Forever Frugal ?(Jugaad kab tak)

We understood jugaad but don’t know where and how much to apply it.

This scarcity driven innovation hasn’t given us reliable results. It has encouraged bad craftsmanship and an uninspiring engineering force. We understood jugaad but don’t know where to stop and start enforcing good practices.

Human is a product of complex emotions and ideas. They both are intertwined and inter-dependent. It is the human selfish gene of creating more and more wealth that has given rise to the concept of the capitalist economy. For long humankind's progress was stuck in limbo, the simple concept of investing wealth for a maximum return was a game-changer. Capitalism assumes the economy will be growing perpetually. This understanding had ignored sound science and the working of nature. The birth of capitalism led to the emergence of modern science, also the hunger to create new inventions. Over a period just creating inventions was not enough to drive the economy. Implementing these inventions would create meaningful economic transformation in society. This assimilation and absorption of inventions into society we know it by innovation today. Innovation drives the engine of capitalism. A healthy innovative environment means fast-paced economic growth and wealth creation. More wealth creation means more economic happiness in society. By now we all know this utopia has not given the desired result. The nature of innovation by no means creates social value today. It only serves the capitalist agenda of forever wealth creation by any means. There is little or no ethics in capitalistic innovation.

Capitalistic innovation is more often ambivalent and controversial. It may solve one problem at the expense of creating an even bigger one. This surgical and deep-diving approach created groundbreaking innovation but it often lacks holistic thinking required in many places. We can attribute our current problem of climate change, wealth disparity, economic stagnation, and social problems to the capitalist model of innovation. This linear model of standard innovation for all is flawed. It forces people to fit in a cube not designed for them. I often wonder how to distinguish third world country citizen from the first world, if both experience perpetual discontent and unhappiness.

Too much has been said about the philosophy and too little has been done to follow it. The frugal approach or jugaad has many forms today. Some say jugaad is “Somehow manage it”; others say jugaad is “Just do it and don’t care” and legends say the only way is “Never design it”.

Indian innovation :

India is blessed with abundant and diverse resources. Still, the Indians never felt the need to exploit or over design anything for themselves. Indian innovation applies system thinking at its heart and assesses the impact of the innovation on the system. We understood the symbiotic relation of humans and nature quite early. We know we are cosmic identity and the only impact we should make is by making no impact. Somehow our ancestors knew everything in nature is perpetually reincarnating itself. It has a slow cycle of incremental changes and our job is only to drive the change. We only carry the baton of change from one generation to the next.

Innovation is the mere discovery of things by us in the cosmic timeline. Everything in nature exists already we only discover them in our cosmic journey.

We were communicating by telephones yesterday and Smartphone today. It’s just a gift from a cosmic designer. He says it's convenient and we call it our creation. Our ancestors were able to decode all these cosmic mysteries free from complex emotions and ideas.

The Indian philosophy of innovation could be best summarized as follows

“If there is no need then you don’t design. If you need it in the future, save for it today. If you need it urgently make it now. If you need it forever you invest in it every day.”

Taking the wrong turn:

We do remember how Reliance copy-pasted the Zoom app to gain quick market share in the Virtual meeting space. Also, the same company had shown its version of google glass. even presented with animated character which was jugaad in its own . conveniently taken the “Never design” approach here. is it a Just Poor by design taste or willful jugaad.

IKEA design is world famous and I like it too. Unfortunately, they aren’t made to last longer. The extensive use of MDF and DIY assembling methods are just fancy. You are spending a lot on fixing the piece that isn’t worth it.It feels IKEA is happy making people buy cheap furniture regularly. They have perfected the idea of “Just do and don’t care idea”.

Today many organizations have convinced us to buy beta designs as market-ready solutions. We pay them to take us for granted. planned obsolescence is the key business idea every marketer and business graduates are feeding these brands.

Enough celebrating Bad Jugged:

People have embraced jugaad principle for long now.This scarcity driven innovation hasn’t given us reliable results. It has encouraged bad craftsmanship and an uninspiring engineering force. We understood jugaad but don’t know where and how much to apply it.

The perils of unbalanced frugal thinking, it lead to a poverty mindset. The innovators do not find standardize and sustainable solutions. Even people don’t demand the right solution and live with compromised conditions. Jugaad aims for out of the box methods to solve daily problems. These solutions born are out of need and have an imperfection in them. The design innovator has to standardize this solution and make them last longer. Many people in my part of the world embrace jugaad in its most destructive form. It is used as a shortcut; they create scarcity when it is not required. We compromise on safety and accept sub-optimal performance which is a recipe for failure. Artificial scarcity of resources is used as an excuse and thus it breeds complacency. There’s a way to do it better – find it”.

Frugal innovation must be embraced in the right way. It could help us shape the future of our planet in the best possible way.

Of course, we need diverse approaches to make sure innovation is healthy. We need to balance both directions for the benefit of society. No one approach is right and other is wrong. Diversity in design is the only way forward. Humans may not live the entire cosmic timeline but ideas and emotions will.

-Design Odyssey

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This article is written by Ajay Choudhary, Creative designer, Hyundai design India and is co-authored with Pravin Gaikwad, Head of Hyundai Design Studio.

We strongly believe India's innovation is a holistic thinking process. It advocates long-term vision and responsibility towards our planet. Indian design exists beyond the obvious aesthetics value. It is an idea whose time has come.