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An Open Letter to Professor Muhammad Yunus
Published on June 12, 2005 Dear Professor Yunus: You are so famous both within and outside Bangladesh that I do not have to specify which “Professor Yunus” I am writing to. Whether one likes it or not, by now micro-credit has gained wide publicity and admiration and your name is closely associated with the concept as the founder of the Grameen Bank. Your admirers, local academics, professionals, journalists and members of the civil society and overseas celebrities like the Clintons and Queen Sofia among many others, have surrounded your image with such a halo that it is almost a blasphemy to raise any doubt about the efficacy of micro-credit, let alone criticize the concept and its proponent. Excepting a handful of professionals, academics, journalists and those having strong reservations about NGOs, very few have openly questioned the veracity of your claim that micro-credit alone will alleviate and eventually eradicate poverty once for all. However, as you know, I am one of the bitter critics of the NGO business and micro-credit as the panacea for the affliction of poverty. I simply do not believe that unaccountable and corrupt NGOs can be better alternatives to corrupt, inefficient and unaccountable governments. While bad governance leads to chaos, an emasculated government most certainly leads to anarchy. This open letter is in response to your recent assertion, albeit a wishful one, that if you could become the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission in Bangladesh you would have drastically diminished the level and extent of corruption in the country, consecutively, the most corrupt for the last three years. To be honest Professor Yunus, your recent flamboyantly narcissist speech, widely circulated in the media, is shocking and disappointing. What is even more disappointing (but not surprising at all) is the total silence of the civil society with regard to your condescending speech. Sadly, as many Bangladeshi intellectuals directly or indirectly are beneficiaries of the mega NGOs, including the Grameen Bank, they prefer remaining discreet to “unnecessarily” rocking the boat or killing the golden goose. Since nobody has yet publicly questioned, let alone criticized you, for your yet another oversimplification of complexities (the first one was selling micro-credit as the panacea for the scourge of poverty), I am taking the unpleasant job of disagreeing with you. I hope you will not consider this letter offensive as unlike many hypocritical beneficiaries of NGOs, I always use unkind words for the mega NGOs through my writings and elocution. I have been consistently opposing the half-baked theories of poverty alleviation through micro-credit, empowerment of the poor, especially women, through NGOs, establishment of the rule of law and democracy and elimination of corruption or acceleration of economic growth in Bangladesh through methods and means as suggested by the World Bank and the IMF. Had the emerging tigers and dragons of East Asia followed the counter-productive suggestions of the World Bank and the IMF, by now countries like Singapore and Malaysia would have at best reached the level of Sri Lanka. After going through the published versions of your over-simplified speech on how to eliminate corruption in Bangladesh, I am convinced that you are even more out of touch with the reality than the World Bank and IMF vis-à-vis corruption and the process of its elimination in the country. Before I totally demolish your outlandish corruption elimination theory, I make it absolutely clear that I am not enjoying doing this at all. Knowing you personally since my Chittagong University days as a colleague in the early 1970s, I admire your honesty, integrity and patriotism. Let us simply agree to disagree at worst, while I keep my fingers crossed hoping that you would drastically modify your views on the methods of fighting corruption and eliminating poverty, once for all. I have difficulties in believing that you are really “jealous of Justice Sultan Hossain Khan when his name was announced as the chairman [of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Bangladesh].” Do you really believe that: “ In a country that tops the list of corrupt countries in the world, it’s so easy to catch the perpetrators of corruption”? This is really unbelievable, as you have asserted: “All that the Commission needs to do is to lie with its mouth wide open, and all the corrupt would drop into that mouth, one by one.” While it is heartening that you would have simply crushed corruption if you could become the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission, it is very disheartening that: a) you have earmarked only the various government departments (only civilians) as the main agents of corruption, leaving aside politicians, businessmen, bank defaulters, NGO-Wallas, industrialists and others unmarked; and that b) you would spend eighty per cent of the resources of the Commission to prevent corruption through the “Present” and “Future” Departments and only twenty per cent on the past perpetuators of corruption. Don’t you think it is high time that all the corrupt civil and military bureaucrats, businessmen, politicians and others should be arrested and tried (even posthumously) for adopting corruption, at least since 1972? I think their properties should be confiscated and they should spend decades as “third class” prisoners, irrespective of their socio-economic standing. Unless past offenders are tried and punished, present