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Journalism of Courage
The statistics have been staring us in the face for a long time now. India accounts for a third of the estimated three million people who die from tobacco-related causes every year. The Indian Council of Medical Research has estimated the cost of treating tobacco-related diseases at Rs 25,000 crore — much larger than the size of the entire Indian tobacco industry. World Bank economists say that the money saved on tobacco, if spent on other goods, will create more jobs than those lost — estimates show that closing the tobacco industry entirely will lead to an increase of 18 per cent in the number of jobs in Bangladesh, a country somewhat like India in terms of the number of farmers dependent upon tobacco. Yet, the government of India has consistently refused to spell out a decisive policy on tobacco-control. Now, with the Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation) Bill 2000, to be introduced in the Budget session of Parliament, a welcome step has been taken in the right direction. Byseeking to bring an end to all forms of tobacco advertisements and sponsorships of sporting and cultural events, it aims to hit the tobacco industry where it really hurts.
Once the Bill is passed, tobacco companies will arguably be left with no option but to slash their enormous advertising budgets. But there is reason to suspect that that may be an overly optimistic view. It would be safe to hazard, in fact, that corporate ingenuity is already at work to manipulate the grey areas and loopholes in the Bill to their advantage. What about companies like ITC, for instance, that have registered their Wills Sport as an apparel brand? Do the provisions of the Bill cover the various forms of surrogate advertisement, can they effectively deal with all the devious pretenders, the clever brand-stretching? Clearly, for that to happen, such safeguards that are now implicit in the Bill will have to be made explicit. Something else remains to be done as well. Though the proposed legislation covers a gamut of tobacco products apart from cigarettes — cigarette tobacco, pipe tobacco, hukka tobacco, chewing tobacco, pan masala, gutkha, beedi — only the ban on cigarettes can be implementedby the Centre throughout the country. The rest of the items will require the framing of enabling laws by the state governments given that they are part of the State list.
Among the other provisions of the Bill, it does not take much foresight to predict that the restrictions on smoking in public places and on the sale of the tobacco products within 100 metres of educational institutions or hospitals will prove difficult to enforce; bans of this sort generally resist effective implementation. The government cannot possibly police every citizen, every locale. What is needed is for concerned citizen groups and NGOs to step into the breach. Yes, legislative initiative is necessary — years of self regulation has obviously not worked, and international experience shows that comprehensive tobacco-control policies have brought down smoking and improved public health — but it cannot do it all alone. Without the help of a critical mass of committed citizens, the proposed Act will have only a limited reach.
