comes, ironically, from Gandhi's Dandi March (also called Salt March) 75 years ago, which protested the salt laws of the British rule in India. Gandhi, who also said that you have the duty to disobey unjust laws, was the chief proponent of an alcohol-free India. One of our objectives is to make a case that the context under which Gandhi instituted prohibition is not valid today. Today, alcohol prohibition in Gujarat is an outdated, corruption and crime breeding, short sighted law which must be systematically removed. Keeping up with Bapu's spirit, the Maltmarch community plans to march to the Sachivalay and have a drink in defiance of the prohibition law (date undecided). 
Donors will get a summary of where & how their funds were used. Don't worry, we don't use donation money to buy booze.Aye to Tobacco, Nay to Alcohol. Why?
Politicians in Gujarat have longed harped on ill effects of Alcohol and have time and again drawn references from Gandhiji's speeches. Why has alcohol been the only one to bear the brunt? All aware of the increasing use of tobacco in varied forms, especially gutka in Gujarat. In fact the consumption of Gujarat in most regions has gone to appalling levels threatening fatal infections.
What is distressing is unlike alcohol, Gutka has no age criterion.
The Global Youth Tobacco Survey (GYTS) '04 - commissioned by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has come out with startling figures: 13.9 per cent of students of classes VIII to X are addicted to gutkha in Ahmedabad, a figure much higher than in Mumbai (3 per cent), Delhi (3.4 per cent) and Hyderabad (5.2 per cent).
The survey - conducted by the city-based Dental College and Hospital under the WHO's 'Tobacco Free Initiative' and carried out among 1,679 students in 25 schools - has another shocking revelation.
Students say that more than family members and commercial advertisements, it is their teachers, who consume gutkha openly in schools, that influence them the most.
"An earlier survey in schools had revealed that consumption of gutkha among school staff members was 49.4 per cent. It is hardly surprising that the children have become addicted," says Dental College's Mihir Shah.
A similar survey conducted by the Dental College among 1,637 students in 25 secondary schools across the state yielded even more alarming results. It was found that 17.7 per cent students in Gujarat consumed gutkha, much higher than neighbouring states of Maharashtra (12.4 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (10.5 per cent) and Rajasthan (14.9 per cent).
Despite such alarming figures why was there no forethought to a complete prohibition of Tobacco in Gujarat? Why has gutka/zarda so conveniently become a part of Gujarati culture? Does it have any medicinal values? Did Gandhiji promote Gutka? Did he himself consume it? Why doesn't any politician talk about legislation on it?
As India Poised gears up to celebrate 60 years of freedom, we the people of Gujarat have still been clouded by the dust raised during the independence. High time!! Let us use this platform to blow apart the hypocrisies of this system and raise some more Whys? I do not expect answers€¦.May be get clarity and develop a better understanding, so that we can look at more constructive solutions.
It's a strange logic indeed...if aye to gutkha, say aye to alcohol as well....
almost as if aye to forced sex with wives nay to rape. why?
khadoos
Prohibiting anything, or taxing it high, is not a good idea.
This short essay (word doc) by an economist Rakesh Wadhwa gives a brilliant argument against high taxes and prohibition. I particularly enjoyed reading Milton Friedman's views on the prohibition era in the US and of gangsters Al Capone and Bugs Moran (like our Latif and Dawood Ibrahim):
Who were their customers? Who bought the liquor they purveyed illegally? Respectable citizens who would never themselves have approved of, or engaged in, the activities that Al Capone and his fellow gangsters made infamous. They simply wanted a drink. In order to have a drink, they had to break the law. Prohibition didn't stop drinking. It did convert a lot of otherwise law-abiding citizens into lawbreakers. It did confer an aura of glamour and excitement to drinking that attracted many young persons. It did suppress many of the disciplinary forces of the market that ordinarily protect the consumer from shoddy, adulterated, and dangerous products. It did corrupt the minions of the law and create a decadent moral climate. It did not stop the consumption of alcohol.
But it certainly should be unacceptable that the students have to see their teachers having gutkha, that is not a question of law, but of etiquette. Having gutkha or alcohol should fall under one's freedom of choice, but that is not to say that parents and teachers don't have influence on behaviours of their children or students. For eg., if you grow up in a house where picking your nose in public is considered bad manners, you will not do it in public. Same goes for alcohol consumption and Gutkha.
Recent comments