Kapeesh Saraf

I recently read the book “Banker to the Poor :the story of the Grameen Bank” by Mohammed Yunus. Prof. Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for his pioneering work in the development of Bangladesh through the concept of microcredit and the Grameen Bank. Microcredit consists of lending tiny sums of money to the poorest demographic of the population, mainly for self-employment.

The most powerful thought in the book is the following quote :

“Development should be seen as a human rights issue rather than an economic one.”

The book traces the origin of the philosophy of microcredit when Dr. Yunus realized that since banks didn’t lend to the poor (for lack of collateral), they were left to borrowing at exorbitant rates from usurers and money lenders. Once they did, they got trapped in a cycle of poverty that was impossible to break through. He narrates the story of a cobbler who had to hand over half his daily income to the man who owned the brush and shoe-polish that he worked with. What was left of his earning was barely enough to sustain him. The cobbler would remain trapped in this hand to mouth existence for the want of money to buy a brush and shoe polish. This is where Yunus decided to step in.

Of course, the journey of developing the Grameen Bank was a long and difficult one. It faced opposition and ridicule at every stage, as is the fate of any pioneering effort. The journey is also a most inspirational one, and bears many lessons for those seeking to develop sustainable organizations, in public service, business or elsewhere.

Grameen was also pioneering in that it lends mainly to women. This has led to great socioeconomic development in Bangladesh with an increase in voter turnout, greater empowerment of women and reduction in domestic violence against women. The book is full of stories of women who rose from poverty against all odds. Most inspiring is the story of the woman who battled abandonment by her husband and family, banishment from society, a life-threatening disease, a house burnt by the Pakistan army in 1971, a flood, a disease that killed her livestock and only source of income and a famine, and 12 loans, to finally reach a stage where she didn’t have to worry where her next meal was coming from. Whenever I tend to fret over my befuddlement about a career choice, or how hard life is, I am reminded of her story.

Another powerful idea is the social cohesion that Grameen creates by making it mandatory for women to form groups (of 5) before they can borrow from Grameen. By interlinking the fates of the women in a group, Grameen manages to achieve several things at once. Firstly, it creates a great peer pressure mechanism to keep them motivated. But, since the failure of one group member implies no loans for any of the group members, the women have great incentive to help each other through difficult times rather than competing with each other. The sense of empowerment that it gives these women, who for most of their lives have been told that they are worthless, incapable and a burden, is phenomenal. By creating successful role models for the women, and raising the bar for who can join, Grameen has created a powerful self-sustaining engine of hunger for development among women in Bangladesh.

The book also provides many practical tips, insights and lessons that are of great use to not just social entrepreneurs but anyone in business. The writing is simple yet extremely powerful and inspiring. The book also shattered many of the assumptions I had about poverty and the eradication of it. The corruption and malpractices perpetrated by international donor agencies such as the World Bank was a revelation. The extent to which credit can be a powerful socioeconomic weapon, the fact that people don’t need long years of education or training to rise above poverty and the fact that development (of infrasructure, IT, etc) never helps the poorest unless there is an “enabling” mechanism in place were all explained beautifully through this book.

Banker to the Poor is both, an inspirational story of the great socioeconomic change brought about by a man and his vision and also a primer to the philosophy and nuts & bolts of the microfinance movement. While I believe that micro credit is at best only part of the solution to poverty and don’t agree with all the ideas and ideology in the book, much was gained from reading it.

“The City of Joy” evokes mixed reactions in my heart. On the one hand, it inspires and fills the heart with hope; fills me with admiration for those who leave behind comfort, luxury and opulence to embrace squalor and filth in service of the poorest. It baffles me to think that “to become the poorest of the poor” could be the aim of somebody’s life, as is the case with Stephan Kowalski, the protagonist of the story; and this bafflement makes you think about life in a whole new light.

On the other hand, it shames me- the extent to which we have acclimatized ourselves to the idea of two Indias; the one of relative opulence that we reside in and the other India, which lives in slums, on less than a dollar a day, barely managing a square meal a day; where survival is life’s greatest challenge. I feel ashamed at the indifference we have developed towards the suffering that afflicts the lives of millions.

