Introduction

We look at the speed and direction of development in the country and criticize state for not doing enough or not being strong enough in implementing its agenda. Long back a Swedish sociologist and economist, Gunnar Myrdal, the winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in economics, called the Asian states as soft states, meaning thereby that they are not able to implement their own agenda (Myrdal, 1972). Corruption is one major cause of their failure. This thinking prevails in many circles even today. We tend to miss the point that development is not a linear process and there are so many dilemmas and paradoxes, and that the agents of change often work at cross-purposes. When the society is divided in terms of goals and values the issue of change becomes more complex and challenging. This lecture presents a few common dilemmas and paradoxes of development facing the developing countries.