Opinion From paneer to bridges, quality suffers when we adopt the ‘chalta hai’ attitude

In the Indian public imagination, phrases like “chalta hai” are culturally deep-rooted and casually destructive. Translated loosely as “it’s okay” or “let it pass,” it has become a mindset that defines our relationship with quality, governance, and daily life. This mindset has created a paradox: A nation capable of launching satellites still struggles with leaking taps, poor infrastructure, and indifferent service delivery.

The problem is not capacity. It is apathy. When citizens stop expecting better, service providers stop aspiring to deliver better. Quality becomes not a benchmark but a bonus.

As Shashi Tharoor once rightly observed, “In India, everybody is in a hurry, but nobody seems to be on time.” It’s a sharp critique of our approach to discipline. Remember how we set the time for an event: It starts at 7 PM, but we tell people it’s at 6. The organisers know people will arrive late, and the attendees know the event will start late. Everyone participates in a shared fiction. This casual acceptance of delay and misalignment has become embedded in our national thinking.

But quality isn’t just about timeliness or polished infrastructure. It isn’t even just about products or services. Quality begins much earlier, in how we think. It lives in our habits, our conversations, our expectations. It shows in how we cross the road, treat a stranger, and respond to a mistake. When we speak carefully, act responsibly, and treat people with dignity, we practice quality. It is a reflection of intent and attention, the opposite of indifference.

We often talk about delivering quality education, but perhaps what we need is education on quality: Teaching the young what it means, why it matters, and how it connects to responsibility and progress. When classrooms emphasise precision, discipline, integrity, and care, we don’t just improve education, we transform a generation. A child who learns to value quality early is more likely to demand it as a citizen and uphold it as a professional.

This shift creates not just better students, but a more conscious society. A lesson in responsibility today can grow into honest leadership tomorrow. A discussion on integrity can echo into better governance and cleaner politics. Systemic failure is rarely sudden, it’s the result of small compromises repeated over time. The reverse is also true: Small acts of care, taught and practised consistently, can rewrite the future.

When people ask for quality consistently, the supply system, whether public or private, starts responding. During my college, I lived near Delhi University’s North Campus. Many shops near my residence only stocked local spices and dairy products. Whenever I asked for brands like Mother Dairy, Amul, or MDH, they didn’t have them. Still, when I needed anything, I would instinctively start at these shops; it became a reflex, simply because they were close to home. At first, it became a repetitive and frustrating exchange. I was irritated at not finding what I needed, and the shopkeepers were annoyed at being asked for items they didn’t stock. But I didn’t stop asking. And after a few months, one of them quietly began keeping MDH. That small shift happened not because of policy but because of persistence. It started with a question, a demand, and over time, it changed the supply.

When I came to Delhi, I encountered two striking extremes. In many of the famous weekly markets, I saw people, including the well-off, rushing to buy expired or low-quality goods, often out of habit or peer influence. A neighbour once told me, almost proudly, “Yeh to main Friday market se saste mein le aata hoon, itna mehenga lene ki kya zarurat hai? (I buy it from the local Friday market at a lower cost. Why do we need to buy it paying so much?)

That’s when I realised how peer pressure works subtly, not by force, but by making you feel foolish for choosing differently. They’ll tell you you’re wasting money. They’ll say, “Sab ek jaise hi toh dikhte hain,” that everything looks the same anyway. This mindset normalises poor standards and dismisses discernment. It reinforces the idea that expecting better is unnecessary, even laughable.

Just a few kilometres away, I saw people willing to pay generously for quality, organic food, aesthetic living spaces, or seamless services. This isn’t simply a question of economics. It’s a mindset divide. One that either defends compromise or aspires toward excellence. Both perspectives coexist in our cities.

Changing this won’t come through slogans or policies alone. It demands a cultural shift, one that begins with citizens and is mirrored by institutions. We must begin to reward those who fix what’s broken, not just those who fulfil the bare minimum. We must create systems that encourage feedback, value process, and nurture consistency.

India is stepping into a global role as a leader in innovation, sustainability, and diplomacy. But no country can sustain greatness if it continues to tolerate the ordinary. “Chalta hai” may once have been a coping mechanism, but today, it is a constraint. The path forward starts with a simple question: “Why not better?” If we ask it often enough, we’ll slowly change, not just our systems but our standards. Quality was never out of reach. It was only waiting for us to stop settling and start asking.