Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, who was recommended by Bangladeshi student leaders as the head of the interim government in Bangladesh, waves at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport in Roissy-en-France, France August 7, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Filling the leadership vacuum in Bangladesh, albeit temporarily, Nobel Laureate and economist Muhammad Yunus has taken oath as head of the interim government. The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer will head the government until fresh polls are held. The parliament has already been dissolved by the nation’s president Mohammed Shahabuddin.

“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Mr.Yunus said on Tuesday, a day after Ms. Hasina resigned and left the country. He was called on by student coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement to head the interim government.

Banker to the poor

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” wrote Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, in a Facebook post, echoing the widespread acceptability Mr. Yunus has in Bangladesh’s fractious polity.

Born on June 28, 1940, in Chittagong, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), Muhammad Yunus, the third of nine children, completed his primary education at Lamabazar Primary School and then studied at the Chittagong Collegiate School. After completing both a B.A. and an M.A. in Economics from Dhaka University, he started his teaching career as a lecturer in the same university in 1961. Obtaining a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus began his tenure as an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, U.S., in 1969.

As war ravaged his homeland, as it struggled for liberation from Pakistan, Dr. Yunus lobbied the U.S. Congress to stop military aid to Pakistan. He also helped raise support for the Liberation movement by running a Bangladesh Information Center in Washington D.C, and a Citizen’s Committee in Nashville, Tenessee, along with publishing the Bangladesh Newsletter.

With the birth of Bangladesh, he returned home, joining the Economics Department of the University of Chittagong in 1972. As the newly-separated Bangladesh suffered a famine in 1974, he forayed into rural economics, introducing the Nabajug Tebhaga Khamar to study economic aspects of poverty, and urged his students to lend a hand to farmers in fields. In his visits to farming households in Chittagong’s Jobra region, he realised the necessity and effectiveness of small loans to women bamboo furniture makers, freeing them from claws of loan sharks. Initiating the first ‘small loan’, Dr. Yunus lent $27 to 42 families in Jobra to manufacture their items for sale.

This idea gave rise to microfinance in 1976, where Dr. Yunus offered himself as the guarantor and secured a credit line from Janata Bank to lend small loans to Jobra residents. In 1983, the Grameen Bank was established, specialising in small loans and playing a pivotal role in eradicating poverty via micro-credit requiring no collateral. Over 100 nations, including India, have replicated this model. As of 2024, Grameen Bank has 2,568 branches across 81,678 villages with 10.61 million borrowers.

Dr. Yunus’ pioneering work in microfinance won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for lending a social conscience to capitalism and “their efforts to create economic and social development from below” in Bangladesh. However, it also attracted legal trouble in Bangladesh.

Brief political foray

Ahead of the 2006 polls, the Bangladesh National Party (BNP) and Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) failed to agree on a candidate to head the caretaker government, leading to the imposition of a state of emergency in Bangladesh. With both Khaleda Zia and Sheikh Hasina incarcerated by the military-backed government on extortion charges, Mr. Yunus announced that he would contest in the next polls by forming the Nagorik Shakti party in February 2007. However, he dropped the plans within months due to lack of public support.

Clash with Hasina government

On coming to power in 2009, Ms. Hasina’s government began scrutinising Mr. Yunus and Grameen Bank. In 2011, he was removed as managing director of the microlending bank, as he had passed the retirement age of 60. While he challenged his ouster, he lost the court battle accusing Ms. Hasina of targetting him. On multiple occasions, Ms. Hasina has accused Mr. Yunus for influencing the World Bank, which cancelled a $1.2 billion credit for the Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project in 2012 – a charge which he has refuted. Over 150 cases have been filed against Mr. Yunus by the Hasina government as of 2023.

The micro-financing model itself came under the scanner after Mr. Yunus admitted that some organisations may have abused the system for profit. The lack of collateral in such loans have attracted high interest rates by some banks, leading to borrowers falling into more debt. In 2019, an arrest warrant was issued against Mr. Yunus for three alleged breaches under the Labour Act.

In May 2023, Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) accused Mr. Yunus and several others of misusing the workers’ welfare fund of Grameen Bank and regularising 101 staff members. After a lengthy trial, Mr. Yunus and his colleagues were convicted in January this year, mere days after Ms. Hasina began her fourth consecutive term as Prime minister.

“We have incurred the annoyance of someone because of chasing the three zero dream (zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions),” said Dr. Yunus after his conviction, as thousands pleaded with the then-PM to pardon him.

