The Cultural Customs of Communicating in India

Cultural Profile

India is a high context, collectivist culture, which means that personal relationships are very important and meaning is often implied rather than stated explicitly (Nishimura, Nevgi & Tella, 2008). It is one reason Pio, who is from India, had trouble adjusting to America when he first came here. He was always trying to understand the context of situations even when instructions were explicitly given to him: he thought there was more going on that he was missing and it made him very stressed because he could never figure it out. Pio describes his culture back in India as one in which people come to understand the ways of interacting through experience and convention; individually, the average person in India is of little to no account. In India, emphasis is not placed on individuality the way it is in the US. Pio is a Catholic, which defines his micro culture. In India, Catholics are a minority group; Hinduism is the dominant religious group. Overall, the impression Pio gives of India is that it is a very high context culture with respect to communication. Instructions or communications are never explicit; one has to know the context of the communication—who is taking part in it, what it is about—to know how one should conduct oneself. Communication between peers is going to be much different from communication between a superior and an inferior. Even between men and women, communication is different, as in it is almost non-existent unless the man and woman are married. Of course, some in India violate this cultural norm, but it is viewed as a violation and not as an accepted practice in society.

Two major values family tried to instill in Pio were to be masculine and to have a long-term plan. To be masculine as an Indian Catholic meant to be virtuous and to act properly towards women and towards the family. It is often the case that men in India fail to live up to standards of masculinity and they become self-centered and self-destructive and bring shame and economic ruin to families and their businesses. Pio’s own family struggled because his brothers did not live up to these values. For Pio it was impressed upon him to have a long-term plan, which fits in with India’s long-term orientation value (Hofstede Insights, 2021): Pio went to school to learn how to work with computer code so that he could get a good job in the IT industry, which is what he did. Pio also did not marry until his parents arranged for him to marry a girl they considered to be a proper match. Pio had some opportunities to date on his own, but he never did because he knew it would violate his parents’ expectations for him. But mostly Pio learned these values by way of negative examples of what would happen if he did not work towards them.

Two examples of communication behaviors that Pio demonstrates are customary in India, which is to eliminate space between people, and another is to establish context for the situation. For instance, in India personal space is not really something that is valued: people pile onto buses and trains and cram into rickshaws and are very used to eliminate space so as to make room for others. It is a very densely populated country and people do not put up many barriers to protect personal space. So when Pio communicates with others, he comes up close to them, which can make non-Indians uncomfortable if they are not familiar with this communication behavior. An example of Pio seeking context is if he is going to an event—he wants to know who the event is for, who is hosting it, what it is about, and what the expectations are in terms of bringing food, bringing a gift, what one should wear, or how one should behave. Having a sense of the purpose of the event and who is hosting it helps Pio to have a sense of how he is supposed to conduct himself. In situations where, because of a high power index value orientation common in India (Hofstede Insights, 2021), Pio senses that he is expected to maintain a posture of inferiority among superiors he will communicate with great deference and always show the necessary signs of respect. On the other hand, if the event is informal and everyone there is determined to be on an equal footing, he is more relaxed in his manner.

India is very collectivist so conflicts are typically resolved through group decision making (Harvard Law, 2021). For Pio, a conflict is typically resolved by discussing it with many other people and settling on a solution that the group identifies as the best solution. It is a democratic approach in many ways, but elders in the group are given more authority—so if in their view a decision appears to be best more deference will be shown to them than to younger persons. Nonetheless, it is uncommon for a conflict to be resolved by a single person making a decision without consulting others. To do so is considered bad form and a poor show of communication. It is not an individualistic culture like in America, where outcome-oriented perspectives preferred by individualists are typical. While the main goal is to find an effective finish to the conflict, a decision is usually made that will ensure the appropriate treatment of the parties involved. The appropriate treatment of all parties is the most important part in spite of the goal being to effectively finish the conflict—but what it means to effectively finish the conflict is different there as well. In India, effectively finishing the conflict is synonymous with appropriately treating all parties. Pio does not look at conflict resolution in the sense that the conflict will never again come up, because he believes it will when people stop treating one another in an appropriate way. Appropriate treatment of one another is what keeps conflict at bay in his culture; when that treatment is missing, conflict arises. Thus, in India, the culture is process-oriented, emphasizing the appropriate treatment of parties involved. But in addressing the matter in this manner, it is believed that this is the effective solution to the conflict.