In 2004, just ban bans

severe tissue damage. Excessive ingestion produces a number of unpleasant though not typically life-threatening side-effects. DHMO is a major component of acid rain. Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns. Contributes to soil erosion. Leads to corrosion and oxidation of many metals. Contamination of electrical systems often causes short-circuits. Exposure decreases effectiveness of automobile brakes. Found in biopsies of pre-cancerous tumors and lesions. Often associated with killer cyclones in the US Midwest and elsewhere. Thermal variations in DHMO are a suspected contributor to the El Nino weather effect. Once these dangerous side effects are known, 86 to 90 per cent of respondents support a ban on DHMO. In case you haven’t already guessed, DHMO is nothing but water and this is one of the cleverest spoofs I have ever come across.

Bans never serve any purpose and can rarely be enforced. Forget Fanny Hill, Lady Chatterley’s Lover , Lolita, Naked Lunch or Tropic of Cancer, Ulysses, Candide, Decameron, Canterbury Tales, Le Morte D’Arthur, Adam Bede, Leaves of Grass, Of Mice and Men, The Grapes of Wrath, Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451 and To Kill a Mockingbird have all been banned at some point. Strange though it may seem, so have The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm, The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank), Tarzan of the Apes, Sleeping Beauty and Little Red Hiding Hood.

But we love bans and this is not just about the West Bengal government and Taslima Nasreen. Ban smoking in public places. Passive smoking has undesirable effects, although smokers and tobacco companies will quibble about what statistics actually prove. There will be legal hairsplitting over what is a public place and what is not. Even in a public place, smoking is often prohibited only when the area is confined and air circulation impossible. Smoking is allowed when there is free air circulation, such as in open air. So what happens when a person is in his car? Is that public or private? Well, it is a private place as long as windows are rolled up. It becomes a public place the moment windows are rolled down, because the air can go out. I am not making this up. There was such a case in Britain. A smoker who lit a cigarette at a traffic signal was not violating the law. But the moment the signal turned green, he was successfully prosecuted. In Kerala, I can’t smoke in a public place, even if it is open-air. In Rajasthan I can’t smoke in a closed public place like a restaurant but I can if it is an open-air one.

There are two related points about bans. First, they are inefficient. It is better to hike taxes on tobacco and cigarettes instead. Second, bans are difficult to enforce. In other countries, airports have segregated smoking lounges and smokers congregate there. In India, smoking is prohibited everywhere in airports and people flout the ban with impunity. In contrast to bans, price-based measures like higher taxes are self-enforcing. But we love bans. Ban FTV. In a country like India, where private space is rare for most people, I don’t need FTV to gain access to sights of half-clad female (or male) forms. Ban liquor ads. Thanks to surrogate advertising and satellite television, where have we got with that one? Ban cars more than 15 years old. Unless they have fitness certificates. Centre for Civil Society has just produced a Citizen Handbook for Delhi and we learn that 0.42 lakh commercial vehicles and 7.80 private vehicles are on the roads without fitness certificates. This is a March 2001 figure and the number may have increased since then. And Delhi is probably better than most states.

I think we need to rethink our approach to bans, crime and penalties. Witness how people have applauded the proposed amendments to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act. We can’t ban spurious and counterfeit drugs. They are already illegal, although the law is rarely enforced. But it makes us feel better if we now have the death penalty. Capital punishment is a separate issue. But think about our attitude to crime. Civil offences are committed against other individuals. Criminal offences are committed against society or the public at large. Penalties for crime may be monetary or imprisonment.

In some sense, monetary penalties are counterparts of price-based signals and imprisonments are counterparts of the ban idea. Notice that with imprisonment, the offender loses his or her free time. However, society gets nothing in return. Instead, society pays for the offender’s crime through jail costs. It will no doubt make you feel better to know that in Norway, there is an average waiting period of 77 days before you get to go to jail. Despite our 1,200 jails, we have the same shortage problem, although we compensate by over-crowding our jails. For relatively less serious crimes, isn’t it far better to make the offender pay, if not monetarily, though something like community service? The Committee on Reforms of the Criminal Justice System also seems to favour this idea.

Bans and bars are not always the answer.