Muhammad Yunus | The banker who fought Sheikh Hasina Premium

Nobel Laureate Dr. Muhammad Yunus to lead interim government in Bangladesh amid political turmoil and legal challenges.

Filling the leadership vacuum in Bangladesh, albeit temporarily, Nobel Laureate and economist Muhammad Yunus has taken oath as head of the interim government. The 84-year-old microfinance pioneer will head the government until fresh polls are held. The parliament has already been dissolved by the nation’s president Mohammed Shahabuddin.

“If action is needed in Bangladesh, for my country and for the courage of my people, then I will take it,” Mr.Yunus said on Tuesday, a day after Ms. Hasina resigned and left the country.. He was called on by student coordinators of the Anti-Discrimination Student Movement to head the interim government.

“In Dr. Yunus, we trust,” wrote Asif Mahmud, a key leader of the Students Against Discrimination (SAD) group, in a Facebook post, echoing the widespread acceptability Mr. Yunus has in Bangladesh’s fractious polity.

Born on June 28, 1940, in Chittagong, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), Muhammad Yunus, the third of nine children, completed his primary education Lamabazar Primary School and then Chittagong Collegiate School. After completing both B.A. and M.A. in Economics from Dhaka University, he started his teaching career as a lecturer in the same university in 1961. Obtaining a PhD in economics from Vanderbilt University, Dr. Yunus began his tenure as an assistant professor of economics at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, U.S., in 1969.

As war ravaged his homeland’s struggle for liberation from Pakistan, Dr. Yunus lobbied the U.S. Congress to stop military aid to Pakistan. He also helped raise support for the Liberation movement by running a Bangladesh Information Center in Washington DC, a Citizen’s Committee in Nashville, Tenessee and published the Bangladesh Newsletter.

With the birth of Bangladesh, he returned home, joining the Economics Department of University of Chittagong in 1972. As the newly-separated Bangladesh suffered a famine in 1974, he forayed into rural economics, introducing the Nabajug Tebhaga Khamar to study economic aspects of poverty and urged his students to lend a hand to farmers in fields. In his visits to farming households in Chittagong’s Jobra region, he realised the necessity and effectiveness of small loans to women bamboo furniture makers, freeing them from claws of loan sharks. Initiating the first ‘small loan’, Dr. Yunus lent $27 to 42 families in Jobra to manufacture their items for sale.

This idea gave birth to microfinance in 1976, where Dr. Yunus offered himself as the guarantor and secured a credit line from Janata Bank to lend small loans to Jobra residents. In 1983, Grameen Bank was established, specialising on small loans, playing a pivotal role in eradicating poverty via micro-credit requiring no collateral. Over 100 nations, including India, have replicated this model. As of 2024, Grameen Bank has 2,568 branches across 81,678 villages with 10.61 million borrowers.