Q2 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2016 · Essay · 125 marks · 1 min read

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Need brings greed, if greed increases it spoils breed.

Topic: Philosophical and ethical quotes. Syllabus: Philosophical and ethical quotes Same official PYQ from year-wise 2016 and Philosophical and ethical quotes.

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

  • A drought year: a tanker is need. A third car in a wet city is a different animal. The line says need brings greed, and greed, grown, spoils the breed — the stock of persons, a commons, a future child. Write that slide.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

  • Need: a floor. Greed: a want without a stop. Breed: character, a species of citizen, sometimes a literal ecology. Do not moralise the poor’s grain.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

  • Gandhi

    There is enough for need, not for greed.

  • Ambedkar

    A floor — need is not a sin.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

What the line is asking

  • Need → greed: a psychological and social slide.
  • Spoils breed: the type we become; a commons exhausted; a family ethic of grab.

Self / market

  • Advertising as a need-factory. Status as a private tanker of the soul.

Ecology

  • A river as a sand mine. Breed as the living stock we inherit.

Republic

  • Corruption as greed in office. The breed of public servant.

The counter

  • Calling the hungry ‘greedy’ is a crime of language. Ambedkar: a floor first. And some ‘restraint’ talk is a luxury ethic. The spoiled breed is at the top — a loot, a luxury emission — not at the ration queue.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

  • Art. 39(b)(c) Material resources; against concentration.
  • SDG 12 Consumption — peg once.
  • Lokpal / tax Greed in office as a spoiled public breed.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

  • Close: feed need; tax and shame unlimited grab. Expand — this is only the map.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • Water disputes between states in federal India.

    Next question in the 2016 paper (Q3). View answer →

  • Is this the full essay?

    No. It is a map. In the exam, each heading becomes a paragraph with one Indian case.

  • Tone?

    Aim greed at the top. Keep need sacred. One tanker, one third car.

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