Within six months, chaos and violence was unleashed in Bangladesh due to anti-quota protests, leading to a stringent crackdown by police. As student protestors sought one single demand – the resignation of Sheikh Hasina, the 78-year-old politician fled to India, ending her 15-year reign.  Now Ms. Hasina, whose government sought to incarcerate him, is out of power and out of the country, while Mr. Yunus is heading an interim government, tasked with overseeing an orderly political transition.

Illustration: Sreejith R.Kumar

Muhammad Yunus and his grassroots Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for lending a social conscience to capitalism and “their efforts to create economic and social development from below” in Bangladesh. At 83, the “banker to the poor” does not appear to be slowing down. He strives, he asserts, for a world of three zeros: zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero net carbon emissions.

Instead of shunning capitalism, Mr. Yunus’s approach has been to humanise it. “The capitalist system is a machine which sucks up wealth from the bottom to send it to the top. It is not the fault of individuals at the top. They follow what the system asks them to do: chase money,” Mr. Yunus said in an interview with The New York Times in 2017. “But in the process, wealth at the top grows like a giant mushroom owned by fewer and fewer people — for the simple reason that the more they have, the more they get. Wealth is a magnet.”

Also read: Explained | Why are cases against Mohammad Yunus drawing attention?

Small loans

Mr. Yunus modified this system by allowing humans to express selflessness through what is known as social business. The concept, although deemed unrealistic by many, caught the Western imagination. It evolved from his practice of granting poor people small loans on easy terms — the cornerstone of the Grameen Bank since its establishment in 1983.

After completing his studies in Bangladesh and the U.S., Mr. Yunus was appointed professor of economics at the University of Chittagong in 1972. When Bangladesh suffered a famine in 1974, he ventured beyond the realm of teaching. He decided to give loans to people who wanted to start their own small enterprises. That initiative was expanded through the Grameen Bank on a large scale. Under his tutelage, the Grameen Bank played a pivotal role in eradicating poverty through microlending. More than 100 nations have sought to replicate this model.

However, his ‘banking for the poor’ venture has come under attack from some quarters. Microcredit is said to carry unusually high interest rates due to a lack of collateral and the overheads associated with administering small loans. Mr. Yunus himself admitted that some organisations may have abused the microcredit system for profit. As microcredit expanded all over the world, it became less likely that borrowers would be monitored and protected from falling deep into debt like before. Critics cite modest benefits associated with microcredit, overindebtedness, and a trend toward commercialisation that is less focused on serving the poor.

Disputes at home

At home, Mr. Yunus became embroiled in a barrage of legal cases. In 2011, he was removed by Bangladesh’s central bank from the post of managing director at the world’s best-known microlender, for holding on to the post past his retirement age. Mr. Yunus lost the court battle stemming from regulatory steps. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, on many occasions, accused him of influencing the World Bank’s exit from the nation’s largest bridge project, an allegation he has consistently denied.

More than a decade later, a criminal case against Mr. Yunus alleges three breaches under the country’s Labour Act and may lead to a jail sentence. This is just one of more than 150 cases filed against him after the ruling Awami League party came to power in 2008, according to Amnesty International. On October 5, the nation’s anti-graft agency interrogated Mr. Yunus for more than an hour on money laundering charges. He has denied any wrongdoing.

Despite all these unsavoury sideshows, Mr. Yunus will be remembered for his role in expanding microfinance around the world. Almost 40 years ago, when the concept of microfinance as a poverty reduction tool was in its infancy, he fuelled hope that microcredit would transform economic and social structures with its focus on reaching the previously unbanked. By one estimate, the global microfinance market was valued at $178.8 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $496.9 billion by 2030.

(Arun Devnath is a journalist based in Dhaka)

File picture of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Martti Ahtisaari poses with his medal and diploma during the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo December 10, 2008.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Nobel peace laureate Martti Ahtisaari, who served as Finland’s 10th president between 1994 and 2000, died on Monday at the age of 86, the Finnish president’s office said in a statement.

Ahtisaari was celebrated around the world for brokering peace in conflict zones in Kosovo, Indonesia and Northern Ireland.

Known by diplomats for his willingness to engage with all parties and ability to wait patiently for the right moment for a compromise, Ahtisaari refused to accept that wars and conflicts were inevitable.

“Peace is a question of will. All conflicts can be settled, and there are no excuses for allowing them to become eternal,” Ahtisaari said when he accepted the Nobel award in 2008.

