Gandhiji wouldn't have approved Smoking Ban

By all accounts Gandhiji was an abstemious sort of chap. Tee-total non-smoker, who renounced the material world and was a celibate to boot. So on the face of it, no one raised an eyebrow when Union Health Minister Dr. Ambumani Ramadoss decided to ban smoking in public places on Gandhi Jayanti.

Then again the ascetical Father of the Nation was a humanist and everyone just assumed that imposing the ban on his birthday, in the larger interest of public health, would have met with Gandhiji's approval. But had the good doctor been well versed with his 'Gandhi', he would never have instituted the ban on the Mahatma's birthday to begin with.

Sure, a ban on smoking is politically correct and may well be high on symbolism, but sadly it does a great disservice to Mahatma's philosophy and its praxis.

For Gandhiji, 'rational discussion and persuasion', not blanket bans, were the best way to deal with a situation of conflict. Especially with regards to a conflict such as this: A cabinet minister imposing his will upon a resentful public not convinced of the logic behind the firman.

Indeed the debate over the ban has focussed not so much on its benefits but on how it infringes upon the individual's right to chose. Be that as it is, Gandhiji would have frowned upon the method employed by Dr Ramadoss.

The Satyagrahi in Gandhiji would have relied upon a reasoned approach. He would have wanted the contending parties, the minister and the public, 'to discuss, look at the issue from each other's point of view, appreciate the force of each other's arguments and arrive at a view based on the insights of both and acceptable to both'.

This as we all know wasn't quite the route taken by Dr Ramadoss or even those lobbying against his anti-tobacco campaign. Frustrated by the strong backlash his pronouncement elicited from the paying public, the minister went for broke. By imposing the ban, he brutally quashed debate. In the metaphysical universe it was an act of grave violence: A brutish desecration of rationale.

The non-violent cogitator in Gandhiji would have died a thousand deaths than resort to violence (ahimsa) of this variety. In Bapu's view the use of violence emphasises untruth and can never be the path to realising the truth.

This is primarily because the use of violence is predicated on the assumption that those resorting to it are 'absolutely right, the opponent absolutely wrong and that the violence would definitely achieve the desired result.'

Now we know that as far as the ban on smoking is concerned this is not entirely the case. Both the parties to this conflict - smokers and non-smokers - are at best only partially right. And the ban itself does not guarantee a result, morally questionable and practicably ineffectual as it is.

In the end analysis it is then fair to conclude that doctor Ramadoss's strong medicine would have left the Father of the Nation feeling ill at ease.

By Rahul Shivshankar, Senior Editor, TIMES NOW