Ku: The growing authoritarianism that the Bangladeshi government manifests is absolutely rooted in the ambitions, the personality of Sheikh Haseena herself. Her father was the country's first president and was assassinated four years after Bangladesh got its independence from Pakistan. Ku: She was spared as a young woman only because she happened to be out of the country at the time. "The sense of entitlement and destiny that she was spared to sort of carry the flame of her father's legacy very, very much informs the way that Sheikh Hase Rena uses power today"