There’s something not quite right about the endless rounds of cricket matches, sports, games and entertainment being served up to the Indian public. Currently, IPL T20 cricket matches are attracting crowds upward of 50,000-60,000 every evening in specially constructed stadia across the country, with matches ending near midnight. Moreover, several multiples of the huge in-stadia crowds, including young children, follow T20 matches on television. Five days after the IPL tournament ends on May 26, the World Cup T20 tournament being staged in the Caribbean and for the first time in the US to be played out over 29 days, will begin. And shortly after, the Paris Olympic Games which will serve up 15 days of globally televised international track and field competitive events, will start.

At a time when India aspires to transform into a $30 trillion economy by 2047 (from the current $4 trillion), the population is being distracted, if not debilitated, by ceaseless rounds of entertainment on 226 million television sets installed in 217 of the country’s 280 million households. Add to this smartphone addiction suffused with audio-visual entertainment reels. Every day, entertainment weary managers, workers and students are staggering into offices, factories and classrooms, minds buzzing with entertainment.

In his classic 19th century treatise Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire, historian Edward Gibbon attributed addiction to ‘circuses’, i.e, entertainment of the general populace, as a major cause of the fall of mighty Roman Empire overrun by Goths, Vandals and barbarians in 476 century AD. “The most lively and splendid amusement of the idle multitude depended on the frequent exhibition of public games and spectacles… From the morning to the evening, careless of the sun or of the rain, the spectators, who sometimes amounted to the number of 400,000, remained in eager attention; their eyes fixed on the horses and charioteers, their minds agitated with hope and fear for the success of the colours which they espoused; and the happiness of Rome appeared to hang on the event of a race.” All this while a greedy ruling elite indulged itself even as barbarians were at the gates. It’s important to learn lessons from history.