If there are pluses in pursuing jugaad as an innovative approach, the flip side of maneuvering obstacles has its moments of shame too!
It goes without saying that most Indians are culturally wired to solve problems. There is a seemingly inbuilt cognitive ability in a large impoverished majority for jugaad, a quick-fix frugal innovation to wriggle out of any challenge. Does it not reflect peoples’ self-reliant optimism to confront challenges? It does, else multiple variants of ‘scare crow’ to protect mature crops would not exist, and neither would equally affordable mechanical improvisations like buttermilk churning washing machine and the motorcycle-cum- tractor. ‘Next to impossible is only possible’ has gone under their skin of people, turning every obstacle into an opportunity as if there is no tomorrow.
The search for a cheaper air conditioner by investigative journalist Dean Nelson, who spent few years in Delhi reporting for the London’s Sunday Times, led him on his jugaad journey which has been as much a celebration of inspiring resourcefulness of the poor as also a criticism on the absence of a formal system to optimize such talent. Not only did he discover the low-cost work-in-progress Snowbreezer, a device that generates cooling effect by passing air over an ice brick, which has yet to be perfected for wider adoption, but was surprised to learn that juggad mentality alone helped the country propel its spacecraft Mangalayam at less than the cost of the Oscar-winning Hollywood space thriller Gravity. Incidentally, neither of the two innovations are products of an economy that values and advances jugaad mentality.
However, it has yet to hamper the spirit of innumerable people who haven’t allowed poverty to get the better of their intellectual ability at solving problems. No surprise that there are innumerable inspiring tales of optimism amid scarcity and poverty that abound in everyday living of a largely impoverished society in the country. It is a blessing in disguise, as it has spurred creative improvisation for developing products and designing processes that are frugal, flexible, and democratic. From handy tips to improvised tools and from enhanced techniques to adaptive practices, there is a rich repository of innovations on offer.
While it remains intriguing what fuels innovative desire in ordinary people, equally compelling is the reason why such innovations are gifted, often anonymously, to the society at large?
In his jugaad journey, however, the author discovered that in addition to being inspiring and socially relevant the unending quest for frugal inventions has led people to bend the rules and beat the system all across. As scarcity is deeply ingrained in the psyche of people, they start looking for ways to bypass it rather than question the system that has led them to scarcity in the first place. From jumping queues to offering bribes, the ability to creatively manage obstacles by adopting quick-fix solutions has become a socially-accepted convenient way of life. If there are pluses in pursuing jugaad as an innovative approach, the flip side of maneuvering obstacles has its moments of shame too, asserts Nelson.
Should jugaad mentality be allowed to circumvent the system? As long as people continue to remain spaced by socio-economic disparities, the best chance for them to survive in such an ecosystem of challenges rests on them being relentless on jugaad. Since the existing system cannot accommodate all the innovations and transform them into entrepreneurs, a large number of those left unattended on the margins will need to pursue the survival options at their disposal. It may, therefore, be risky to paint the world of jugaad with a single brush.
Jugaad Yatra is an absorbing, revealing, and reflective journey on the resilience, individualism and resourcefulness of people which further indicts the government of its failure in the wake of people’s fierce survival instinct. The book is a tour d’Horizon of the enriching world of jugaad, from the dusty village roads in Yamunanagar to the swanky corporate arcades in Mumbai. It provides a snapshot into the world of frugal innovations that are finding their way into the mainstream albeit at a snail’s pace. For the country to tackle its growing socio-economic and political challenges over in the decades ahead, jugaad ought to feature in its list of prescriptions to circumvent many of its challenges.
Like the English traveler who, during the Mughal period, had recorded that ‘the natives are so full of ingenuity that they make any new thing by pattern how hard so ever it seems to be done,’ Nelson echoes that people in India have continued to be innovative, with inbuilt entrepreneurial ability to turn things around. This good news can be fully realized by institutionalizing ‘good jugaad’, by giving it a platform on which bottom-up innovations could be converted to address the mounting social, economic, and environmental challenges.
Jugaad Yatra
by Dean Nelson
Aleph, New Delhi
Extent: 175, Price: Rs 599
From the British Raj to the License Raj, and now the Resource Raj, the relentless growth has proved to be economically disruptive, socially bruising and environmentally destructive.
