TIMES NATION | Politics & Policy MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2015 … · 2016-08-06 · For those like...
1
‘CANNABIS BAN IS ELITIST. IT SHOULD GO’ You’ve admitted that you have smoked pot. Now, that’s a rare admission by an MP given that it’s a statutory offence to do so. I did it when I was young. I haven’t smoked pot for some time now. But I neither regret it nor have any remorse about it. I also don’t support the ban on cannabis con- sumption. Why do you think cannabis consumption was criminalized? Was it wrong to do so and attach such stigma to its use? Intoxication, in various forms, has been part of societies across the world. Shiva had some kind of ‘ras’ and Christ’s blood was wine. Since biblical times and even prior to that, including the Romans and South Americans, people have been using intoxicants. Whether it’s part of Indian culture, I don’t know. But it’s definitely a way of life in India. In Odisha (where can- nabis consumption is not illegal), people smoking chillum is a common sight. It is not something you make note of just as you don’t notice someone drinking water or having tea. The only difference that I have experienced in life is whether you let an intoxicant overpower your life or you take it as a learning process, do some- thing and then get out of it. It has often been argued that it’s not the substance that makes you an addict... That’s correct. It’s not the substance but your character. People are addicted to sweets, salty food. It harms them as much. Do you think in the late ’80s when it was banned, we overreacted to a scare created by the US? Yes, I agree. Do you think it’s hypocritical of the Indian state to allow consumption of alcohol but not cannabis? It has been argued that alcohol is more harmful than cannabis. We are the US of the ’50s and the ’60s. We are wannabes. The thinking is that if you hold a wine glass people will consider you belong to the upper class. You roll a joint and people will call you ‘charsi’. It is an elitist bias. It was during Rajiv Gandhi’s time that the Indian state was most elitist. A pilot married to a foreigner and forced into something he was not interested in. Indira Gandhi was not elitist in that man- ner. Cannabis suffered a ban because it was an intoxicant of the poor. Should India revisit the ban? While it should, I don’t think it can. Un- less there is some Act about medical us- age of marijuana and then the civil soci- ety creates some kind of pressure to in- sert the word “recreational”. And then we can also demand a change in the NDPS Act. If some day a debate comes up on this issue in Parliament, would you stand up for decriminalization of cannabis? Of course I will. I will seek the permission of my party president. I will try to con- vince him of what I think and why I think so. Whether he agrees or not I can’t pre- dict. But if he is convinced, perhaps he will authorize me to officially support decriminalization of cannabis. After all, it is legal in our state. You hold a wine glass, people think you belong to the upper class. You roll a joint and people call you ‘charsi’. Cannabis suffered a ban because it was an intoxicant of the poor It’s not the substance but your character that matters. People are addicted to sweets, salty food. It harms them as much Times View S ince 1985, when the ill-conceived NDPS Act was enacted, this is the first time an Indian lawmaker has shown the courage of conviction to speak out against the law and ask for legalizing use of cannabis — the plant from which marijuana (ganja), hashish (charas) and bhang are derived. The NDPS Act had outlawed a way of life in India by bracketing ganja and charas with killer drugs like smack and heroin and prescribing a minimum 10-year jail term for the sale or possession of these drugs. Government shops that sold ganja and charas shut down and the poor man’s intoxicant was made illegal. Meantime, informal trade moved from these soft drugs to killer smack because while the punishment was the same, the profit margin for smack was 10 times higher than for ganja. And for the first time, we witnessed a drugs problem in India with the emergence of the desperate “smackiya”. Several MPs knew what was happening, argued against the Act in private, but none spoke out against it. Some of it was because of American pressure (the US was losing patience with their pot-smoking flower children), but mostly because soft drugs like marijuana and hashish didn’t enjoy the respectability of alcohol with the upper classes. Since then, penalties for soft drugs have been made lesser than for hard drugs. But should there be a penalty at all on them? American research shows that marijuana is no more harmful to health than alcohol — in fact, some research suggests alcohol is worse. Several US states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana and a growing number are legalizing it for recreational purposes too. And to think that it was India where marijuana and hashish were used as recreational drugs for as long as anyone can remember — our scriptures talk of Lord Shiva’s fondness for it. Last year, the NDPS Act was amended to allow the medicinal use of narcotic drugs. However, we should go further and allow the use of soft drugs like marijuana and hashish for recreational use. That would usher in a rational approach towards intoxicants, and set right a historical wrong. BJD chief whip in Lok Sabha Tathagata Satpathy re- cently admitted in a social media chat that he smoked pot (hashish and marijuana) in his younger days. To the pleasantly surprised Net audience, the four-time MP from Dhenkanal in Odisha even showed the way to legally score the stuff in his own state. The comments have since gone vi- ral, earning Satpathy many fans for his candid admission and frank opinion on what he says is an unfairly stigma- tized subject. In a conversation with Deeptiman Tiwary, he explains his opposition to the “elitist” ban on cannabis consumption in India and how given an opportunity he would stand up for its repeal in Parliament TOI INTERVIEW T he unambiguous oppo- sition from BJP govern- ment is a sharp depar- ture from the UPA government’s strategy to buy time — in 2005, entrusting a national commission to