LET'S FIGHT REAL CRIME, NOT NONSENSE
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there's nothing wrong with drinking or smoking. I don't do either but that's a personal choice and I don't inflict it on others. I would go one step further, in fact, and argue that the battle against drugs can never be won unless we acknowledge the fact that all drugs are not the same.
Some drugs open, as Aldous Huxley so well described, our doors of perception while others cause us serious injury. We must stop criminalising all drugs indiscriminately and inform people which drugs have what effect.Otherwise, young people will keep experimenting to fmd out.
Similarly, there's nothing wrong with consensual sex even if some people choose to buy it and others, sell it.What's wrong is trafficking in women. Just as it's wrong pushing drugs on unsuspecting victims. In fact, if you ask me, and people of my generation who have grown up on Allen Ginsberg, Elvis and Timothy Leary, we see marijuana as a lesser evil than drinking or smoking.
People smoke pot out of fun.But drinking and smoking is big business, run by very powerful lobbies that profit from the addiction of others. That's not cool.
Geography too has a role to play in what's right, what's not. An Indian lady who went to Saudi Arabia with her husband last week was arrested as a drug smuggler because she carried with her, along with other cooking ingredients, poppy seeds which are commonly used in home cooking here. Our consulate's still trying to get her out of jail.
Every third sadhu from where I come smokes ganja. Now translate that into English
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and it's a serious drug offence that could get you a death sentence in Singapore or Thailand.But why am I saying all this? Simply to establish that it's foolish of the State to pursue and punish silly, minor ·indiscretions.
Instead, it should focus on fighting real crime. Whichever way you see it, women dancing in bars is no crime. Nor is surfing porn sites. Or showing an underclad woman in an ad or a poster. Or keeping a pub open beyond official hours.
Prostitution's not a nice thing, I know, but when you have a city where the population is largely migrant and their families live in villages hundreds of miles away, it's stupid to try and stop it. You will only drive it underground and into the hands of criminal gangs.
What our cops need to combat is real crime and real criminals. Bribe-taking bureaucrats. Terrorists.Corrupt politicians.Religious bigots instigating flash riots. Perpetrators of caste crimes. Rapists. Bride burners. Drug syndicates.Flesh traders. Thugs.Extortionists. Murderers.That's their job.
Not providing VIP security, catching visitors to porn sites, filing cases against obscene posters, shutting down pubs at midnight, harassing street walkers, monitoring cable channels, chasing lovers out of public parks, catching bikers racing at night, demanding performance licences from DJs, tracking down cricket bookies, chasing around pavement hawkers.
They have a real job to do out there. It's time we allowed them to do it.
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EXTRA ORDINARY ISSUE
Pritish Nandy in TOI
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there's nothing wrong with drinking or smoking. I don't do either but that's a personal choice and I don't inflict it on others. I would go one step further, in fact, and argue that the battle against drugs can never be won unless we acknowledge the fact that all drugs are not the same.
Some drugs open, as Aldous Huxley so well described, our doors of perception while others cause us serious injury. We must stop criminalising all drugs indiscriminately and inform people which drugs have what effect.Otherwise, young people will keep experimenting to fmd out.
Similarly, there's nothing wrong with consensual sex even if some people choose to buy it and others, sell it.What's wrong is trafficking in women. Just as it's wrong pushing drugs on unsuspecting victims. In fact, if you ask me, and people of my generation who have grown up on Allen Ginsberg, Elvis and Timothy Leary, we see marijuana as a lesser evil than drinking or smoking.
People smoke pot out of fun.But drinking and smoking is big business, run by very powerful lobbies that profit from the addiction of others. That's not cool.
Geography too has a role to play in what's right, what's not. An Indian lady who went to Saudi Arabia with her husband last week was arrested as a drug smuggler because she carried with her, along with other cooking ingredients, poppy seeds which are commonly used in home cooking here. Our consulate's still trying to get her out of jail.
Every third sadhu from where I come smokes ganja. Now translate that into English
·
.
·
and it's a serious drug offence that could get you a death sentence in Singapore or Thailand.But why am I saying all this? Simply to establish that it's foolish of the State to pursue and punish silly, minor ·indiscretions.
Instead, it should focus on fighting real crime. Whichever way you see it, women dancing in bars is no crime. Nor is surfing porn sites. Or showing an underclad woman in an ad or a poster. Or keeping a pub open beyond official hours.
Prostitution's not a nice thing, I know, but when you have a city where the population is largely migrant and their families live in villages hundreds of miles away, it's stupid to try and stop it. You will only drive it underground and into the hands of criminal gangs.
What our cops need to combat is real crime and real criminals. Bribe-taking bureaucrats. Terrorists.Corrupt politicians.Religious bigots instigating flash riots. Perpetrators of caste crimes. Rapists. Bride burners. Drug syndicates.Flesh traders. Thugs.Extortionists. Murderers.That's their job.
Not providing VIP security, catching visitors to porn sites, filing cases against obscene posters, shutting down pubs at midnight, harassing street walkers, monitoring cable channels, chasing lovers out of public parks, catching bikers racing at night, demanding performance licences from DJs, tracking down cricket bookies, chasing around pavement hawkers.
They have a real job to do out there. It's time we allowed them to do it.
·
EXTRA ORDINARY ISSUE
Pritish Nandy in TOI
.
posted by Jim at 12:10 AM
4 comments
