The drug menace in Punjab is a reality. Opioid dependents spend around 7500 crores on drug use annually
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Bollywood film Udta Punjab is fiction, but Punjab’s drug menace is not. The case of a two-year-old addicted to heroin in Khanna town of Punjab was reported by Manjeet Sehgal for The Daily Mail on June 29, 2014. The toddler, still unweaned, slept for hours on end. The drug addiction was passed on to him by his lactating mother. This article “Child drug addiction soars in Punjab” also talked about 9-year-old Prince, the son of daily wagers, from a village in Patiala. Prince got addicted at the age of seven. His drug abuse came to light after he, and some other minor drug addicts, jumped into the Bhakra Canal when high. That Prince survived is fortunate, but thousands more like him continue to undergo a long and possibly fatal battle against addiction in the state.
Udta Punjab, a film directed by Abhishek Chaubey and starring Shahid Kapoor, Kareena Kapoor Khan and Alia Bhatt, highlights the state’s drug menace. Slated for release on June 17, the film has been making headlines as Central Board of Film Certification chief Pahlaj Nihalani recently ordered 89 cuts under 13 broad categories. Some of the recommended deletions include any reference to Punjab, Amritsar, Ludhiana, Jashanpura, Ambesar, words MP, MLA, Parliament, and close-up shots of intravenous drug use.
"It is an extremely well-made film, focuses on a very serious problem," said filmmaker Shyam Benegal of Udta Punjab. On Thursday, the Bombay High Court heard a writ petition filed by Phantom Films, the filmmakers against the "unreasonable" cuts. At the time of filing the story, the hearing was still in progress. On the same day, a human rights group, whose politician affiliation, if any, was not clear, took to the streets in Amritsar pressing to ban the film’s release on the grounds that it maligned the state’s image.
Drug use is rampant across gender, age and economics in Punjab. Amritsar is reported to be the most affected urban district while Taran Taran is the rural district with most severe drug-abuse problems. According to the Punjab Opioid Dependency Survey (PODS) conducted for the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India and supported by Department of Health, Government of Punjab, an estimated 1.3 lakh adults were opioid dependent in the 10 surveyed districts.
The survey reported that heroin is the most common opioid (53 percent users) followed by intravenous synthetic drugs (33 percent). Statistics further reveal that 99 percent of the dependents are male, 89 percent are literate, 53 percent are married and 83 percent are employed. Seventy-five per cent of the respondents reported peer-influence as the reason for starting opioid use. Interestingly, 80 percent of the respondents said they had tried to quit, but only 33 percent ever got any help to do so. The survey estimates that opioid dependents spend an average of Rs 20 crore per day, resulting into 7575 crore being annually spent on opioid abuse.
Once the golden bowl of India, with highest wheat production, today Punjab is struggling with impoverished farmers who are increasingly turning to illicit poppy cultivation and joining hands with drug mafia operating across the border and within. Land, home and property are being routinely sold out to feed addiction in rural and urban areas. The loss of youth is a reality.
Maqboolpura is now known as 'The Village of Widows." Here, hundreds of women and children have been left bereaved by men lost to drug abuse. The problem is so acute that rehabilitation centres are flooding with victims, health officers have gone on record saying that the state’s health care system is ill-equipped to deal with the deluge of drug abusers checking in for help.
News reports have discussed the deep set nexus between politicians, police and drug mafia repeatedly. Drugs were allegedly freely distributed during election campaigns. Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), the ruling party in Punjab, has been repeatedly blamed for not doing enough to stop the drug mafia. In November 2013, its district treasurer and youth-wing leader Maninder Singh Aulakh was arrested for involvement in a massive drug racket. As of Thursday, SAD denounced the film, rejecting its depiction of the drug problem.
Aam Aadmi Party, however, lost no time to take up the film lobby’s side after Pahlaj Nihalani, the censor board chief, alleged that producer Anurag Kashyap was funded by AAP. The drug menace in Punjab features prominently in the debates and allegations that AAP is raising as it warms up for the 2017 assembly elections. In a television interview, Nihalani had pledged unsolicited and open alliance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. On Thursday, Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Ravi Shankar Prasad said that the government “celebrates and supports creative freedom” and that “we have no role in the CBFC”.
Politics apart, the controversy goes to show the power of the audio-visual media and the impact that big screen and big names can make. While the quality and success of Udta Punjab is yet to be seen and measured, the united fight of Indian filmmakers seems warranted at least in this standalone case. Anurag Kashyap said, “The man (Nihalani) should function within his constitution.”
Just as good fiction can give a free-run to imagination it can also sound a death-knell of reality with shocking results. Films that mirror the rot set in society do not defame. At most, they can be blamed for adding colour, drama and hyperbole. Unfortunately, if it is such elements of entertainment that make people sit up and take notice, then so be it.
