The paradox: Development sector does development?

There. Finally even Satya has accepted that I am an idealist. I expect honesty and integrity and a dash of ethical behaviour in my area of work and workplace. More often than not this is unrealistic in today’s world!

Increasingly I am offended and disturbed by what goes on in the name of Social Development. If I have to succeed I have to either suck up to everyone, or speak in a language no one understands eg:- Language of development is a parlance that the general public is not familiar with. Thus arises the need for promulgation of grassroots advocacy in a patois that the civil society can understand.

Ok that was a poor attempt. And, yes, now you know why I cannot be a part of the development sector. I can never ever cook up a sentence like that. Sometimes I want to devote my whole life to the cause of simplifying the language used by development sector and governments. I put up a tough fight every time at work and am glad I win sometimes.

But my dears, that is the success of being someone people know and think of as great. A very sensible woman I met in one of the workshops (among the few who actually do good work told me a very interesting thing: Write so no one understands what you have written and speak or write verbosely on controversial topics so people don’t know what you are talking about. It sounds good and so is good. This I have noted time and again I true.

Sometimes I believe the corporate sector with its open discriminations, prejudices and sometimes activities is by far better. At least the pretence is not there. Sustainable development, pro-poor development and many such popular key-words are used indiscriminately. You talk about solutions for people without taking them into the dialogue process. Oh yes dialogue process are there, haven’t you seen the mega- conferences on which lakhs are spent. But where are the people you are talking about? Power, monetary or administrative brings with it, a thought, ‘I know’ and the moment this starts, all is lost. Most projects money never really reaches the person whom it is meant for.

God, I am tempted to write about so much more in this blog. There is so much more I want to say. If only I didn’t have these stupid values I carry inside. But a lot of what I see out there disappoints me. But I also want to do some work that makes a difference to someone. That day will hopefully not be very far away. I am so eager to get back to freelance writing/editing and working for the development sector part-time. I need to find people who really mean what they say and who do what they say. I know that this middle path is the best. I am really not meant to work full time anywhere. If I only write am unhappy, if i only work in the Development sector - all the accompanying nonsense makes me unhappy. So I am going to do both.

Someone give me a job!