Serajul Islam Quadir: Yunus made to pay for helping the poor

For millions of Bangladeshis, Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, below, is a hero whose bank helped them escape poverty through small loans. But for a prime minister apparently furious at his pretensions to power, he is nothing short of a villain.

Premier Sheikh Hasina's government seems to be waging a campaign to discredit the 70-year-old financier, whose crime appears to have been considering setting up a political party to rival Mr Hasina's Awami League in 2007.

Mr Yunus's troubles started after the government pounced on a Norwegian TV documentary that alleged financial irregularities at his Grameen Bank. Mr Yunus denied any wrongdoing and an investigation by the Norwegian government later showed the allegations were false.

But Mr Hasina derided Mr Yunus as "bloodsucker of the poor" and the Bangladesh media vilified him.

The finance minister demanded Mr Yunus quit the bank he founded 30 years ago and, this week, the central bank removed him as managing director of Grameen - a decision is he contesting in court. Mr Yunus founded Grameen Bank, which has made more than $10.2 billion (6.2bn) in loans to poor Bangladeshis, providing a lifeline for millions and a banking model that has been copied in more than 100 nations from the US to Uganda.

But critics in Bangladesh and other countries, including India, say microlenders charge excessive rates and make money out of the poor.

Mr Yunus's philosophy was to help the poor help themselves, and he has admitted to not giving money to beggars.

"I feel bad - sometimes I feel terrible - that I'm denying the person. But I restrain myself. I never give them (anything]," Mr Yunus said several years ago.

The economics professor, who along with his bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize, has been trying to solve the problem of poverty since 1976, when he loaned the equivalent of $27 (16) to 42 women in a village near his home in Chittagong. Grameen, which means village in Bengali, now disburses tens of millions of pounds a month to 6.6 million borrowers, almost all women.

With the Nobel prize came fame, international invitations and awards - but the frequent trips drew government criticism. But it was his shortlived bid to found a party in 2007 - when Bangladesh was under interim military rule - that appears to have put him on the wrong side of the authorities. He stepped back from the idea, but even thinking it seems a crime now.