Needs, Comforts, Luxuries and Beyond

Mahatma Gandhi once said that there is more than enough for everyone's needs but not enough for even a single man's greed.  Then there was the billionaire who said that if he were to distribute his entire and vast fortune amongst whole of the humankind, it wouldn't make much difference to anyone except him.  Each one would get just a few dollars while he himself would turn a pauper!

What the billionaire said seems to echo a tenet that the capitalist way subconsciously subscribes to, that is, there isn't enough for everyone's comforts but more than enough for luxuries and beyond for a few.  This being so it makes eminent sense to be greedy.

Now there are two questions for you, dear reader.  First, who is right, Mahatma or the billionaire?  Second, what happens when you have indulged in all the available luxuries and even explored the limits of the beyond and still have money left?

And if I may add a third, should the society define a beyond and put a limit on an individual's wealth which doesn't leave him a surplus when he is at the limits of this beyond?  After this point money will be required only for the love of it and as the Bible says the love of money is the root of all evil!  How about the wealth belonging to the artificial persons, the corporations?

Why do I support Kejariwal?

A question has been asked as to why do I support Kejariwal.  Kejariwal does not have the gift of the gab, he cannot make a good repartee, can make tactical mistakes and also does not speak English fluently.  The reason is pretty simple.  Human beings can exist only in societies and societies need infrastructure to exist.  And all that we value as wealth is possible only through this group existence.  Individually and without collaboration it would be impossible to generate the kind of wealth that organized societies generate.  Towards this end, the physical infrastructure, of course, is important.  But even more important is the infrastructure of ideas and practices that decide the interpersonal relationships and sharing of the fruits of such collaborative living. In fact, it is this infrastructure that also decides the kinds of fruits that the collaborative existence would like to generate.

Many of the things that we see as a vice today were programmed into us by nature as means to survival.  Greed, anger, lust all fall under this category of survival tools that are not really needed today, not with the intensity that is hardwired into us.  Take the example of the hardwired liking for fat and sugar in the human race.  It was a tool for survival when the chances of having to go without food were pretty high.  But today we have to consciously and deliberately fight off this craving.  Those who do not do so turn obese and sick and become non-productive and a burden on the society.

Because of such ingrained greed, given the opportunity and a large enough temptation any human being is likely to succumb to take away more than his fare share.  It seems to me that apart from this ingrained greed, we also have a squirrel programmed inside us.  This squirrel wants to take all the fruits not merely to indulge its hunger but also to salt it away so others cannot reach it even if they are starving.  As the productivity of the society increases so does the size of the common wealth and it tempts many who devise devious means to start squirreling it away.  It is a sick behavior like that of an obese person who likes to stuff himself with all the food that he does not need and also wants his refrigerator to be overflowing all the time.  But then as we said it is all very human.  And we have to have means to fight off this natural tendency.

The point I am trying to make is that the infrastructure that a society needs to build before it builds any other is one that can check this greed that is bad for the society and also for the greedy individual.  It was just NOT possible to do so in a monarchy or an oligarchy.  But it is definitely possible to do so in a democracy and it must be done as the very first thing.  Our squirrels in the form of clever politicians have realized that if somehow they can thwart this infrastructure, they can enjoy undue power and wealth as in an oligarchy or monarchy while shouting from the rooftops that it is a democracy!  And they have successfully thwarted it for over six decades.

And hence if a politician says that his first priority is to build this infrastructure and that everything else can wait, he makes the most sense and must be supported at ALL COSTS.  For the cost of not doing so is humongous, terrible, horrendous and excruciating.  We have already tasted the fruits of being without this infrastructure.

Kejariwal is just an ordinary man and probably a below-average politician.  In fact there are only ordinary men on this planet and those who claim to be otherwise are either conceited or cheats. Some may have stronger brains and some may be more brawny, but they can take advantage of this endowment only because they are enabled by the society. Kejariwal matters not because of any great traits or personal qualities but because of his contribution in bringing about awareness of the costs of not building this foremost infrastructure and his stated position to give it priority above everything else.

All other parties and leaders including BJP and Modi, notwithstanding what they say, are committed to thwarting this infrastructure for as long as they can.  Make no mistakes on this count.  

If AAP were not there, I might vote for Modi.  But if AAP is there, all right thinking people must vote for it.

The institution of Lokpal is not against enterprise, entrepreneurship or markets.  It is against abuse of power by big bad squirrels amongst us. And it must be created and created right before doing anything else.

Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) - Crusade for upliftment of the masses or deplorable gambling?

Lust and greed together with ego and anger are the prime movers of each individual. Take them away and much of the sound and fury surrounding the life's idiotic tale will cease. In fact these movers are so powerful that the society has to regulate them through various mechanisms to ensure that they are channelized productively and the pace of activities does not heat up beyond control.


