Analysis

The realm of Right ,Wrong & Greater good.

A couple of months back I read “creating a world without poverty. Social business and future of capitalism”, written by Dr. Muhammad Younis. I sank in the “feel good” world of the Dr. Younis. In the book he eloquently describes his approach to remove poverty from face of the Earth. Ambitious.

What I liked about the book is his way of looking at the social issues from Problem & Solution kind of approach,independent of established approaches.

For example as a established practice bank give loan to only credit worthy i.e. only rich. But Dr. Younis gave loan to the poor however small loan might be.

Other example like targeting women for loans, as women are more responsible (may be euphemism for “easy to scare and to persuade”. Ladies no need to get all worked up I am talking about illiterate women, who are getting access to money at lower rate then what landlords charge)

Going by the book, what I liked about Dr. Younis is his persistence. They way he stuck with his goal of removing poverty and in the mean time establishing big corporation, Grameen group of companies, to help poor by charging low interest rate and providing all the basic amenities. I was all impressed and ga - ga about Dr. Younis.

Yesterday me and one of my friend’s friend, SK , were having arbit discussion session in TGIF over a couple of drinks and topic about Muhammad Younis came up. And that was it. He told me that there is a lot of criticism about the methods, for repayments, and Interest rates charged by Grameen bank.

I have googled about Dr. Younis many times and this time was no different. First 2 pages of google search threw no dirt on Dr. Younis. Then I googled “interest rate charged by Grameen bank” and dirt started pouring in on Younis. I read several articles telling about how interest rates, charged by Grameen bank, are just 2% more then the market rate and how it is justified as these ( poor Bangladeshis) are risky customers! How Grameen bank markets 15% annual rate, as so low, and how it is not based on declining principal based calculations hence effectively it is more than 30%! How initially poor people took to loan and now they are more informed so not happy about it! How one guy went to village of Jorba and doesn’t see any development there! How each of these above mentioned hows are refuted and swept off the table point by point by pro-Dr. Younis authors.

Other hows are how Younis is ambitious and markets his philosophy and how he got Clinton to endorse him for Nobel Prize? How Dr. Younis tried to enter into field of politics and how he got kicked out by other players ,out of their fear, of getting shadowed by his presence in political landscape.

After reading all the above mentioned hows I sat thinking what is good (bringing finance more closer to poor or at least the intention of it) and what is bad (marketing stunt used to promote the Grameen bank and lobbying for the Nobel). Is it Dr. Younis or is it Younis?

And I concluded that personal ambition is not a bad thing what matters is -- how many people were affected ( in positive sense) by your intentions and actions. What matters is the concept of greater good. What matters is ‘Is your (Dr. Younis in the case example) conscience clear about what you are doing?’ What matters is ‘Do you believe in the idea, whatever may be cost?’

With time things change, expectations of people will increase, also as you move up in the world people will dig to find out what all you did wrong,and in the process forgetting what all you did right.

To keep an idea alive and enforce it upon others if you need marketing then why not??

I think marketing done with good intentions and for greater good always brings fame.

Dr. Younis it is.