Former Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina recently announced that she will return to Dhaka by December this year. “They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me … still, I have to go,” she maintains. Why would a septuagenarian autocrat ousted in a popular uprising, living in exile and sentenced to death in absentia, want to return home where she remains much reviled? Other than signalling care for her imprisoned loyalists, Hasina has a more compelling reason to return: “If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil, where my parents are buried and where their blood was shed.” That she does not want to remain in exile is understandable. What is less clear is what underpins the six-month notice. Why not return sooner, or later?

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Hasina’s announcement offers an opportunity to unpack the political undercurrents in Dhaka. Let’s begin with her party, the Awami League (AL), itself. The party remains banned and lost a chunk of its voter base to the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the February elections. It still retains pockets of scattered support but does not have a clear pathway of returning to mainstream politics. Its leaders are either imprisoned, in exile, or out on bail. This has created a split between loyalists who continue to rally behind Hasina, and reformists who believe in the party and its idea more than in Hasina. While both factions want the........

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