DEVELOPMENT IS A SCAM
- Madhukar Dama
- 10 hours ago
- 11 min read
INTRODUCTION: THE GREAT DEVELOPMENT FARCE
For the last 100 years, the word “development” has been repeated like a sacred chant — in newspapers, classrooms, political speeches, international forums, and living rooms.
It has become the unquestioned goal of every nation, family, and individual.
We were told that development means:
longer lives
better homes
smarter cities
faster transport
more education
greater freedom
higher incomes
superior technology
healthier bodies
and happier societies.
But here’s the truth:
None of that happened.
Yes, people live longer — but on pills.
Yes, homes are bigger — but lonelier.
Yes, cities are smart — but people are exhausted.
Yes, transport is fast — but minds are anxious.
Yes, children are schooled — but not raised.
Yes, incomes rose — but so did debt, disease, and disconnection.
In chasing “development,” we built a world that is:
rich in data, but poor in wisdom
full of tools, but empty of instinct
obsessed with growth, but blind to consequences
crowded with things, but starved of meaning
This is not accidental.
This is engineered.
Governments, corporations, and institutions sold the dream of development —
not to free people, but to bind them
to systems of consumption, control, and dependency.
Every sector of life — health, education, agriculture, economy, housing, environment, family, culture —
was injected with artificial “progress” that promised more but delivered less.
The deeper we went into this maze, the more disconnected, diseased, distracted, and domesticated we became.
And today, even as the planet burns, rivers dry, children forget how to smile, and elders sit alone in cement boxes —
we are still told:
“Don’t question development. It’s necessary.”
This list of 100 exposes that lie.
Every single claim of modern development — universal and Indian — is taken apart, not cynically, but truthfully.
Each promise is held up against lived reality.
Each illusion is shattered with the clarity of what it truly cost us.
Because if healing is to begin,
the first step is to stop believing in what broke us.
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CATEGORY 1: HEALTH (1–10)
1. Claim: Modern healthcare has improved life expectancy.
Farce: People are living longer but sicker, surviving on pills, surgeries, and dependency.
2. Claim: Vaccines eradicated major diseases.
Farce: Poor sanitation, hunger, and industrial pollution were replaced with pharma dependency — the root causes remain ignored.
3. Claim: Hospitals save lives.
Farce: Hospitals profit from illness — they rarely teach prevention or self-healing.
4. Claim: Health insurance provides security.
Farce: It funds excessive diagnostics and unnecessary treatments, not actual health.
5. Claim: The pharmaceutical industry is advancing science.
Farce: It is advancing patents, not healing. Most chronic diseases have no cure — only lifelong medication plans.
6. Claim: India’s medical infrastructure is improving.
Farce: Rural health is collapsing, and urban hospitals serve only the wealthy and insured.
7. Claim: Mental health awareness is growing.
Farce: Pills are replacing community, rhythm, and meaning — therapy is a luxury for the rich.
8. Claim: Digital health apps empower patients.
Farce: They reinforce obsession with tracking instead of connecting with the body.
9. Claim: Surgery is progress.
Farce: Surgery often replaces prevention and natural reversal — it’s overused, especially in childbirth and lifestyle diseases.
10. Claim: Public health campaigns are saving lives.
Farce: Most are superficial gestures, ignoring food, water, rest, and stress as root causes.
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CATEGORY 2: EDUCATION (11–20)
11. Claim: Universal schooling is development.
Farce: It produces obedient workers, not independent thinkers.
12. Claim: Higher education leads to better life.
Farce: It leads to loans, unemployment, and emotional collapse.
13. Claim: Literacy rates have increased.
Farce: Reading ability without comprehension, wisdom, or moral clarity is meaningless.
14. Claim: Digital learning is the future.
Farce: Screens cause attention issues, disconnect from reality, and hollow learning.
15. Claim: Competitive exams promote excellence.
Farce: They destroy curiosity, sleep, childhood, and mental health.
16. Claim: Private schools offer quality education.
Farce: They offer marketing, fees, and stress — not real life skills.
17. Claim: Education empowers women.
Farce: It prepares them to become corporate slaves, not free human beings.
18. Claim: Online certifications make learning accessible.
Farce: They inflate resumes but rarely translate into actual capability.
19. Claim: Curriculum updates reflect progress.
Farce: They reflect ideological control and shallow rebranding — not relevant wisdom.
