outh Asians know very little about foreign aid for development. It is largely a niche and elite profession in a region dominated by the state and private sector. This is completely ironic given that the objective of this aid is to improve the lives of the less fortunate. The truth is that much of this industry is populated by the privileged class in the countries where the aid is spent. This creates a world of not just inequality, but also stark contradictions.

Mustahid Husain, a Bangladeshi now living in Canada, was one of the people who worked for the World Bank in Dhaka, spending his time working on ways to “empower” poor Bangladeshis. It was a time in his life that he claims gave him PTSD, having experienced the stark contradictions in the sector both in and out of his workplace. As a survivor of this industry, I can concur with him.

Husain has taken those contradictions and woven them into his first novel, Double Truths. The story follows its protagonist, Asif Chowdhry, recently returned from the United States to his native Bangladesh, to eventually work at the World Bank, the imperial behemoth of foreign aid. Asif himself belongs to a wealthy Bengali family. His life traverses the bumper-to-bumper traffic in Dhaka between the prosperous neighbourhood of the Defence Officers Housing Society and his new job as a monitoring and evaluation officer at the World Bank in the diplomatic neighbourhood of Gulshan.

Asif is the quintessential Amreeka-returned desi, having left behind a white American girlfriend in Boston, always curious why the house help doesn’t eat with the family, constantly pestered by his mother to find a nice Bengali girl and settle down, constantly contemplating the scenes of rich vs poor that surround his native home. Asif yearns to bring the true Bangladesh to his new employers at the World Bank, Amit and Pradeep, “grand masters of the international aid game.”

This aid game is where Double Truths finds its home, descriptively crafting the conversations that will be instantly recognisable to those, including myself, who live and breathe the artificial world of foreign development aid. Asif is convinced that he can make a difference. That’s why he is back in Bangladesh – girlfriend breakup notwithstanding. For him, the world of “development” is one full of promise and ingenuity. But now the harsh truth of the gilded cage called international development hits him hard in the face. The white consultants flitting in and out, the lavish trips around the world, the air of superiority, the discussions on “poverty”, the disengaged trips to villages around the world, the nepotistic nods to the city’s elite – “although the British left in 1947, the World Bank office was in no hurry to shake off the colonisers influence”.

Much of this industry is populated by the privileged class in the countries where aid is spent.

Soon, the hollowness of this world catches up with Asif, who admits to Pradeep that “Our glossy reports are as fake as Facebook.” Of course, there is more than just glossy reports in this world that are fake, as those of us who have spent decades scouring foreign donor and NGO landscapes can attest to. But the real conundrum facing Asif is the desire to do good for his country while still trying to find his way. Husain’s own comments on Bengali history, art and culture, scattered liberally across the book, demonstrate the pull of the homeland and its dichotomies of the rich and the poor; foreign and non-foreign; and the pull of shiny, glossy promises to end poverty and create empowerment.

The best parts of the book are those that show Asif in his personal environment: his loving but contradictory relationship with his overbearing mother and siblings; his elite bureaucratic ex-military relatives; and family friends who often hark back to colonial upbringing, caught between traditionality and modernity, East and West, Asif constantly struggles with the question; “I’m still trying to figure out if it’s me or Dhaka that has changed more?”.

Asif’s journey is one that many, including myself, share. The world of foreign aid and development is littered with contradictions, class, race and power. It clashes with countries like ours without facing much opposition. Inspired by Husain’s own experience of awakening, home and re-awakening, many of us require speaking up about these contradictions, whether as fiction as Husain has chosen, or as lived experiences. In either case, silence is not the preferred option.

Double Truths

Author: Mustahid Husain

Publisher: Kantara Press, 2025

Pages: pp 284

The reviewer is an independent professional and writer