The Hindu Business Line : Mega prize for micro banker

The man who "ran away from textbooks and classrooms," realising in the mid-1970s that the "grand economic theories" he taught at Chittagong University had no relevance to people's lives in the backdrop of the Bengal Famine, has finally been honoured with a Nobel. But, for Mr Muhammad Yunus, who has more than proved that poor women are bankable, and the Grameen Bank he created, the Nobel comes not for Economics, but for Peace. Mr Yunus was the first to concede it was an award for the millions of Bangladeshi village women who banded together with him and the bank, a recognition that has come not a day too soon.

For the development economist, the 30-year journey to prove that poor women are creditworthy has seen both bouquets and brickbats. Bouquets for touching the lives of 6.5 million women from Bangladesh's impoverished villages, even as requests poured in, including from the US and Europe, for replicating the Grameen model. Brickbats came in the form of questions on the high rate of interest charged, never mind that it was less than half or a third of that charged by moneylenders. Mullahs were opposed to Muslim women leaving their homes to attend meetings and committing an even bigger sin — earning more than their husbands. When the Grameen family grew to include telecom, power, textiles and a myriad other industries, the corporate sector protested at an uneven playing field vis-a-vis tax-breaks and other benefits that Grameen enjoyed.

But why the Nobel for Peace, and not Economics? Is it because tiny loans given to poor women do not fit in with grand theories of macroeconomics? Or has, as Mr Yunus says, he "annoyed and irritated economists" by arguing that small sums, and not grand things, are required to transform people's lives? In any case, micro-credit, pioneered and fine-tuned by Mr Yunus over three decades, is now firmly entrenched and poor, rural women are no longer considered unworthy of finance by all banks, as they were three decades ago. The former US President, Mr Bill Clinton, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Bank have all put their seals of approval on the concept.

By adding its gloss, the Nobel Foundation has not only brought a spring to the step of millions of Bangladeshi women empowered by the smell and touch of money, but has also reinforced the idea that lifting millions of people out of poverty will result in a more peaceful world. Not only is the new Laureate a Muslim, he hails from an Islamic nation; take that into account and the message is powerful enough in the troubled and terrorism-infested times we live in. Help people out of abysmal poverty and reap the peace dividend. A noble thought, indeed.

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