Bans have become a panacea for shoddy governance or a means of battering communities into submission. Some bans have judicial sanction supposedly implying that “due process of law” has been followed; others are merely a means of subjugating communities. Even those with legal sanction, for example related to smoking and alcohol, are badly conceived, and irrationally executed echoing Roman historian Publius’ Tacitus words -“the more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state”
Prohibition as a concept should be consigned to the graveyard of history as a failed social experiment. It has being resurrected in some states based on hypocritical concerns for society, only to drive the social evil underground. Attempts to reduce drunk driving with a 500-meter rule makes no sense on numerous counts. Is the distance to be measured as the crow flies, or by road access distance? Apparently this was the basis for exempting some mountainous NE states. If safety was a concern, what is the justification for this exemption?
Would it not have been more effective to increase patrolling, speed traps and alcohol meters, with instant and severe penalties? In the UK, intensive patrolling with instant fines an even lifetime driving bans has resulted in a dramatic decrease in drunk driving. Even Maharashtra has achieved commendable success with such measures. Further, with bars, restaurants and hotels most affected, it is estimated that a millions jobs are at risk with a revenue loss of 25-30% for hotels, and a thousand crore a day to the exchequer with the SC making no provisions for rehabilitation. In any case the order was circumvented by de-notifying highways, reducing the ban to a farce and increasing the financial burden on the state.
The tobacco industry is estimated to be worth Rs 75-100 thousand crores and revenue of Rs 35000 crore; and that is without counting related products and jobs. It involves 50 million farmers. Balanced against this is the healthcare cost, which justifies bans like smoking in public. Whilst there has been laudable effort at awareness programs, assistance with de-addiction is lacking, diluting the reach of such programs. There is also the question of ethical investing. The government, through five PSUs, is the largest investor (32%) in ITC. It profits from the very industry that it targets with bans, in the interests of healthcare. That, and the powerful political lobby within the industry, will never permit effective measures in law. The impetus has to come from persuading the individual smoker to kick the habit in his own interests and provide professional assistance to those who wish to do so.
It is the bans that have no judicial sanction that threaten the very fabric of society. Cow slaughter has been banned in many states. Goa introduced the ban in 1978, with an important proviso. The slaughter of all other bovines was permitted subject to certification of fitness to slaughter. To surreptitiously extend the ban to other bovines via the animal market route, on grounds of cruelty is devious, illogical, and with obvious ulterior motives. Attempts by lumpen elements led by Subramaniam Swamy to “change tradition” in Goa is cheap political mischief mongering. Gandhi is often quoted to justify cow protectionism; conveniently ignoring his expressed view that “to attempt cow protection by violence is to reduce Hinduism to Satanism and to prostitute to a base end the grand significance of cow protection”. Livelihoods have been trampled upon at abattoir level as well as tribal culture (e.g. the Bakrawals of J&K), whilst the majority of wholesale beef traders and exporters are Hindu. The meat industry is valued at about Rs 18 thousand crores with an export market estimated at $5 billion and another $6 billion in leather. But then cow protection is also a “profitable” enterprise with the emergence of protection mafias.
Goan society is threatened by declaring “VHP will not require the help of any government to stop cow slaughter or consumption of beef as our Bajrang Dal and Durga Vahini are capable of doing it”. Have these bovine protectors given a thought to the economic consequences of their madness? It costs a minimum of Rs 60 daily just to feed a bovine. Looking for return on investments, no farmer in his right mind is going to spend money on unproductive animals which account for about 22 million of the 190 million heads of cattle. Annual maintenance costs alone would touch Rs.50,000 crores. The gau rakshaks remain gloriously oblivious to such minutiae, being too preoccupied with murdering, lynching (even of 14 year olds), beating and raping, on mere suspicions and rumors; and promoting hair brained ideas like UID for cows.
Banning dance bars involved the closure of about 1500 establishments, 100,000 workers and the loss of Rs 5000-Rs 8000 crores per annum. Surely the police should be engaged in preventing and investigating rapes rather than the absurd exercise of moral policing with “anti-Romeo” squads.
There are bans I would love to see implemented. The Garbh Vigyan Sanskar (Uterus Science Culture) proposes an “intimacy protocol” to produce offspring “taller, fairer and smarter”; stating that small dark babies are born to parents who are “impure”. This is rank racism reminiscent of the Nazi“super-race” and truly deserves to be banned. It won’t be long before one may be banned for being short and dark skinned!
Our crafty legislators have introduced electoral bonds to ensure donor anonymity in party funding. These should be banned. The aam admi has a right to know where political donations come from. Similarly absenteeism from parliament should have ceilings beyond which the legislator is automatically banned from holding the seat/post.
Finally, should there be a ban on prime ministers who are slick event managers, yet promote a culture of impunity by choosing to remain silent spectators to the mayhem of lynching, rapes and beatings of Indians who happen to be Dalits or Muslims? Wishful thinking.
(The writer is a founder member of the Voluntary Health Association of Goa.)
