Fellowship: Confused affair of aspirations

A new wave has developed these days amidst the social sector space. “Fellow” or “Fellowship” is the new term coined in the development sector encouraging young graduates, precisely with some year of experience, to join the space of development and change. The idea of working with IAS, the India’s finest brain as claimed by many, motivates huge number of young people to join. Picturesque frame of working on core issue with government and its sharpest mind create a perfect storyline of a blockbuster movie and one start to imagining him/herself as perfect character to take that movie to a perfect ending.

The idea of governance, system strengthening, influencing the influencer sitting in the chair of decision making all seems possible from the far, but the reality play the role of villain in the perfect Bollywood style of drama. The conundrum is that should one be playing the role of change maker or story maker serving the interest of few. Your whole movie, which you have thought of making lifetime best, start taking twist and turn which are uncalled for and slowly it looses all the plot. The realization is often late because twist and turn gives you the adrenaline rush in the name of new set of knowledge, exposure and taste of bureaucracy. The movie in which you were supposed to play the main lead is now hijacked by the “finest brain” and his idea of change/transformation.

The idea of exposing young talent in the government system and leaving them in the hands of bureaucratic ecology is institutional process of tuning the brain of young and volatile mind to create trust in the bureaucratic process and its deliverance of change and development. It is a mechanism through which the dissent is getting suppressed and the minds which can create a perfect story of change are swayed by the so called “finest brain” of our country.