Dr. M.S. Kamath, Hon. Secretary of the Consumer Guidance Society on Consumerism in 2025
Thank you, I am particularly grateful to the Club for having invited me to speak today. There are many good people around whom I can call by their first names; one of them is your President. You may call him Mr. President, but I have the liberty of having worked with him and calling him Satyan.
My professor in medicine always used to say, “The worst time to talk to an august audience is immediately after lunch.” I never understood the significance of that until I became a speaker myself. As a medical person, I can tell you that after you have a heavy meal, your blood sugar rises a bit. If you see, anywhere in the animal world, after a meal, the animal sleeps. So, it is natural that the moment you have a meal, you start feeling sleepy. Why I am telling you this is that if some of you find your eyes drooping a bit, don’t worry. This is natural. Give in to your instincts. But avoid snoring and avoid falling on the person next to you. These are the two key things which can happen, so if you avoid these two things, then you are good.
You can do one nicer thing, which I discovered not as a doctor, but after I started attending consumer courts, having done my Master’s degree in Law. I used to go to Consumer Court and see the judges. Most of the time, they sat at the table with their arms folded and looking right in front. I used to wonder, is there some judicial mandate that they should sit like that? One day, for some reason, I just walked down the aisle on that side, but the judge was looking right in front. I was wondering, I said, what is happening here?
In another court, a few days later, I tried the same trick. This time, I walked to the other side, thinking that maybe this guy has one eye which is not up to the mark, and he cannot see the left. The same thing happened. He was looking right in front. Then I tried this in multiple courts and found that the judges do not waver; they look just straight ahead. One of those days, as I was walking up and down, something happened, and I had to make a point very strongly, so I banged the table and said, “But my Lord,” and the judge was startled when I did that. Then, I understood for the first time, thanks to my knowledge of both medicine and law, that judges have mastered the art of sleeping with their eyes open.
It is a very difficult art. You must practise it hard. Only then can you master it — your facial muscles, your eye muscles, your eyelids. The reason I am telling you all this is that if you feel sleepy, go ahead and sleep. No problem. You can also then become a judge of the High Court. I will recommend you for a good position somewhere there.
Many people ask me — particularly when I teach at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences — some of the brightest students who come there, they ask me, “Sir, what is this? You have done your medicine and then law, which is a totally different subject.” Then I tell them, you know, one of the things which I like very much is Maggi hot and sweet tomato chilli sauce — it’s different. That category is different. Why should you be run of the mill? It is different.
So let us come straight away to consumerism. I chose consumerism today because it is a subject that is at the heart of everybody. Consumerism is an extremely important subject for all of us consumers. But fortunately, or unfortunately, we are doomed consumers. The definition of the word ‘consumer’ is a doomed word. It’s a D-Day word — you know, doomsday word.
Now why? In English, the word ‘consumer’ — an option for it is ‘customer’ — jo kasht karke martaa hai (‘one who dies after doing a lot of hard work throughout his life’). Now, you’ll say that’s just a coincidence. Stop. There may be other definitions also. I said, alright, let’s translate it into Hindi. What is it in Hindi? Upbhokta — jo sabse jyada bhogta hai (‘one who consumes the most’). Then you come to our local language, which is Marathi. It is grahak. And the equivalent for that is giraik — somebody pulls a fast one on you. So, whatever language you are in, the consumer is doomed.
But is this the way it should be? Is this the reality of life? Let us see quickly.
Who is a consumer? One who purchases goods — everybody knows. But there is also another one — one who makes use of services. People tend to forget this. I’m not saying we always forget — a small percentage of people forgets that somebody who uses services is also a consumer.
This is the best saying I have heard: “Consumer is king.” Is the consumer king? I was speaking just last week to a student in one of the colleges. I said, “Is the consumer king?” He said, “Kaisa king?” He said, “You buy a brand-new mobile; it goes out of order within a month or two. It’s got a warranty of two years. You must go to the service fellow and say, ‘Sir, please repair this.’ He says, ‘Just come back after two months.’ You say, ‘What is wrong with you? I just bought this a few weeks back’.” So, understand, without a mobile, a college student is worse than naked. Sometimes they forget their books. Sometimes they come half-asleep — don’t mind their hair, et cetera. But the mobile will always be there. For them, college students and mobiles are inseparable. In fact, I am worried that a time will come when children will be born with mobiles. Some jugaad will come, and it will say, ‘Bachche ke saath hee mobile badhne do (‘let the mobile grow with the child’).’ Let the mobile also grow along with him. Let it be part of his body. That is the state of affairs.
