ELECTION 99
COLUMNISTS
DIARY
SPECIALS
INTERVIEWS
ELECTIONS '98
CAPITAL BUZZ
REDIFF POLL
DEAR REDIFF
THE STATES
YEH HAI INDIA!
ARCHIVES

Search Rediff

Warped morality

Recently newspapers reported how women's rights bodies in Goa were up in arms against the local government for allowing offshore casinos and gambling centres in three star hotels. Apparently the five stars already have them and the rest of the greedy lot are equally desperate to start their own, in the hope of luring more tourists during the millennium celebrations. The state government, short of cash as usual, is happy to dole out the licences (or so say the reports) but the local residents are hellbent on stopping them.

The reason? It will encourage gambling.

Right or wrong, this takes me to the central issue. In an open society that swears by democracy, can the government take a strong moral position on things like casinos and gambling, late night bars, cigarette smoking, matka, under-age drinking, rock concerts, drugs, lotteries, gutka, kissing in public, chewing paan and spitting on the road?

We live in changing times where there is a great deal of uncertainty over what is right, what is wrong. Economic liberalisation, growing consumerism, globalisation and its inevitable value shifts have morphed our attitude towards certain things. Creating even greater confusion among young people who simply cannot understand why the state must take a moral position on what are essentially matters of personal choice.

For instance, we all acknowledge that prostitution is wrong. It is morally bad, socially unacceptable. Yet we do nothing about it. India is about to become the AIDS capital of the world, where one out of every thousand people could be HIV afflicted and one out of every hundred homes will soon have an AIDS patient in their midst if we do not watch out. Yet every city has its own red light district growing like a festering sore.

Everyone knows how young girls are kidnapped from their homes and villages and sold to pimps and gangsters in these cities. How they are cruelly exploited; how most of them die in disease and penury. Yet the state has never taken a single step to stop the growth of this criminal trade or, at least, control it through proper licensing, health care and welfare strategies so that future generations can escape its clutches. Even if they did not want to stop prostitution, they could have controlled the swift and frightening spread of AIDS. But no, no one will lift a little finger to do that.

Similarly, we all know, we all recognise the fact that smoking cigarettes causes cancer. For those who smoke and also for those who do not but are forced to inhale the smoke when others around them light up. In fact, some studies show that passive smokers are in greater danger than smokers themselves. Banning smoking in public places is a good step but surely it is not enough. The government, greedy to pocket more taxes, is sidestepping the real issue. Which is simply this: Now that all research has shown the direct link between smoking and cancer, we must ban the manufacture and import of cigarettes. Cigarette companies are facing a worldwide recession and that is why they are so desperate to sell more in countries like India where people are still stupid enough to associate smoking with machismo.

Brain-dead movie stars like Akshay Kumar still pose for cigarette ads. Greedy TV networks carry these ads in the full knowledge that they are encouraging a wicked, despicable, criminal industry to flourish but the government will not intervene except at budget time, when it enhances taxes and pretends that it is doing its duty towards discouraging smoking. Thousands of lives are lost every year even after medical evidence has conclusively proved how dangerous smoking is. Our hospitals are overflowing. We do not have adequate facilities to treat cancer patients. The cost to society is far, far too high. Yet no one has the will to take a stand against the all powerful cigarette (or, for that matter, the bidi) industry.

In fact, the government is in clear conspiracy with this powerful business lobby which makes huge profits from killing people. What is even more shameless is the fact that we are now encouraging international cigarette companies to come to India and set up 100 per cent subsidiaries that can kill more people and repatriate the profits overseas.

Yet, even as the government encourages smoking and turns a Nelson's eye to prostitution, it works overtime to protect our morals by snipping away at every sexy scene in the movies. It insists on bars closing down at midnight. It bullies and harasses the poor addicts on the streets who are driven to drugs by the sheer futility and despair of their lives. The peddlers and pushers are rich enough to bribe their way through the system. It is the poor addicts, already knocking on death's door, who are picked up and jailed and treated in the most inhuman fashion.

Compare this with the lionising of cigarette company bosses who pontificate in management forums and get away with FERA violations and the murder of the foolish and the innocent. They openly flaunt the rules that forbid them from advertising cigarettes in certain media. They associate with major sporting activity, sending entirely wrong signals to the youth. They discreetly promote smoking through movies, TV serials, and powerful alternative media that leave an impact on the minds of the weak and vulnerable. The warning published on their packs is of no importance because you cannot allow someone to sell a product in the clear knowledge that it will kill those who consume it. It is actually abetting suicide.

If the government can turn a Nelson's eye to cigarette, gutka and liquor promotions, what can stop drug pushers from advertising their wares and making them look sexy and attractive as symbols of upward mobility.

We have reached a stage where we are losing sight of the distinction between right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies. If you watch the movies, you will see the villain (as we have known him) vanishing. Because that is what is happening in our life, in our society. No one cares if a person is good or bad any more as long as he is successful. Gandhi is an anachronism. The end is more important than the means. Victory is more important than the way it was won. Success sets its own rules. Profit is more important than the morality of business. If murder is your business, no one cares how you kill, how many you kill as long as you make profit at the end of it and pay dividends to your shareholders.

Which brings me to my last question: If we are so amoral about profit, why do we make such a tamasha over small things? Why do we want to close bars at midnight, chop off kissing scenes on the screen, banish rock concerts and casinos, and treat those who smoke grass or drop acid or snort coke as noxious criminals? Why not open everything up and let people do exactly as they want? It is stupid to be selectively moral, to selectively punish those who are doing wrong. A good government, like Caeser's wife, must keep both eyes open wide.

Pritish Nandy

Tell us what you think of this column