The death of former Bangladesh Prime Minister Khaleda Zia on Tuesday saw a relatively muted reaction in Jalpaiguri where she was born, as a section of residents found it difficult to reconcile her later political affiliations with her roots in the town.
Khaleda Zia, nicknamed Putul, was born in Jalpaiguri in August 1945, in a house located in Nayabusty, a prominent neighbourhood of the town.
Residents said they were once appreciative of her for rising to the top in Bangladesh’s political arena. But after she aligned with the Jamaat-e-Islami, Khaleda’s politics often took on an anti-India tone — a shift that the town’s residents say was hard for them to understand.
Early on Tuesday, those in the city who knew of her local connection shared news of her death by phone. Many gathered at the home of Bhola Mondal, the secretary of the district sports association, in Nayabusty.
The site of Khaleda’s family’s erstwhile home is nearby, on a plot now owned by the Chakraborty family.
“She had attended Suniti Bala Primary Girls’ School alongside my late sister, Sion Mondal,” said Bhola Mondal.
However, there is no official documentation to confirm this. The claim remains based on nostalgic anecdotes. Arup De, the headmaster of Suniti Bala Primary School, said he heard that Khaleda was once a pupil there, but the school does not have old records as they were lost in the devastating flood of 1968.
“We will speak with members of the school management committee to explore how we can find such old records. It will definitely be a matter of significance if it is confirmed that she was a student of the school,” said De.
Old-timers said Khaleda’s maternal grandfather was a sub-registrar at the land office in Jalpaiguri, which was part of undivided Dinajpur then in the British-era Bengal Province, and her grandmother was affectionately known as “Burima”.
Her father, Iskandar Ali, worked for Das & Company, a tea firm based in Babupara of the town, handling tea garden share transactions and private banking work, said Nilanjan Dasgupta, a descendant of the tea company owners. In due course, Iskandar married Taiyaba, Khaleda’s mother, a West Dinajpur girl.
Dasgupta claimed that Khaleda’s father shifted to the then-proposed East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), along with his family, in 1946. Many other reports claim the family shifted to East Pakistan after Partition in 1947.
Anandagopal Ghosh, a historian based in Jalpaiguri, said confusion persists as to whether Khaleda had studied here. “There is confusion as to whether she attended
the school in Jalpaiguri. After Bangladesh’s independence, the family reportedly sold their land in Jalpaiguri and did not return,” said Ghosh.