So, this student says, “Sir, I have to beg that guy to please fix it in 4–5 days. I need it urgently. All my girlfriends call me on that number only.” These may or may not be good reasons, but the reason is there. All my appointments are there. My college attendance is there. When I copy in the exam, I copy from there. All of this is on the mobile. And you say consumer is king?
If you want to verify the statement that the consumer is king, I don’t know how many of you do this: travel in Bombay’s local trains. I just travelled in one yesterday evening. I travel pretty frequently just to see what the atmosphere is like, and I try during peak hours. It’s unbelievable. There are people on top of the train. There are people on the side of the train. It says to seat 75 people, but there are 375 people inside.
I read in a newspaper that about 14 people die every month because they fall off, either because they’re standing at the gate, and they lose their grip or something hits them, and they die. 14 people die every month. But traveling in the train, it’s quite an enlightening experience.
If you stand in the corridor, enlightenment is at its maximum. You know why? There is one guy who is standing on your right foot. There’s another guy with a bag which is pressing against your right knee. On your left side is a guy whose elbow is in your ribs. All of them are squeezing you from all sides. Tell them the consumer is king. The crowds are unbelievable.
One of my students shouted to me. When I said, “Tell them the consumer is king,” he said, “Sir, Sir, please don’t do that.” I said, “Why?” He said the word will spread around in the compartment: some madman is standing there and giving a lecture that the consumer is king. And tomorrow morning, it will come in the paper: one guy called Dr. Kamath was giving a lecture that the consumer is king in the local train. And his body was found in Sion because they threw him out of the train, saying, “Aise paagal logon ko train mein entry nahi dete hum log (‘we don’t allow such fools on the train).”
That is the state of affairs. Many people enter the train. My friend, Dr. Aashish Contractor, is here. He will agree with me. They say there are 232 bones in the human body. After getting down from the train, people count the bones again to check if they are in place or if one has cracked into two.
And you’re going to tell them the consumer is king?
But if you look at it, the consumer is a king! Two movies are released on the same day. One becomes a super hit and the other becomes a ‘S’hit – don’t join the words. Why?
So many biscuits in the market — two or three. Marie, Parle-G, Britannia Bourbon — very popular; the rest all are also-rans, you know. “Also-ran” is a term which is used in horse racing. They also ran. These people ran in the race. Consumer decides!
Think of any part of the economy, barring defence, where the consumer does not decide what is the right thing to be used. You launch an airline, you open a bank, you introduce an insurance policy, you do anything. The end user is the consumer, and it is he who will decide who will be successful and who will be a failure. That is why they say the consumer is king.
But in India, our people are very kind and nice. So they have abdicated the throne. “I don’t want to be the king, you be.” So, industry people, people on the road, even people who give you services regularly, keep on harassing you day in and day out.
Theoretically, the consumer is king, but in practice, he is worse than a beggar. This is the plight of the consumer.
So, they say, “Sir, what does it mean?” Because look carefully. I don’t know how many of you are aware that this is in Malayalam. And this is something to do with elections.
Now, this lady was standing for election. This is a genuine poster. I have not made it or photoshopped it or anything like that. She was given the symbol of underwear. Nothing wrong with that. But then so many problems arise.
The law says that the election symbol cannot be seen anywhere within 100 metres of the polling booth. So, how do people come and vote for this poor lady? Your election symbol should not be seen. How does she go around and tell everybody, “Vote for Underwear”?
That is the position of our Indian consumer. And one thing which one of my students told me — our students are very smart. If anybody thinks that today’s student is a dull person or an uninterested person, you must just spark that little interest. So one of the students told me, “Sir, this may be, but there is a bigger mistake here. She’s a lady, while the symbol is of gent’s underwear.”
