FORAY | Sunday, October 5, 2008 | Email | Print | 
Jihadis - Ramadoss, Osama
The cutting ed: Chandan Mitra
Now I finally know what it is to be a persecuted minority, to live in conditions amounting to apartheid, fearing police harassment, furtively seeking out places away from public gaze, tormented by laws enacted by a regime possessed with neo-Nazi zeal. Anyway, everybody is terrorised by the thought that a bomb may go off at any place at any time. So, avoid crowded places, don't visit markets to make purchases - try home delivery as far as possible. The other day somebody asked which Durga Puja pandals I proposed to visit this week. I said, possibly none, because I am scared they may be sitting duck targets for terrorists.
The Pujas have traditionally been a time of conviviality, visiting pandals, meeting acquaintances with whom you normally don't connect rest of the year. It's the season to stay up late, visit bars and restaurants with friends and unwind as the dreary heat and humidity of the Indian summer gives way to pleasanter weather. But two sets of terrorist killjoys have joined hands to ensure people don't have fun anymore. Their respective leaders: Dr Anbumani Ramadoss and Osama bin-Laden.
A pall of fear hangs heavy on urban India. Delhi, in any case, is an especially favoured target of the jihadis. We hardly got over the tragedy of Sarojini Nagar Market where 60 people were killed at the height of festival shopping three years ago, when bombs went off in rapid succession on Saturday September 13 all over Central and South Delhi. Just a fortnight later, an even more ominous thing happened. The Mehrauli Bazaar bomb that killed two innocent children revealed a new terror tactic - the policy of a thousand cuts, none deep enough to kill but enough to make the country bleed relentlessly.
It also proved that no elaborate planning or coordination is required to strike terror. Just two ordinary youngsters can assemble a crude device, wrap it in a commonplace plastic bag and just dump it on the road. It's as simple as that, although there is nothing simple about its lethal effect. So, leave alone festival shopping, mall-hopping and other normal pleasures, even going to markets to buy provisions is fraught with immense risk to life and limb.
The other day, the police conducted a mock drill in Khan Market, just behind my house. The chaos that followed was incredible - people running from point to point like plucked chicken, cars furiously honking, traffic jams compounded by frenzied police activity, hooting sirens and the works. Periodic drills are a good idea, but the amount of dislocation caused was a measure of the intensity of fear that now stalks the city. And Delhi is not alone, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai and other cities that have experienced similar trauma in the recent past, apart from other likely targets, are all living on edge. Home is the terrorised Indian's last refuge. But we don't know how much longer we are safe even within our own premises.
Besides jihadi terror, another kind of terror has just been let loose on urban India. Both the police and vigilante squads are on the prowl to satiate the megalomania of the Union Health Minister. I can't smoke in my office premises, not even on the terrace or balcony leave alone a secluded private chamber. I can't go to a bar to enjoy a couple of drinks with friends, nor can I light up in a restaurant while I wait for food to be served or after a satisfying meal. It is still not clear whether hotels will be allowed to earmark some smoking rooms, but I am certain that Adolf Hitler's worthy Indian follower will think of some devious plan to prosecute hotels if they do.
I am not comparing Ramadoss to Hitler in jest. Unlike his peers in an age where smoking was the norm rather than the exception (Allied leaders Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Josef Stalin were all smokers), the German dictator pathologically despised the habit. Although he did not go quite so far as Ramadoss, the Nazis banned smoking at party meetings and told members to aggressively "persuade" smokers to abandon the addiction. A massive publicity blitz was launched by the Nazi Government to make people aware of the evils of smoking. How miserably Hitler failed in his mission is apparent from the fact that Germany still has rather liberal anti-smoking laws. Earlier this year, the State of Bavaria scrapped the regulation prohibiting smoking in bars and public places, citing both economic and practical reasons.
Ramadoss talks of 52 per cent of Americans having given up smoking over the last decade thanks to draconian laws. As usual he peddles a half-truth, deliberately overlooking the fact that 34 per cent have lapsed back; only 18 percent have given up the puff for good.
The Government's mindless aggression has finally aggravated smokers who were getting used to being kicked around by the authorities. I find a new assertiveness among smokers who have discarded their earlier defensive postures. They are determinedly raising the issue of personal freedom and the rights of minorities in a democracy. After all, what are they asking for? It is not for blanket permission to light up anywhere and everywhere. But, just as non-smokers have the right not to be subjected to passive smoking, smokers too have their rights.
Since democracy is all about mutual accommodation of sectional demands, the Government could have demanded that restaurants, bars and office complexes earmark designated smoking areas. In fact, this was the norm in Delhi and eight other States for the last 10 years. The provisions could have been tightened to insist on greater physical segregation of smoking and non-smoking sections in various establishments. A blanket ban amounts to a fundamental assault on the civil liberties and personal freedoms enshrined in the Constitution. It is highly regrettable that the Supreme Court turned a blind eye to the infringement of personal liberties by the Government. Political correctness cannot be the guiding principle of the law. So, the apex court must take a serious re-look at the provisions of the anti-smoking regulation when arguments begin over a slew of pending petitions on November 18.
Meanwhile, home is the only refuge. It's the only place that unites a besieged majority and doubly-jeopardised minority. The Government's laxity in dealing with jihadi terrorism and refusal to bring tougher laws in the imaginary fear of antagonising the Muslim vote bank, has made India an unsafe place to live.
The jehad against smoking has made it impossible for smokers to stir out of home unless they are happy being vagabonds on the streets. Of India's 120 million tobacco users, 58 per cent smoke bidis, 23 percent gutkha and other forms of chewing tobacco and only 19 per cent are cigarette smokers.
Shouldn't the Government be expending its energies to apprehend terrorists rather than diverting scarce police resources to catch cigarette smokers instead?
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