Anyone who has visited India for longer than a few days is likely familiar with jugaad, a Hindi word that describes a workaround solution to a problem, often a clumsy fix that cuts corners or bends rules. The closest English equivalents are “hack” and “kludge,” methods employed when conventional solutions are costly, arduous or impossible.
Indians usually encounter jugaadin the more humdrum spheres of life—getting a seat on a train, for example, or a low-cost repair to a car. Yet the concept has now moved to a more elevated perch—the Supreme Court of India, which, in a judgment that seeks to resolve the country’s most incendiary religious dispute, has engaged in what can only be described as jugaad jurisprudence.
First, in brief, the story, which brings together religion and title to property, two notions that have caused more strife in human affairs than almost anything else….
A piece I wrote for @WSJopinion on the Indian Supreme Court’s #AyodhyaVerdict. https://t.co/ohcUZocuAS via @WSJ
— Tunku Varadarajan (@tunkuv) November 22, 2019