The less widely known and palatable truth is that jugaad is simply a way of adapting to a few hundred years of colonial exploitation [1]. Indians have built precisely engineered monuments like the Taj Mahal [2] and the Konark Sun Temple [3] in eras before India was engineered to be a vast source of raw material for the British Empire, designed for optimum extraction.
Bygones are bygones, and we need to move on. However, I would urge all people who identify as Indian to reject this sense of "jugaad" as a uniquely Indian thing – it unnecessarily paints a picture of us as consistently turning out shoddy and half-baked work that will fall apart eventually.
Bygones are bygones, and we need to move on. However, I would urge all people who identify as Indian to reject this sense of "jugaad" as a uniquely Indian thing – it unnecessarily paints a picture of us as consistently turning out shoddy and half-baked work that will fall apart eventually.
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[1] http://www.nilejournal.net/politics/britain-exploited-india
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taj_Mahal
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konark_Sun_Temple