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 Lamabazar Primary School and then Chittagong Collegiate School. After completing both B.A. and 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’s struggle 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 DC, a Citizen’s Committee in Nashville, Tenessee and published the Bangladesh Newsletter.

With the birth of Bangladesh, he returned home, joining the Economics Department of 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 birth 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, Grameen Bank was established, specialising on small loans, 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 woes 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 imposition of a state of emergency in Bangladesh. With both Khaleda Zia and Kheikh Hasin incarcerated by the military-backed government for 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 taking 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 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 as of 2023 by the Hasina government.

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 the then-PM to pardon him.

Within six months, chaos and violence was unleashed in Bangladesh due to anti-quota protests, leading stringent crackdown by police. As student protestors sought one single demand – 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.

Bangladesh President Mohammed Shahabuddin (left) administers the oath of office to Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus as the leader of the country’s interim government at a ceremony in Dhaka on August 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

A 14-member interim government in Bangladesh, under the leadership of Noble Laureate Muhammad Yunus, was sworn in on Thursday (August 7, 2024), three days after Sheikh Hasina stepped down as Prime Minister and left the the country after mass protests.

Bangladesh crisis live updates – August 8, 2024

President Mohammad Shahabuddin administered the oath to the 84-year-old as the Chief Adviser of the interim government, and the Cabinet members at 9:20 p.m. local time at a ceremony held in Bangabhaban, the official residence of the President.

Military officers, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) secretary-general Mirza Fakhrul Islam, Jamaat-e-Islami amir Shafiqur Rahman, Jatiya Party chairman Ghulam Muhammed Quader as well as foreign diplomats from the U.K., Japan, China, the Philippines, Iran, Argentina, Qatar, the UAE and the Netherlands were present at the ceremony.

No one from the Awami League, Ms. Hasina’s party, was seen at Bangabhaban.

After Mr. Yunus, 13 out of the 16 advisers of the interim government were sworn in. The Cabinet members are: Saleh Uddin Ahmed, Asif Nazrul, Adilur Rahman Khan, Hasan Arif, Tauhid Hossain, Syeda Rizwana Hasan, Brig. Gen. (Retd) M. Sakhawat Hossain, Supradip Chakma, Farida Akhtar, Bidhan Ranjan Roy, A.F.M. Khalid Hossain, Nurjahan Begum, Sharmin Murshid, Md. Nahid Islam (students’ representative), Asif Mahmud Sajib Bhuiyan (students’ representative) and Farooqui Azam.

As Gonobhaban, the Prime Minister’s Office and official residence, remains in shambles after protesters stormed it following the resignation of Ms. Hasina, the state guesthouse Jamuna will be the office and residence of the Chief Adviser.

Sources said a committee will be formed to assess the damage to these two important installations, and renovation will begin soon afterwards.

Earlier in the day, after landing in Dhaka from a trip to France, Mr. Yunus gave an emotional speech, recalling the sacrifices made by students who were met with a heavy-handed response from the Ms. Hasina-led government.

In his speech, he addressed the people of Bangladesh as “one big family” and said the young protesters had given them a “new birth”. However, he condemned the recent violence directed against the country’s religious minorities.

“My first word to you is to protect the country from disorder. Protect it from violence so we can follow the path our students have shown us,” he said.

Restoring stability and stopping anarchy have become immediate priorities as attacks, looting and destructive activities persisted on Thursday in many part of the country, in the absence of government and enforcement agencies.

However, the Bangladesh Army, alongside other law enforcement agencies, said they would take strict action to stop the ongoing attacks across the country.

Following the newly appointed Inspector-General of Police’s call to return to duty within 24 hours, some police personnel have started to report back, but many others are waiting for security assurances before returning to their posts. Many force members are fearful of further violent reprisals from the public after having opened fire on protesters and the general public under the Hasina regime.

Shamsus Sadat Selim, Additional Secretary at the Ministry of Public Administration, confirmed that all contractual appointments of officials made during the tenure of the recently ousted Awami League government are set to be cancelled. Also, there is a growing demand to remove other officials who benefited from the last government’s tenure from key positions.

Meanwhile, during a regular briefing in Washington on Wednesday, Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department Spokesperson, said the U.S. believes the interim government should respect democratic principles, the rule of law, and the will of the Bangladeshi people. Mr. Miller also mentioned that they think the interim government will play a vital role in establishing long-term peace and political stability in Bangladesh.