Q3 · UPSC Civil Services Mains 2021 · Essay · 125 marks · 1 min read

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Philosophy of wantlessness is Utopian, while materialism is a chimera.

Topic: Philosophical and ethical quotes. Syllabus: Philosophical and ethical quotes Same official PYQ from year-wise 2021 and Philosophical and ethical quotes.

Essay map

Opening scene

Anecdote

A sadhu on a poster; a mall on the other wall of the same bus. One says want nothing. One says want this. Both are selling a freeze-frame. The line names them: Utopia and chimera. A clerk between the ads has rent due on Tuesday.

Keep this in every paragraph

One stand

Gandhi’s need-not-greed is not wantlessness. A floor of nutrition is not materialism. Write the chimera of GDP-as-self and the Utopia of a nation of saints — then a livable middle.

Use once, in a scene — do not dump names

Quotes to earn

  • Gandhi

    Need versus greed — enough as ethic, not as anti-development.

  • Buddha

    Tanha — craving as the hole a chimera cannot fill.

Turn each heading into a full paragraph in the hall

Heading map

What the line is asking

  • Wantlessness: a spiritual extreme — also a lecture the comfortable give the hungry.
  • Materialism: things as the only real; a chimera because the hole is not shaped like a car.
  • Utopian / chimera: both fail as sole public philosophy.

Self

  • Santosh vs a wedding chandelier (cousin of Socrates 2025). Buddha’s tanha.

Economy

  • Growth that lifts a floor is not a chimera; growth as identity is.
  • Peg: undernutrition beside luxury housing — two errors in one republic.

Ecology

  • Endless more is a chimera the planet will not fund. IPCC as a physical veto.

State

  • Welfare is not anti-spiritual; it is how wantlessness is not forced on the landless.
  • Conspicuous official spend: materialism in khaki and khadi.

The counter

  • Ambedkar: a hungry man is not ‘simple’. Do not baptise poverty as wantlessness. And do not baptise a billionaire’s ashram as the middle path. Rights first; then talk of enough.

Drop one peg where it fits — not a data dump

Value addition

  • Ambedkar Do not spiritualise hunger — the counter inside the quote.
  • Nutrition vs luxury Two worlds, one republic — peg without fake decimals.
  • Art. 21 / DPSPs A legal floor so ‘enough’ is possible.

Last 8–10 lines in the exam

Last paragraph

  • Close: raise the floor, lower the theatre. Expand — this is only the map.

Quick related

Students also ask

  • The real is rational and the rational is real.

    Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q4). View answer →

  • Is this the full essay?

    No. It is a map. One paragraph must refuse preaching wantlessness to the landless.

  • Tone?

    Middle path, not a sermon against shops.

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