Bangladesh in recent months has witnessed political turmoil ahead of the 12th parliamentary polls on January 7, 2024. In a significant development on January 1, a Bangladesh labour court sentenced Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus and three of his colleagues of the Grameen Telecom to six months in jail for violating the country’s labour law. The Grameen Telecom is one of the several firms set up by Yunus. He and his colleagues were convicted for failing to create a workers’ welfare fund as per provision of Bangladesh’s labour law. However, the court granted bail giving him 30 days to appeal against the verdict and sentence.
In another major development on February 1, Bangladesh’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) submitted a fresh charge sheet against Yunus and 13 others accusing them of misappropriating Tk25.22 crore of Grammen Telecom Workers’ Profit Participation Fund. Yunus is the chairman of Grameen Telecom. The ACC said the proceedings against Yunus were initiated based on complaints against him by the department of inspection for factories and establishments after a long investigation. Bangladesh’s Law Minister also rejected allegations of harassing Yunus, saying the government did not fabricate any false cases against him.
According to reports, in August 2023, 18 former Grameen Telecom employees filed a case against Yunus, accusing him of siphoning off job benefits. Yunus and 13 others were also named in a case registered by the ACC accusing them of laundering money from Grameen Telecom. He is also facing several other charges relating to labour law and misappropriation of money. However, after a recent court appearance for the hearing, Yunus rejected the claim of profiting from Grameen Telecom or any of the more than 50 social benefit firms he established in Bangladesh.
Yunus shot into fame for pioneering the use of microcredit to help impoverished people of Bangladesh. He is considered as politically influential in a country which had gone to polls without the participation of the major opposition party, Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). The development assumes significance as the labour court delivered the verdict against the Novel laureate just six days prior to the crucial parliamentary election. Newly-elected Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on January 8 distanced herself from the sentencing of the 83 year-old economist who established the Grammen Telecom as a non-profit organsation.
However, the issue has divided the public opinion and generated much controversy both within and beyond Bangladesh. Critics of Prime Minister Hasina allege that Yunus’s case is her government’s reprisal towards the internationally renowned person, while others see this as a pure legal case. Some quarters’ perception is that the case is part of an electoral agenda given the strained relationship between the noted micro financier and the ruling Awami League (AL). The Hasina government is blamed for trying to “throttle opposition” voices and the verdict against him is seen as another illustration of “erosion of freedoms” and an attempt to “silence government’s critics”.
The supporters of Yunus, human rights groups and activists have called the verdict “politically motivated”. They insist that the court hurriedly convicted the prominent economist in a country where labour cases proceed at snail’s pace. But the court delivered the sentence before the election as Yunus is perceived by the AL leadership as a political rival of Prime Minister Hasina. While reacting to the sentencing of Yunus, the Amnesty International has remarked that the “conviction of Ynus is emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh, where the authorities have eroded freedoms and bulldozed critics into submission”.
Bangladeshi intelligentsia is divided along ideological lines and the January 7 election marred by violent street protests and relentless crackdown on BNP leaders and activists has only sharpened the cleavages in the polity. The seemingly unending feuds between the AL and the BNP have made the country’s electoral politics more volatile. The legal counsels of Yunus have called the Grameen Telecom case “meritless, false and ill-motivated” and designed to “harass and humiliate him before the global community”. While some pro-government academicians argue that the case was filed by the workers of Grameen Telecom and there is no politics in court ruling, a report in one of Bangladesh’s premier English daily said the labour case was filed by the government.
A section of Bangladesh’s academic community views the case as part of vilification drive against Yunus. The case is also to be seen against the backdrop of Bangladesh’s prevailing political culture. Political battles in the Bengali nation are being fought on the zero-sum game format. Bangladesh is a politicised society where the ruling party totally dominates all branches of the government, including judiciary. The Hasina government launched a series of investigations against Yunus after coming to power in 2009. In his prolonged efforts to settle disputes with the AL government, Yunus often made scatting attacks against the government for paving the way for the “destruction” of the micro-lending bank he founded.
Prime Minister Hasina once termed Yunus a “bloodsucker” and accused him of resorting to force to recover loans from rural women as head of the Grameen Bank. Yunus established the Grameen Bank in 1983. He and his micro credit organisation won the Novel Peace Prize in 2006 for the instrumental role in the eradication of poverty in Bangladesh. Yunus had earned international fame for the application of innovative methods to help rural households in a poverty stricken country like Bangladesh.
The Novel laureate’s popularity among ordinary Bangladeshis for years have been perceived as a potential threat to Prime Minister Hasina. The row between Yunus and the AL government has been persisting for long. Another reason for targeting Yunus by the incumbent government is the acquisition that he was responsible for the cancellation of the World Bank funds for the mega Padma Multipurpose Bridge Project. The government derived political mileage out of the acquisition even though it could not be proved. Reports say in August 2023, about 176 Novel laureates, including former United States (US) President Barack Obama, wrote a letter to the Hssina government over “continuous judicial harassment” of Yunus. They requested the government to withdraw the cases against him but that did not evoke positive response from Hasina.
Yunus is perceived by the ruling AL as the part of the depoliticisation process initiated on January 11, 2007, through which a Bangladesh military-backed caretaker government assumed charge on the eve of general election. Some Bangladesh watchers maintain that the AL is apprehensive regarding the restoration of interim government after the 2007-08 experience, when the caretaker government extended its mandate of organising a free and fair poll within 90 days and adopted a so-called “Minus Two Plus One” formula. The AL leaders allege that it was designed to effect a major change in Bangladesh’s political setting by removing the two most powerful women leaders, Sheikh Hasina of AL and Khaleda Zia of BNP, and put Yunus in power through backdoor.
As per reports, Yunus was the prime choice for the prime minister’s post of the “Minus Two” participants. He was offered the position of the chief adviser to the caretaker government, but he did not accept it. In 2007, Yunus planned to form a political party and organised public meeting. But finally, Yunus had restrained himself from executing the plan even though he criticised Bangladeshi politicians, alleging they were only interested in making money. The Grameen Telecom case apparently may look like a single labour case, but it is being perceived as part of a “witch hunt” and reflects a lot about the unstable political situation persisting in Bangladesh.
Dr Rupak Bhattacharjee is an independent public and foreign policy analyst. He can be reached at [email protected].