It has been exactly one year since despot Sheikh Hasina vanished.

On 5 August 2024, the embattled fascist prime minister, who ruled with an iron fist for over 15 years on the trot, slipped across the border into India as Dhaka boiled with rage. Her government had already collapsed under the weight of the July uprising. The Army had moved in, student protests swelled across the country, and decades of pent-up fury against her authoritarian regime finally erupted.

The collapse came swiftly, but not unexpectedly. In the days leading up to 5 August, the stage was clearly being set: the Army had announced it would not turn its guns on the people, protests had reached a fever pitch, and the government appeared increasingly cornered.

On that historic Monday, Dhaka erupted in jubilation. Defying a nationwide curfew, tens of thousands surged into Shahbagh, Kawran Bazar, and Farmgate, eventually converging on Ganobhaban, Prime Minister’s Office and the Parliament House. Women, children, students, and elders danced in the streets. In what many now call Bangladesh’s “Second Victory Day”, sweets were handed out, slogans echoed through the air, and Sheikh Hasina’s departure was celebrated as a long-overdue deliverance from tyranny.

Now, on this day in 2025, she remains in hiding. And the one question that once kept many in suspense – Could she ever return? – is, at last, being answered with near certainty: No, she cannot.

What once looked like strategic exile now appears more like permanent political oblivion.

A tribunal that turned on its creator

Ironically, the institution now trying her was one she herself had resurrected.

The International Crimes Tribunal (ICT), originally established by Hasina’s government to prosecute war crimes from 1971, is now putting her in the dock, along with former home minister Asaduzzaman Khan Kamal and ex-inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al-Mamun. Their charge: crimes against humanity committed during the bloody suppression of the 2024 mass uprising.

On 10 July 2025, the tribunal formally indicted the trio. And on 28 July, the trial began.

On 3 August, the first witness testimony came from 23-year-old Khokon Chandro Barman, a survivor of the Jatrabari police shooting. He stood before the court and removed his surgical mask to reveal a disfigured face – shattered by close-range gunfire from state forces. His voice was steady as he described the moment on 5 August 2024 when police, despite army warnings, resumed indiscriminate firing on unarmed protesters.

“A bullet pierced the head of the man in front of me,” he said. “The Army had ordered the police to stop. But once the soldiers left, the shooting started again.”

His account shattered the state’s narrative.

Prosecutors did not hold back. Chief Prosecutor Tajul Islam labelled Hasina the “nucleus of all crimes,” demanding the death penalty. Attorney General Asaduzzaman called her “the greatest liar and tyrant in modern history.”

Hasina and Kamal are being tried in absentia. Mamun, now in custody, has turned state witness.

As the legal proceedings deepen, the government has formally amended the International Crimes (Tribunals) Act, 1973, granting tribunals the authority to prosecute not only individuals, but also organisations found complicit in war crimes. This paves the way for political entities, including the Awami League itself, to be held legally accountable.

No path back

There was once chatter, although rather muted, among Awami League loyalists that Hasina would stage a dramatic return – ride back into the capital, rally her base, and restore control. In one leaked phone call, she told a party leader in the US, “I am not far away. I can re-enter anytime.”

"Her downfall marked the end of a regime, but unless its ideology is dismantled, Hasinism may return under another name."

Even now, Hasina makes occasional appearances through virtual meetings with Awami League loyalists at home and abroad, offering reassurances and promising revenge.

However, that bravado sounds hollow. The courtroom has replaced the rally. The testimonies have replaced the slogans.

Her political future is not uncertain anymore. It is finished.

But the party? That’s a different story

While Hasina herself appears finished, her party, the Awami League, is not beyond redemption just yet.

Political analysts and leaders of antifascist political forces have warned repeatedly of what might happen if unity among anti-fascist forces falters.

For instance, BNP Secretary General Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir while speaking at the Supreme Court Bar Auditorium during the “March for Justice,” last week said, “We are walking a very thin line. If we fail to stay united and alert, a 1/11-like situation is not unusual.”

