“Ai deshe bhalo manusher daam nai” (no country for good folks), is one of those staples of the Bangla language. We’ve all heard it, surely also said it, at times it rang so true, while at other times you knew it was just an excuse. It’s one of those that gets used to the point of being abused, till its essence is lost and the condition to which it speaks is so obvious that it’s mundane. Well far be it for me to suggest a man and his life’s work are the same, but with the cabinet’s approval of the Grameen Bank Act 2013, Bangladesh is a step closer to establishing another essential truism about what goes on here: “Ekhane bhalo kaajero daam nai” (no country for good work, either).
It’s really the only conclusion that lends itself to the government’s persistence, over the better part of its term, in dismantling three decades’ worth of path-breaking work by an institution that is universally admired, widely studied and – rarely for a Bangladeshi entity – even emulated.
Meanwhile, at home, it has stood not just as a source of pride, but also of opportunity, of inspiration, a bit of hope, giving a leg-up to those who really need one, and 8.4 million souls can tell you how badly. Judging by the public pronouncements of the elected directors of the bank representing them, they’ve not been happy at all with the government’s campaign of hate against a man they all look up to – the founder of Grameen Bank, and for all intents and purposes the most famous Bangladeshi in the world, Professor Muhammad Yunus.
How that came about hardly needs retelling. I’m sure we can all recall the venerable professor’s brief, unconvincing foray into the political domain back in 2007, that never looked like it was going anywhere. It was like the apple of some mother’s eye had somehow wandered into the gangsters’ den, and the only door he managed to find was the exit. The entire episode was over really, almost before it had started.
You’d be forgiven for thinking no one took much offence. No one could have thought back then, or even two years later when the gangsters were back in control of their home turf, that one day he would have to pay such a heavy price for trespassing.
Nevertheless, when the new boss in town unleashed her goons to chase him down, to harass him and defame him and eventually depose him from the organisation that had been for over thirty years his reason for getting out of bed every morning, somehow we understood this vile and vindictive behaviour on the part of our prime minister. That old saying mentioned at the start proved helpful. By devoting his life to the eradication of poverty, Professor Yunus was engaging in far too much of that good stuff. That really is what was most offensive about him. Some say he was all set to eclipse our Father even, in terms of his stature and overall impact on humanity. All the more reason then, to make an example out of him. They could have left it at that.
But in this matter, our usually inept politicians suddenly found a flair for thoroughness. In order to completely demean this nauseatingly upright man before present and future generations, they had to get at his legacy as well, something that was ensured by the sheer pre-eminence, at a global level, of Grameen Bank as a microfinance institution. That the bank was all set to continue its good work even without its inspirational leader, was a reflection of how far it had come. As he had carried it from infancy through to maturity, now it would carry him, and his name, guaranteeing its place in posterity.
Again, that simply wouldn’t do, for the cabal set on destroying him. The Grameen Bank Act 2013 is merely part of the final act in what has been a most distasteful tragedy. Among other impediments, it places this cherished institution of the people under direct supervision of the Bangladesh Bank. A three-year term limit for elected directors seems designed to ease out dissenting voices such as Tahsina Khatun, who in her reaction to the bill passed by the cabinet lamented: “The bank has lost its freedom.” You know what she’s getting at. Yet the feeling lingers, that in the government’s disgraceful treatment of the only bank in the world to have won the Nobel Prize, alongside the sustained vilification of the man whose dream it fulfilled, this country has lost much more.