So this is the position of our consumer — given something which he cannot use, which he cannot go around and talk about, and he’s put to the sword. I am not aware whether this lady won the election. Next time I come, if I come, I will tell you about that because I’ll do my research and let you know. Because many people may have voted for her just out of sympathy. Poor lady, she must have suffered so much; so many people would have taunted her.
Now, let me talk about the consumer being king. This happened in the year 2017: Toyota recalled 1.13 million cars. In the very next year, this happened: 1.5 million cars. And to get these repaired — in the sense that the part must be replaced — they sent a man. They pick it from you, they give you a receipt, and two or three days later, they give it back to you.
It costs not less than $1,200. That’s what American industry has calculated. So, when you multiply that by 1.5 million cars, what is the amount spent? Then again, this happened. For airbags and glitches, this happened two years later.
That is why they say the consumer is king. If it goes around that Toyota’s cars are unreliable, then you’re gone. Your market value falls rapidly.
We also had some similar experiences with cars. A gentleman came and told me that he had bought a brand-new XYZ car. So, I said, “Congratulations.” He said, “Sir, what congratulations? Very sorry to tell you, wonderful car. All the parts of the car are making noise except the horn, which is supposed to make the noise.”
So, I told him, “But then you should go and fight with these guys. You should tell them that.” He said, “They are not listening. One of the mechanics was smart. He asked me why do I need a horn, as the car is anyway making so much noise. From half a kilometre, we come to know your car has arrived.”
There is another real-life example, a real-life example I’m telling you, of somebody whom I know who had come to our consumer guidance society saying, “I bought a brand-new BMW. Within six or eight months, it started giving me trouble.” So I gave it to the mechanic at the authorised garage because of the two-year warranty, and sometimes an extended warranty of another two or three years is available. So he had that. So he said, “Get it repaired.” The fellow told him, “Come after two months.” So he said, “Sir, but I have not bought the car to keep it in your garage. I have bought it to use it.” The mechanic said there’s a long waiting list. That itself was concerning as it meant all the cars are failing and coming there. But there was no option. Very costly car.
Some 3 or 4 weeks later, this gentleman went to the PJ Hindu Gymkhana for a wedding reception. Now, somebody who’s got a BMW will have another small car, at least somewhere — at least a Wagon R or something. So, he went in his car. Finished the reception. He was walking down and suddenly, he told his wife, “Look, that looks like our car, the BMW!” His wife said, “You are obsessed with your BMW. It’s not our car. Let’s go.” He went a little ahead and said, “Even the colour looks like ours.” He went closer and screamed, “My God, this is my car!” Then he looked inside. It was the chief mechanic of that authorised agency driving the car and bringing some lady and two or three children in the back for the reception.
Now, in receptions and all that, the valets, even if they see a small car, they give you respect. But they see a big car, they give a lot more respect. So that fellow was getting a lot of respect. The mechanic got down. The friend went to him and said, “Boss, you said two months, and you are already driving my car and bringing who-knows-whom for this wedding reception. How dare you do this?” Then a string of expletives was passed — bombardment left, right, and centre. The mechanic listened quietly. So then finally he asked him, “What explanation do you have?” So he said, “Sir, I was here for a test drive.”
Now, how do you fight these guys here? But our man was a little extra smart. He asked, “Who are you with?” The mechanic said that it was his wife and his three kids. He reasoned, saying “Test drives should be done with a full load. It cannot be done with one person or two persons.”
And the consumer is king?!
Another person came and told me, “Sir, I bought a new car. Within four months, the speedometer was not working properly.” So, I told him, obviously this is a manufacturing defect because speedometers are not usually troublesome or something like that. He said, “No. I went to the mechanic at the authorised garage. Gave it to him and the mechanic said… “Why do you need a speedometer?” So he said, “Boss, if the facility is there, I need it. I have paid for it. I need it.” He said, “I’ll give you a very common trick or a simple thing for you. How old is your car?” He says, “About 5-6 months old.” “Six months old? Very good. When you drive at 40 kilometres an hour, the bonnet will rattle. When you drive at 50 kilometres an hour, the windows will rattle. At 60 kilometres an hour, the windshield will rattle, and at 80 kilometres an hour, all those sitting inside will start rattling. That is your speedometer.”