and future offenders would remain unperturbed and defiant. You would like to keep the Commission corruption free. I would like to congratulate you for this noble intention. However, the reality is such that you would be a helpless swimmer in the ocean of corruption, eventually to drown and die unlamented. Your close associates would call you a stupid and an idiot, “who despite having the opportunity to make a fortune remained honest and died a pauper.” Don’t you know Professor Yunus that the average Bangladeshi rich and powerful, poor and helpless, educated and others believe in the maxim: “Churi bidya baro bidya, jadi na paro dhara” [Stealing is a big art provided you do not get caught red handed]? And they also know that only the pilferers and pick pockets are caught red handed and punished while the big thugs involved in the purchase of civil and military hardware and disbursement of foreign aid and grants as ministers, bureaucrats and NGO-Wallas not only remain unpunished but glorified as patriots and as “the only honest person among his/her peers”. I am surprised at your total indifference to the prevalent culture that glorifies, justifies and legitimises corruption. It is amazing that being an economist of international repute and I assume, stature, you have not mentioned the economic dimension, “the mother of all corruption”, in Bangladesh. If we take the year 1966 as our index (the year when East Bengalis for the first time collectively asserted their demand for provincial autonomy and the end of West Pakistani exploitation), we find out that what one could buy then with one rupee (Taka), needs the equivalent of 100 today. While one could buy a Tola (about eleven grams) of gold at Taka 100 in 1966, needs Taka 10,000 to buy the same quantity of gold today. This roughly means that there has been 10,000 per cent inflation during the last thirty-nine years. Correspondingly, if we want to maintain the status quo in the purchasing power of the average consumer, say a clerk who earned around Taka 300 per month in 1966 should get Taka 30,000 today. As you know Professor Yunus, today the highest paid government servant draws less than 30,000 Taka as his/her gross salary. Consequently pointing fingers at government officials – petty clerks, police constables and inspectors, customs or taxation department officials – is grossly inappropriate and unjust while politicians, high civil and military officials, businessmen, industrialists and the ubiquitous NGO-Wallas and “respectable” members of the civil society having connections with the powerful donor agencies are robbing the country right and left, with impunity and immunity. It is really frustrating to read your speech Professor Yunus as you want to eliminate corruption, or at least bring down the level of corruption in Bangladesh from number one in the world to one of the bottom three in the SAARC region by merely becoming the chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission. Do you think that the Chairman of the Commission can touch the most corrupt elements in society – politicians, high civil and military officials, tax evading traders and Garment-Wallas, bank defaulters and mega NGO-Wallas or the sacred cows of the Western donor agencies? If you think so, then I am afraid; you are really detached from the reality a la the typical absent-minded professor. As an international personality you should know better than the laymen that the Western donors love countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, Nigeria and other corrupt countries in the Third World. They hate to see too many Singapores and Malaysias (or even an assertive Zimbabwe for curbing the interests of rich White farmers). In a society, rather an extended peasant community like Bangladesh, which sustains on the patron-client relationship, even the most powerful president or prime minister cannot contain corruption, let alone the Chairman of the Commission, whether it is Justice Khan or Professor Yunus. Despite your hyperboles and over-simplified platitudes, such as you would “terrorise” the corrupt elements in the “safari parks of corruption” and by introducing reward and prizes for the informers, mainly from the “Sufferers’ Association”, you would curb corruption by publishing the indexes of the most corrupt departments. You have also suggested that public exposures of corrupt officials would bring shame, which would work as an antidote to corruption. I wish you were right, but I am afraid, you sound like an absent- minded professor, totally detached from the reality in Bangladesh. You are right Professor Yunus that your ethics and reliance on the common people would be your most effective weapons against corruption, but you have not considered the fact how powerless and pessimistic the common people have turned into since 1971. They have tried almost all the political parties and ideologies – nationalism (both the “Bangali” and “Bangladeshi” variants), democracy, secularism, socialism, Islam, one-party BKSAL, military oligarchies and incompetent dynastic rule – and by now are reacting quite rationally, albeit in a nihilistic way. They simply do not trust any body, neither from their own ranks nor from the upper echelons, whom they identify as the most corrupt and opportunistic people. Consequently they have accepted corruption or dishonesty as the best policy. In the public psyche of Bangladesh today an honest police, custom or taxation officer is an aberration, a totally insensitive person having no love for his/her dependent family members. You are partially right that “corruption