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cash, called it a 'breakthrough growth strategy'. It argued that jugaad is a better low-cost
method of innovation than international companies' high-budget, structured research and
development programmes which, the topic says, lack flexibility and are elitist and insular.
The authors suggested six jugaad principles: 'seek opportunity in adversity, do more with
less, think and act flexibly, keep it simple, include the margin, follow your heart'. They say
that jugaad is about developing a 'good enough solution that gets the job done'.
That is fine for management theory, and it might encourage companies to take a fresh
look at their innovation programmes, but the reality is that India has for decades relied on
jugaad instead of looking for new levels of performance and excellence. It has linked this
with the more negative attitude of chalta hai, which literally means 'it walks' and is broadly
interpreted as 'anything goes'. Together this means that, like an archetypal Indian wed-
ding, delays and organizational chaos will give way to razzmatazz and a great tamasha on
the day, providing sufficient jugaad has been spread around. Kaam chalao is another rather
negative rendering of the same theme, meaning 'will make do' in a makeshift and impro-
vised way, without the innovation of a clever jugaad.
Such a culture intuitively sees no need for rigid structures and rules and, where they do
exist, instinctively fudges and evades them, trusting that eventually all will be well, which
of course it increasingly often is not. The laid-back approach has support through another
phrase - Ram bharose, 'trusting in god', or more specifically, 'leaving it to Lord Ram' -
Ram, or Rama, being the Hindu god who is worshipped as a legendary king as well as a
deity.
This was fine - indeed constructive - when independent India was building a new nation.
'The concept of quality used to be that if it works somehow, it's okay, but it doesn't need to
work all the time,' Baba Kalyani, chairman of Pune-based Bharat Forge, which has grown
into one of the world's biggest forgings companies, told me in 2007 for a
Fortune
magazine
dustrial licensing system created shortages and restricted competition, making it both dif-
ficult and unnecessary to produce quality goods. 'No one could create a high-technology,
high-capital-cost business. You waited a year for an equipment-import licence, got less than
you wanted, then paid 80 per cent import duty - and interest rates were at 18-20 per cent,'
said Kalyani.
These attitudes should have become less universal when India began developing a new
economy after 1991, but they are still in place and continue to harm the country. Jugaad no
longer works effectively because the pace and complexity of rapidly changing events and
communication make it impossible for India to run its basic services, projects and develop-
ment on the basis of quick fixes, comforted by the faith that something will turn up to save
the day.
