Real cause of Yunus-Hasina conflict

Dr. Mainul Islam: There is a misconception in the minds of the people of the country that Hasina became hostile to Professor Yunus for his failed attempt to form a political party in 2007 and his role behind the ‘minus two formula’ of the military.
But in fact, Hasina’s fierce anger and persecution against Professor Yunus started from 1997. I know the truth as a close friend of Prof. Yunus since 1958. I want to tell the truth to the nation in the breast column. Since the dictator Sheikh Hasina had to resign from the post of Prime Minister in the historical mass coup on August 5 and fled the country with her sister Rehana in fear of her life, now I hope that there will be no more obstacles in revealing the truth.
In 1997, I heard the story of how the relationship between the two started to deteriorate, narrated by Professor Yunus himself in 1999. Until 1997, the relationship between Sheikh Hasina and Professor Yunus was very cordial. Sheikh Hasina was a big fan of Professor Yunus’s microfinance model. In 1996, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina enthusiastically gave Grameenphone license to Professor Yunus in a single meeting over tea and breakfast. She even let Professor Yunus use the railway’s underground-cable network for a nominal fee, enabling Grameenphone to expand its network across the country at low cost. In 1997, Professor Yunus gave Sheikh Hasina the rare honor of opening the World Micro-Credit Summit in Washington DC. The joint convenors of the summit were Queen Sofia of Spain and the ‘First Lady of the United States’ Hillary Clinton, the wife of then US President Bill Clinton. Therefore, President Bill Clinton was also present at the opening ceremony of the summit. (Professor Yunus Clinton has been a close friend of the couple since the eighties, when Bill Clinton was the governor of Arkansas state. Governor Bill Clinton successfully introduced Professor Yunus’s microcredit model in Arkansas, the poorest state in the United States. She has since become a big fan of Professor Yunus. Whenever she gets a chance, she would say , ‘Yunus Should Get Nobel Prize for This’). After the opening ceremony of the summit, at one stage of the discussion at the coffee-break, Bill Clinton surprised everyone after Bill Clinton said the above in his natural manner, ‘You know me. President, My Father Was The First Person Who Introduced Microcredit.’ Needless to say, the term ‘microcredit’ was not introduced in development thought before Professor Yunus’ model became widely known in the world. So, hearing Sheikh Hasina’s words, everyone including Bill Clinton was silent. Sheikh Hasina may have been angry at such silence. But the discussion on that matter has not progressed.
I heard the next incident from Professor Yunus. In 1999, President Clinton’s wife came to Bangladesh. As many may remember, President Clinton’s program to take them to a village in Bangladesh was canceled due to security issues during that visit. Instead, arrangements were made for a few institutions including Grameen Bank and BRAC to give an exhibition of their activities at the US Embassy in Dhaka, which was attended by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. After the exhibition, when everyone went for a coffee break, while drinking coffee, President Clinton suddenly uttered his characteristic words again, “Younus should get Nobel Prize for this.” This time, Sheikh Hasina replied, “You know me.” President, The Bangladesh Government Should Get Nobel Peace Prize, Because We Have Recently Signed The Hysteric Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Treaty With The Shanti Bahini. But this time Sheikh Hasina could not hide her anger. She said to a party leader or official who was next to her in a somewhat loud voice, “he (Yunus) needs to be sized.” Therefore, very soon the matter became known in the civil society of Dhaka. I was then working on deputation as Director General of Bangladesh Institute of Bank Management (BIBM), and late Professor Muzaffar Ahmad of Dhaka University was a member of the Board of Directors of BIBM. Two or three days after the incident, he came to my office and told me, ‘Mainul, you are very close to Yunus. Ask him what happened to the Prime Minister? Did the Prime Minister say “Ina should be sized”? Immediately I picked up the phone and asked Professor Yunus, “Majo Bhai, why did the Prime Minister say “Ina should be sized”? (His younger brother Ayub is my close friend.) Professor Yunus is called Mezzo Bhai, so I also call him Mezzo Bhai). He said, ‘Who did you hear from?’ When I spoke about Professor Muzaffar, he told me the above two incidents over the phone and said, ‘What was my fault in these two incidents?’
The incident did not stop there. The former governor of Bangladesh Bank was very angry with Professor Yunus for a personal reason. Farasuddin Seizing the opportunity to please Sheikh Hasina, she sent an audit team from Bangladesh Bank to Grameen Bank, which team found 27 audit objections against Grameen Bank. The most significant objection in the audit report was regarding Prof. Yunus’ performance of duties despite being over 60 years of age. (When Professor Yunus wanted to retire after receiving that audit report, the then Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grameen Bank, Prof. Rehman Sobhan, dissuaded him by saying ‘It is not applicable to you, you are the founder of Grameen Bank’).
The Awami League lost power in the 2001 election within a few days after discussions between Grameen Bank and Bangladesh Bank began over the objections. After the BNP-Jamaat alliance came to power in 2001, Fakhruddinbecame the governor of Bangladesh Bank. Within a short time, all objections were settled. In 2006, Professor Yunus won the Nobel Prize. Then came the events of 2007. When Sheikh Hasina returned to power in 2009, she again raised the issue of age. This time Dr. Deepal Barua and Mozammel Haque, two former high-ranking personalities of Grameen Bank, Advocate Tawfiq Newaz and journalist Naemul Islam Khan joined Farasuddin for personal reasons.
Professor Yunus retired from Grameen Bank in 2011. His legal battle began, which he lost. During the protracted dispute with Hasina, Professor Yunus sent an e-mail to Hillary Clinton requesting the use of her goodwill to resolve the dispute with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Hasina leaked that e-mail to newspapers and magazines. For 14 long years from 2010 to 2024, steps have been taken one after another in the fire of Hasina’s outrage and vengeance to upset the life of Professor Yunus. Hasina has shown this vindictiveness unilaterally, Yunus has only tolerated it. The world has seen how Hasina’s outrage made the life of Professor Yunus unbearable for 14 years!
In fact, we the people of Bangladesh are the most affected by their dispute. Professor Yunus is now 84 years old. At the end of his life, on August 8, he assumed the role of chief adviser to the interim government. I pray to Allah, that Professor Yunus may continue to serve the nation and mankind with his unparalleled innovative and organizational abilities for a few more years.
Author: Former Professor, University of Chittagong