Father of the global microcredit movement and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus has been included in the panel to lead the new interim government of Bangladesh. Muhammad Yunus is a staunch opponent of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. He is also considered to be one of the main reasons behind Sheikh Hasina resigning from the post of Prime Minister and leaving the country.
Yunus, known as the ‘banker of the poor’, and the Grameen Bank founded by him have received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize. The reason is that he helped millions of people come out of poverty by providing small loans of less than $100 to the poor living in the villages. These poor people were not able to get any help from the big banks.
His lending model inspired many such schemes around the world, including in developed countries like the United States. In the US, Yunus also started a separate non-profit organisation, Grameen America. As the 84-year-old Yunus became more successful, he became more inclined towards a career in politics. He even tried to form his own party in 2007. But when his ambition started taking a bigger shape, Sheikh Hasina became angry. Hasina also accused Yunus of ‘sucking the blood of the poor’.
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Critics in other countries, including Bangladesh and neighboring India, also say microlenders charge high interest rates and make money off the poor. But Yunus said these rates are much lower than local interest rates in developing countries.
In 2011, the Hasina government removed him from the post of head of Grameen Bank. The government then said that 73-year-old Yunus was still in office even after the legal retirement age of 60. People then protested against his dismissal. Thousands of Bangladeshis formed a human chain in protest.
In January this year, Yunus was sentenced to six months in prison for violating labor laws. In June, a Bangladesh court prosecuted Yunus and 13 others for embezzling 252.2 million taka ($2 million) from a welfare fund for employees of a telecom company he founded.
However, he was not sent to jail in any case. Yunus has more than 100 other cases pending against him for corruption and many other charges. However, Yunus denied any such allegations. Criticizing Hasina in June this year, Yunus had said, ‘There is no politics left in Bangladesh. There is only one party which is active and occupies everything. And it wins elections in its own way.’
Speaking to Times Now on Monday, he said that this is the “second liberation day” for Bangladesh after the war fought for independence from Pakistan in 1971 after Hasina left the country. Yunus is currently in Paris and is undergoing a minor medical procedure there. His spokesperson said that he has agreed to the request of the students leading the campaign against Hasina, in which he has been asked to be made the chief advisor of the interim government.
Yunus was teaching economics at Chittagong University when Bangladesh was hit by a famine in 1974. Thousands of people died in this famine. Then Yunus thought of a better way to help the country’s huge rural population. The opportunity came when Yunus met a woman in a village near the university who had borrowed money from a moneylender. The loan was less than a dollar, but in return the moneylender had the right to buy anything the woman produced at a price he decided.
Yunus said in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, ‘For me, this was a way of recruiting slave labourers.’ Then he found 42 people who had borrowed a total of $27 from the moneylender and lent them his own money. Its success inspired him to lend more money. Yunus said, ‘I was amazed at the results I got after giving the loan. The poor paid the interest on time every time.’
Source (PTI) (NDTV) (HINDUSTANTIMES)