The Quiet Violence of Adjustment

Whether it’s in a crowded auto, a tense marriage or a toxic workplace — “thoda adjust kar lo” is something every Indian has heard, and often, said. It sounds harmless. Sometimes it even sounds kind. But beneath its softness lies a harder truth: a culture that rewards silence, glorifies discomfort and treats suffering as a sign of maturity.

This article argues that “thoda adjust kar lo” is not just a cultural quirk — it is a system of quiet control. It teaches us to bend, shrink and suppress, all in the name of being good, decent or dutiful. And in doing so, it shapes how we see love, gender, caste, class and even ourselves. It rebrands endurance as elegance and discomfort as discipline — but only for those with the least power to say no.

How We Learn to Shrink

Adjustment doesn’t begin in adulthood. It begins in childhood — quietly, innocently and often lovingly.

When a child cries because her toy is snatched, she’s told “adjust kar lo, chhota hai.” When a boy is excluded by his friends, adults say, “kya baat ka batangad bana rahe ho?” On school benches, in crowded autos, in lunch queues — we are asked to slide, share, shrink. Not just physically, but emotionally.

Adjustment becomes a virtue early. The child who complains is dramatic. The one who “lets go” is mature. Bit by bit, we learn that making space for others is good — even if it comes at the cost of our own comfort.

“Thoda adjust kar lo” isn’t just advice. It’s a moral test — and passing it means knowing how to stay quiet, stay calm and stay small.

The Psychology of Silent Discomfort

We are taught not just to adjust, but to do so gracefully. To complain is to be ungrateful. To object is to create tension. So we fold our feelings inward, polish our smiles and move on.

Erving Goffman once said that social life is a performance. And in this performance, “adjustment” is the most rehearsed act. We hide feelings that might upset the scene. We wear masks to keep the harmony intact.

Psychologist Arlie Hochschild calls this emotional labour — the unpaid, unseen work of managing feelings to meet social expectations. In India, this labour is gendered, generational and expected. Children must not embarrass parents. Wives must not challenge husbands. Employees must not question bosses. In India, emotional labour often wears the mask of adjustment — a polite smile, a swallowed sigh, a silent retreat from discomfort.

Eventually, we forget how to speak honestly. We don’t even recognise discomfort until it overwhelms us. Adjustment becomes second nature — not because we choose it, but because we are never taught alternatives. 

Women: The First to Adjust, The Last to Complain

No one is asked to adjust more — or more often — than women. In Indian households, adjustment is wrapped in love and duty and handed to girls before they even learn to say no.

“Shaadi ke baad sab adjust karna padta hai.” This one line has shaped generations of women. The expectation isn’t that husbands change or families evolve. It’s that women will bend themselves into shapes that fit.

A woman’s capacity to tolerate becomes a measure of her worth. The more she sacrifices — sleep, career, comfort, voice — the more she is praised. Her patience is seen as beauty. Her silence as strength.

Working women are expected to adjust between deadlines and domestic chores. Mothers must suppress hunger, pain, even ambition — all in the name of care. And if she speaks up? She’s reminded gently: “Itna bhi kya lena dena hai. Thoda adjust kar lo.”

The message is clear. Adjustment is not just expected — it’s branded as womanhood.

And while women carry this burden most visibly, men too are trapped by adjustment. They’re expected to silently provide, suppress emotions and never ask for help — because vulnerability, for them, is seen as failure. Their adjustment is often unnamed, but no less suffocating.

Class and the Inequality of Adjustment

Adjustment is not evenly distributed. It is demanded most from those with the least power — the poor, the young, the junior, the marginalised.

On the bus, it’s always the last boarder who is asked to squeeze. In apartment complexes, it’s the domestic worker who enters through the back gate. In offices, it’s interns who are asked to “stay back just ten more minutes,” over and over again.

“Adjust kar lo” functions like a caste-mark — not always visible, but always telling people where they belong. And because it’s framed as kindness or maturity, refusing to adjust feels impolite. Ungrateful. Arrogant.

But politeness is often a privilege. For many, adjustment is not a choice — it is a performance of submission that keeps them safe, or employed, or simply undisturbed.

Silence, in such contexts, is not virtue. It is self-protection.

The Caste of Adjustment

“Thoda adjust kar lo” may sound like advice for everyone — but in India, it is caste-coded. It doesn’t land the same on every ear, and it doesn’t weigh the same on every body.

Those from dominant castes are often the ones saying it — in meetings, on campuses, in neighbourhood groups. But those from marginalised castes are the ones expected to live it. Not occasionally, but every day. Adjustment, in this context, is not a gesture — it is a demand. A demand to stay quiet, stay grateful, stay in place.