For everything in this world, there is an explanation on how to make a fool of a consumer.
I had once gone to Satara. I found one of these guys. When I see these wiper glitches and all that, I still remember that story. When I was coming back, I came back by buses and all were very erratic. I had gone for some function, and there were those cars, you know, they have those 6-seater, 8-seater cars in which they make people sit. So I said, “I’ll sit in the front.” I told the driver, “I’ll pay for two seats because they keep two people there.”
Then, just as we were starting off, it was the rainy season, and the guy didn’t have a wiper. And we were going up the ghats from Satara. So I was scared to death. I said, “What the hell will happen to me in this car?” So this guy tells me that he has been on this route for the last 8 years. That made me all the more worried because according to the law of averages, once in 4-5 years or something an accident has to happen. If in 8 years nothing has happened, something is going to happen, evidently.
I said, “I am not coming if there is no wiper.” The guy said, “Why are you worried?” He said, “If it rains heavily, I’ve got this cloth. I’ll put my hand outside and wipe the windshield like that.” So I heard him out, then I stopped talking. You know why? I was sitting in front. For all you know, he would have handed me another cloth and said, “You also wipe on that side.” I kept quiet. I said, “We will go.” Then I was praying to the Gods all the time, and I reached Pune safely somehow or another.
Everywhere, you and I as consumers are taken for a ride. One of the biggest problems we face is in ads. Ads are the ones which keep ruining the lives of people. They are all pervasive, misleading with misinformation, deceit, and sometimes even cheating. Left, right, and centre, something is pulled on you. “Get 22% interest!” You get 22% interest, but what about the principal? For one year, you get 22% interest. Then the principal is gone. Has he promised you that he’s going to give the principal back? Some Tores scam, some other scam, something or the other is always happening.
Have you ever thought in your life about what is the role of a shampoo? A shampoo is used only to clean your hair. Ask any of the people who are doctors, a shampoo only cleans your hair and as one of the beneficial effects of that, it gets rid of dandruff. What dandruff is is oil, which has become a little hard and flaky and it’s on your scalp. That’s all that it does.
But you see the ads, “It makes your hair longer and stronger and darker and harder, and split ends are avoided, silkier, everything.” It gives vibrancy. It makes your hair shine. “Don’t need LED lights and all in your house. Just apply shampoo and sit there. The hair will shine, and you don’t need light.” Everything that shampoo claims to do is all untrue.
Then you have these ads. There’s a girl sitting next to a tall pillar. You must have seen that ad. If you haven’t, you should go and see it today on YouTube. Some naughty boys come, they take her long hair and tie it to the pillar. That girl gets up. What happens? The pillar collapses. “Our shampoo is so strong. Your hair will not break but the pillar will break.”
Second version, same ad. A truck is stuck in the middle of the road. 15 guys are pushing, the truck is still. Here comes this lady. She’s having chai and sitting there the whole day. She does nothing else except having chai and sitting next to all these catastrophic events. She takes out the clip from her hair, ties it to the fender, and like Ajay, she is taking her dog for a walk. She just starts walking and the truck starts following her.
Now, I happen to know one guy who is a Deputy Municipal Commissioner in the Municipal Corporation. I told him, “Sir, you are wasting our money.” He said, “How do you say that?” So, all these JCBs and these Caterpillars and all, which you are paying two crores, three crores, five crores for. So, you don’t need that. He said, “Why?” Employ about 50 girls, give them a bottle of shampoo every week, and then whatever you want to break, tie it to their hair. Give them ₹50,000 a week as salary. Why do you need bulldozers and all? After that, that guy started avoiding me. He said to a common friend of ours, “I’ve seen many insane guys in the world.”
So, wherever you go, these ads are all-pervasive. They make you think like this. Nowadays, most advertise underwears. This guy who goes to Himachal Pradesh, a Baba sitting in a banyan or a vest. Everybody else is wearing chadars and shawls and whatever around — only you can see their eyes. So somebody asks the Baba, “Don’t you feel cold?” He says, “XYZ banyan se andar ki garmi bahar aati hai.”
