I would like to build things

"...know that your people will judge you on what you can build,
not what you destroy"
- US President Barack Obama, Inauguration Speech

By all accounts, Obama delivered a sterling speech today. While many expected him to strike a balance between 'celebration' & 'difficult task ahead', he focused a lot on the enormity of the responsibility in our hands, and the legacy to uphold.

The quote above was the one that resonated with me. In many accounts, it reminded of a change in my viewpoint over the last two years. Indicorps has a wonderful philosophy of working for things, not against things. It is something that we all lived by in the one or two years in the fellowship. It is a crucial distinction to remember when we immerse ourselves in the community, and choose to dedicate ourselves towards a singular issue from a myriad of complex problems that face the community. It is just functionally necessary for a grassroots fellowship.

My last two years at some point lifted me beyond the stage of a grassroots development worker. We built an organization. We became an institution. We stood for something. And we built programs for the long-run, focusing on areas of livelihood & healthcare, areas where we identified the most need & where we could deliver the most value.

We encountered many roadblocks along the way, and we overcame many of them. It made me realize one thing though: on a long-term basis, you will have to work against something. It is almost by definition of being a community worker. By trying to assist the disadvantaged, you are disrupting the source of power & relative status of the advantaged. The status quo rigidly follows Newton's first law of inertia, and will actively work in the interest of self-preservation.

I realized that societal change comes both from offering a carrot and wielding a stick. The people will remember what you changed, and the future will remember what you built, but behind the scenes, you will have to be prepared to destroy that which holds the people back.

I will always choose to work towards something, building things, leaving something behind. But my time in India has taught me to recognize and respect those who choose to work against today's problems.