Marketeers have exploited the tremendous power of these motives for commercial gains. If you want to sell something create an association between it and, say, sex. Catch hold of a model with sex appeal and associate that appeal with your product whatever it is and howsoever useless it is. Lo and behold. Buyers, well, the majority of them, mindlessly rush to acquire it as the money in their pockets flows to the seller. This has gained reluctant approval of the society. Though occasional noises are made about obscenity in advertising, these are accommodated by the system. So use of sex appeal as a tool of advertising, whether appropriate to the product or not, is not considered illegal. Of course, selling sex itself whether in the form of pornography or flesh trade is considered taboo or illegal in most societies for reasons stated at the beginning.

Greed too, like sex, has been used to oil the wheels of commerce. While the object of sex is a living being that of greed are normally money and inanimate objects. So how do you associate greed with a product? We all know the mechanism too well. Provide the buyer with a chance to get something additional while paying only for the product (ignoring the component loaded to finance the prizes.) So at the time of purchase he is given a scratch card or a chance to participate in a draw of lots. The prize(s) may be out of all proportions to the cost of the product being sold. You may be buying a bar of soap and getting a chance to win a holiday abroad that would otherwise cost you a couple of lakhs! Or you could get a chance of getting your toothpaste's weight in gold.

The moot question is whether or not does this practice of exploiting greed for promoting sales amount to gambling? In my opinion it does and I find it surprising that governments, even those that have banned gambling raise no objections to such practices. Possibly the argument is the same as in the case of sex (appeal): You can use it to promote sales of a product but you cannot sell it by itself. So while lottery may be banned, a scratch card with a product or even a draw of lots for genuine buyers is okay. Though farcical attempts are made to further disguise this, howsoever thinly, as a test of skill rather than chance. So you may be asked to write a slogan or answer a silly question for entering the draw of lots. The whole point is that though gambling as an appendage to a genuine commercial transaction may be grudgingly allowed, it is not okay by itself and in itself.

In these days of technology enablement, new formats and tools for gambling have emerged. SMS based contests are foremost amongst these. In these contests you are required to answer a silly question, pay inflated charges for an SMS and then a winner is decided by draw of lots.  Draw of lots because one hundred percent of the contestants are going to give the correct answers. Unlike the case stated in the preceding paragraph, there is no sale transaction associated with it. I do not think anybody subscribes to an argument that this is a test of skill and not a lottery. The questions are normally such that even the most retarded inmate of a lunatic asylum would answer it without a thought. And even if it is not, you have all the time to do your research on the net. This new variant of lottery business is made all the more lucrative by the fact that technology has substantially slashed costs of printing and distributing tickets. Technology has done away with distribution of physical paper tickets and collection of subscriptions and replaced them with your telephone number and SMS charges that you pay. It is surprising that no government has even thought of banning this form of gambling. Even the states where gambling is totally banned have failed to recognize these contests as such.


Gambling in any form including that through SMS contests is habit forming like a drug. You feel an initial euphoria after subscribing to the game. This euphoria is later replaced by dejection and severe depression for all the millions of contestants except a few very lucky ones. So they go for another dose. The cycle keeps repeating and the addicts lose their hard earned money and peace of mind. This also creates a moral hazard where people expect a fortune in return for nothing more than a chance and a small payment.


With this background in place, I wish to make an assertion that the currently popular TV programme, KBC is just a variant of the online gambling discussed above with a vast group of active spectators added to it. Of course, the format is cleverly modified and designed to disguise its true nature and make it as interesting for the viewers of the show as the participants. Another advantage of the modified format is that it further reduces the chances of the lucky participants winning a bigger prize higher up in the ladder of questions. This is partly done by making the questions progressively more and more useless and less and less relevant to our day-to-day affairs.  Needless to reiterate that the lucky participants in the actual game are chosen through plain gamble or lottery mechanism. Of course a few may be chosen on the basis of their top-dog or under-dog status to add further spice to the show for the viewers and further disguise it as very different from gambling. The top-dogs add one more veil to this gambling venture to make it look like a charitable one.


I hope that you have carefully listened to the ramblings of participants who made it to the show. They tell you like a typical addict the efforts that they have put over a decade or so and thousands of rupees that they have spent on their phone bills. And there are millions like them who spent thousands but couldn't make it. And naturally so because it is after all a game of gambling.  The viewers too contribute to the gambling kitty by answering one silly question per day.

It is truly pathetic and deplorable that a person of the stature of Amitabh Bachchan is made to proclaim this program as a laudable crusade for the upliftment of the downtrodden masses though it is merely a sugar coated and glamorized version of gambling.

We can all be sure that a person of Mr. Bachchan's standing must be able to see through the whole gimmick but he carries out his brief as a true professional and leaves questions of ethics to his principals.

As in any business of lottery it is the organizers, and in this case the host too, that become multi-crorepatis. The hapless participants await the next season with clenched fists and a distracted mind.


Are you convinced?  Will you call an axe an axe?