West Bengal town Jalpaiguri recalls Khaleda Zia’s childhood after her death

File picture of Khaleda Zia waving to activists as she arrives for a rally in Dhaka

• Khaleda Zia's death deeply mourned in her birthplace, Jalpaiguri, West Bengal
• Zia grew up in Jalpaiguri, then moved to East Pakistan in the 1950s.
• Her legacy and emotional ties remain strong among Jalpaiguri residents

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The passing of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia on Tuesday resonated with a particular poignancy in the north Bengal town of Jalpaiguri, where the political titan was born and spent her formative years. For its residents, the news transcended international headlines, representing a deeply personal loss of a native daughter.

Born in Jalpaiguri in 1946, Zia’s early life was rooted in the town’s neighbourhoods before her family’s eventual migration to what was then East Pakistan. The connection, maintained through familial ties and shared history, ensured her legacy endured locally long after her rise to power in Dhaka.

According to a TOI report, Zia’s father, Mohammad Iskandar, was employed as an agent at the tea trading firm Das & Co. The family home was in Nayabasti, where Khaleda Zia was born. Nilanjan Dasgupta, a local businessman and former proprietor of the firm, confirmed the details, noting the family continued to live in Jalpaiguri for several years after the Partition of 1947 before moving in the 1950s.

Her early education, as recounted by Jalpaiguri-based historian Umesh Sharma, began at Jogmaya Primary School in Nayabasti, where she studied until Class III. She was later admitted to Sunitibala Sadar Girls’ School in Samaj Para. Sharma detailed that the family’s departure followed a formal property exchange between Iskandar and a local man named Amarendranath Chakraborty, whose family reportedly still resides in the Nayabasti house.

The emotional bonds forged in those early years proved resilient. Dasgupta recalled that Zia’s primary school best friend, Siyon Mandal, who became a teacher, was overjoyed when Zia later assumed office in Bangladesh. “The news of her demise has left people who knew her sorry,” Dasgupta was cited by TOI as saying.

That sense of enduring connection was reportedly echoed by current neighbours in Nayabasti. Suhrid Mandal, a neighbour, revealed that Zia’s niece had visited the birthplace just months ago.

During their conversation, they shared a lingering historical wistfulness about how different things might have been had the country never been partitioned, with Mandal noting that her loss is deeply felt by people both in Bangladesh and in her hometown.