision to depart from Dhaka, and how would you characterise the situation at that moment: a potential coup, a failure of the command structure, or internal pressures that made your exit inevitable?

Sheikh Hasina: This was a violent coup using a genuine student movement as its platform. The protests began peacefully in response to legitimate concerns over civil service jobs, and my government allowed the students to protest freely and safely. We listened to their concerns and accepted their demands. However, matters were escalated by radicalists who led the crowds into violence, burning down state buildings and destroying communications infrastructure and police stations. By then, this was no longer a peaceful political movement; it was a violent mob.

My impulse has always been to protect our country and its people, but leaving became a matter of necessity. Fleeing my home while violence erupted was not an easy decision, but one I took to minimise any further loss of life.

The full scope of the conspiracy behind these attacks became clear only later. The manner in which Yunus immediately granted immunity to perpetrators, dissolved our judicial inquiry into protester deaths, and released convicted terrorists makes it clear that a plan had been in place to overthrow my government.