Another advertisement where a guy takes a bath and comes to his room in a towel. Suddenly, five terrorists attack him. He fights back, and at the end, the towel slips, and he says, “Rupa Underwear – you can kill not five but 25 of such terrorists.”
I was tempted to go and meet Rajnath Singh, the Defence Minister of India. I wanted to tell him, “Sir, on Siachen Glacier, you are spending millions and billions of Indian rupees to arm our soldiers. All they need is four inners.”
That is the state of affairs. Nobody complains. Nobody says a word. There was one product which came saying shampoo and champi together. They say, “In our product, we have put five types of oils.” Your mother or my mother used to lift the hair up and rub oil on the scalp. Warm oil that used to stimulate circulation, and your hair used to look better because of that. Now this shampoo, which you use on your head — how long does it last when you apply it and put it there? It depends on which song you are singing. But with that, you’re supposed to get champi. So what we did — we, as a consumer body, bought that shampoo and got it checked, and it was found to contain only 4% to 5% of those oils. Now just look — 5 ml of shampoo, that too 4%. Along with short hair, like people like me or most men, it will be about 2 to 3 ml of oil. 0.2% of that would come to a drop or two. Is that champi? That product is selling like hot cakes.
All sorts of things — pomegranate in the shampoo, strawberry in body lotion. No wonder strawberries are getting costly every year. Now, I tell from common sense — if you apply strawberry lotion on your body, don’t blame anybody if insects start getting attracted to your body. Mosquitoes and all those other insects. Things you are supposed to eat, you are putting on your head, on your skin. What is the evidence for this?
Boost is the secret of my energy. Complan makes children become taller. Is it possible? Ask any of the doctors who are sitting here in your audience. It’s not possible even if you give 500 bottles of Complan to a kid. You may develop some bad allergy or reaction, but you will not increase in height.
They say in UP 85% of the drugs are adulterated. It has now improved a bit over the last 15 years. There was one guy who went and took an overdose of a certain drug. He wanted to commit suicide. The drug was adulterated. Poor fellow did not die, went to a hospital, was given certain medicines. They were also adulterated. Because of that, he died. That is why I called him a poor fellow.
Milk adulterated with water. Now the problem is, when you put water in milk, it tastes a little bland. To make it better, they put sugar. Many people, they pour the milk, and they say the milk is thin. To improve it, they put flour, which is more often than not discarded flour. They don’t put straightforward sugar. In the sugar mills, after the sugar is done, you get a brown, thick solution which is very sweet. But it’s full of toxic metals. They put that to improve it.
In medicine, what is happening? Some of the things which are happening are amazing. People are taken for a ride because they don’t know what’s happening. The Caesarean section rate is supposed to be about 14% to 16% even in the sophisticated and big countries. There are certain hospitals in Mumbai where the rate is close to 100%. Now there, you have a problem. You know why? The definition of normal is something which is more than 50%, 60%, 70%. So if more than 60%–70% are having Caesareans, then you will have to call Caesareans normal delivery. And normal delivery will then become abnormal delivery.
So what is the solution? Let us go quickly through this. There are regulatory bodies — make it a point to fight. There are courts. I would not recommend you to go to a court, but if you have bought a flat worth ₹6 crores, and he’s not giving it to you in time, as a consumer, you have no option but to go to a court. If a taxi driver overcharges you, for God’s sake, don’t go to a court. You know why? Because he will win all the time. How will he win? The court will say to him, “He has overcharged you by ₹200. OK, give him ₹200 back. Give him ₹500 penalty. But you have gone 40 times to the court and you have spent something like ₹20,000. You got ₹700 in return. So who won? Obviously, he won, and he’s not going to spend — his union lawyer is going to appear for him there, for whom he is paying his fees regularly. So don’t go to a court.
Awareness — this is a huge problem in India. If I tell you today that if all of us get together and we decide that a certain thing is not up to the mark, we are going to ban it or we are not going to touch it, that producer will have to get down from his high horse. But what is the problem? The problem is, Indians are their own enemies and there’s something called Indian-ness. You may not have heard of this word. I’ve invented it. I have patented and copyrighted it. Indian-ness means what? He may be bad with you, but he is very good with me — that is the problem.
