According to doctors and researchers, more than 40 carcinogenic chemicals with an additional 3,960 chemicals are mixed to get the desired effect in gutka with tobacco. Can we ask the manufacturers to export their entire production? After all, many may have taken a resolution on this World No Tobacco Day

Every year, six million people die all over the world due to tobacco use, in any form. It is estimated that another 10% die due to second-hand exposure to smoking. These figures are not reliable but based on statistical evidence collected of recorded deaths.

Both these occur in spite of greater exposure to education and continuous campaigns.  To prevent this, use and sale of tobacco is banned within 100 metre radius of any educational institution as prevention is better than cure and yet, shopkeepers sell these products just outside the banned area with impunity.

The World No Tobacco Day—31st May—witnessed various programmes to create the awareness, all over the world, and, unlike most of the western countries, tobacco consumption is increasing in India due to chewing of betel leaf and the use of gutka with tobacco, and inhaling of fine mesh tobacco as snuff. Though this habit is slowing dying, thankfully, because it is felt to be dirty and not fashionable. Most of the hard working labour class use tobacco as a stress buster and even women chew tobacco in rural areas. The cheaper cousin of cigarettes, the beedi, its Indian poor cousin, is also consumed on a large scale, with a belief that it is less harmful than cigarettes! Beedi making is a cottage industry in the country, employing thousands of households.

Karnataka was the 25th member of the Indian Union to bring the ban on gutka from 31st May. This ban covers all forms of gutka, whether it contains tobacco, nicotine or any other such stimulant.

In most institutions, smoking is prohibited.  In fact, in many countries, smoking is banned in public places.  Most restaurants are smoke-free, though some provide separate enclosed areas for the addicts. But, strangely, outside the restaurants, pan shops sell both cigarettes and gutka; and some of the pans made with special ‘zarda’ or tobacco are very expensive and sought after, by the customers who have had a great enjoyable meal!

It is difficult to pin-point where and when one acquires this habit, but it begins mostly with children copying their elders and film idols. Even here, if and when such a scene occurs in a movie, a by-line appears to warn the viewer: “smoking is injurious to health”; product packages also carry this warning, which is mandatory. New movies may say a word or two about gutka, if the Censors insist on this!

So, passive smoking occurs at home and in group gathering when someone smokes, and out of courtesy, nobody objects.  But, as for gutka, it affects none other than the consumer unless it is shared with another.

Gutka can be made with or without tobacco. It is basically formed from areca nut, slaked lime, paraffin and katechu. According to doctors and researchers, more than 40 carcinogenic chemicals with an additional 3960 chemicals are mixed to get the desired effect in gutka with tobacco. In fact, this is considered more harmful than cigarettes by this community. Dr J Dixit at HCG Cancer Care Centre has stated that this must be banned without a second thought.

In 2003, COPTA—Cigarette and Other Tobacco Control Act—was passed which has prescribed a total ban on all forms of promotions, advertising and sponsorship.  But, somehow, promoters tend to violate the law though indirect and or surrogate advertisements, making enforcements a difficult proposition.

For, everywhere, there is always a “smokers’ corner” and in the case of gutka, it is easy to carry in small sachets, being bought and sold with impunity. This total ban will only help in smuggled gutka, unless there is a total ban in the manufacture itself.

Sixty percent of the areca nut production in India comes from Karnataka, with other producers like Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, etc. In the wake of this ban in Karnataka, BJP, which had ruled this state for the last few years, has come out in favour of permitting the sale of tobacco-free gutka, as areca nut is a local crop, and will put thousands of people in the jobless status. In any case, areca nut is imperative when pan is made with betel leaves, which is a very traditional item in Hindu households.  It is not that other communities do not use betel leaves, but the use is predominantly by the majority.

Why not set up a time frame to ensure that tobacco use through gutka, snuff, etc is totally banned in the country?  As for manufactured product like cigarette, cigar, etc a total ban is unlikely because of the revenue that government gets and millions of people are employed directly or indirectly. Can we forget our morals and say that the manufacturers of these products must export the entire production or give them a sliding scale by which, year after year, a reduced percentage of the total production is made available for indigenous consumption? Even a glorified export version of beedi (with filter, etc) is made and sold abroad!

But, in the meantime, can we ask the readers of Moneylife, and this article, if they are one of those, who responded to the call of the government, and have given up smoking or using gutka with tobacco, or both? After all, many may have taken a resolution on this World No Tobacco Day?

(AK Ramdas has worked with the Engineering Export Promotion Council of the ministry of commerce and was associated with various committees of the Council. His international career took him to places like Beirut, Kuwait and Dubai at a time when these were small trading outposts; and later to the US.)