20. Claim: Educated societies are evolved.
Farce: Most educated people outsource food, health, parenting, and decision-making.
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CATEGORY 3: FOOD & AGRICULTURE (21–30)
21. Claim: The Green Revolution saved India.
Farce: It destroyed soil, biodiversity, seed sovereignty, and nutrition.
22. Claim: Packaged food is modern and safe.
Farce: It’s addictive, toxic, and made for profit — not nourishment.
23. Claim: Refrigeration is progress.
Farce: It disconnects people from seasonal, local eating and leads to overconsumption.
24. Claim: Fortified foods fight malnutrition.
Farce: They replace real food diversity with synthetic dependency.
25. Claim: Organic certification ensures health.
Farce: It’s often marketing — true health comes from local, seasonal, chemical-free food regardless of label.
26. Claim: Food tech startups solve hunger.
Farce: They serve urban luxury, not rural need — and increase packaging waste.
27. Claim: Restaurants and food delivery empower urban youth.
Farce: They promote addiction, debt, and nutritional ignorance.
28. Claim: Dairy and meat industries support farmers.
Farce: They promote cruelty, antibiotic abuse, and environmental damage.
29. Claim: Indian diets are balanced.
Farce: Most modern Indian diets are fibre-deficient, sugar-heavy, and driven by media, not instinct.
30. Claim: Agriculture subsidies help farmers.
Farce: They deepen monoculture, debt, and dependency on government and corporations.
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CATEGORY 4: ECONOMY & EMPLOYMENT (31–40)
31. Claim: GDP growth means national progress.
Farce: GDP counts destruction, disease, and consumerism as profit — not wellness.
32. Claim: Employment rates are increasing.
Farce: Most jobs today are insecure, meaningless, or extractive.
33. Claim: Urbanization is economic advancement.
Farce: It’s ecological suicide and psychological breakdown disguised as opportunity.
34. Claim: The IT sector made India proud.
Farce: It made millions sit under blue light, typing things they don’t understand, for companies they don’t own.
35. Claim: Financial inclusion helps the poor.
Farce: It brings them into a system of surveillance, debt, and dependency.
36. Claim: E-commerce is efficient.
Farce: It kills small businesses and creates overpackaged addiction and overwork.
37. Claim: Startups drive innovation.
Farce: Most chase valuation, not value. Most fail without solving real problems.
38. Claim: Consumer choice is freedom.
Farce: It’s illusion — people buy what they’re programmed to crave.
39. Claim: Digital payments are progress.
Farce: They centralize power, track behavior, and disconnect real community exchange.
40. Claim: Retirement savings provide security.
Farce: You save your entire life to fund the hospitals, junk food, and lifestyle that made you sick.
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CATEGORY 5: ENVIRONMENT & ENERGY (41–50)
41. Claim: Renewable energy is solving climate change.
Farce: Solar and wind are industrial projects that often destroy land and communities.
42. Claim: Electric vehicles are green.
Farce: They shift pollution from cities to mines and power plants.
43. Claim: Plantation drives restore forests.
Farce: Mono-species plantations destroy biodiversity and soil health.
44. Claim: Smart cities are sustainable.
Farce: They are surveillance-heavy, soulless concrete grids.
45. Claim: Climate summits will save the planet.
Farce: They’re staged photo ops with no accountability and zero lifestyle reform.
46. Claim: River-cleaning missions are working.
Farce: Most rivers remain toxic while funds disappear.
47. Claim: Air purifiers and bottled water are signs of advancement.
Farce: They signal systemic collapse, not progress.
48. Claim: Eco-tourism promotes conservation.
Farce: It often displaces locals and commodifies culture.
49. Claim: Biotech will fix food and water scarcity.
Farce: It replaces wisdom with control and profit-driven genetics.
50. Claim: “Go green” campaigns change behavior.
Farce: They offer symbolic action while the machinery of destruction runs full speed.
CATEGORY 6: HOUSING & URBAN LIFE (51–60)
51. Claim: High-rise apartments are signs of progress.
Farce: They isolate families, eliminate community, and detach people from soil and sky.
52. Claim: Smart homes make life efficient.
Farce: They make people dependent on gadgets, surveillance, and AI for basic living.