It shows up in schools where children are expected to tolerate segregation, in universities where assertion of self-respect is labelled “aggression,” in offices where speaking up about bias leads to professional isolation. Even a question — “Why is this happening to me?” — is often answered with dismissal or discipline.

When marginalised individuals assert basic dignity — by asking for fair access, by naming inequality, by simply refusing to disappear — they are seen not as rightful participants, but as disruptors. And disruption, in a caste society, is punished. Students have lost scholarships. Workers have lost jobs. Entire communities have faced social boycott for saying no to silent suffering.

The cruelty lies in how calmly this is framed as adjustment. As if tolerance of injustice is maturity. As if survival in silence is strength.

But this is not adjustment. It is containment. It is social control dressed as etiquette.

If “thoda adjust kar lo” is a national mantra, it is one written by those who have rarely had to adjust their place in the hierarchy — and enforced on those who are never allowed to forget theirs.

Emotional Control Disguised as Maturity

In Indian homes, feelings must adjust too.

If a child cries at a wedding — “sab dekh rahe hain.” If a teen says they feel low — “tumhare paas toh sab kuch hai.” If someone expresses anger — “abhi ka mood mat kharab karo.”

The lesson is constant: your emotions are inconvenient. Hide them. Manage them. Don’t ruin the atmosphere.

This is what Foucault might call bio-power — power that governs not through punishment, but through norms, expectations and discipline. We are trained to discipline ourselves: to nod when we disagree, to smile when we want to cry.

We become contortionists of emotion — bending, twisting, shrinking to fit in. Not for comfort, but for survival.

When Love Becomes a Test of Endurance

Adjustment doesn’t stay confined to homes and offices. It enters our relationships too, dressed as patience and maturity.

When a partner mocks your dreams, forgets your birthday or grows emotionally distant, advice is the same: “Thoda adjust kar lo. No one is perfect.”

But there’s a difference between imperfection and harm. One forgets a date. The other forgets your worth.

Love in India is tied to sacrifice. The more you give up, the more sincere your love is seen to be. But when only one side keeps adjusting, what you have is not love — it’s imbalance.

We romanticise endurance. But when that endurance costs self-respect, it stops being noble. It becomes erasure.

Pop Culture’s Quiet Endorsement

Bollywood and Indian television have long cxelebrated the adjusting hero.

In Baghban, Hum Aapke Hain Koun and countless family dramas, the noble character is always the one who suffers silently. They don’t fight. They don’t complain. They adjust — and are rewarded with respect, love, even poetic justice.

The person who walks away is selfish. The one who protests is rude. But the one who stays — folding their pain into silence — is the moral centre.

Even recent web series and ads sell ‘compromise’ as maturity — often framing adjustment as the price of love, the proof of sanskaar or the path to peace.

Even advice columns echo the same: “Try talking again. He’ll change. Thoda adjust kar lo.”

But what if adjusting means forgetting who you are?

The Dangerous End of Adjustment

What begins as courtesy can grow into complicity. What starts as politeness becomes paralysis.

A woman stays in an abusive marriage because “ghar ki izzat” must be protected.
A queer teenager hides their identity because “parents won’t understand.”
A student from a marginalised caste tolerates everyday indignities because “ab adjust karna padega.”

Adjustment, in these cases, is not a social grace — it is structural violence, softened with a smile.

When pain is normalised, when silence is praised, when resilience is fetishised — systems that harm remain untouched. We call it strength. But often, it is simply exhaustion dressed as grace.

Learning to Take Up Space

So what if we said no?

What if a woman said, “I will not adjust to disrespect”?
What if a teen said, “I won’t hide my sadness to protect your peace”?
What if an employee said, “My work deserves limits, and my time has value”?

Unlearning adjustment is not rebellion. It is self-recognition. It is the right to discomfort — not just in yourself, but in others who benefit from your shrinking.

It also means rethinking how we handle tension. Conflict is not always destruction. Sometimes, it is the beginning of truth — of new possibilities, of honest relationships, of actual respect.

Conclusion: From Survival to Selfhood

“Thoda adjust kar lo” may have helped maintain order. It may have held families together, saved arguments and quieted discomfort.

But peace without fairness is not harmony. It is silence.

Adjustment may help you survive. But it rarely helps you live.

Living means making space — emotionally, physically, politically. It means saying, “I am uncomfortable,” and expecting to be heard. It means building homes, relationships and institutions where needs are not viewed as burdens.

And perhaps most urgently — it means teaching the next generation that they do not need to suffer beautifully to be loved.

In a just world, love and dignity go hand in hand — not at the cost of one another.
Adjustment should be a choice — not the cost of belonging.

Disha is a Ph.D. Scholar and Senior Research Fellow at Dr. K. R. Narayanan Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India. (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0006-7124-9438)