Punjab must up the ante against drugs

THE Punjab Government appears to be in battle mode against drugs and illicitly distilled alcohol. Illicit distillation’s history is perhaps as old as the evolution of mankind. My first posting in the field was as the SP of Kapurthala, which at the time was a small district having just six police stations. One of the law-and-order problems of that time was illicit distillation along the riverine area. Working stills operated in the thick undergrowth with impunity. On the basis of intelligence inputs, we conducted extensive joint raids across the area, arrested a large number of distillers and impounded vats with large amounts of lahan and liquor.

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A functional small group or groups can be set up to study the drug problem and offer solutions.

Fifty years later, I still read about the Yudh going on, although more manpower and technology are available. The same operations were carried out against opium and poppy husk, gambling, prostitution, etcetera. The scale of the problem, however, was minuscule at the time compared to today.

Drugs, especially of the chemical kind, have entered the fray and big cartels are operating in the state as well as in border areas across the country (especially along the western coast where humongous seizures have been made), but no details are available regarding the origin and destination of these drugs.

I am confounded by the attitude of successive governments in dealing with social vices. No country has been able to eradicate human vices, for they are as old as civilisation; however, they have strived for a better balance.

America experimented with prohibition a century ago, only to land itself with crime bosses and a rampant mafia. Eventually, most countries have tried to reduce the criminalisation of society and the presence of rampant addiction through custom-made solutions for their societies. Some have pushed low-alcohol beverages, some have legalised marijuana and similar mild recreational intoxicants. They have been tough on hard drugs and supply to children. Continuous awareness campaigns are conducted to drive home the impact of alcohol and drugs on the body and mind.

Coming back to my home state of Punjab, the troubles in the lost decades of the 1980s and 1990s took a massive toll on the socio-economic fabric. Terrorism and the proxy war unleashed by Pakistan wreaked havoc on the state. The ISI provided an unending stream of arms, ammunition and training. Tactics perfected in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union were used, as were the munitions. The AK-47 became a dreaded weapon (most had Afghan-origin markings) and a force multiplier for the terrorists. Industries shut down or migrated; families were broken by killings; extortion became an ever-present dread. Thousands were killed — civilians as well as police and paramilitary personnel. No major effort was made to address these large-scale physical, psychological and economic traumas.

A whole state was virtually destroyed on all parameters of life and not a single commission was ordered to enquire into the causes and effects of this upheaval and to suggest remedies. The people were left to deal with it on their own — quite a few migrated, some took to crime and formed gangs, others took to smuggling and distribution of drugs. The politicians came back to power after a hiatus, and this led only to further criminalisation of society…why? An enquiry panel headed by eminent jurists, sociologists and administrators could have been set up for this purpose. A separate commission should have been formed to look into the losses incurred by the state, its institutions, its people and a proper rehabilitation plan mapped out, as also a financial and employment package.

What happened in Punjab for two decades was an undeclared war supported by Pakistan. Was it treated as such? Only for the first part of crushing terrorism was full support provided. For the second part of dealing with the aftermath, Punjab was left to the mercy of the forces of nature. I would like to mention that it was the Punjab Police, along with the Punjabi civil society, that was at the vanguard of this battle, and which bore the brunt of it.

For a region to be economically prosperous, one of the essentials is the ability to trade. Punjab is landlocked. Historically, the region did trade with Central Asia, Afghanistan and beyond through the Silk Road, with the Khyber Pass being a major route. The coming of the British and the subsequent Partition put paid to this route. Today also, that option is no longer available. In fact, it has been closed for quite a few decades after a few feeble attempts to open it.

With the withdrawal of the freight equalisation scheme, the ports of southern and western India are no longer viable for most products. As a result, the factories of Mandi Gobindgarh, Khanna, Ludhiana, etc. are a pale reflection of their former glory. We do not have air connectivity worth mentioning, even though this state accounts for one of the biggest diasporas. So, where and how do we trade…where is the government in the state and at the Centre involved in facilitating this?

Coming back to the Yudh on moonshine and drugs, the problem here has been tackled mainly as a law-and-order problem and the appointed agency to tackle it is the police.

As far as I know, no listed study has been carried out at the state level to go into the roots of the problem — factors involving social and economic forces and mental health issues. The role of national and international cartels, the role of various state agencies and the compromised nature of our criminal justice system. We should have involved top-level sociologists, psychiatrists, social workers and agencies dealing with narcotics.

We should also involve specific units of our intelligence agencies, both internal and external, to find out the origins of this trade, its tentacles across the country and the nexus between politicians, police and drug cartels. This is a wide-ranging suggestion, but if the government should so desire, a functional small group or groups could be set up to study the problem and offer solutions.