A Person In Debt Is Like A Bird Without Wings

In Munshi Prem Chand’s A Fistful of Wheat, Shankar – the main character - borrows a fistful of wheat from the local priest to show proper hospitality to a so-called ‘holy man’ who drops in suddenly. This single act causes Shankar to lose his peace of mind, his land, his income, his health (because he becomes an addict) and - most importantly- his freedom- in that order. Shankar spends the last days of his life working and living at the mercy of the local priest, and when he dies, his son inherits his debt, and his misery.

Today credit is one of the most glorified terms around. No matter which strata of society we come from our lives are emerged in credit, the rich have credit cards, commodity loans, this loan, that loan, while the poor have micro-credit. But has the life of an indebted person really changed that much since the times of Munshi Prem Chand?

The fact is most of the poor people who borrow from one source or another fall into a trap of perpetual indebtedness. They pay off smaller debts with bigger and bigger debts. Some of them take credit from one NGO to pay off the debt of another NGO. The cycle goes on.

There has been horror stories about what can happen if borrowers fail to pay the installments. There have been reports of borrowers having their legs broken by the employees of the organization because she could pay. Personal belongings like cows and nose rings have been forcibly taken away. One borrower had been in jail for 1 month because of a 319 taka credit. The poor don’t have Portias on their side to fight against the Shylocks.

There has also been reports of men marrying women, taking their credit money, and then divorcing them. And as Syed Shafiullah shows in his recently published ‘Shawpna o Shochetonota’ (Dreams and Consciousness), most borrowers’ dreams are in fact nightmares about not being able to repay their loans.

Borrowing may bring you a bicycle or a TV set, but it will take away your freedom. Your life will always be controlled by the lender. Is it really worth it?