How About A Ganja Pride Parade?

The newspapers are all full of a gay rights parade held in New Delhi. Very good. India’s gay community must be complimented on their courage. The news report says they marched down the streets shouting “Proud to be homos.” I recommend a reading of Plato’s Symposium. There is a lot in it about homosexual love, which was highly regarded in ancient Greece. In India, homosexuals are the target of criminal law – and this tyranny must end. Let us try and become a civilisation wherein every kind of love is celebrated.

Yet, my pet peeve is another law – the Narcotics & Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985. Because of this ugly piece of legislation, farmers and smokers of ganja-charas have a very rough time. In my travels, I have often come across farmers of the Noble Herb – and witnessed first-hand how much they suffer. Their fields are always remote and inaccessible, to be far from spying eyes. And they never know when the cops will land up to burn their fields. If they manage to harvest a crop, they must sell it for a pittance to a criminal. The criminal then goes on to claim a black-market price from a smoker. The farmer and the consumer both get screwed. The middlemen, which include the cops, make away with the loot. This must end.

What is required is a “Ganja-Charas Pride Rally” in New Delhi, a march from India Gate to Raisina Hill, with thousands shouting “Boom Shankar.” There should be sadhus, smokers and farmers – from Kerala, Manipur, Manali… and all the places where good ganja comes from. This should be an annual event, to be continued until this legislation is repealed.

Funnily enough, most smokers of the Noble Herb are afraid of going public. While I was with the Economic Times, I conducted a debate on the op-ed page on cannabis legalisation. I invited the director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, the head of the department of psychiatry at AIIMS, and for a third view looked for an eminent smoker. First, I invited a prominent journalist who used to smoke in public – but he declined. I then invited a famous Bollywood star who was known to smoke a joint before every take – but he too copped out. Lastly, I invited Upamanyu Chatterjee, IAS officer and author of the bestseller English, August, whose hero is a ganja smoker – but he too declined.

I finally published the debate with just the two views: of the doc and the cop. The doc, the great Devendra Mohan, concluded by asserting there was no medical reason why the traditional bhang ki thandai should not be sold as an alternative to alcohol: Bhola Cola! The cop said that ganja should be illegal because ganja smokers are “untrustworthy.” Absurd. Cops, of course, are trustworthy! Anyway, the fact remains that we smokers must emulate the homos, and march, chillum in hand, to fight for our freedom.

“Boom Shankar, Dushman ko Thang Kar.”

That said, readers are also directed towards my latest column in Mint, available here. It is on the differences between Western and Eastern philosophy – how they are “worldly” while we are “other-worldly.” I particularly liked the illustration by Jayachandran. It shows a Buddha-like figure seated in lotus position silhouetted against the setting sun, with a great big highway leading up to him. Yes, we desperately need highways.

And Liberty.