India

Three percent of GDP

After reading my piece, “Don’t Punish Victimless Crimes,” and the follow-up post to it, my friend Devangshu Datta was kind enough to send me an old article of his on legalising betting. It’s a wonderful piece, and was first published in Business Standard, though they don’t have it online anywhere. With Devangshu’s permission, I’m reproducing some paras below the fold. Note that it was written in January 2001, but though the absolute numbers would have changed, the arguments and the macro percentages probably remain valid:

Betting and match-fixing

I’d written in my column yesterday, “Don’t Punish Victimless Crimes,” of how legalising betting would reduce match-fixing in cricket. Andy Mukherjee has an excellent column in Bloomberg today, “Woolmer’s Murder Shows India Must Allow Betting,” that expands on that point. Do read.

A couple of readers wrote in to say that they weren’t quite clear about how it would work. I reproduce my answer to one of them below:

If betting was legal, and as a punter you could choose from a) an HDFC subsidiary offering betting facilities, b) a Taj Group company and c) some shady outlet like the ones you can choose from now, you’d obviously choose one of the more legit ones. Being public companies, and part of bigger brands, they would be far less prone to fix matches. That would reduce bookie-led match-fixing.

As for punter-led match-fixing, consider that paper trails would exist of all bets and transactions, and suspicious activity would be far easier to ferret out.

Of course there will still be scams, for we are human, but they will be lesser in number. Consumers would have more choice and, because of greater transparency, more control. The cops would find it easier to catch suspicious activity.

The Ministry of Wet Dreams

I fear that one day I will look up in the sky and see a giant zipper shutting itself, as a voice from above booms, “Tsk tsk.” What other way is there to control this thing they call “public morality?” CNN-IBN reports that the Indian government has banned FTV:

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting said the programmes telecast by the channel were “against good taste and decency and denigrated women.”

Such shows were likely to adversely affect public morality, the Ministry said.

Needless to say, enforcing ‘morality’ is the responsibility of our government. Boys get wet dreams? Won’t do. Where’s the Ministry of Wet Dreams? Girls show cleavage? Won’t do. Where’s the Ministry of Cleavage Inspection? To paraphrase from Zero Wing, all your mind and body are belong to them.

(Link via separate emails from Gautam John and Sridhar Vanka. Also read: my WSJ Op-Ed, “Fighting Against Censorship.”)

Why does Bollywood crave validation from abroad?

Amitabh Bachchan is quoted as saying in the Times of India:

India’s economic progress is largely responsible for the Indian films getting recognised abroad. When the economy is doing well, everything connected with the country, its food, culture, colour, art and films get noticed.

I have a question: Are Indian films getting “recognised abroad?” To the best of my admittedly minuscule knowledge, only the diaspora really cares much for it, and as the diaspora has grown, overseas markets have become prominent. But non-Indians don’t really notice it, and the stories that the international press occasionally does on Bollywood treat it as exotica.

I have another question: Why do Bollywood people crave recognition abroad? Are the millions of Indian who watch their films not validation enough?

Update: DeCruz Pulikottil writes in:

I would have never expected to have been greeted by an African man inside a Costco (huge wholesale store) and asked if I was Indian. When I said yes, he had a broad smile on his face and asked if I like Bollywood movies. Apparently, Bollywood movies are all the rage in Africa. If you google online for Romanian Bollywood dance troupe you’ll find a group of all Romanians who pick up their dance moves from Bollywood movies who dance at weddings and other functions. Bollywood is insanely popular in Eastern Europe. My Cambodian friend tells me how back in the home country, they consistently watch Bollywood movies that do show. Even here, at a private university in Southern California that has one other Indian person that attends here, I popped in a Bollywood movie (Rang de Basanti) and many white people enjoyed it. So yeah, I’m answering your question. Bollywood is becoming immensely popular overseas and not just among the diaspora.

Hmm. And when I was in Singapore a millennium ago for a conference, a local girl sidled up to me and said, “I like Shah Rukh Khan .” Then she fluttered her eyelashes. Ever the naive nerd, I had no idea why she was telling me that. I think I said something to the effect of “Pah!” And then I toodled off to look for a bookshop.

Don’t punish victimless crimes

This is the seventh installment of my weekly column for Mint, Thinking it Through.

Imagine a dystopia where a mad dictator comes to power and decides to ban sex and dating. Sex is ruining the moral fabric of our nation, he decides. Men and women must not be allowed to get together. What will happen?

Here is what I imagine: One, immense copulation will still take place behind closed doors, and as no one engaged in consensual sex will complain, the state will have to spend considerable resources and do invasive policing to make sure people don’t break the law. Two, the underworld will get involved in enabling encounters between the sexes, as those won’t be legal any more, and couples will no more be able to shoot the breeze at a Barista. Three, there will be more rapes, as repressed men denied normal outlets will resort to force.

