A state of anarchy prevails in India’s neighboring country Bangladesh. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has resigned from her post and since Monday evening she is in a safe house at Hindon Airbase in Ghaziabad, India. Meanwhile, the main organizers of the student movement have proposed to make Bangladesh’s Nobel Prize winner Dr. Mohammad Yunus the chief advisor of the interim government. Dr. Yunus, who was a critic of Sheikh Hasina, has also given an interview after she left the country in which he has said that the student movement is the second liberation struggle of Bangladesh.
Speaking to The Print, Dr Yunus said on Sheikh Hasina’s exit from power, “We have been liberated and now we are a free country. Till the time she was here, we were under occupation. She was behaving like an occupying power, a dictator, a general, she was controlling everything.”
Dr. Yunus further said, ‘Today all the people of Bangladesh are feeling free. This is like a second liberation war for us.’
Yunus, who lifted millions of Bangladeshis out of poverty, founded the Grameen Bank in 1983 which gives loans to the poor to start their own small scale industries.
On the lines of Bangladesh, such banks were opened all over the world. Muhammad Yunus and his bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for providing financial help to millions of poor people of Bangladesh.
Sheikh Hasina has been accusing Yunus of ‘sucking the blood of the poor’. She says that the Grameen Bank started by Yunus charges excessive interest from the poor. Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League government has filed 190 cases against Dr. Yunus. Recently, a corruption case was filed against Yunus. Yunus’s supporters believe that this case is politically motivated.
‘Sheikh Hasina ruined her father’s legacy’
Yunus said in the interview that Sheikh Hasina has ruined the legacy of her father Sheikh Mujiburahman, known as the father of the nation of Bangladesh.
Is the violence in Bangladesh justified?
Yunus seemed to justify the violence happening in Bangladesh. He said that the violence and vandalism happening in the country is the anger of the people against Sheikh Hasina. He also expressed hope that these students and youth will take Bangladesh in the right direction in the future.
According to a report in Bangladesh newspaper Daily Star, Yunus has agreed to the proposal to become the chief advisor of the interim government.
Yunus upset with India’s response to Bangladesh situation
Earlier, Yunus had expressed his displeasure over India’s response to the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh. He had said that the turmoil in Bangladesh could spread to neighboring countries as well.
In fact, last month India had refused to comment on the ongoing protests in Bangladesh and said, ‘We see it as a domestic matter of Bangladesh.’
Angered by this comment of India, Dr. Yunus told the Indian Express, “When India says that this is a domestic matter, I feel sad. If your brother’s house is on fire, how can you call it a domestic matter? Many things come into diplomacy and it cannot be said that this is their domestic matter.”
Yunus said that people in Bangladesh are facing conflict, youth are being killed by government forces and law and order is deteriorating. He warned that the turmoil in Bangladesh will not be limited to its borders but will also affect neighboring countries.
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)