Privately Smart, Publicly Dumb

Posted on Monday, April 5, 2010 at 12:23 AM

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A team from GiveIndia went for TEDxMumbai on Apr 3rd. Deepa, one of the Give Bloggers, had this to say on one of the talks that she liked.

Yesterday, at TEDx Mumbai, we had the pleasure of hearing V. Raghunathan talk about “Why We (Indians) Are the Way We Are”. He has written the book “Games Indians Play” where he applies Game theory to explain the nature & behavior of Indians.

In his book, he writes about a farmer whose corn won top awards year after year. When a reporter asked about the secret of his success, the farmer attributed it to the fact that he shared his corn with his neighbors. Why, the reporter wondered, would the farmer want to share his seed when those neighbors also competed with him for the prize? The farmer's reply was, "The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grew inferior corn, cross-pollination would steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors do the same."

While we have made the most of the free market economy since 1990s, what will it take for us to imbibe the farmer’s mentality and share a small percentage of our fortunes with others?

Few snippets from a report by Bain Consulting -

“The number of so-called "high net worth individuals" in India has grown at about 11 per cent every year since 2000, possibly the fastest pace in the world, to more than 115,000 now. But when it comes to giving away money, India's rich are not very keen on loosening their purse-strings.”

“Most Indians have no qualms about giving cash to family, friends, household staff and religious institutions, but given the scale of poverty -- an estimated 40 per cent of India's 1.1-billion population lives on less than $1.25 a day -- Indians need to become way more generous.”

High time the realization sinks in that it is in our own self-interest to take care of the world around us.

Tell us what percentage of your income you give currently? How much do you think you should give?