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Journalism of Courage
Muhammad Yunus, the winner of the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, will become the chief adviser to the interim government in Bangladesh. On Monday (August 5), Army Chief Waker-uz-Zaman announced the formation of an interim government after Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled the country in the face of ongoing protests that began over quotas for the kin of freedom fighters in government jobs.
Yunus, now 84 years old, is a globally recognised economist and has pioneered a system of microfinance that is believed to have helped a large number of Bangladeshis break out of extreme poverty. However, he has shared a frosty relationship with Hasina, who once accused him of “sucking blood” from the poor. Under Hasina’s rule, Yunus was booked in more than 200 cases — including forgery, money laundering, and embezzlement.
Here’s a look at who Yunus is, what his system of microfinance is, why he shared a frosty relationship with Hasina, and what are the cases against him.
Born in 1940 in Chittagong, Yunus received his PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University in the United States in 1969, and began a teaching career. He returned after Bangladesh was liberated from Pakistan, and was appointed head of the economics department at Chittagong University.
As Bangladesh struggled to stabilise its economy and tackle poverty in the post-independence years, Yunus came up with a unique idea: microcredit, or small loans without collateral to entrepreneurs who wouldn’t normally qualify for bank loans, on terms that were suitable to them.
The success of a local experiment convinced Yunus that the model could be scaled up — and in 1983, his flagship initiative, Grameen Bank, was launched. The bank is widely considered to be a great success — it has disbursed collateral-free loans adding up to more than $34 billion among close to 10 million people since its inception, with a recovery rate of more than 97%, the Bangladeshi newspaper Daily Sun reported last year.
Banks based on Grameen Bank’s microcredit model now operate in more than 100 countries around the world. In 2006, Yunus and Grameen Bank were awarded the Peace Nobel “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below”. Yunus came to be known as the “Banker to the Poor”.
Soon after winning the Nobel, Yunus began to flirt with the idea of forming his own political party. This didn’t sit well with Hasina, who was in jail at the time, facing charges of extortion.
Yunus subsequently abandoned his plans, saying there wasn’t enough support for his new political movement. Nonetheless, once Hasina returned to power in 2009, her government opened a host of investigations into Yunus’ activities. The former Prime Minister accused him of using force and other means to recover loans from poor rural women as head of Grameen Bank.
Most recently, in January this year, Yunus and three other officials at his telecommunications company, Grameen Telecom, were sentenced to six months in prison for violating Bangladesh’s labour laws. They were immediately granted bail.
In 2015, he was summoned by Bangladesh’s revenue authorities over alleged non-payment of taxes amounting to $1.51 million.
Two years before that, he was put on trial for allegedly receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel Prize award and royalties from a book.
In 2011, Yunus was removed as managing director of Grameen Bank for allegedly violating government retirement regulations.
The criminal cases against Yunus triggered concern globally. In August last year, 160 international figures, including former US President Barack Obama and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, signed a letter denouncing the “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus.
Signatories of the letter, including more than 100 Nobel laureates, said they feared for “his safety and freedom”.
