Ershad and Yunus’ great Grameen Bank

President Hussain Mohammed Ershad of Bangladesh was a good-looking and impressive person although he used to dress modestly like President Zia-ul-Haq of Pakistan. He, like Zia, had seized power after staging a coup. They did not deny that and repeatedly affirmed their determination to control the country. I found Ershad a little tense when we met in his suite at the Guest Palace facing the sea. There were only a couple of officials from his office and I had a Pakistani colleague. We talked for an hour about the past especially regarding Bangladesh’s separation from Pakistan and the country’s dependence on India. India’s intentions or, as the press called them, machinations aimed at Pakistan through Bangladesh also figured during our talks.
The atmosphere became tense when I asked him about the status and future of democracy in his country realizing that he had seized power through a coup, something that was a sensitive matter for him. I understood that he did not want to dwell on the issue. That was one thing; the other topic was political parties. Soon I realized that the interview was not going well and although he continued to field my questions, he was probably wishing it to end.
I went to my office to write the story so that it could appear in the newspaper the next day. It was a long and comprehensive interview as he went into detail while speaking about the country and its politics, economy and various other subjects. One question that disturbed him was the frequent large-scale deaths of boat passengers and the inability of the authorities to prevent such disasters although, to be honest, no country however wealthy, can avoid or prevent such disasters.
Ershad explained the plight of his country quite well saying the climate was hostile and the country was victim of heavy monsoon rains in India.
He said he could not do much for the victims because the government did not have enough money to alleviate their suffering. He invited me to visit him later to see for myself the plight of flood victims. Unfortunately I could not avail myself of the invitation mainly because he did not last long enough in power.
There was a peaceful change of government and two principal lady leaders of the country’s two largest parties— Hasina Wajed and Khaleda Zia — eased him out and put him on a protracted trial for what I thought were unconvincing charges except the military coup. One charge was that they found a pistol in his house during the search.
The amazing part of this story is that after I had finished and gone back to my office I heard that his staff had requested the publishers to submit the interview to him so that he may make a number of changes to what was attributed to him. The publishers objected to that but had to abide by the request to make the required changes. The request was conveyed to me. The new interview was not fit to appear in this paper but we were obliged to run it anyway.
I will also mention here about the Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank, that revolutionized micro-financing in Bangladesh. Grameen Bank is also known as the poor people’s bank. Grameen means rural. Yunus told me during an interview held in the Kingdom that for him it was a dream come true. He started it as a micro-finance revolution to benefit the poorest of the poor who had no money or really nothing to start a business of any significance. He was often quoted as saying that he started it with not more than $ 27 in 1976.
He once told the BBC: “We lend money to the poorest people, poorest women in the country, no collateral, no guarantees, no lawyers, and it works.” Millions of people hurried to borrow from him. And amazingly invested the few takas he gave them and as soon as they flourished they fully repaid the loans. Repayment was said to be in the region of 98 percent, much better than some of the richest banks in the country and abroad. There are now over 40 countries with banks such as Grameen. I was gratified to receive calls for information from people in other countries after publishing the story both in English and Arabic. One of the queries came from Yemen and I was happy to provide them relevant information.
The success of Grameen Bank in a country like Bangladesh was due to the fact that regular banks usually hesitate to lend even at high interest rates. But Grameen has always been ready to extend loans to very poor women in order to help them get out of the cruel cycle of poverty.
One of the aims of Grameen is to extend banking facilities to both men and women and to eliminate the exploitation of the poor by money lenders who are some of the worst people in the subcontinent with the result that few borrowers are able to pay off their debts as they remain shackled to their lenders from one generation to another.
Yunus received the Nobel Prize in recognition of his magnificent enterprise. He amply deserved it.