Garbage In, Garbage Out

The Constitution of India, the longest written constitution in the world, has a chapter mandating the "fundamental duties of the citizen." But it says nothing of the fundamental duties of The State it establishes, nor any limit to its powers, for it does not even guarantee the citizenry security in their properties. Even as I write, the Socialist Supreme Court is discussing the merits and demerits of forcible "land acquisition" by our The State.

In all our cities and towns, there is garbage all over the place. Their is dirt, filth and stench. Flies and mosquitoes proliferate - causing disease and even death. Many die of dengue fever in Nude Elly every year, a disease caused by a particular kind of mosquito.

In the meanwhile, our The State pretends to look after our health. There is a Ministry of Health, whose last incumbent, a political flyweight from Madras, banned smoking in public places; and this includes "private places" like restaurants and bars. 

But there is so much garbage in public places!

I discovered another such pretension yesterday as I examined my bottle of Carlsberg beer. The label says: "By Appointment to the King of Denmark." In other words, this sovereign recommends this fine beer to his subjects - and to the world at large. However, just alongside this solemn proclamation, our The State has FORCED the manufacturers to add their mandatory warning:

Consumption of Alcohol is Injurious to Health.

This displays ignorance; not only medical ignorance, but also historical ignorance. In the old days, no one drank water in the cities of Europe, because the water was full of germs. They drank beer - which is boiled before fermentation. They drank wine.

In India, our people do NOT drink beer or wine - because these have been overtaxed; and these high taxes have encouraged tipplers to go for hard liquor instead. Hard liquor on a daily basis is most certainly injurious to the health. You don't need a doctor to tell you that. You know how sick you feel the morning after.

Indeed, as I was travelling from Madras to Pondicherry, I passed the State-owned arrack factory. I remembered the stench from the old days. I drank this arrack once, with some rickshaw-wallahs in Madras - and it was horrible. If trade was free, arrack-drinkers would have Sri Lankan arrack, which tastes better than any Scotch whisky. Take my word for it.

Beer and wine are consumed by poor people in the West. Anthony Sampson, in his The Anatomy of Britain, records that when Labour Party meetings are held, beer is served, while when the Conservatives meet, it is champagne that flows. I read a biography of Michaelangelo once, in which it was mentioned that this great sculptor survived on wine and bread when he was poor.

Let us move on to tobacco. This is something new in India, for we have always been smokers of ganja, which is non-addictive and good not only for the health, but also the mind. It delivers the smoker a "mild euphoria": that is, it makes him "happy." It also expands the mind, which is why sadhus, while lighting a chillum, say "Alakh! Khol de Teesri Palak." Translated: "Shiva! Open my Third Eye." It is the Philosopher's Drug.

Our The State has prohibited ganja and charas - something even the Brits did not do - while unleashing tobacco upon us. And there too, it has FORCED manufacturers to place ugly "health warning" signs on cigarette packets:

Smoking Kills.

But flies and mosquitoes kill too. And they are caused by garbage.

Tobacco does NOT kill. Deng Xiao Ping smoked 90 cigarettes a day - and lived a long and happy life, during which he transformed China, throwing out Maoist Communism and replacing it with (flawed) Capitalism. 


And there is much more to tobacco than ITC cigarettes. There are cigars and cigarillos; there is pipe and rolling tobacco. All these have been blocked entry into our markets by the Customs Department. Personally, I prefer cigarillos to cigarettes - but here in India, you never get them.

I perceived this great hypocrisy on the part of our The State while in the swank Rajiv Gandhi Airport in Hyderabad. There, they did have two tiny "smoking rooms" for people like me. I pointed out to my fellow smokers there that the Hyderabad region is famous for its tobacco. I also pointed out that the last Nizam of Hyderabad chain-smoked the cheroots that his subjects produced. These locally made cheroots are NOT available in this airport. Meanwhile, the poor masses are smoking awful bidis. Open a bidi sometime and check out the tobacco within it, both quantity and quality. If cigarettes were not taxed, no one would smoke bidis. And if they could freely sell their mahua and handia, no forest-dweller would waste time picking tendu leaves.

In either case, we are dying on the streets. Over 200,000 Indians (and quite a few tourists, too) are killed on our unsafe streets and "notional highways" every year. This, while the State Police are working ever so hard on VVIP Security. They are working hard on "security concerns" that range from the Taliban to all the jehadis and terrorists and Maoists and Naxalites. Yet, they cannot look after our health on the streets. 

Making our streets safe requires no "intelligence." It does not require universal ID cards. It does not require phone tapping or e-mail interception or all the other kinds of snooping that these cops of ours are so good at. It requires Science. We must import experts in this Science. We must import experts in road design and engineering too.

And as for the Socialist Constitution of India - it is garbage itself. It needs to be dumped. We need a constitution that mandates duties for mayors - like the collection of garbage and the protection of life on the streets.

We are a very clean people. Our bodies, our homes, our kitchens - they are always spic-and-span. In Pondicherry, they wash the pavement outside their homes every morning and decorate it with a pretty rice-paste design. It is a crying shame that all our cities and towns are such a complete mess. 

This was not the case in British times. Sir Bartle Frere, while Governor of Bombay, received a letter from Florence Nightingale congratulating him on the fact that Bombay had a LOWER death rate than London! In Calcutta, the streets were WASHED every morning, and there are still to be found the hydrants installed for the purpose. Of course, these are no longer working.

Let us then think of a New Constitution. One based on the Inviolability of Private Property. And one which prescribes duties for mayors of cities and towns - while leaving the people Free. 

Free to smoke whatever they like. Free to drink whatever they like. Free to engage in commerce with the world outside. 

Free!