After running out of all other populist movements (‘Save the Tress’, Clean the Campus’ and ‘Help the Dogs be Ticks-n-Rabies Free’), our Madame DUSU President affected a blanket ban on smoking in the campus from February 15. If you are one of those who signed that humungous piece of canvas, demanding to make the campus ‘Tobacco Free’; you need not read any further. I have no sympathies with you. I absolutely detest your perverse pleasure in seeing the smokers annoyed and irritated, having to walk for miles for a drag.
I hardly need to add that Madame President’s concern for our health is an echo of the health minister’s argument for banning smoking in public places. You may feel I am being biased but having once read an article by Karan Thapar regarding Ramadoss’ decision to edit all smoking scenes from films; I was convinced that our health minister is an arrogant nutcase who believed the rest of the country to be idiots who couldn’t tell cigarette butts from natural ones. His ‘argument’ was an assumption that adults and children, not having enough brains to fill an eggcup, would frantically start lighting up one cigarette after another, the moment they see SRK take a stylish puff from his Goldflake.
This insightful remark was immediately followed by surveys and researches which proved that 94.357 percent of school kids had their first drags after watching so-and-so actor in XYZ film! I am sure many of you find these gimmicks as irksome as I do; but you tell yourself that this is not an entirely evil world since even these nasty regulations and restrictions are implemented keeping our long term health and well being in mind. If only that would be true! Agreed that cigarette smoking can be injurious to health. But so is over-eating, over-exercising, listening to loud music and wearing stilettos. Ever seen the health minister (or the DUSU president) trying to regulate these or even take a light interest in them? Why have these been conveniently ‘othered’, while smoking continues to make headlines? I think we are already familiar with the answer.
The ‘culture of smoking’ has not yet been entirely assimilated by our society at large. A large part of the population takes it to be a vice almost at par with the six deadly sins in Hinduism. Smokers, especially women (a minority), are condemned by even the elite and educated. It would be a boost to any Party’s popularity to join the masses (and the culture brigade) in slamming down smoking. And when a constraint comes masquerading as a health benefit, it is usually lapped up by even the most cynical and rebellious among us. So in the end, we must never mind that the campus does not have adequate facilities for outstation students, or the required safety measures for women or even the degenerated state of colleges. What after all is going to bring Delhi University (along with its students union) in the limelight is its clean, fresh, ‘tobacco free’ air!
Mitia Nath
[Image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/smorchon/2279443485/]
True, neither did mine. Perhaps it would help if schools made an effort to teach kids something that’s actually useful, but there’s room for a lot of ineffectuality there as well.
the deal is that most people start smoking in school. and by the time we are in college, its too late. how many schools do you know which talk about smoking? i know that mine didn’t….
I just noticed the typos in my previous post; sorry about that!
You’re probably right, but then laws are never made with the view that they will not be followed. Obviously, the problem needs to be tackled with a certain modicum of intelligence and there has to be a better way of doing it, but I just don’t see how. So many educated people smoke, even though they’re perfectly well aware of the ill effects, so I don’t know whether it’s really education that is lacking…
Agreed. Though unfortunately in DU, its not so much to really stop people for smoking but to get non smoking people to vote for them. If this wasn’t the case, something more intelligent would have been figured out by DU. Banning will only increase smoking. Also when the parliament has a separate smoking zone, it doesn’t seem fair to “eradicate” what is a free choice? Eradicate the ill effects, get people to smoke in separate smoking zones. And while you are at it educate people about smoking as opposed to make our partners-in-crime the non-voting panwaris broke…
“Agreed that cigarette smoking can be injurious to health. But so is over-eating, over-exercising, listening to loud music and wearing stilettos.”
You’re ignoring one basic point here: while all the above can be harmful to the person who is doing them, smoking is harmful even to non-smokers in the vicinity. Second-hand smoke is extremely injurious to the health. You’re entitled to as you please with your own body and if you want to smoke despite being aware of the consequences, good for you, but you have no right to put other people at the same risk. Naturally, there are many other health risks that also need to be examined by the government, but how does that preclude us from paying attention to this one? Just because overpopulation is, quite literally, a growing epidemic in our country, we shouldn’t start ignoring other problems like education or women’s rights, for example. There are tons of problems that are crying out to be resolved, but focusing on one is better than focusing on none. That rhyme was unintential. =)
And the ban isn’t going to help either. I am not going to quite coz DU bans me to.
People wont stop smoking coz they are told to not smoke.
They will not smoke only if they don’t want to.
Brains Madame DUSU President? Look around…
Think about it, why smoking? More people are going to die because of Axe deodrants that shall rip a hole in our beloved ozone layer. Why not that?
And how about constructions in MH and SVC that emit enough SPM to layer our pinky lungs with a three inch coating.
DUSU is making a big deal out of it coz Amrita, The Madame DUSU President?, just wants to cash in on the non smoking vote bank.
Brilliantly written piece. Though I think you’ve ignored the part of the argument that says the air is cleaner in the campus as a result (which can be quite vociferously debated against–it has its own set of further issues) which is as a result healthier for the one’s whose lungs turn blacker due to passive smoking. People will as a result smoke more in confined places which is worse. Good read.