Guilty in exile

An authoritarian leader has finally been convicted. Sheikh Hasina, the long-time strongwoman of Bangladesh, has been found guilty and sentenced to death for ordering a brutal and bloody crackdown on a students-led uprising in 2024 - a crackdown that, according to UN findings, left up to 1,400 people dead and thousands more injured. Hasina's government treated its own citizens as enemy combatants - and she has now been held responsible.

But even as the verdict lands with force, the reality must be acknowledged that in South Asia, justice for powerful leaders is rarely the end of the story. Across the region, there is a weary familiarity to what comes next. Leaders fall out of favour, flee abroad, cry persecution and wait. Over time, politics shifts and a "deal" quietly emerges - one that brushes aside court rulings and absolves past crimes, allowing for a return. It has happened in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and India in various forms, and it is as if South Asia has perfected the art of elite impunity, wrapped in the language of political necessity.

Hasina's current exile in India fits this pattern almost perfectly. She has been convicted - yet few realistically expect that this is the end of her political journey. The calculus of regional politics suggests that once the dust settles, negotiations will begin. Interests will realign. Back-channel assurances will emerge. And eventually, despite the gravity of the crimes she has been found guilty of, she may walk back into Bangladesh under yet another "understanding" struck behind closed doors. For Bangladesh, this uncertainty is deeply destabilising. A nation already stretched by violence ahead of the February 2026 elections now faces the risk of prolonged political fragmentation.