Dharamshala:

The Dalai Lama on Saturday congratulated jailed Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi on winning the Nobel Peace Prize and said the award was also in recognition of the vital role women play in people’s lives. Mohammadi, 51, was awarded the prize on Friday in recognition of her tireless campaigning for women’s rights and democracy and against the death penalty.

In a letter to her on Saturday, the Tibetan spiritual leader said, “Today, the values of democracy, transparency, respect for human rights, and equality are increasingly recognised on every side as universal values, which can only benefit us all.”

“I have met and held discussions with previous Nobel laureates, including your sometime colleague, Mrs. Shirin Ebadi. I admire their efforts to overcome discrimination against women and improve society in a peaceful way. I believe that the award of this Nobel Peace Prize is also in recognition of the vital role women play in the lives of us all from the very day we are born,” the Dalai Lama wrote.

He said there is a growing desire for change in the world, a change that will see conflicts resolved through dialogue and non-violence.

“The foundation of such change will be kindness, compassion and human responsibility. I believe that this goal can be achieved through education based on a deeper appreciation of the oneness of humanity. Because we are so interconnected, this is a question of the well-being of us all,” he wrote.

Tehran:

Media in Iran on Friday lambasted jailed rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi who won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize, saying she had “collaborated with terrorist groups” and committed “anti-Iranian activities”.

The 51-year-old journalist and activist has spent much of the past two decades on multiple charges, including spreading anti-state propaganda and committing acts against national security.

Most recently, she has been incarcerated since November 2021.

Foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani called the move to award Mohammadi the Peace Prize “biased and political”.

Iranian media also lashed out at both her and the award.

The official IRNA news agency criticised the Nobel Committee for awarding “a woman who collaborated with terrorist groups” and who is “unknown in her own country, particularly among Iranian women”.

It said awarding Mohammadi the Peace Prize was an “interventionist act” meant to “politicise the concept of human rights”.

Tasnim news agency called her a “security convict” who committed “subversive” activities, and said the Nobel Peace Prize had a history of being handed to “criminals”.

Mehr published a column by ultraconservative analyst Mohammad Imani lambasting the award.

Western governments “pay one person the equivalent of a million euros and set a trap for thousands of mercenaries ready to betray their country,” he said.

Mohammadi had expressed support for the protest movement which rocked Iran following the September 16, 2022, death in police custody of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.

Her death triggered months-long demonstrations which the authorities in Iran labelled as “riots” fomented by foreign governments.

Reformist media outlets published the news about Mohammadi being awarded the prize, but without passing comment.

Several Iranian actresses detained in 2022 for supporting the protest movement congratulated Mohammadi.

Katayoun Riahi, who was arrested last November and released after more than a week, on Instagram welcomed the Nobel Prize awarded to “our honour who is in prison”.

Also on Instagram, prominent actress Taraneh Alidoosti, who was arrested in January before her release three weeks later, posted: “Freedom will come with you, dear Narges, because a woman like you has no place in prison.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Undated, unlocated photo of Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi.
| Photo Credit: Narges Mohammadi Foundation via AFP

In 1998, Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was jailed by the country’s theocratic authorities for the first time while protesting the rampant imprisonment of voices critical of the administration. In 2023, she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, while still in prison.

Known for campaigning for women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty, Ms. Mohammadi was awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize by the Norwegian Nobel Committee on Friday. “Ms. Mohammadi is a woman, a human rights advocate, and a freedom fighter. This year’s Peace prize also recognises the hundreds of thousands of people who, in the preceding year, have demonstrated against the theocratic regime’s policies of discrimination and oppression targeting women,” the committee said in a statement.

The prize comes after a tumultuous year of widespread protests in Iran triggered by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who died in the custody of the country’s morality police. Ms. Amini had been detained for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely in violation of laws that require women in public to wear the Islamic headscarf. Her death set off protests across multiple Iranian cities with young women marching in the streets and publicly exposing and cutting off their hair, followed by a brutal government crackdown.

Ms. Mohammadi is a globally prominent figure, recognised for her efforts in advocating for women’s rights, prisoners’ rights, and freedom of expression in what can arguably be called one of the world’s most challenging environments for human rights.