Unity of consumers — when will that unity come? Not in my lifetime. All over the world, Toyota changed so many cars and all because they were afraid consumers would get together and bring down their brand value. Here, in fact, there are some people who admire those who fool others.
So, let’s not overdo things. And as a doctor and you as a potential patient, I thank you for this lecture by saying, “Thank you for a patient hearing.”
ROTARIANS ASK
We all have a problem with callers from different call centres selling all kinds of financial products and schemes. There is supposed to be a no-caller list, but if you put your name on it, it doesn’t stop the callers. Doesn’t the consumer society need to act on this and at least prevent this? It’s a menace.
I fully agree with you. Under the Telecom Regulatory Act, there is something known as a code for marketing people. But then there are two lawyers on my side, and this is a very strange country. I have invented for my students a particular statement, which again I have copyrighted. So none of you can use this outside this hall once you leave. It is called – there are acts and acts and acts, but nobody acts. You have so many acts: Criminal Act, Telecom Regulatory Act, Consumer Protection Act, this act, that act, but nobody acts. The commonest example: the fellow who drives the taxi is not supposed to refuse you if he has put it for hire; he is not supposed to refuse. The cops are supposed to catch all these guys who break the signal. Two-wheelers never wait at any signal. In fact, if a fellow stops at a signal, everybody else looks at him.
Like many people here, I’m also a frustrated consumer. When you complain and dial a number, you get into a spin with prompts saying press 1, press 2. You’re talking to a machine. You’re not even talking to an individual. In the end, when you come to the last window, you’re so frustrated because they tell you to do it all over again. Now, is there a possible solution to this? Because we have never heard of one and it’s really impossible to get through to somebody you want to talk to.
So, this is a very common problem. This is what happens when you do not have an interface to talk to somebody. You are talking to a machine. Unfortunately, the consumer as well as the person who has made that system are both not on the same page about this. You have a particularly difficult type of problem. Nowhere does it say press 9 and go to an operator if your complaint does not fall among these 6 options. If you ask them, you know what they will say: the moment I put that, everybody will press 9 before they try 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So it’s a two-way traffic.
And for all the frustrations which all of you are talking about, I have come out with a new website which you can visit, preferably late in the evenings when all your other work is over. Go and visit this website. It is called paidakyunhua.com.
Also, I wanted to talk about something here, which I missed. We are now seeing the maximum number of complaints coming in against insurance companies. Insurance is being sold aggressively to people who don’t have an idea of what insurance is. And when claims come for the flimsiest reasons, the insurance company says, in so many words, go fly a kite. Get lost.
Now we have wanted to come out with a project to find out from people first because, see, those who are at the top end of the ladder, they know there is a complaint system, they know there is a telecom regulatory authority, they know there is an insurance regulatory authority. But to just document this, so many people, particularly those who are rickshawallahs, handcartwallahs who’ve got small policies of ₹50,000 or ₹1,00,000, they don’t find it worth their while to fight for ₹20,000 or ₹25,000 because neither do they have the wherewithal, nor do they have the time and inclination.
Do you think having a small project would work if we put it in the newspapers? Stating: ‘Any problem, let us know’ and then go to IRDAI, because the government gets impressed only when you come up with statistics. Believe me when I tell you, consumer courts have 30% and above cases today against insurance companies. And most of them are health insurance.
So, you go to a hospital. Then the hospital administrator asks you, ‘What sort of bed do you want?’ You think, ‘I have got a ₹10,00,000 policy, so give me the best bed in the house, give me the best doctor in the house.’ Anything happens, give me that. And when the bill comes, he realises that instead of paying three and a half lakhs, he’s been asked to pay ₹9,00,000. He’s very happy thinking the policy will cover it. And then the insurance company says, ‘Sorry. You were supposed to report the claim within 24 hours. You came after 24 hours and 32 seconds. Sorry, your claim is closed.’ Out you are, on a limb.
So this is something where the government finds its hands tied. We as organisers find our hands tied, so something must change. There has to be a sea change in mentality.