Predictably, there have also been letters in different newspapers applauding Dr Yunus for his bold words. So what else is new?

The politics/power/money nexus is common knowledge to everyone. It is so common that it is almost trite. A poor politician is an oxymoron, an anomaly. There are some exceptions, but exceptions which only prove the rule.

Everybody knows that sweeping generalizations about power and politics and money are generally true.

Ask any person on the street and s/he will say the same thing about politics and politicians. Endless seminars and roundtables and talk-shows and speeches and post-editorials have beaten this issue to death, and now we all know that corruption is an almost unalterable reality, a given in our national life.

There will be more talk on this topic, and there should be more, if only to remind the politicians that they are in the public eye and that we know what this game is mostly about.

The only difference is that when ordinary people say it, it does not make any difference. Coming from you or me, or even from high-profile civil society mandarins, such comments are seldom newsworthy, let alone controversial.

The real question then is: why did Mr Jalil and Mr Bhuiyan react so sharply and shrilly to Professor Yunus's utterance.

The simple truth is that the simplest truth falling from the mouth of a Nobel Peace Prize winner, however trite and common and obvious, takes on the note of a grand pronouncement.

Professor Yunus has proclaimed, and the world will listen, and indeed the world does.

This would certainly make some politicians squirm uncomfortably in their plush towel-covered chairs. It is only a matter of wonder why Dr Yunus spoke so late. He had plenty of opportunities to speak earlier and he didn't. Dr Yunus's denunciation of politics and politicians now must be seen in the light of some of his comments earlier.

When the Pope speaks from the pulpit we listen; when President Bush threatens from the White House, Iran quavers; when the new chief advisor delivers his first speech about what his caretaker government hopes to achieve, we listen with rapt attention.

Similarly when Dr Yunus pontificates about the crisis in our national life, we wait with bated breath to catch his words.

The Nobel Peace Prize has given the micro-credit guru a transcendence which he did not possess before, and this transcendence has given his words a weight and value which they did not possess either.

Words spoken from this position of transcendence can, and often does, carry enormous significance and responsibility.

So when Dr Yunus descended to the world of mere mortals -- political mortals in this case -- at a reception at Bangabhaban soon after he won the Nobel Peace Prize, there was an expectation that he would show a way out of the crisis then prevailing.

And to some he did. To many more what he said was a complete cop out. He sermonized about how the caretaker government should conduct itself.

In avuncular tones, the younger professor advised the older professor, and the latter nodded his head in acquiescence as vigorously as he was capable of doing.

"Be hard," he told Professor Iajuddin The President's subsequent actions were uncharacteristically tough.

"Do not listen to anybody, listen to everybody," he further said, cryptically. He offered a formula in another reception organized by the mayor of Dhaka, which he later retracted. And we all know what later happened.

The overwhelming perception was that the Nobel laureate had failed to achieve the objectivity and impartiality that his position of transcendence demanded. He was clearly perceived to be taking sides by putting his moral weight behind the caretaker government when its own legality was questioned by the best legal minds of the nation.

When Professor Yunus came back to Dhaka after receiving the Nobel Prize in Oslo, his personal and professional life was at its highest while the life of the nation was at its nadir.

Again, it was the hope of many, that he would at least say something that would point to the failures of the caretaker government. Instead, Professor Yunus gave Professor Iajuddin an A+ for his performance when at least half the nation gave him failing grades.

When the nation was floundering, Dr Yunus withheld real critique; his equivocation was tantamount to partisanship. At least he has spoken now in clearer terms, though what he has said has been clear for a long time. Even that is important.

To deny the truth of his utterance about the nature of our politics and politicians, as Mr Jalil and Mr Bhuiyan have done, is as ridiculous as it is redundant to affirm its validity. The new caretaker government has raised our hopes that eventually an acceptable election would be held.

We only hope that Dr Yunus will use his position of transcendence, to the extent it is possible, to push the nation towards a better five years than the last five. We hold no quixotic hopes that corruption like poverty will eventually become a museum piece, but even less corruption is better than more.

Shawkat Hussain is a Professor of English.