Tobacco ban: Why the government loves to spit on gutka
I once heard about a UP gutka magnate looking to buy a hotel with the millions he had made from his trade before setting about looking for a suitor for his daughter. Afterall, the stuff he sold was vile, its users often (but not always) poor, their spitting uncivil and their teeth unsightly. He believed he might be better off introducing himself to prospective in-laws as a "hotelier" rather than someone who sold a high so cheap, even homeless children could become addicts. These shiny little packets of stimulants available for as little as a rupee, he knew, frequently associated with the lowest of the low would reveal his social status unfavourably; so the change of image, and "hotelier" would do nicely.
Government departments have frequently made noises about banning the manufacture and sale of smokeless tobacco in the country owing to pressing health concerns as figures for the cancers of the mouth, larynx and oesophagus are linked squarely to the stuff. Health specialists add that spitting in public places - something tobacco chewers in India seem to do a lot to protect their own insides - infects others around them with diseases as common as the cold, and as deadly as tuberculosis.
Bans on the slow poison have been hard to enforce as some paan shops can easily bootleg the "illegal" stuff, especially the lime, chuna or khaini, by selling it separately. And so the pan masala underground party rumbles on. Except, it's no party, really. It is hard to imagine but the lime in chewing tobacco is so corrosive, Kolkata's Howrah Bridge needed repairs from the years of damage the hulking edifice had endured from the accumulating spit of paan-spewing Bengali commuters.
Mouth cancer sufferers who sometimes must have chunks of their jaws and bits of their tongues removed to stay alive are much worse off than tobacco smokers of yore, American Indians, for instance, who only had to contend with nausea - a quality that made tobacco's use naturally self-limiting. But thanks to large scale manufacturers and their modern additives tobacco is hardly, in fact, tobacco, just as skunk is not weed, or instant coffee, coffee.
Health authorities have repeatedly warned against harmful substances in pan masala and gutka but the measures taken against the rising cigarette sales have been relatively feeble. Far be it that a blanket ban be introduced on the cancer sticks, even the picturisation of health warnings are so obsequious, they seem like apologies for Big Tobacco. Compared with US packs, the ones in India are a piddle: an unfocussed picture of a headless torso superimposed by an image of a hazy lung and a red arrow pointing at nothing anatomically specific.
Recently, Australia introduced "plain packaging" for cigarette cartons so they may not carry any branding or product descriptors at all, only accurate, provocative images of smokers' diseased body parts. On an episode of the US TV show Last Week Tonight, comedian John Oliver spent 20 minutes tearing into the makers of Marlboro cigarettes. He said the US-proposed health warnings be combined with Hank, the company's iconic all-man-all-mystique mascot and replaced by diseased lung "Jeff" wearing a cowboy hat and boots while smoking and coughing. Later, he asked viewers to tweet their thoughts with JeffWeCan.
The company, in both instances, was US-based Philip Morris International, which slapped a multi-million lawsuit on Australia for "damages", and lost. One doesn't frequently feel like saying good things about Australia, but its government certainly adbusted Philip Morris International like a boss, and more power to it.
Currently, India is in so many trade treaties within Asia and internationally, and rocking the boat of multinationals who are fierce guardians of their shareholders' interests could prove unfeasible. And without the added responsibility for universal healthcare, India is allowing for the protection for the legal interests of investments by rich countries, opposed as they may be to inconveniences such as starker health warnings, a limit on the number of products a manufacturer may sell, stricter rules against advertising, any health-related lawsuits, what have you.
No corresponding leniency is shown to the poorer, unsightly, paan-chewing addict contributing to little tobacco, as has been shown to Big Tobacco, which would rather not be held responsible for cancers of the oral cavity, larynx, oesophagus, urinary bladder, kidney, stomach, pancreas, cervix and the haematopoietic system, citing existential vulnerability for selling a product known to be harmful for health, rationalising the abysmal negatives by saying their product is an adult choice.
The benevolence towards them might have a bit to do with this matter: More than 80 per cent of the government's total excise revenue earned from tobacco products comes from cigarettes alone. Any decisive action could prove very expensive for the treasury not just for the loss of fiscal earnings, but also because Big Tobacco is ruthlessly litigative, frequently dragging governments to opaque and expensive international courts.
In the meantime, the moral need for a whipping boy is fulfilled by little tobacco - the gutka guys struggling to keep up appearances at their daughters' nuptials and the ugly addict with bad teeth and limited choices.