Chalta Hai India, by Alpesh Patel

Chalta Hai India: When ‘It’s Ok!’ is Not Ok, by Alpesh Patel

Amazon IN, Kindle IN

Publisher: Bloomsbury India (October 2018)
ISBN-10: 9388038665, ISBN-13: 978-9388038669

Necessity may be the mother of invention, and in some cases, the midwife of innovation. In India, poverty, under-industrialization, a closed economy, and a socialist model of economic planning kept her in abject poverty for decades. Every little step taken necessitated innumerable hacks and compromises. Over time, this band-aid approach became popularized as "jugaad". Its romanticizing apart, jugaad was in reality a byword for compromises, corner cutting, and a rationalization of mediocrity. It became a stick to beat anyone up with who questioned sloppiness and demanded world-class perfection. Chalta-hai - it's OK, became the catch-all phrase to justify shoddy quality.

The premise of the book is simple and straightforward enough - is India a "chalta-hai" nation? Are we consistently and uniformly accepting of mediocrity? Is this a relatively recent phenomenon, or has it been an immutable part of our nation? What are the symptoms of a “chalta hai” attitude? Can we break it down further? Is it pervasive across every sphere of life, or are there bright spots of excellence that one can look to for inspiration?

Let’s take two examples, both stark. In 1950, the author writes, both India and China had roughly the same share of global GDP. By 2015, China’s share of global GDP had shot to 16 percent, while India was at 7 percent.