An experiment in trust

Despite one month of living and working in a new place and interacting in a language and culture I had only a passing familiarity with, I have not yet taken the time to write about my experience. Friends have encouraged me to write both about my time in Bagar and about specific successes and disappointments. My work at the Bagar Employment Exchange has definitely provided much material to write about as we have had a string of successes recently. Yet it was not until a group discussion last weekend that I really felt the impulse to write. Despite being such a seemingly simple concept, it was this idea of “trust” and its role in development that finally pushed me to write. So much of what one reads in development literature and encounters in a developing country such as institutional problems, lack of rule of law, public goods becoming de-facto privatized, etc. boils down to a lack of trust. And, in my experience thus far, this lack of trust is so widespread that personal relationships are needed to get anything done, business can become a painful ordeal, and one must always be on the offensive when dealing with others as written rules may not be respected. It’s a prisoner’s dilemma that one lives each and every time they interact with others and it perpetuates itself each time someone gets burned. Yet I’m also hopeful because once a process begins to be understood, alternatives can be imagined. What is my vision of a developed India? It’s one where trust exists between people and in public institutions and norms. It is of a broad, increased level of public trust rather than the intensely personal relationships I’ve encountered thus far that seem to trump any attempts to create trust beyond the individual. So let us see. My whole time here, everything I do, every person I meet on behalf of BEX, GDL, and the Piramal Foundation, is an experiment with trust. I’m looking forward to what it brings.

Cross-posted at the GDL blog: http://www.piramal.org.in/gdl/2008/06/26/an-experiment-in-trust/