States: Madhya Pradesh: Death by Lots

Beg, borrow or steal. Desperate punters in the state will do anything to be able to buy a raffle. When all avenues run out, they will even gamble their lives away.

As the shattered family performs the last rites, relatives put a Re 1 coin into the mouth of Baburao Wadekar, an unemployed youth in Bhopal. This is an age-old custom but there is a stark irony about it: a craving for easy money had led the 25-year-old to gamble with his life. He ended his life on December 27. "I had borrowed heavily to buy lottery tickets and have no option but death now," the suicide note said.

Elsewhere in the city, Jitendra, a Class IV student, and his brother Dharmendra, three grades his senior, are unfazed by the incident. They are on their way to buy raffle tickets with part of the Rs 1,000 they had won the previous week. Suresh, a Class VI student from a nearby slum, too is oblivious of the fact that the past two months have seen 24 raffle-related suicides in the state, nine in Bhopal alone. He wants to bet with the money he does not have, the desperation leading him to steal from his parents who are construction workers.

"He said lottery was profitable. But it has ruined us."
Badrunissa, wife of Ausaf Akhtar, a lottery dealer who hanged himself after he ran into debt

Suicides, child punters, thefts -- the Madhya Pradesh Government seems to have its hands full ever since the Bhutan lottery crept into the state two months ago. With the raffle mania gripping its people, even everyday life has been thrown out of gear. Each morning long, winding queues form in front of the lottery stalls that have mushroomed in every nook and corner of the towns and cities. By noon, the excitement builds up. Scores of people who throng the stalls stand in groups and heatedly discuss the lucky numbers. All civic sense is lost as vendors selling tea and snacks set up stalls, often leading to traffic snarl-ups. When the results are finally announced in the late afternoon, there is a virtual stampede and roads have to be blocked and the traffic diverted.

From schoolboys and unemployed youth to labourers, housewives and government officials, everyone is on to the act. According to D.P. Goyal, president of the Madhya Pradesh Lottery Dealers' Association (MPLDA), tickets worth Rs 6 crore are sold in the state everyday, half of it in the capital itself. The police too have not been spared by the raffle bug. A sub-inspector in Bhopal is reported to have begun taking bribes in the form of lottery tickets. In the smaller towns, addicts are selling their utensils to be able to buy tickets. Beg, borrow or steal -- any means is justified when it comes to mobilising resources for lottery. But when all avenues are exhausted, death is the only way out.

The first raffle-related suicide was reported from Bhopal on October 31. Raju Patil, a daily-wage worker with the Public Works Department, hanged himself in his hut. Consistent losses and debt had left him no alternative. Sometimes the debt can run into a couple of lakhs. On December 8, Kailash Chandra Jain, a grocer in Bhopal, swallowed poison following pressure to repay the Rs 2.75 lakh he had borrowed to buy tickets. His wife with two sons and three daughters shudders at the thought of how she will manage on her own.

Like Badrunissa, for whom Id will no longer be a celebration. On December 21 when she had gone out shopping for the festival, her husband, Ausaf Akhtar, sprang a cruel surprise on her. An auto driver, he had borrowed Rs 15,000 from her to set up a lottery stall. But instead of selling tickets, he was betting himself. With debts mounting, he decided to hang himself when his wife was away.

Ironically, this is not the first time that the state has witnessed such incidents. In 1990, when the Sunderlal Patwa Government had introduced a lottery scheme to help generate income, a similar mania had struck the state. The poor became poorer and several suicides were reported, forcing the Government to ban the scheme along with those of other state governments.

This time, however, the menace came in from the back door. Taking advantage of a high court order, Arunachal Pradesh launched its lottery here in August this year. Though the Madhya Pradesh government derecognised it within 10 days, it could do little in the case of the Bhutan lottery which was introduced on October 11.

The tickets are being sold under an international treaty between the governments of Bhutan and India which allows certain business transactions, including lottery, between the two sovereign states. When the state Government tried to ban the lottery the operators moved the Jabalpore High Court which granted a stay on it till January 5.

The Great Bazaar: Raffle tickets worth Rs 6 crore are sold in the state every day

The Bhutan lottery is unadulterated gambling. There is a daily draw and the results are conveyed within minutes to various stalls through std and cellular phones. Each ticket costs Rs 11 and Rs 100 is awarded if the last digit of the ticket turns out to be the day's lucky number. Since 91 per cent of the proceeds is distributed as prize money, the number of beneficiaries on any given day is large. And that's what makes the scheme attractive, the lure soon turning into an addiction.

With business assured, about 75,000 dealers have set up stalls all over the state. Even grocers, textile-shop owners and other businessmen are selling tickets now. "I was running a junk shop earlier," says Akram Khan. "Today I earn nearly Rs 1 lakh a month by selling lottery." The huge gains have made dealers throw all ethics to the winds. In violation of an mplda undertaking, makeshift stalls have sprung up in front of many schools resulting in the emergence of the child punter.

The lottery has helped spawn lucrative side businesses as well. There are special mini buses called Bhutan Special carrying the latarios -- as the lottery junkies are called, after satarios who indulge in satta -- to "Lottery Bazaar" in Bhopal. Then there are those who make quick money by selling tea or by keeping vigil over cycles and scooters parked near the stalls. Some are making a living by just sweeping the area clean of discarded tickets. With each stall owner paying them Rs 5 per day, it's as good as it will ever get for them.

The state Government finds itself unable to act in view of the high court stay though some district administrations have cracked the whip on lottery operators on the ground that they are a public nuisance. The court may well rule against the continuation of the Bhutan lottery but the dealers are likely to move the Supreme Court. The ball clearly is with the Union Government which has two options: take up the issue with Bhutan or let more people gamble away with their lives.