The idea that ancient India was just vibing without a clue about how to get things done doesn’t hold up. One doesn’t dominate global trade and GDP for centuries by accident. Our ancestors had a definition of efficiency.
A little while ago, WhatsApp’s Kunal Shah stirred the internet by claiming that Indian languages lack native words for “efficiency” or “productivity.” The implication? Since we don’t have the vocabulary, we don’t understand time management, leading us down a slippery slope where we supposedly spend all our time scrolling reels instead of doing real work. It’s provocative and highly cynical, and, honestly, completely wrong.
The idea that ancient India was just vibing without a clue about how to get things done doesn’t hold up. One doesn’t dominate global trade and GDP for centuries by accident. The truth isn’t that India lacked a concept of efficiency; it’s that our ancestors had a definition of it that was far more sophisticated—and healthier—than the modern corporate grind.
Let’s dispel the linguistic myth first. If you delve into Sanskrit and its daughter languages, you find a full spectrum of words dedicated to doing things right. We have Dakshata and Daksya, which translate directly to efficiency, competence, and precision. If you are talking about professional mastery and being a pro at your craft, the word is Nipunata or Naipunyam. Want to talk about capability or raw efficacy? That’s Samarthya. Even in the Vedic era, they used the word Vaja to describe spiritual abundance arising from high productivity. But here’s the catch: they believed Vaja occurs only when your intent (Kratu), your skill (Daksha), and an orderly system (Rta) align. So yeah, the vocabulary exists. We just forgot it because we began viewing work through a purely Western lens.
The Bhagavad Gita Was the Original Flow-State Manual
When we think of productivity today, we think of optimisation hacks, blocking calendars, and drinking too much coffee to hit a KPI. It’s all about external output.
Ancient Indian philosophy looked at it from the inside out. The famous line from the Bhagavad Gita, “Yogah Karmasu Kaushalam,” translates as: “Excellence or perfection in action is Yoga.” Think about that. It’s saying that true efficiency isn’t about burning yourself out to produce a thousand widgets. It’s about deep focus, absolute skill, and devotion to the task at hand. The Gita argues that when you stop obsessing over the final reward (the modern obsession with the “hustle”) and focus entirely on the quality of execution, you unlock a state of flow. That’s peak efficiency without the mental crash.
Kautilya’s Arthashastra: Corporate Strategy, 2,000 Years Ago
If you prefer hard-nosed economics to spirituality, look no further than Kautilya’s Arthashastra. This wasn’t a book of poems; it was a rigorous, practical manual on running an empire. Kautilya wrote about trade optimisation, resource management, and even about setting flexible minimum wages based on productivity indices. But he added a crucial guardrail that modern capitalism desperately needs: Dharma (ethics). The text makes it clear that productivity is valuable, but if it relies on exploitation or unchecked greed, it’s a failed system. They recognised that sustainable wealth requires a healthy society.
As for the idea that our culture tolerates laziness, the Vidura Niti (part of the Mahabharata) explicitly lists Deerghasutritaa—which means procrastination or deliberately dragging out a task—as one of the worst traits a person can have. They regarded putting things off as a vice that destroys success (deerghasutri vinashyati).
The Inner Toolkit for Higher Consciousness
Do you think this was limited to economics and ethics? No, it wasn’t. It goes much deeper. Ancient Indian thought didn’t just want you to be a productive worker; it wanted you to elevate your entire state of consciousness. There’s a remarkable verse in Shaunaka’s Brihaddevata (8.130) that outlines the precise psychological toolkit required to perceive the highest realities: “Yogena dākṣyeṇa damena buddhyā bāhuś rutyena tapas ā niyogaiḥ…”
Roughly translated, it means that to truly know the cosmic forces (the Devas), one must approach them through a combination of Yoga (inner alignment), Dākṣya (efficiency and skill), Dama (self-control), Buddhi (sharp intellect), Bāhuśrutya (deep learning), and Tapas (focused, intense energy). Notice how Dākṣya—efficiency—sits alongside intellect and spiritual discipline. In this worldview, efficiency isn’t a separate “corporate skill” you switch on at 9 AM and off at 5 PM. It is a spiritual qualification. It’s the practical expression of your inner clarity. You cannot achieve higher consciousness or master your life if your actions are sloppy, lazy, or disorganised.
Reclaiming the Balance
The modern corporate world is facing a massive burnout crisis. We are obsessed with tracking every second on apps, yet employee engagement is at an all-time low and minds are fractured. Maybe the solution isn’t more hustle culture or tech-bro cynicism. Maybe it’s adopting this traditional Indian view, in which efficiency is part of a broader ecosystem. Yes, we need Artha (economic prosperity), but it has to be powered by Dāk ya (competence), guarded by Dama (self-mastery), and illuminated by Buddhi (intellect).
So, no, Indians didn’t inherit a culture that doesn’t understand efficiency. We inherited a culture that understood it so deeply that it refused to reduce it to a mere transactional spreadsheet. It made efficiency a vehicle for human liberation. The next time you find yourself doom-scrolling, don’t blame your heritage—blame the algorithm.
The Modern Successors of Colonial Ignorance
Ultimately, just because you don’t know something exists doesn’t mean it isn’t there. This tendency among armchair critics to preach about India’s deficiencies without actually reading its literature is a tired old habit. In their recent book on colonial discourse, Prof. Kundan Singh and Krishna Maheshwari detail how James Mill wrote a multi-volume History of British India in 1817 that systematically trashed Indian civilisation—despite the fact that Mill never set foot in India or spoke a single word of any Indian language. He proudly claimed that his complete ignorance gave him “objectivity.” Decades later, the critic William Archer did something similar, prompting a fierce defence from Sri Aurobindo, who pointed out how absurd it was for culturally illiterate outsiders to preach about a civilisation they couldn’t even begin to comprehend.
Kunal Shah, unfortunately, seems to be perpetuating this colonial legacy. Intoxicated by a purely Western corporate framework and not bothering to cross-check basic linguistic or historical facts, he defaults to the old colonial trope: if I haven’t heard of it, it must not exist. Before tech leaders begin hand-waving away an entire civilisation’s understanding of time management, they would do well to learn about the land in which they operate. India’s corporate ecosystem doesn’t need lazy preaching born of historical amnesia. If anything, modern tech culture—with its relentless burnout, fractured focus, and soul-crushing hustle—desperately needs to go back to school. And the syllabus, written in the very languages Shah dismisses, has been waiting for over two millennia.
*Prof (Dr) Sampadananda Mishra is the Founding Director of the Centre for Human Sciences at Rishihood University, Sonipat. He is a recipient of the President’s Award (Maharshi Badarayana Vyasa Samman) for Sanskrit and has lectured internationally on Indian Knowledge Systems, Yoga, and civilisational heritage.