What a silly thought experiment, you say, it could never happen. After all, what two consenting adults choose to do together, harming no one else in the process, should never be the state’s business. And yet, while sex and dating are thankfully allowed in our country, many other consensual, harmless acts are banned. Allow me to give you a few examples of such victimless crimes.

First, take betting. Betting on cricket matches is, ludicrously, illegal in India. (Other forms of betting are allowed, such as speculative investments in the stock market or in real estate or betting at horse races, which all amount to the same thing.) If I choose to bet with another private party on the outcome of whatever, it should be no one else’s business.

Now, what happens when you ban something that has a high demand? The underworld gets in. As it operates beyond the arm of the law, there is no transparency, and the cost to consumers is higher. It is hard to monitor and, since it’s illegal, there is no industry mechanism to do so. Match-fixing becomes more possible. (People speak of betting and match-fixing in the same breath, but that’s really like conflating sex and rape.)

If betting was legal, though, the underworld would find little scope to be involved. In a competitive market, legitimate companies would raise customer service and transparency while driving down costs. Like your bank gives you a demat account to invest in shares, it might provide one for betting. You’d have various vendors to choose from and the chances of getting ripped off would be less. It wouldn’t be a panacea, but it would be an improvement on what exists. Consider that match-fixing in cricket has germinated from exactly those countries where it is illegal.

Another example of a victimless crime: prostitution. A consensual transaction between two adults is nobody else’s business, but prostitution evokes sordid images of young girls being kidnapped and beaten and forced into the profession. Why does such violence happen? It is because prostitution is effectively illegal in India and, therefore, the underworld is involved.

If it was legalised, it would be easier to police, and to safeguard the rights of the women involved. Legitimate companies in the hospitality industry might choose to get involved. To attract clients, they would have to have standards and practices. Yes, it would be sad that some women would choose to be prostitutes for a living, but they would do so because they prefer it to other available choices. Why should we pass moral judgement on them, or deny them some of those choices?

Again, legalising prostitution would be no panacea, but would cut down on much of the criminal abduction-rape cycle that forces so many young girls into the business in the first place. A perfect example of how legalised prostitution can function without coercion is the Netherlands, where prostitutes pay taxes and are part of unions, which look after their interests, and brothels advertise like other respectable businesses.

One more example of a victimless crime: taking drugs. A study published recently by the Lancet shows that alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than LSD, cannabis and ecstasy. If an adult chooses to smoke a joint, is it not immoral to stop them and impinge on their freedom? You might argue that people commit crimes under the influence of drugs, but then, punishing those crimes should be deterrent enough. (Tobacco is an exception, though: I support banning smoking in public places because it harms other people.)

Indeed, the drug trade is the lifeblood of the underworld in many countries. Consumers have none of the protections that a well-functioning free market affords, and might end up buying adulterated drugs at exorbitant prices. In contrast, consider the Netherlands, where drugs are legal and cannabis is purchased mainly in coffee shops. They have the lowest rate of drug-related-deaths-per-million in Europe.

While our cops are busy busting “betting rackets” and “dens of vice” and “rave parties”, do note that I am not endorsing either gambling or prostitution or drugs use. I am simply speaking out for individual freedom, and pointing out that the costs of denying such freedom are generally greater than any intended benefits.

Hiding the author

In a feature in the Guardian by Geraldine Bedell, AL Kennedy is quoted as saying:

The authors I first loved all had initials – JRR Tolkien, CS Lewis, E Nesbit, ee cummings – and I actively didn’t want to know who they were or have them get in the way of my enjoying their story and their voice.

Indeed, that is quite the problem with our times, especially in India: too much of the focus is on the author. That’s because most of us don’t read.

Alcohol. Tobacco. LSD. Cannabis. Ecstasy

Here’s an exercise: list the five substances named in the headline in the order of harmfulness as you perceive it.

Then see how, according to the Lancet, they actually rank.

Does it surprise you to know that the three that are the least harmful in this list are the ones that are banned in India?

Bal Thackeray’s culture

PTI reports:

Stating that “winning and losing is a part of the game”, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray on Monday asked the disappointed cricket fans not to attack the players’ houses.

Conceding that India’s defeat to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in the World Cup was a cause of anguish, Thackeray said in a statement that attacking players’ houses and taking out their mock funeral processions was not the way to express anger.

“This is not our culture…It does not behove us. Nowhere in the world do such things happen,” Thackeray said.

Immense amusement bestows itself liberally. We all know what kind of culture Mr Thackeray believes in. Do we not?