People's Democracy

Muralidharan

AS we leave the Patiala University campus towards Mansa, we discover a flat tyre in back wheel of the Tavera. We stop at a nearby petrol pump where a couple of mechanics are attending to as many vehicles. A cursory glance around and your attention is drawn to one of them with a haggard look. It’s around 10.00 in the morning. Though engrossed in work he was seemingly oblivious of his surroundings. Even our piercing stares in anticipation of a reaction bounce off. The gregarious Punjabi, who is supposed to be tough and fun-loving and full of warmth is just a myth, it seems. They do not take kindly to strangers. Even while they stand there aimlessly, it is evident that they despise your presence. In village after village, in town after town, you will witness the same spectacle. Emaciated youth, greet you at markets, busy road intersections, bus terminals, on the streets, in the lanes, and where not. At the dhaba on the outskirts of Moga, where we stopped to have our evening meal the next day, an elderly man, with whom we struck a conversation, revealed that his young son is undergoing treatment at a de-addiction centre.

“Seven out of ten boys are addicted to drugs in the rural areas” said Professor Gyan Singh of the Punjabi University, Patiala, in a voice filled with concern and anguish. On the lawns of the University Guest House, the professor of economics spoke to us on the perils affecting Punjab, besides drugs.

Echoing the same disquiet an affidavit filed by the secretary of the Department of Social Security, Punjab, says that sixteen per cent of the Punjab population is hooked to hard drugs. The affidavit filed some time back before the Punjab and Haryana High Court reveals that every third male and every tenth female student has taken drugs and seven out of 10 college-going students abuse one or the other drug.  It goes on to say that “The entire Punjab is in the grip of a drug hurricane which weakens the morale, physique and character of the youth. We are in the danger of losing the young generation. The vibrant Punjab that had ushered in the green revolution is today living in a dazed stupor”.  The secretary, further submitted that “67 per cent of its rural household has at least one drug addict.”

These shocking figures may not be revealing the entire truth, even while they speak a lot.

Punjab is more susceptible because of its proximity to the “Golden Crescent.” The Golden Crescent is the name given to one of Asia’s two principal areas of illicit opium production, located at the crossroads of Central, South, and Western Asia. This space overlaps three nations - Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, whose mountainous peripheries define the crescent. Punjab, we are told, in recent years, is being used as the main supply line for illegal narcotics supply to the West.  Despite the heavily fortified border, smuggling, sometimes in connivance with officials, is rampant. Being the first point of delivery, access to narcotics becomes easier. Bordering Pakistan, Taran is considered one of the most seriously affected districts in Punjab. According to the Anti-Narcotic Task Force all of Punjab’s twenty districts are infested with drug peddlers.

For some like Sonu, whose father we met at the dhaba on the outskirts of Moga, it begins very early in life. At the age of 12 he was initiated. First it was inhaling whiteners. Whiteners, or correcting fluid, in the good old days of the typewriter, used to be applied over something typed erroneously. Despite typewriters being a rarity nowadays, whiteners continue to be readily available. Such children then graduate to the higher variants like ganja, charas, opium and finally heroin. Of course, morphine, sedatives and tranquilisers are all available across the counter, despite their being prescription drugs. An abstract of a paper published in the Indian Journal of Psychiatry in 2002, says that “The abuse of traditionally used drugs like opium is being replaced by over the counter drugs like other opiates, injections…….” Doctors engaged in rehabilitation centres confirm that heroin or dependence on injectables start after some years of usage of drugs like cannabis and oral opiates. Alarmingly, now the majority at the de-addiction centres are people using injectables or heroin.

ECONOMIC

CAUSES

Dr R K Mahajan who teaches economics at the Punjabi University’s regional centre at Bhatinda pointed that bhukki, as poppy husk is locally known, is allowed to be smuggled from bordering Rajasthan, by a pliant administration. Given the soaring demand in Punjab, several traders from Rajasthan have set up licenced vends near the border. “Land owners give them to farm labourers so that they can extract extra labour from them”, says Professor Mahajan. Youth from agricultural workers families share space with well-built youth from rich land-owning families at de-addiction centres. The menace does not discriminate between the rich and the poor. It spares neither. In some cases entire families, women and children included, are hooked.

Ravinder Singh Sandhu, Professor of Sociology at the Guru Nanak Dev University, author of Drug Addiction in Punjab: A Sociological Study says elsewhere, “We have found drug addicts from the age of 13. Forty per cent are below 50 years, 15 per cent are above 50 years and half are women….. 75 per cent of Punjab’s youth are addicted to drugs. If this continues, the story of Punjab will end by 2030”. The scenario is bleak.

The lucrative business of supply and sale of drugs is carried out through a well-knit nexus. It is a smuggler-police-politician nexus, aided by a chain of retail outlets. Ruling politicians and law-enforcement agencies blame each other, even while being hand in glove.

Despite all this, there is a sense of denial over the proportions to which this menace has spread and the inherent hazards. A police official speaking on condition of anonymity said that families often deny death in the family due to drug overdose and pass it off as suicide. Political parties, social activists and academicians all are united in concern. But the government seems to be doing nothing tangible to counter this danger, which has already assumed epidemic proportions. Notwithstanding the enormity of the problem, there are only 23 recognised de-addiction centres in the entire state.

Shrinking land holdings and high rate of unemployment, besides social tensions, have contributed in no less measure. According to Charan Singh Virdhi, secretary of the Punjab state committee of the CPI(M) “roughly 45 per cent of youth are roaming idle without proper employment. These frustrated youth get addicted to drugs”.

Dwelling on the issue further, Professor Gyan Singh observed, “One of the important issues that led to militancy (in the 1990s) was economic. People who became militants were from the small peasantry. Unequal distribution of resources led to the problem.”  Today, the “younger generation have become drug addicts and are involved in petty crimes. The agrarian crisis is having its social implications”, he added.

Easy availability has only exacerbated the problem. According to the affidavit submitted in the High Court, “the vibrancy of Punjab is virtually a myth…. many sell their blood to procure their daily doze of deadly drugs, even beg on the streets for money to continue their addiction…” There are cases where when short on cash, addicts often resort to petty crimes, with some even graduating to undertaking contract killings to get money to satiate their addiction.

KHALISTANI

LINKS

Equally if not more dangerous is the links the drug mafia has with the Khalistani extremists, with some of them being engaged in the trade directly. During the heydays of terrorism in Punjab in the nineties, a nexus evolved between narcotic smugglers from Pakistan and local terrorist groups. The proceeds were used to fund the the Khalistani movement. Some time back some extremists owing allegiance to the Khalistan Zindabad Force and some former extremists were caught with heroin. Now, the money secured from the sale of the smuggled drug is being used to revive the movement. This has dangerous portends.

A few months from now, Punjab will go to polls. Along with cash and booze, drugs too will form part of the allurements on offer.  And as it enters election mode, a big crisis looms over the state. And it’s not just drugs. Punjab which contributes roughly half to the central pool of foodgrains has both its agriculture and industry in doldrums.