53. Claim: Urban housing policies serve the poor.
Farce: Slums grow, rents rise, and affordable housing becomes a political slogan.
54. Claim: Owning a home means security.
Farce: Most spend 25–40 years paying EMIs, sacrificing life to own a cage.
55. Claim: Interior design improves living.
Farce: Decor masks dysfunction — emotional emptiness can’t be carpeted over.
56. Claim: Urban parks are green lungs.
Farce: Most are ornamental patches that can’t offset pollution, noise, or stress.
57. Claim: Gated communities are safe.
Farce: They deepen division, distrust, and social anxiety — walls outside and inside.
58. Claim: Real estate is the best investment.
Farce: It commodifies land, forces concrete over food, and traps people in loans.
59. Claim: Modern toilets are hygienic.
Farce: They use excess water, disconnect people from their waste, and create sewage crises.
60. Claim: Construction industry drives growth.
Farce: It drives deforestation, carbon emissions, labor abuse, and unpayable debt.
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CATEGORY 7: TRANSPORT & MOBILITY (61–70)
61. Claim: Faster transport equals better life.
Farce: It shortens time but increases stress, traffic, and carbon output.
62. Claim: Flyovers and highways are development.
Farce: They destroy ecosystems and displace the poor to serve the wealthy.
63. Claim: Metro systems solve urban transport.
Farce: They mask deeper planning failures and serve limited zones.
64. Claim: Bullet trains are a national achievement.
Farce: They serve a minority while draining public funds and land.
65. Claim: Car ownership is a success marker.
Farce: It burdens people with EMIs, pollution, traffic, and a sedentary lifestyle.
66. Claim: Air travel democratizes freedom.
Farce: It caters to the rich, accelerates climate change, and replaces slow wisdom with fast forgetting.
67. Claim: Ride-hailing apps offer convenience.
Farce: They exploit gig workers and deepen dependence on extractive tech.
68. Claim: Public transport is improving.
Farce: Buses are overcrowded, underfunded, and neglected compared to luxury projects.
69. Claim: Roads to every village bring development.
Farce: They often bring junk food, alcoholism, and market dependence — not freedom.
70. Claim: Driving is modern freedom.
Farce: It's a cage on wheels — people lose their legs to engines they don't need.
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CATEGORY 8: TECHNOLOGY & DIGITIZATION (71–80)
71. Claim: Internet access empowers rural India.
Farce: It floods villages with consumerism and addiction, not wisdom.
72. Claim: Smartphones are tools of progress.
Farce: They’re tools of distraction, surveillance, and dopamine slavery.
73. Claim: Artificial Intelligence will solve human problems.
Farce: It will automate exploitation, increase joblessness, and deepen meaninglessness.
74. Claim: Digital India is inclusive.
Farce: Most Indians lack tech literacy — they click without understanding.
75. Claim: Technology saves time.
Farce: It fills time with notifications, noise, and anxiety.
76. Claim: Work from home is freedom.
Farce: It blurs boundaries, increases screen exposure, and isolates humans.
77. Claim: Social media connects people.
Farce: It replaces intimacy with performance, and communication with addiction.
78. Claim: Ed-tech is revolutionizing learning.
Farce: It commodifies education, replaces wonder with data, and burns childhood.
79. Claim: Cashless society is efficient.
Farce: It centralizes control, increases surveillance, and erodes autonomy.
80. Claim: Cybersecurity protects you.
Farce: It protects corporations and governments — you are the product, not the priority.
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CATEGORY 9: FAMILY, GENDER, RELATIONSHIPS (81–90)
81. Claim: Nuclear families are modern.
Farce: They’re lonely, stressed, and fragile — cut off from generational wisdom.
82. Claim: Working couples are empowered.
Farce: Most are exhausted, distant, and raising children through screens.
83. Claim: Gender equality is rising.
Farce: Women are now expected to do both jobs — unpaid domestic work and corporate labor.
84. Claim: Marriage is more equal today.
Farce: It’s still transactional — dowry became emotional pressure and double income.
85. Claim: Parenting apps help raise better kids.
Farce: They outsource intuition, delay bonding, and promote comparison.
86. Claim: IVF and fertility tech are progress.
Farce: They reflect a lifestyle disease epidemic, not liberation.
87. Claim: Child rights are protected.
Farce: Children are addicted, processed, punished, and programmed — not raised.