But then, the sheer magnitude of the maladies that our country suffers from has given Indians the ability to be sensitive and callous at the same time. We see so much misery all around that we become indifferent to most of it. But at the same time, on occasions, this tolerance breaks down and we are sensitized to the pain of others. ¹

The City of Joy is the story of life in a slum of Calcutta called Anand Nagar (hence the title). Through the skillfully interwoven stories of Stephan Kowalski, the Polish priest who makes the slum his home and Hasari Pal the penniless migrant peasant, Dominique Lapierre paints a vivid picture of the suffering that is the fate of the poorest. And in the midst of all that suffering are scattered numerous stories and incidents of heroism and generosity and great lessons in hope and faith.

What is perhaps slightly embarrassing is the fact that it took a Frenchman to make me appreciate the herculean struggle that is survival for millions of Indians. This is the second book I’ve read where the plot has a “foreigner” live in a slum in a large Indian metropolis (Shantaram being the first). Both talk about the incredible zest for life and survival instinct of the people that inhabit these slums, the joie de vivre of their existence; the generosity, sharing, courage and extraordinary acts of heroism that mark their wretched existence. But then perhaps, it is the indifference I mentioned above that prevents us from appreciating these facets of the lives of the poor. (Or perhaps one needs to come from an entirely different world in order to fully understand and appreciate every aspect of another culture, but this is a digression.)

How many times have I looked condescendingly upon those indulging in vulgar drunken revelry and dance on religious occasions such as Ganpati, never realizing that a bottle of cheap country liquor on occasions such as those is perhaps the only respite, the high point, a momentary escape from a life punishing in its severity.

It is easy, and to a large extent right, to blame the poor and exploited for their fate- superstition, clinging to custom and rituals, lack of the scientific temper and most importantly, a resignation to one’s fate. But there is still much to be learnt from the book and the people it talks about. I am richer for having read it.

[1 - from APJ Abdul Kalam's autobiography, Wings of Fire.]

The Tipping point, as defined on its back cover, is that majic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wild fire.

It is a fascinating read, dealing in the hugely interesting concept of “Social Epidemics”. Of course, like most books of this genre, it is written with the benefit of hindsight and with the intention to sensationalize and sell. Highly recommended, but with a pinch of salt.

The central theme of the tipping point is the spread of social epidemics. Through fascinating and often startling examples, Gladwell discusses the characteristics of epidemics, the conditions and kind of people that propel some epidemics forward and the causes behind why a lot of ideas fail to tip.

While I found the central idea to be sufficient food for thought in itself, digressions made from point to point are utterly fascinating. Since this isn’t meant to be a formal book review, I’ll just paste from my notes one of my favourite quotes from the book-

“ When it comes to judging other people’s behavior, human beings make the mistake of overestimating the importance of fundamental character traits and underestimating the importance of situation and context. We always reach for a “dispositional opinion” rather than a “contextual opinion”.

The human mind has a kind of reducing valve that tends to maintain continuity even in the face of perpetual observed changes in actual behavior.

When we observe a woman who seems hostile an fiercely independent some of the time but passive, dependent and feminine on other occasions, our reducing valve makes us choose between the two syndromes. We decide that one pattern is in the service of the other, or that both are in the service of a third motive. She must be a really castrating lady with a façade of passivity- or perhaps she is a warm, passive- dependent woman with a surface defense of aggressiveness. But perhaps nature is bigger than our concepts and it is possible for the lady to be a hostile, fiercely independent, passive, dependent, feminine, aggressive, castrating person all-in-one. Of course, which of these she is at any particular moment would not be random or capricious-it would depend on who she is with, when, how and much, much more. But each of these aspects of herself may be a quite genuine and real aspect of her total being.

Character, then, isn’t what we think it is or rather, what we want It to be. It isn’t a stable, easily identifiable set of closely related traits, and it only seems that way because of a glitch in the way our brains are organized. Character is more like a bundle of habits and tendencies and interests, loosely bound together and dependent, at certain times, on circumstance and context. The reason why most of us seem to have a consistent character is that most of us are reasonably good at controlling our environment.”

One of the more interesting non-fiction books I’ve read in a while. Go Read!!!