A qualified engineer with a degree in physics, Ms. Mohammadi established her roots in the field of activism early on in life. She began advocating for women’s and students’ rights by writing articles while in college, and was arrested twice in university meetings. She has worked as a journalist with platforms like Payaam-e-Hajar, a periodical dedicated to women’s issues (which was shut down in 2000). A passionate mountain climber, Ms. Mohammadi was barred from participating in official expeditions because of her political views.

The Nobel laureate’s long and harrowing tryst with the Iranian prison system is emblematic of how the country’s judiciary stifles dissent. According to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, the Iranian regime has “arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes”. On multiple occasions, she has been held at Evin Prison, a facility in Tehran notorious for prisoner abuse.

In 2003, Ms. Mohammadi joined the Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC) and worked closely with the founder Shirin Ebadi, an Iranian activist who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2003 for promoting democracy and rights of women, children, and refugees in the country. Ms. Ebadi lives in exile in the U.K.

Ms. Mohammadi was arrested in 2010 in connection with her work for DHRC and was released on bail before being arrested again the next year on charges of national security violations. She was sentenced to serve 11 years in prison. Her arrest was protested by international leaders including U.S. Senator Mark Kirby, U.K. politician Dennis MacShane, and Australian M.P. Michael Danby.

She was released shortly after but was summoned by authorities after her speech at the grave of Sattar Beheshti, an Iranian blogger who died under suspicious circumstances at Evin Prison, went viral on social media in 2014.

She was arrested again in 2015 on new charges and sentenced to 16 years in prison. She was released in October 2020 following multiple rounds of hunger strikes and bouts of deteriorating health in prison. She was also transferred from Evin Prison to a prison in Zanjan, the city where she was born.

Ms. Mohammadi was arbitrarily arrested in November 2021 in Karaj while attending a memorial for Ebrahim Ketabdar, killed by Iranian forces during nationwide protests in November 2019. In December 2022, BBC published details of abuse from Evin Prison corroborated by Ms. Mohammadi, in the wake of nationwide protests following the death of Ms. Amini.

Over the years, Ms. Mohammadi was awarded several prizes like the Alexander Lang Award (2009), the Pen Anger Award (2011), the Andrei Sakharov Award (2018), and the UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize (2023) for her fight against oppression of human rights in Iran.

She is married to Taghi Rahmani, a pro-reform Iranian activist who lives in exile in France with their two children.

Paris, France:

Iranian rights campaigner Narges Mohammadi, who has spent much of the past two decades in jail, is the fifth laureate to win the Nobel Peace Prize whilst behind bars.

Honoured on Friday for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran, the 51-year-old journalist and activist has campaigned against the mandatory hijab for women and the death penalty.

She is the vice-president of the Defenders of Human Rights Centre founded by Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi, herself a Nobel Peace Prize laureate in 2003.

The other four Peace Prize laureates who were imprisoned when they won are as follows:

1935: Carl Von Ossietzky, Germany

Journalist and pacifist Carl von Ossietzky was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp when he won the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize and was unable to make the trip to Oslo to collect the award.

Von Ossietzky, who had been arrested three years earlier in a raid on opponents of Adolf Hitler following the Reichstag fire, was the first regime critic anywhere in the world to receive the prestigious award.

Furious over the Norwegian Nobel Committee’s decision, Adolf Hitler banned all German citizens from accepting a Nobel in any category.

While Ossietzky was unable to pick up his diploma and gold Nobel medal, a German lawyer tricked his family into allowing him to pocket the prize money. Ossietzky died in captivity in 1938.

1991: Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar

Myanmar’s deposed leader and democracy champion won the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, at a time when she was under house arrest as part of a crackdown by the country’s military leadership on the pro-democracy opposition.

Honoured “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights”, Suu Kyi feared she would not be allowed to return to Myanmar if she travelled to Oslo.

She was instead represented at the 1991 prize ceremony by her two sons and her husband, who accepted the award on her behalf. Symbolically, an empty chair was placed on the stage to mark her absence.

She gave her traditional Nobel lecture in 2012, after being freed in 2010 and going on to lead her country.

Suu Kyi was again detained after the generals seized power in February 2021. In 2022 she was jailed for a total of 33 years, a term later partially reduced by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

2010: Liu Xiaobo, China

The jailed Chinese dissident won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.

He was serving an 11-year jail sentence for subversion.

Honoured “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China”, Liu’s chair was symbolically left empty and no award was handed out.

His wife, Liu Xia, was placed under house arrest after the prize was announced and his three brothers were blocked from leaving China.

