India, July 15 -- Former Bangladesh Prime Minister (PM) Sheikh Hasina recently announced that she will return to Dhaka by December this year. "They may arrest me on my return, they may even kill me . still, I have to go," she maintains. Why would a septuagenarian autocrat ousted in a popular uprising, living in exile and sentenced to death in absentia, want to return home where she remains much reviled? Other than signalling care for her imprisoned loyalists, Hasina has a more compelling reason to return: "If death comes, I want it to come on my own soil, where my parents are buried and where their blood was shed." That she does not want to remain in exile is understandable. What is less clear is what underpins the six-month notice. Why not return sooner, or later? Hasina's announcement offers an opportunity to unpack the political undercurrents in Dhaka. Let's begin with her party, the Awami League (AL), itself. The party remains banned and lost a chunk of its voter base to the ruling Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) in the February elections. It still retains pockets of scattered support but does not have a clear pathway of returning to mainstream politics. Its leaders are either imprisoned, in exile, or out on bail. This has created a split between loyalists who continue to rally behind Hasina, and reformists who believe in the party and its idea more than in Hasina. While both factions want the AL's return, the BNP is more open to rehabilitating the reformists who are considered less threatening. If the imprisoned former industries minister Amir Hossain Amu and law minister Anisul Huq are loyalists, the relatively younger former environment minister, Saber Hossain Chowdhury, is a reformist. Both the Muhammad Yunus-led interim government, and the BNP were open to Chowdhury leading a "reformed" AL in the elections. The reason Chowdhury opted not to do this has less to do with pushback from the Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI) and the National Citizens Party (NCP) and more with the fear of retribution from the loyalists. The BNP's recent decision to institutionalise the ban on AL, then, is meant to marginalise the loyalists while keeping the door open for the reformists. Hasina understands that these splits will only grow the longer she remains in exile. The BNP itself has competing views on the AL's return. The pragmatist view, held by party seniors and cabinet ministers such as Salahuddin Ahmed, Mirza Fakhrul Islam Alamgir, Iqbal Hassan Mahmud, and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury, is to allow the reformists within AL to mount a comeback. Such a move will prevent the JI-NCP coalition from expanding its political footprint, while allowing the BNP to manipulate a weaker AL for its benefit. This view likely has PM Tarique Rahman's sympathy. But the hardline view, held by BNP's younger cadreand mid-level leadership,is to maintain the ban onAL. From their vantage, the AL's return risks destabilising the streets and increasing local-level competition. Evidently, the hardliners are influencing the BNP'sofficial approach towardsthe AL. This is not because the intra-BNP balance-of-power favours the hardliners. It is because the BNP has no immediate need to rehabilitate the AL. Thegovernment is busy protecting the economy from external shocks, and the people are savouring the calm after years of turmoil. The memories of AL's excesses remain fresh, andany move to bring the party backcarries the risk of re-triggering public trauma. This explains why the BNP, JI, and NCP have reached a consensusto keep the AL out of politics for the foreseeable future. The JI and NCP's aversion to the AL is visceral. If the students faced bullets in July 2024, the JI has a longer history of persecution by Hasina. But what irks these parties most about the idea of AL's return is them losing out whatever little they have gained since Hasina's ouster. They realise that Islamist politics in Bangladesh has limited electoral appeal, and that the BNP remains deeply entrenched. This is why they don't intend to waste limited political capital on protests during the first half of the BNP's term. But they are also aware that if it comes to pass, a BNP-enabled reformist-led AL will become an immediate threat to the JI-NCP coalition. In that situation, these parties will take to the streets with intent, leading to a political crisis. This brings us back to Hasina's stated desire to end her exile insix months. Whether this is simplya whim of an ageing politiciandesperate to return home and "save" her party, a calculated move tounsettle the triparty consensus, or both, is unclear. What it does show is an urgent need for Bangladeshi parties to rethink their political culture and make space for reconciliation. The trope of "winner takes all", long ascribed to Bangladeshi politics, is not an unchangeable law of physics. Courage to accept short-term compromises is needed to build a durable, inclusive, and lawful political system for Bangladesh's long-term well-being. That Hasina's return could trigger a crisis is understood. But it also offers an opportunity - a chance to hold a fair and open trial that not only holds her to account, but also impresses upon her the reality of what people truly think about her. Dhaka has a choice to make: to let Hasina destabilise the country again or to use her return as a starting point of national healing and reconciliation. What it must not do is to delude itself that the consensus to prevent AL's return will wish the problem away. The AL's ouster from Bangladeshi politics is unsustainable. The only question is how to curate its return as an opportunity rather than a risk....