We are living in the era of miraculous developments by any quantifiable measure. High-rise buildings are tearing the heavens, phones can cram the contents of a whole library into our hands, and AI is only going to redefine the future as we know it. The news bulletins laud booming economies and new technology, and the biggest profits ever. But under this glittering facade there is an ugly inquiry we never venture to ask, progress--but who?

Progress is usually posed as a success of all, as a progressive march that raises everyone. However, it takes a closer look to show a more divided reality. Some are riding the growing tide of technology and prosperity, but millions of people are standing on the bottom, or drowning altogether. Those technologies that make billionaires are substituting human hands by machines since they automate jobs. It is the same industries that lead to growth, which contaminate rivers, cause clouds, and destroy lives. The rewards of progress it appears are not distributed evenly.
Take the contemporary place of employment. Online technologies have made work more efficient and more interconnected across the globe, but nowadays, job insecurity has been a characteristic of the times. Gig work is a substitute of regular jobs, algorithms determine salaries and flexibility in many cases is achieved at the price of dignity and safety. Technology may bring convenience and opportunity to those who are privileged, and surveillance, exploitation, and exclusion to those who are marginalized.
The same is reflected in economic growth. The market is booming, luxury companies are prospering, and metropolises become even more luminous with every year. Meanwhile, in the countryside, the situation is in bad shape, the working poor are paid very low salaries, and segregation seems to be spreading on a fault line under the society. The gap between the top and the bottom becomes so enormous that advancement starts to appear like a personal elevator - only allowed to the ones who have the correct access codes.
The development of the environment also has contradictions. Renewable energy, electric cars and green cities are proclaimed as the answers to the climate crisis. However, floods, droughts, heatwaves are the most brutal consequences of climate change, which are suffered by people who did not contribute the least to the issue. The invisible cost of a development model that puts more emphasis on speed rather than sustainability is displacement, food insecurity, and loss of livelihoods.
None of it is an argument against progress as such. The progress of science, medicine, and education has saved millions of lives, and opened more possibilities to humans. The actual problem is the definition and the definition of progress, who should define it. When we measure success only by the profit margins and GDP rates, then people become a statistic and communities collateral damage.
Real progress needs to be re-visioned, not as a victory of a small number, but as an experience of many people. It has to pose the question as to whether innovation enhances life of every individual, whether growth is respectful of human dignity and whether development today is ruining tomorrow. Any progress that isolates, uses, or has silenced someone is, however, not progress, only motion without purpose.
When we are rejoicing about our success, we should also hear the voices of the silent people at the periphery. It is not until we reach the very last in the line that we can really say we are moving, we are moving-together.

Email:---------------kuldeep.e11620@cumail.in