The Cobra Effect

Day 59 / 365

When India was under British rule, at one point there was a big issue with the increasing population of cobras in Delhi. To deal with this, the government came up with the indigenous solution of offering a cash prize to anyone who can kill a cobra and submit it’s head.

As expected people started turning in heads of dead cobras. Cobras were being killed in large numbers. The plan seemed to be working, or so they thought.

Well, the Indians came up with a brilliant scheme to exploit this offering by the British government. People actually started breeding cobras, then killing them and collecting money from the government. It became a business!

Clearly, the plan had backfired a little. But things got even worse from there. The scheme was stopped when the government realized how the people were taking advantage of it. The people who were breeding the cobras now had no use of them, so they just set the snakes free. The population of these poisonous cobras roaming freely in the city actually increased!

This anecdote has inspired the term “The Cobra Effect”. It refers to the situation when an attempt to solve a problem actually worsens it.

This story is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — What if everything that happened was for your best?