He died in July 2017 of liver cancer in a Chinese hospital at the age of 61, after being transferred there from prison, becoming the second Nobel laureate to die in captivity.

2022: Ales Bialiatski, Belarus

Belarusian rights campaigner Ales Bialiatski, who was jailed in July 2021, in 2022 shared the award with Russia’s Memorial group and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties for their work to document war crimes and rights abuse.

The head of Belarus’s most prominent rights group, Viasna has been at the forefront of attempts to chart the abuses of the regime of Belarusian strongman Alexander Lukashenko

He was arrested — after months of mass demonstrations over Lukashenko’s rule — on charges of tax evasion, a move seen by fellow dissidents as a thinly veiled attempt to silence him.

He was represented by his wife, Natalia Pinchuk.

He was sentenced in March to 10 years in jail. Other members of Viasna were also handed jail terms.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File picture of Iranian human rights activist Narges Mohammadi
| Photo Credit: via Reuters

The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Iranian women’s rights advocate Narges Mohammadi will further encourage her struggle and the movement she leads, her husband told Reuters on Friday.

“This Nobel Prize will embolden Narges’ fight for human rights, but more importantly, this is in fact a prize for the woman, life and freedom (movement),” Mohammadi’s husband Taghi Ramahi said in an interview at his home in Paris.

Ms. Mohammadi, an Iranian women’s rights advocate serving some 12 years in jail, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a decision likely to anger Tehran.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee, which decides the annual award, urged Iran to release Ms. Mohammadi, one of the nation’s leading activists who has campaigned for both women’s rights and the abolition of the death penalty.

New Delhi:

Mahatma Gandhi was nominated several times but was never awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. On the eve of his 154th birth anniversary, the Nobel Prize panel explained why Mohandas Gandhi, who became the symbol of non-violence in the 20th century, was never awarded the prize.

He was nominated in 1937, 1938, 1939, 1947 and, finally, a few days before he was assassinated in January 1948. Failure to give the prize to Mahatma Gandhi before his death in 1948 is also seen by many as a mistake.

“There are many causes that I am prepared to die for but no causes that I am prepared to kill for.”

Remembering Mahatma Gandhi the evening before his 154th birthday. Gandhi was nominated for the #NobelPeacePrize on 12 occasions.

Read more: https://t.co/Q3cniIiZG9pic.twitter.com/bwu4CnOP72

— The Nobel Prize (@NobelPrize) October 1, 2023

In 1937, a member of the Norwegian parliament Ole Colbjornsen nominated him and he was selected as one of the thirteen candidates.

Some of his critics on the panel maintained that Gandhi was not consistently pacifist and that some of his non-violent campaigns against the British would degenerate into violence and terror. They cited the example of the first Non-Cooperation Movement in 1920-21 when a crowd killed many policemen and set fire to a police station in Chauri Chaura in the Gorakhpur district of the United Provinces in British India.

Some, according to the panel, were of the view that his ideals were primarily Indian and not universal. The Nobel committee’s adviser Jacob S Worm-Muller said, “One might say that it is significant that his well-known struggle in South Africa was on behalf of the Indians only, and not of the blacks whose living conditions were even worse.”

Lord Cecil of Chelwood was the laureate of the 1937 award. Mahatma Gandhi was renominated by Colbjornsen again in 1938 and in 1939 but ten years were to pass before Gandhi made the short list again.

In 1947, Mohandas Gandhi was one of the six names on the committee’s short list.

However, three of the five members were very reluctant to award the prize to Gandhi amid the India-Pakistan struggle. The 1947 award went to the Quakers.

Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on January 30 1948, two days before the closing date for that year’s Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Six letters of nomination were sent to the committee – some nominators were former laureates.

But nobody had ever been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously. According to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation in force at that time, the prizes, under certain circumstances, be awarded posthumously.

The then Director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute, August Schou, asked the Swedish prize-awarding institutions for their opinion. The answers were negative as they thought the posthumous awards should not take place unless the laureate died after the committee’s decision had been made.

That year there was no award as the Norwegian Nobel Committee felt “there was no suitable living candidate”.

What many thought should have been Mahatma Gandhi’s place on the list of Laureates was silently but respectfully left open.

Moreover, up to 1960, the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded almost exclusively to Europeans and Americans.

The panel explained that Gandhi was very different from earlier laureates. “He was no real politician or proponent of international law, not primarily a humanitarian relief worker and not an organiser of international peace congresses. He would have belonged to a new breed of Laureates,” it said.