is born in the womb of policies”, but you have simply ignored the hard reality that a government official with a family having no other source of income – properties, business or support from rich relatives – just cannot survive with his salary. He/she has to formulate “policies” to survive. Yes, by resorting to corruption. If he/she decides to live within his/her means, then he/she has to forgo good food, clothing and education for the children. Since proper medical care is a luxury for the bulk of the population, and only the super rich can afford it in Bangladesh and abroad, let us not talk about it with regard to an honest government employee. I think it is time Professor Yunus that you give a second thought to what Professor Abul Barkat, a leading economist of Bangladesh, has been harping on quite for some time. Instead of identifying the corrupt government officials at the lower levels, he has been telling us how the rich and powerful in the country have robbed about seventy five per cent of the Taka 2,000 Billion Bangladesh received as foreign aid since 1972.This amounts to a staggering Taka 1500 billion or 1.5 trillion. The corrupt government officials, on the other hand, are getting Taka 160 million annually as bribe. If we multiply 160 million by 35 (years) then the total bribe money amounts to Taka 5.6 billion. And this is a highly exaggerated figure; as for the sake of an argument we are assuming that government officials are taking bribe at the rate of Taka 160 million every year since 1972. Please juxtapose Taka 1500 billion against Taka 5.6 billion to re-locate the “safari park of corruption” not in the government offices but in the living rooms of the rich and powerful Bangladeshis – politicians and “others” who receive and disburse foreign aid. Do you think the Chairman of the Anti-Corruption Commission has the power to take any action against the rich and powerful? In sum, the scope and definition of corruption is very wide. If bribe taking is a corrupt practice, those who bribe government officials to get certain undue advantages are also resorting to corruption. It is very disappointing that you have not raised your finger against the bank defaulters and tax evaders. Don’t you know the “most honest” person in Bangladesh normally does not pay any income tax? Don’t you think it amounts to corruption and high treason when NGO-Wallas take money from the donors at nominal or no interest and charge as high as 28 to 32 per cent interest from their clients? I am sorry; this has been my constant complaint against Grameen Bank and Proshika. I am a bit disappointed, as you have not said anything about the rampant corruption in the NGO sector. May I humbly ask, why? As Mao Ze Dong once said that the fish starts rotting in the head first, you should have emphasized how the heads of the monsters, the elite Ravanas of Bangladesh, are rotting first and infesting the whole society. Silence is not always golden Professor Yunus. Sadly, you have not mentioned the institutionalized corruption, such as allotting land and houses for clients and civil/military officials, for some unknown reason and justification, at nominal price either by expropriating the previous owners (peasants, Hindus or “Biharis”) anywhere in your long speech. Don’t you think what the Pakistani government started with Dhanmondi, Gulshan, Banani and the so-called Defence Housing Estates to favour select groups of civil and military elite was reminiscent of what European settlers did in the Americas, Australia and Israel? Don’t you think it is time that we consider the expropriation of the previous non-elite owners of land at Baridhara, Uttara and the various DOHS colonies after 1972 as illegal and extortionist by nature? I think unless you look at the micro and macro levels of corruption, which include state-sponsored “quiet violence” of robbing Paul to pay Peter, tax evasion, abusing foreign aid by lying to the donors or with their full knowledge by both the public and private (NGO) sectors, paying ridiculously low wages to workers (US 35 cents per day, not hour, to the average garment worker, for example) and squandering public money by ruling parties, there is no way out of the morass of corruption. I think you should de-emphasize bribery as the main domain of corruption in Bangladesh. A new discourse is essential to weed out corruption taking Singapore and Malaysia as our role models. I don’t think reducing the extent of corruption marginally by hitting hard the poor clerks and petty officials is not only counter-productive but also unethical. Please think about the remedy of the state-sponsored and government-backed corruption in collaboration with the rich and powerful. I hope this letter is not annoying as the whole purpose of this letter is not to annoy you at all but to draw your attention to the real issues vis-à-vis corruption. I am sure the average Bangladeshi, who is very emotional and gets a kick by emotive hyperboles, is very pleased with your speech. Hence the numerous citing of your speech in Bengali and English in the media. However, as I have not bought the concept of micro-credit as the panacea for the scourge of poverty and your claim that poverty would be only found in the museums in the 21st century (and I congratulate myself for not being wrong); I think your assumption that corruption can be contained and eliminated eventually by one individual in charge of the Anti-Corruption Commission is as lame as your theory of poverty elimination through micro-credit. Have a wonderful day.
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