India's Systems: Quality Vs Quantity

INDIA'S SYSTEMS: QUALITY VS QUANTITY

Every system has two fundamental aspects: quality and quantity. Which is more important? Both are equally important. That is – a system must ideally maximise both quality and quantity. But given resource constraints, we can increase only one of these two parameters at a time. So to achieve both quality and quantity, a sequential approach is needed. Accordingly, two approaches are available:

	Phase 1	Phase 2
Approach 1	Increase quality Keep quantity low	Increase quantity Maintain quality
Approach 2	Increase quantity Keep quality low	Increase quality Maintain quantity

Which approach is better? The critical part of the process is the second phase. In the first approach, the second phase involves increasing the quantity of a high-quality low-quantity system. In the second approach, the second phase involves increasing the quality of a high-quantity low-quality system. Which of these two processes has a higher probability of success? Once the question is framed this way, it becomes clear that the first approach has a higher probability of success – and is therefore better.

India came under foreign rule around 1000 AD – during the Agricultural Age. It remained under slavery for 1000 years – under the Turks, Mughals and British. During the period of British rule, the Agricultural Age ended and a new age in the history of mankind - the Modern/Industrial Age - started. When India finally became free in 1947, the fundamental challenge before it was to build modern systems that would be both world-class (quality) and big enough for the world's second-biggest country (quantity). And that required choosing between the two approaches described above. Unfortunately, we chose the second approach. That is – we aimed for quantity rather than quality, perhaps hoping to increase the quality later. The result is that today we are stuck with low-quality high-quantity systems whose quality we are now struggling to increase.