88. Claim: Divorce is more acceptable today.
Farce: But real healing, support, and freedom from toxic structures remain taboo.
89. Claim: Freedom to love is rising.
Farce: Love has been replaced by swipes, lust, instability, and algorithmic mating.
90. Claim: Modern parenting is child-centered.
Farce: It’s often fear-centered, reward-based, and performance-driven — not nurturing.
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CATEGORY 10: GOVERNANCE, RELIGION, CULTURE (91–100)
91. Claim: Democracy gives power to the people.
Farce: People vote every 5 years and suffer every day.
92. Claim: Law protects the weak.
Farce: It protects the rich and criminalizes the natural, the poor, and the different.
93. Claim: Nationalism brings unity.
Farce: It manufactures enemies and hides failures behind slogans.
94. Claim: Progress is non-negotiable.
Farce: Real progress is measured by peace, health, and joy — not speed or tech.
95. Claim: Religion gives meaning.
Farce: Institutionalized religion gives rituals, fear, and control — not truth or freedom.
96. Claim: Festivals bring families together.
Farce: They bring loans, sugar, noise, stress, and new clothes — not renewal.
97. Claim: Cultural heritage is preserved.
Farce: It's packaged for tourism, while lived wisdom is mocked or forgotten.
98. Claim: India is rising.
Farce: The soil is dying, the air is unbreathable, and the youth are medicated.
99. Claim: Civilization is evolving.
Farce: Civilized people kill faster, consume more, and feel less than ever before.
100. Claim: Development is necessary.
Farce: Healing, rewilding, simplification, and reconnection are necessary — not this suicidal race.
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THE GLASS WAS SHINIER, BUT THE WATER WAS GONE
they called it
development.
they gave it names:
growth, reform, revolution,
modernization, transformation,
a better future,
a smarter life.
and they sold it
to the barefoot, the farmer, the mother,
the dreamer, the teacher, the child
who never asked for it.
---
they said:
you’ll live longer.
and you did —
long enough to forget who you were,
long enough to swallow pills
for problems that didn’t exist
before they saved you.
---
they said:
your child will be educated.
and she was —
into someone who could
recite global warming
but didn’t know how to grow a tomato,
could write essays on freedom
but didn’t know how to sit still.
---
they said:
your food will be abundant.
and it was —
plastic-wrapped, fortified, artificial,
with no memory of earth,
no scent of rain,
just color-coded illness
stacked in shelves.
---
they said:
you’ll have a job.
and you did —
a chair-bound obedience camp
with ID cards and EMIs,
working for people you never met
to sell things you didn’t believe in.
---
they said:
you’ll have a home.
and you did —
boxed in, thirty floors high,
no touch of soil,
no neighbour you trust,
but five locks on your door
and a balcony to stare from.
---
they said:
we’ll bring power.
and they did —
enough to light every screen,
not enough to light your mind.
enough to run machines,
not enough to still your heart.
---
they said:
you’re free.
but you can’t say no.
you can’t say “I’ll grow my food.”
you can’t say “I’ll birth at home.”
you can’t say “I don’t need school, doctor, god, government.”
because
freedom that must be approved
is just another prison.
---
development didn’t raise you.
it erased you.
---
you don’t remember
how your grandparents smiled
without a screen.
you don’t remember
the smell of hand-pounded rice.
you don’t remember
the silence before alarms,
the hunger before clocks,
the love before selfies.
you lost everything.
but they told you —
it’s progress.
---
and now,
you sit in an air-conditioned room
with pain in your spine,
sweat on your soul,
fat in your blood,
and regret in your breath.
and you dare not say:
this is not life.
because they’ll label you
anti-national,
anti-science,
anti-progress,
anti-future.
---
but truth doesn’t care for labels.
truth says:
you were conned.
truth says:
you traded rhythm for routine,
community for apps,
soil for cement,
joy for productivity,
presence for plastic.
truth says:
you’re not living.
you’re developing.
forever developing.
never arriving.
---
your fridge is full.
your gut is empty.
your phone is charged.
your mind is fried.
your child is schooled.
your soul is screaming.
and the men who sold you this
still smile from billboards
and budgets
and ballot boxes
and banks.
---
it’s not too late.
but first,
you must say it.
say it out loud:
i was fooled.
this is not development.
this is the disease.
and only then,
can healing begin.
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