years I fooled myself. I made a great deal of money for the bank. But out there – on the streets and in the villages - nothing changed.’
‘Are you saying capitalism doesn’t work here?’
‘That is a very interesting question. Capitalism requires all the ingredients to be in place before everyone begins to benefit, and not just the top layer. Here in India there is a big missing piece. It is mass ownership.
‘That sounds pretty Marxist.’ Or Erin Wishart, he thought.
‘Is that what you will write about me now?’ He smiled.
‘Well, are you?’
Ramesh sighed. ‘There are many truths in Das Kapital, but I am not an advocate for communism, just for working capitalism. Capitalism is about trade. Trading your right to work for a wage, trading your future earnings for a house, your crops for money, your credit-worthiness for a loan. If you have nothing, if you own nothing – no land, no money, no roof over your head – if you don’t even own the right to work - then you cannot trade, and you cannot trade up. More than half my people don’t own a thing, and work exists only in the form of slave labour. So they cannot participate in the merry-go-round of capitalism.’
‘And the answer is. . . ?’
‘ Banking services to the poorest people. It buys them a ticket on the merry-go-round.’
‘Why set up a new bank? Why not within your Kolkata Regional Bank?’
He nodded. ‘I took my ideas to the board. But they could not comprehend my proposal. They were not bad people. They honestly believed in the theory of trickle down of wealth. They saw the millions I was earning for them from investment banking and wanted me to stick to that, not go into some poor people’s retail banking that would lose money. And certainly not loans to women or Untouchables. It was unthinkable. It would upset the whole caste system that is no longer supposed to matter here. I could not convince them. So I left and set up the People’s Bank.’
‘Just like that?’
Ramesh smiled at some memory. ‘No. By no means. I had to beg for funding from one or two philanthropic foundations. I had to bring in people to help me without any salary at first. I sold or mortgaged everything I owned.’
He looked down. ‘And my wife left me. I don’t blame her. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for when she married a successful investment banker. The first three years were touch and go. But I was right . And now, thanks to the internet, we are building a global service.’
‘So now you’re a global money lender.’
‘ It’s not just loans. We insist on saving.’
‘ But your savers earn a pittance; half a per cent? While interest on loans hits 35% and above, for god’s sake. We call that sharking.’
‘ We are like the old mutual societies in England. Presently we only lend what we can afford from the deposits and the loan repayments. Which is why we were unaffected by the madness of sub-prime lending, Collaterised Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps and all the rest of the gimmicks that brought down the mighty Western banks. We lend tiny sums to very many people. The cost of setting up and administering these loans is very high. But each year we improve our systems, and we are bringing these rates down.’
‘So , you admit it.’
‘O ur loans are very short term, usually to a small group of people – women mainly – and over 98% repay their loans on time. We lend to tiny businesses, not to people who want to buy flat screen TVs. That is key. The interest payments are affordable.’
Ramesh turned and pointed behind him at the stylised tree with its deep and spreading roots, and its flowering and seeding branches.
‘This is our logo. The neem tree. It is a remarkable tree, indigenous to India but now growing in many parts of the world in some of the poorest and hottest conditions imaginable. It stays green throughout the year on very tiny amounts of water. Its roots go deep , you see. Its seeds and leaves and bark have
‘Are you saying capitalism doesn’t work here?’
‘That is a very interesting question. Capitalism requires all the ingredients to be in place before everyone begins to benefit, and not just the top layer. Here in India there is a big missing piece. It is mass ownership.
‘That sounds pretty Marxist.’ Or Erin Wishart, he thought.
‘Is that what you will write about me now?’ He smiled.
‘Well, are you?’
Ramesh sighed. ‘There are many truths in Das Kapital, but I am not an advocate for communism, just for working capitalism. Capitalism is about trade. Trading your right to work for a wage, trading your future earnings for a house, your crops for money, your credit-worthiness for a loan. If you have nothing, if you own nothing – no land, no money, no roof over your head – if you don’t even own the right to work - then you cannot trade, and you cannot trade up. More than half my people don’t own a thing, and work exists only in the form of slave labour. So they cannot participate in the merry-go-round of capitalism.’
‘And the answer is. . . ?’
‘ Banking services to the poorest people. It buys them a ticket on the merry-go-round.’
‘Why set up a new bank? Why not within your Kolkata Regional Bank?’
He nodded. ‘I took my ideas to the board. But they could not comprehend my proposal. They were not bad people. They honestly believed in the theory of trickle down of wealth. They saw the millions I was earning for them from investment banking and wanted me to stick to that, not go into some poor people’s retail banking that would lose money. And certainly not loans to women or Untouchables. It was unthinkable. It would upset the whole caste system that is no longer supposed to matter here. I could not convince them. So I left and set up the People’s Bank.’
‘Just like that?’
Ramesh smiled at some memory. ‘No. By no means. I had to beg for funding from one or two philanthropic foundations. I had to bring in people to help me without any salary at first. I sold or mortgaged everything I owned.’
He looked down. ‘And my wife left me. I don’t blame her. This wasn’t what she’d signed up for when she married a successful investment banker. The first three years were touch and go. But I was right . And now, thanks to the internet, we are building a global service.’
‘So now you’re a global money lender.’
‘ It’s not just loans. We insist on saving.’
‘ But your savers earn a pittance; half a per cent? While interest on loans hits 35% and above, for god’s sake. We call that sharking.’
‘ We are like the old mutual societies in England. Presently we only lend what we can afford from the deposits and the loan repayments. Which is why we were unaffected by the madness of sub-prime lending, Collaterised Debt Obligations, Credit Default Swaps and all the rest of the gimmicks that brought down the mighty Western banks. We lend tiny sums to very many people. The cost of setting up and administering these loans is very high. But each year we improve our systems, and we are bringing these rates down.’
‘So , you admit it.’
‘O ur loans are very short term, usually to a small group of people – women mainly – and over 98% repay their loans on time. We lend to tiny businesses, not to people who want to buy flat screen TVs. That is key. The interest payments are affordable.’
Ramesh turned and pointed behind him at the stylised tree with its deep and spreading roots, and its flowering and seeding branches.
‘This is our logo. The neem tree. It is a remarkable tree, indigenous to India but now growing in many parts of the world in some of the poorest and hottest conditions imaginable. It stays green throughout the year on very tiny amounts of water. Its roots go deep , you see. Its seeds and leaves and bark have
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