It has been five years since an Aston Martin, valued at $700,000, hit and spun an Audi A4 onto the opposite carriageway before a collision with another car had its front end crushed. No one was killed in the night of the accident on December 8, 2013, but the identity of the driver remains an unresolved mystery as the mangled remains of the car disappear into oblivion. The case has long been buried, but the skeleton keeps on popping in peoples’ memory. The accident on one of Mumbai’s busiest thoroughfare, Peddar Road, continues to evoke conspiratorial theory even today as the car belonged to the Reliance Industries, and none other than a young man from the country’s pre-eminent business dynasty could have been at the wheel of the invaluable car at that unearthly hour. The confession of a so-called driver claiming to be the one at the wheel during the late-night test drive could be anything but weird, reflective of the tumultuous times when political and economic influence protects the rich.
Evoking Mark Twain’s The Gilded Age when greedy, corrupt industrialists, bankers and politicians had ruled USA at the turn of the 20th century, the Financial Times’ former Mumbai correspondent James Crabtree provides somewhat similar but an unsettling portrait of the country that claims to uplift itself on the GDP curve but at the expense of its poor and the vulnerable. In each portrait drawn by Crabtree, from Ambani to Adani and from Mallaya to Reddy, none of the wealthy and opulent come out without their share of compelling stories of scams, scandals, and erased crimes. And, the stories are only beginning to unfold in the public.
The stories may sound familiar on surface but the devil is in the details. The billionaire class may have painted a bright future for the country, but the sanitized capitalism had left public sector banks holding at least $150 billion worth of bad assets in 2017. Was such a situation unexpected in a democratic set up? Crony capitalism is at the core of an unholy nexus, which keeps the political machine suitably oiled to fulfill its electoral promises, for regaining power and returning favors back to the businesses to keep it oiled. This unchecked cycle has led to the overnight ascent and dubious finances of the new billionaire class, leading to a shocking trend about the continuing purchase of politics by the wealthy. The die has been cast.
Crabtree has captured what is often considered a given, but for him it is a curious case of a democracy being weakened at its core as the lines between politics and business get blurred to dangerous extremes. No wonder, the country has become a picture postcard story of wealth amidst poverty marked by a growing economy that only widens income inequality. Part of the problem, argues the author, is that India itself, for all the lofty ideals of its constitution, has never actually made the transition to becoming a full liberal democracy, with public institutions capable of guarding in every respect the civil and political rights of its many peoples.
The Billionaire Raj is a telling account of the pleasures and possibilities of appropriating the state and its systems by an emerging class of political entrepreneurs. In a racy, enlightening, and engaging narrative the author leaves nothing to reader’s imagination as he draws amusing caricatures of the Bollygarchs, a term coined to represent Indian oligarchs. And, these are not without context as the colorful demeanor paints the dark side of the rich and the famous. ‘In his early forties with swept-back black hair and the angle of a crooked nose incongruent with the face’ and ‘a bulky man in a red polo shirt, with gold bracelets on each wrist and chunky diamond ear stud sparkling against his long graying hair’ help the reader see beyond the obvious.
Much of the foreign correspondent’s memoirs relate to the present political dispensation, on whom alone the blame may not rest, but which hasn’t done much to reverse the trend either. From the British Raj to the License Raj, and now the Resource Raj, the relentless growth has proved to be economically disruptive, socially bruising and environmentally destructive with any number of recent examples to quote from. Having moved to Singapore since completing the book, the author wonders if the country could be any different if it ignores the three major challenges – growing inequality, crony capitalism, and destructive development.
Crabtree is optimist nonetheless as he draws reference to the Roosevelt-style progressive era, a moment in which anti-corruption campaigns had cleaned up politics and the middle-class had exerted control over government. For this to happen, a lot will need to be done to build state machinery able to create and implement wise public policies, while remaining impartial between different social groups. Without building the state capacity, as Samuel Huntington had cautioned, rapid economic expansion can rip societies apart, resulting in upheaval and social division. The message cannot be more loud and clear!
