Consulting Firms With Better Branding?

For someone who has had the good fortune of working alongside India’s samaaj, it feels like the imagination has been drained out of the room. If all we’re doing now is designing for what governments can pay for then we are consulting firms with better branding.

For someone who has had the good fortune of working alongside India’s samaaj, it feels like the imagination has been drained out of the room. If all we’re doing now is designing for what governments can pay for then we are…. consulting firms with better branding?

Agree with Rakesh here, the shift from “transition to government” to “they should own it from the outset” feels oddly binary with no space for co-creation or for imagining and building together.

Where are the people in all this? The communities, the movements, the folks inside government who aren’t just implementers but thinkers and dreamers too? It’s one thing to ask what’s affordable but who is going to ask what’s dignifying? What builds belonging? What opens up new possibilities?

Tired of new solutions. We need new questions. And, most importantly, new ways of listening.

Originally written for LinkedIn on 23 May 2025. View original →