He’s right to be cautious.

Though Hasina’s departure left the party fractured, many of its institutional footholds, especially within the bureaucracy, education system, and local administrations, remain. The ideology that underpinned Hasina’s reign, a mix of state nationalism, authoritarian populism and patronage politics, was not dismantled. Not yet.

And while the Awami League may be reeling, the roots of its power – reinforced by decades of co-opted media, politicised education, and selective distribution of government contracts – still linger across districts. The new interim administration, however well-intentioned, is yet to decisively purge those embedded networks.

For now, all political activities of the Awami League remain banned until the July massacre cases conclude. But bans can be lifted. Networks can resurface. And nostalgia, especially the manufactured kind, can work wonders.

If the political opposition attempts to mimic that model – thinking it can win over Hasina’s voter base – they risk reviving the very ghost they helped exorcise.

Examples of fallen dictators returning to power

History reminds us that fallen strongmen, or their political legacies, rarely vanish without a fight. Some even stage remarkable comebacks, or worse, engineer the return of their ideology under a different banner.

Ferdinand Marcos, the notorious Philippine dictator, was ousted by a people’s movement in 1986 and died in exile. Yet in 2022, his son, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., rode a wave of social media propaganda and dynastic nostalgia straight into the presidency.

In Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, once overthrown, returned to power in 2007 by rebranding himself as a democrat, only to become an even more repressive autocrat.

Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier of Haiti made a brief and surreal return in 2011, 25 years after his exile, signalling that Duvalierist structures never really died.

In Argentina, Juan Perón returned to power in 1974 after a decade of exile, thanks to the enduring loyalty of his Peronist movement.

Bangladesh itself offers a case in point. HM Ershad, the military dictator who ruled from 1982 to 1990, was ousted in a popular uprising. Yet he remained politically relevant until his death. His Jatiya Party became a kingmaker, and he even served as a special envoy under Hasina's government. His survival was a result of political adaptability, entrenched patronage networks, and the failure of his opponents to present coherent democratic alternatives.

The lesson? If the remnants of a dictatorship are not actively dismantled – if cultural narratives, institutional allegiances and political tactics remain untouched – autocracy can return, even without its original architect.

A moment of reckoning

This is Bangladesh’s opportunity to close the chapter, not just on Hasina, but on Hasinism.

Her fall was triggered not by elite negotiation or foreign pressure, but by ordinary people – particularly students, who turned a demand for quota reform into a full-blown uprising. The government’s brutal overreaction – curfews, internet shutdowns, and the killing of over 1,400 protesters and injuring 14,000 others in just two weeks or so – was the final straw. Civil society, teachers, cultural workers, and even retired officers rallied behind the students, turning it into a genuine people’s movement.

The tribunals mark more than just legal proceedings. They’re a national moral reckoning. Survivors like Khokon, whose face now stands as an indictment of the regime, are not simply testifying to the past; they’re warning the future.

And yet, the road ahead is narrow. Fakhrul’s warning remains valid: political missteps, opportunistic compromises, or short-sighted populism could breathe new life into a political corpse.

The woman is gone. Will the machine follow?

Sheikh Hasina’s comeback is no longer a subject of debate. The trials, the testimonies, and the public memory of her rule have buried that idea.

But the Awami League? That’s still a living machine. And if the nation fails to dismantle its ideological engines, the spectre of Hasina may well return under another name, in another form, riding another flag.

The interim government now holds a fragile mandate. To earn the people’s trust, it must ensure free and fair elections, restore public services, and most importantly – preserve the spirit of democratic participation that brought the old regime down. Otherwise, the youth and the people who stood in Shahbagh will rise again.

This is not just a test of politics. It is a test of memory, vigilance, and moral clarity.

Because dictators may die or flee; but their ideas do not, unless you kill them too.

The writer is Deputy Editor of the Daily Sun. Email: [email protected]