Brand Grameen

While browsing through many 19+ channels on weekend night, one monotonic lecture initially grabbed my faint attention but after few minutes I was glued to television set for at least an hour. The platform was World Woman Forum and the man on the dais was Professor Muhammad Yunus. The only knowledge that I had about Prof. Yunus was that he had received Noble Prize for peace (2006) for his socio economic reforms in Bangladesh. It had always puzzled me how that guy having expertise in economics managed to get Peace award ( Noble Foundation  has a separate award in field of Economics).Speaking in plain, typical not so fluent, Asian English , he was addressing a large gathering of Women. His sentences were small but very meaningful and inspiring. He was talking about the initial hiccups, continuous dedicated efforts and eventually success of his Grameen Micro Finance movement. He narrated two incidents and they were enough to give clear insight of this great man and the reasons why he was selected for Peace prize and not in Economics.

For people like me who do not believe in going through long white papers, please find the main points of his address below.

• We need to change our mindset. The way Bangladeshi women have successfully done it and are inspiring other women, forcing corporate world and the Male world to rethink their notions is no magic but their own efforts.
• Poverty cannot be taken for granted for backwardness. In Grameen Bank movement, majority of the money (67 %) for lending come from the poor people. Collectively poverty can be fought in a better way.
• Illiteracy doesn’t stop you from going ahead. Prof Yunus says that majority of the rural population may be illiterate but they are not stupid. If proper platform is provided they can perform much better than the so called corporate world.
• Women Power cannot be matched. He says all the Grameen movement has been successful because majority of its volunteers (more than 80%) are Women. Once they are allowed to have decision making powers and challenge so called Male responsibilities, they can utilize resources in a much better way.

Now let me come to the two incidents and the point why he was given Peace prize (not Economics).

In the 80s, Prof. Yunus was fighting with all the banks with the accusation that they are not doing anything for Poor. In fact no bank was willing to lend money to poor people. This accusation didn’t bother capitalist banks, so Prof Yunus came with new strong accusation. He said that not only poor people, banks were also discriminating against Women. It hit bull’s eye. With data, he proved that more than 99%of the money that was lent was, given to Men. Moreover if a woman wanted to borrow money, banks made it mandatory for her to bring her husband. He questioned if men are not asked to bring their wives for approval for their loan why they have different rule for women. He says with our long male dominating society, these biases have become OKAY and acceptable. It is all about mind set. Men have forced it that Women cannot do it and Women who never got opportunity to excel economically don’t know how it works. Professor challenged this mindset and came with idea of Grameen Bank where he pledged to have at least 50% borrowers. Initially it was difficult for Prof Yunus and his students to motivate poor rural women to borrow money, but like many good things it also materialized after noble efforts. After analysis he could found that, the money borrowed by women is yielding better returns, both in monetary terms and more importantly in bringing social equality.

 

During one of the Bank Conferences, many corporate banks mocked of renaming Grameen Bank as Grameen Women Bank. Prof Yunus had a very simple answer. He told that he didn’t mind doing so but others need to change their bank name as A Men Bank, B Men Bank, etc. He told that only 87% of the borrowers were Women in his bank while more than 99% of the borrowers in other corporate banks were Men. So why double standards? Narrating this incident, he again emphasizes, we need to change our mindset. Somehow, in our mind we have got used to gender discrimination and everything that favors MEN is OK while if you talk about giving equal right to women it is seen as gender preference in our part of society.

The second incident is about their venture of Mobile Sector, now known as Grameen Phone. When Bangladeshi government was licensing frequency spectrum, Prof Yunus also applied for the same. The motive was to empower rural women with Mobile phones so that they can earn money from PCO. Moreover he wanted rural people to get benefits of Telecom revolution. When approached with his idea, the immediate response was no. No because officials believed that illiterate women could not handle modern devices.Prof Yunus convinced officials by saying that those rural women may be illiterate but are definitely not stupid. If using mobile phones can bring money to them, they can learn in 10 min. Moreover there cannot be 11^th digit for which they need to update themselves continuously. After several persuasions, he could extract one out of four licenses. That initiation not only helped in the uplifting the rural economic condition, but made rural people to play and exploit the technology for their success. After the success of Grameen phone, while attending one of the ceremonies in rural Bangladesh, just for curiosity, he asked the women there if they were facing any difficulty in handling mobile phones. One lady raised and told no problem at all. Same voice echoed by every one. Prof Yunus was surprised when another lady rose and challenged that he can make any call blind folded. If she could not call any given number, she said she will stop PCO business. Prof Yunus wished those government officials were to there who compared Illiteracy with stupidity. After narrating this incident, he said that he was not sharing that incident to show how correct he was. He was sharing because the incident had given him enough happiness and encouragement. Women then have not only realized their importance (which was not allowed by our society) but they have also got self confidence to believe in their unique qualities. They were ready to challenge anything and anyone.

The Noble Peace Prize that Prof Yunus was coveted with was not for his economic reforms, but for the Change – the Change in mindset that he has brought in Women, rural Bangladesh and the corporate world. With his vision, society may be still economically divided, but certainly, it is much peaceful and prosperous with rays of hope kindling everywhere.