The Reality Behind “Indians Don’t Worry”—The Logic of Surviving in a Society with Too Many People
Recently, I watched a video introducing a book called Indians Don’t Worry.
The book appears to have been written by a Japanese person working in India and describes the remarkably thick-skinned mentality of the people there.
They do not become depressed after making a mistake at work. They show no embarrassment when they miss a deadline. Even when faced with an impossible request, they confidently reply, “We can do it!”
In situations that would give a Japanese person a stomachache, they remain completely unfazed.
The lesson then becomes, “Japanese people should learn to take life more easily too.”
Whenever I hear this kind of argument, however, something bothers me.
Are Indians mentally strong simply because their way of thinking is rational?
The video also explained the social environment that produced that rationality.
A Society Where Family Matters More Than the Law
Family and extended-family ties are extremely strong in India.
When people are in trouble, they turn to family. Relatives help them find work. When a problem arises, their first instinct is to protect their own.
To Japanese eyes, this can look like mixing personal and professional matters or showing favoritism toward relatives.
In an environment where social institutions cannot be fully relied upon, however, family becomes the most dependable safety net.
Laws and institutions may exist, but that does not necessarily mean they will protect you.
If that is the case, it makes sense to prioritize the family in front of you over a distant legal system.
Whether or not this is morally right, it is rational as a survival strategy.
The other side of that logic is that people outside the family receive a lower priority.
The result is a world quite different from the fairness and concern for the public good that Japanese people expect.
When a Society Has Too Many People, Human Life Also Becomes Cheaper
One point in the video particularly stayed with me: because India has such an enormous population, each individual is regarded as having less value.
India’s population exceeds 1.4 billion.
There is always another person available. If someone quits a job, they can be replaced. If one person fails, someone else can be used instead.
In such a society, the impulse to treat every individual as precious becomes weaker.
The same applies to human life.
Poverty, dangerous working conditions, traffic accidents, and unequal access to medical care.
Society’s response to death also differs from that in Japan.
Because there are too many people, each individual life is treated more lightly.
Importantly, this does not apply only to other people’s lives.
People also recognize that they themselves can easily be replaced.
They do not expect to be treated as special. Society does not revolve around them, and even if they disappear, it will continue moving as though nothing happened.
So when they fail, they do not need to feel that their entire value as a person has been rejected.
There is no point in endlessly worrying about what others think when no one is going to treat them as special anyway.
Both I and everyone else can be replaced. Accepting that reality frees people from strange forms of pride and self-hatred.
The remarkable toughness described in the video seems to come partly from that background.
It Looks Selfish, but It Is Rational for the Individual
They do not apologize when they make a mistake at work.
When someone points out their responsibility, they offer another explanation.
Even when a request is impossible, they first say, “We can do it.”
To a Japanese person, this looks irresponsible and self-centered.
And in reality, this kind of behavior can cause problems for the people around them.
But what if we consider the situation from the individual’s perspective?
If admitting a mistake honestly only puts them at a disadvantage, they are better off not admitting it.
If they answer, “We cannot do it,” they may immediately lose the job or opportunity. In that case, it is better to say, “We can do it,” and keep negotiating.
They prioritize their own interests and those of their family over the other person’s feelings.
The behavior may not be desirable for society as a whole, but it is rational for the individual.
Everyone tries to protect themselves, and as a result, no one can trust anyone else.
Then, because no one trusts anyone else, everyone becomes even more desperate to protect themselves.
It is a structure that is extremely difficult to escape.
And yet, according to the author, society still functions this way, which is fascinating.
A system that looks chaotic to Japanese people still allows those living within it to work, do business, and lead their lives.
The rules Japanese people take for granted are not necessarily the only way to make a society function.
Would Japanese People Become Happier by Imitating This?
This brings us back to the title of the book.
“Indians don’t worry.”
However, the author also emphasizes that although worrying less is good, Japanese people should not imitate the behavior itself.
Breaking promises, refusing to take responsibility for mistakes, and prioritizing only your own interests.
Behaving that way in Japan would simply cause the people around you to stop trusting you.
What Japanese people should imitate is the ability not to worry too much about other people’s judgments and not to dwell endlessly on failure. We should take only the parts that suit us.
Keep Japan’s social security, public safety, and culture of honoring promises, while borrowing only the Indian mentality.
When you think about it, this is also a remarkably rational idea.
I agree with this approach.
There is no need to import another country’s culture in its entirety. We can adopt only the parts that are useful to us.
Still, in trying to learn from the toughness of Indians, we end up selecting only the parts that are convenient for ourselves.
Apparently, when it comes to putting our own interests first, Japanese people are already quite rational.