Begum Khaleda Zia (born Khaleda Khanam; 15 August 1946 – 30 December 2025) was a Bangladeshi politician who twice served as prime minister of Bangladesh, from 1991 to 1996 and again from 2001 to 2006. She was the first female prime minister of Bangladesh and the second female prime minister in the Muslim world after Benazir Bhutto. She was the wife of the former president of Bangladesh and army chief, Ziaur Rahman and was first lady from 1977 to 1981. She was the longest serving chairperson of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) from 1984 until her death in 2025.
Zia was born into a Bengali Muslim family in 1946 in Jalpaiguri and moved to East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh, in 1950. During the Liberation War of Bangladesh, after her husband joined the Mukti Bahini, she, along with her sons, was detained by the Pakistani Forces. She was the First Lady of Bangladesh from 1977 until her husband's assassination in 1981. Afterwards, Zia became active in politics and became the leader of the BNP in 1984. She and her party played a leading role in the pro-democracy movement against Hussain Muhammad Ershad. They boycotted the 1986 and 1988 general elections, thus securing for her the reputation of an "uncompromising leader". She, along with Sheikh Hasina of the Awami League, helped lead the 1990 mass uprising.
Zia's first premiership followed the BNP victory in the 1991 general election and saw the introduction of educational, economic, and administrative reforms. Her party also formed a short-lived government after the controversial February 1996 general election, which was boycotted by the opposition. During her second premiership, which began with her party's victory in the 2001 general election and lasted until 2006, Bangladesh witnessed growth in GDP, foreign investment and female literacy, as well as becoming the most corrupt country in the world according to the Corruption Perceptions Index.
Her second premiership concluded during a political crisis that resulted in a military takeover in 2007. The military-backed caretaker government charged and detained Zia and her two sons with corruption. Following the defeat of the BNP in the 2008 election by Sheikh Hasina's Awami League, she was driven out of her house; she boycotted the 2014 general election. In 2018, Zia was sentenced to a total of 17 years in prison for corruption. However, following the July Uprising in 2024, she was released and acquitted of all charges. After years of prolonged illness, Zia died on 30 December 2025 in a hospital and was given a state funeral.
Khaleda Khanam "Putul" was born in 1946 in Jalpaiguri in Bengal Province, British India (now in West Bengal, India) to a Bengali family of Muslim Majumdars from Fulgazi, Feni. She was the third of five children of her father Iskandar Ali Majumder, the great-grandson of the Bengali warlord Ghazi Nahar Muhammad Khan, who was conferred with the title of Majumdar by Maharaja Lakshman Manikya of the Twipra Kingdom. Zia's mother Taiyaba Majumder was originally from Chandbari village in Itahar, Dinajpur (present-day Uttar Dinajpur, West Bengal, India). Iskandar worked as a broker at the Das and Co., a banking and shareholder company involved in the local tea business, according to Nilanjan Dasgupta, the son of the company owner. According to the BBC Bangla, her family migrated to Dinajpur in East Bengal, Pakistan after the communal riots in Jalpaiguri in 1950.
Khaleda described herself as "self-educated", and there are no records of her graduating from high school. Initially, she attended Dinajpur Missionary School and later Dinajpur Girls' School, but dropped out after marriage.
In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman, then a captain in the Pakistan Army. After marriage, she changed her name to Khaleda Zia by taking her husband's name as her surname. She reportedly enrolled in Surendranath College in Dinajpur but moved to West Pakistan to stay with her husband in 1965. Her husband was deployed as an army officer during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965. In March 1969, the couple shifted back to East Pakistan. Due to Ziaur Rahman's posting in the army, the family then moved to Chittagong.
Zia claimed 15 August as her birthday, which was a matter of controversy in Bangladeshi politics. 15 August was the day many immediate family members of Zia's political rival, Sheikh Hasina's father, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, were killed, in 1975. As a result of the deaths, 15 August was officially declared National Mourning Day of Bangladesh during the Hasina regime.
None of Zia's government-issued identification documents show her birthday on 15 August. Her matriculation examination certificate lists a birth date of 9 August 1945. Her marriage certificate lists 5 September 1945. Zia's passport indicates a birth date of 5 August 1946. Kader Siddiqui, a political ally of Zia, urged her not to celebrate her birthday on 15 August. The High Court filed a petition against Zia on this issue. In 2016, Gazi Zahirul Islam, the former joint general secretary of the Dhaka Union of Journalists, filed a case against Zia over her birthdate, accusing her of seeking to tarnish the reputation of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and family. However, she was acquitted in 2024.
Zia's first son, Tarique Rahman (born 1965), is the current prime minister of Bangladesh and the chairman of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, after being elected in the 2026 general election. Her second son, Arafat Rahman (1969–2015) was a prominent sports organizer in the country. Zia's sister, Khurshid Jahan (1939–2006), served as the Minister of Women and Children Affairs during 2001–2006. Her younger brother, Sayeed Iskander (1953–2012), was also a politician who served as a Jatiya Sangsad member from the Feni-1 constituency during 2001–2006. Her second brother, Shamim Iskandar, is a retired flight engineer of Biman Bangladesh Airlines. Her second sister is Selina Islam.
Following the beginning of the Liberation War, Zia arrived in Dhaka from Chittagong on 16 May 1971. She arrived by launch in Narayanganj in the evening with her two children, Tarique and Arafat, and the wife of Colonel Mahfuz. From there, her elder sister, Khurshid Jahan, and her sister's husband, Mozammel Haque, took them to their house in Khilgaon, Dhaka, in a jeep. On 26 May, her brother-in-law, Mozammel, learned that the Pakistani soldiers had found out about her location. Mozammel relocated Zia and her two sons to another place on 28 May, and they moved again on 3 June. Then, from an unknown address, Zia started living in the Siddheshwari house of SK Abdullah, deputy director of the Geological Survey Department. She remained in that house until she was arrested by the Pakistani Forces on the morning of 2 July.
After her arrest, Zia and her two children were kept in a room in the old Parliament building. From there, they were taken to a house inside the Dhaka Cantonment. On 21 August 1971, Ziaur Rahman wrote a letter about his wife. The then Pakistani Army Major General Jamshed Gulzar Kiani was in GHQ Dhaka of the Eastern Command, by whom she was detained. When Ziaur Rahman was working in the Punjab Regiment of West Pakistan, Jamshed was his commander. Zia's letter was posted by Shafaat Jamil from the "occupied" area and reached Maj. Gen. Jamshed.
Zia was detained until the first week of December 1971. She was released on the morning of 16 December, the day when the Pakistani Forces surrendered and the war ended. Subsequently, Zia and her two sons were taken by plane from Dhaka to Shamshernagar in Sylhet. Commander of the joint forces of the Mukti Bahini and the Mitro Bahini (India) Gen. Jagjit Singh Aurora made the arrangements at the request of Ziaur Rahman. Maj. Chowdhury Khalequzzaman and Capt. Oli Ahmad received them at the Shamshernagar airport and took them to a local rest house. After a very short time in Shamshernagar, Zia and their two sons went to Comilla Cantonment with Ziaur Rahman.
In 1977, Ziaur Rahman became the country's president, with Zia serving has first lady. On 30 May 1981, he was assassinated by members of the Bangladesh Army as part of a failed coup d'état. After his death, on 2 January 1982, she got involved in politics by first becoming a member of the BNP – the party that had been founded by Ziaur Rahman.