The Billionaire Raj
by James Crabtree
HarperCollins, New Delhi
Extent: 358, Price: Rs 799
This review was first published in Outlook magazine, issue dated Nov 26, 2018.
Not only as a force of nature, kama is a product of culture and history reflected in human emotions ranging from love, affection, compassion and joy to adultery, betrayal, jealousy and violence.
Kama or desire has unsettling but compelling disposition that implores human vulnerability, often at the cost of other three goals of human life enshrined in ancient scriptures as - Dharma, Artha and Moksha. Overt emphasis on these three goals may have devalued kama to the extent that its immense creative force has been left unexplored by most. In reality, it is the middle-class morality that has come in the way of reading kama within the sensuousness of a human body, limiting it to the idea of romantic passion that fulfils one’s capability for (sexual) pleasure alone. Curiously, if it had been as deplorable as has been made out to be then why it features as one of the four goals of life, and is respectfully reflected in ancient scriptures and philosophical treatises?
With an astute philosophical mind and a keen romantic eye, Gurcharan Das pieces together the riddle of desire to restore some balance as kama continues to oscillate contentiously between what he calls kama optimists and kama pessimists – the optimists seek to draw a meaningful purpose of life from it while the pessimists consider it as sheer human limitation. Simply put, within the confines of seeking pleasure manifests kama’s creative as well as destructive powers. Not only as a force of nature, kama is a product of culture and history reflected in myriad human emotions ranging from love, affection, compassion and joy to adultery, betrayal, jealousy and violence, and the challenge lies in striking a balance between these extremes.
Unlike poets and philosophers who are usually pessimistic about kama, protagonist Amar meanders through a romantic journey, from a socialist to the liberal era, without denying kama a place in his life by nurturing it as an investment to transcend human limitations. From a childhood crush to a middle age obsession, with a family with two daughters in between, he is hit by kama’s mythical five arrows during various stages of life only to learn that love is a process that develops and changes with time. The fundamental loneliness of human condition got the better of societal moral constraints as Amar seeks liberation from the myth that attachments beyond what is permitted by the society is anything but infringement on human freedom. Can desire be allowed to remain hostage to the norms set by the society and religion?
Told as a fictional memoir, the book is an ambitious undertaking on balancing the dichotomy of kama’s existence in the body and its reflection by the mind, as an ultimate duty towards oneself to draw the true meaning of life. Subject to how one perceives the narrative, Kama is a story of desire of a human body seen through the percepts of mind. It views desire, as espoused in Rig Veda, as the first seed in the mind, implying thereby that the formless desires form. It is the unique chemistry between the profane and the sacred, marked by a journey that begins with romantic love and culminates into primal energy. Kama is the very root of being human.
It is through the story of predictable characters that Das weaves his study of desire which helps the reader relate to the contemporary relevance of desire in the times in which we live. For all the purusharthas, the goals of life, the task is to repossess the creative life force of kama to restore harmony in the chaotic modern experience. It is time to think beyond the narrow confines of kama as a subject of sexual desire. The essence of Kamasutra, as a metaphor, needs to be reinterpreted to free it from the gratuitous sense of guilt, thereby helping people relieve the stresses of life. Were the Kamasutra principles the way of life today, the world would have been on a different intellectual stew!
Kama: The Riddle of Desire could not have come at a better time, as human sexuality and relationships are being ascribed different meanings. Marriage, monogamy, adultery and, vengeance would carry different sense in future. To make it easy to comprehend the irresistible transformation, Das invokes Proust to remind us, ‘What matters in life is not whom or what one loves….it is the fact of loving’. As the book sketches the subtle landscape of desire, it reminds each one of us a duty to fulfill one’s capability for pleasure and live a flourishing life.
For tracing the history of kama and its multiple strands across history, culture and philosophies of both the East and the West, Das deserves praise in creating a mosaic of meanings and interpretations in addressing the riddle of desire. What must not be forgotten however is, as Tolstoy remarked, ‘.. the evidence of other people is no good, all of us must have personal experience of all the nonsense of life in order to get back to life itself’.
Kama: The Riddle of Desire
by Gurcharan Das
Penguin Allen Lane, New Delhi
Extent: 548, Price: Rs 799
