Muhammad Yunus, an individual known for kickstarting the worldwide microcredit initiative and is a Nobel laureate, is in line to guide the newly established interim government of Bangladesh, even though he has been a staunch adversary of the nation’s ex-Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina who has absconded after abdicating her position. Yunus, often hailed as the “banker to the impoverished”, in conjunction with Grameen Bank that he instituted, received the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for their contribution to rescuing millions from destitution via offering tiny credit, often less than $100, to deprived rural populace, who often get overlooked by mainstream banks.
The lending strategy of Yunus and Grameen Bank has triggered many alike initiatives globally, reaching even the developed nations like the USA, where Yunus set up a separate non-profit, known as Grameen America. However, his growth coincided with flirtations with a political career around 2007 as he attempted to establish a political party of his own. This move was interpreted by many as having irked Hasina, who accused him of exploiting the poor.
Yunus and the microcredit model are not only criticised within Bangladesh, but beyond its borders in neighbouring countries like India, with allegations of imposing exorbitant rates and exploitation of the poor. However, Yunus has defended himself, asserting that the rates are significantly lesser than prevalent local interest rates in developing nations or the outrageous demands, sometimes as high as 300%, made by fraudulent lenders.
In 2011, the administration under Hasina ousted Yunus from the helm of Grameen Bank, contending him being over the legal retirement age of 60. This triggered a strong public reaction involving thousands forming a human chain to protest against his dismissal. Later, in the beginning of this year, a labour law violation led to Yunus being sentenced to six months in prison. Alongside him, 13 others were indicted by a court in Bangladesh in June on charges of embezzling approximately 252.2 million taka (nearly €2 million) from a telecom company’s staff welfare fund that he had founded.
Yunus faces over 100 cases involving graft and other charges, but he has neither been imprisoned in any of them nor admitted any involvement. During a media interaction, Yunus refuted the allegations, labelling them as “baseless and fabricated tales”.
He condemned the existing political scenario in Bangladesh in June, attributing all activities, domination and electoral maneuvers to one single party. Yunus referred to the departure of Hasina as being the “second day of liberation” for Bangladesh in a conversation with Indian media outlet Times Now, drawing parallels with Bangladesh’s independence war against Pakistan in 1971.
Currently, Yunus is in Paris undergoing a minor health-related operation. His spokesperson informed that Yunus has accepted a proposal by student-protestors against Hasina to serve as the chief advisor to the caretaker government.
Yunus had a role in academia, teaching economics at the University of Chittagong when the 1974 famine hit Bangladesh. It gave him the impetus to find better ways of benefiting his country’s expansive rural strata when he encountered a villager nearby his university who was burdened by a debt to a local heavy-handed lender. Yunus identified this system as the genesis of forced labour, evident in his Nobel acceptance discourse.
Encouraged by the successful venture of lending money to 42 individuals who collectively owed $27 to the lender, Yunus reinforced his belief in credit as a fundamental human entitlement. Yunus expressed his surprise at the consistent repayment of loans by the underprivileged, during an interaction with Reuters.