Indian society works with several agreement frameworks simultaneously: formal legal contracts, community-based reputation systems, relationship-based trust, ritual or sacred commitments, and role-based obligations. These aren’t alternatives you choose between; they layer and interact. The same agreement might be a legal contract, a community commitment, a personal promise, and a family obligation all at once. Skilled navigation requires reading which systems apply in each context.
Sometimes detailed contracts matter most; sometimes community reputation carries more weight; sometimes the relational dimension overrides formal terms. Watch how your counterparts operate—what do they treat as binding, what mechanisms do they invoke, what seems to concern them most? Adapt your approach to the systems that are actually functioning in your particular context rather than assuming that formal legal terms alone determine how agreements will work.
Comments