study the issue and in 2011, deciding to wait for ‘socio-economic caste census’ for data to com- mission further studies. As polarizing as it is com- plicated, the issue is rooted in the reasoning that SC status- —limited to Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists— should be made religion-neutral, there- by opening it to Hindu “un- touchables” who converted to Islam and Christianity. Strongly objecting to the demand, the BJP government argues that untouchability was a peculiar aspect of Hin- du religion that “denied to disadvantaged castes the fun- damentals of human dignity, human self-respect and even some of the attributes of hu- man personality”. Linking this “evil practice” exclusive- ly to Hinduism, the govern- ment says mere social “back- wardness” cannot put converts on a par with Dalits whose backwardness arises from the traditional practice of “untouchability”. The Centre argues that recognizing SC among follow- ers of Islam and Christianity would amount to violation of the basic tenets of these reli- gions since they do not recog- nize the caste system. Besides, stretching the quota frontiers to Christiani- ty and Islam would necessi- tate an increase in the quan- tum of reservation which would result in the upper ceil- ing of 50% being breached, the Centre argues. According to the Centre, identifying Dalit converts is not easy – since conversions have been happening over several centuries, the caste of an individual’s forefathers cannot be ascertained, espe- cially where the descendants have left the original caste-re- lated occupation. On the con- trary, the government argues that Dalit converts form part of OBCs in states and at the Centre, benefitting from job reservations and welfare schemes catering to back- wards as also religious mi- norities, adding it would be “iniquitous” to grant “converts” the benefits tar- geting SCs. ‘Christians and Muslims can’t be on par with Dalits’ From P 1 F or those like NCP’s Su- nil Tatkare, EC’s order of including photo of candidates on EVMs, is a wel- come, if belated, move. “Dur- ing the Lok Sabha polls when there was a Narendra Modi wave across the country and several candidates lost with high mar- gins, I lost merely by 2,100 votes simply be- cause an Independent with my name was fielded by my rivals. My followers got con- fused and voted for the dummy contestant who bagged 9,500 votes. Names that are similar create confusion among vot- ers who are not political or are illiterate,” said Tatkare. The practice of fielding candidates with similar names is prevalent not just in Maharashtra but throughout the country. In fact, in many parts of the country more than one candidates with a name similar to that of a strong contestant are fielded. For instance, BJP candi- date Chandu Lal Sahu who contested from Mahasamund constituency in Chhattisgarh against veteran Congress leader Ajit Jogi found that there were 10 more Chandu Lal Sahu’s who were contesting as Inde- pendents from the con- stituency. Aruna Pendse, pro- fessor of political sci- ence, Mumbai Universi- ty, said the EC step was a good decision. “A loop hole takes time to be removed from the system. It is a good decision by the ECI to strengthen democ- racy. People use several tactics to defeat a strong candidate. Using dummy name candi- dates is one of them. But ECI decision would eliminate such malpractices,” said Pendse. ‘Dummy victim’ Tatkare welcomes EC’s EVM move From P 1 I f there is a strong Con- gress government in Kar- nataka, it is not because of Congress leadership but because of the honest actions I took as governor,” he said. The claim is interesting as Karnataka provided the rare breather for Congress when it was on a losing spree across the country. The victo- ry also allowed the Congress to counter-attack BJP over corruption when the Manmohan Singh govern- ment was under fire for mega scams. The former Gandhi fam- ily loyalist last week broke his silence, slamming the Congress leadership for not taking responsibility for the controversial decisions of the Manmohan Singh government. Bhardwaj said, “I felt ve- ry sad when the former PM got court summons in the coal scam case. I went to meet him and expressed my sup- port, offered my services.” According to him, cor- ruption in Congress went out of control in UPA-2 which resulted in its unprec- edented defeat in Lok Sabha elections, winning just 44 seats. “The nation assessed UPA-2. India Against Cor- ruption became the biggest movement after JP Andolan (of 1975),” he said, adding that the Congress should “in- trospect why it has gone down so badly”. Having been law minister in UPA-1, Bhardwaj noted that Congress woes started when it was hauled before the judiciary over alleged scams, insinuating that the government tried to get away by influencing the courts. ‘My guv role helped Cong win in K’taka’ From P 1 10 THE TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAI MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2015 TIMES NATION | Politics & Policy New Delhi: The BJP is set to become the world’s largest party soon. However, sceptics say that while PM Narendra Modi’s popularity and the party’s current influence may draw thousands into the fold, their loyalty will remain sus- pect and they might bolt when the going gets tough. Sources in the party main- tain that the enrolment through missed calls is a huge improvement over the old practice where block-level functionaries would mention names of purported mem- bers to meet targets. The leadership had no way of independently verify- ing these claims. In the new scheme, the party can scrutinize registra- tions by calling up numbers from where missed calls originated. The membership drive will officially come to an end on March 31 but there are chances it may be extended in a few states like Maharashtra where according to the party, a large number of people are still calling to register them- selves with the party. After UP, where it has set a target of 1.5 crore, Maharashtra is expected to fetch the maxi- mum number of members for the party. For the full report, log on to www.timesofindia.com After UP, M’rashtra may fetch maximum members for BJP TIMES NEWS NETWORK ➤ Communist Party of China was until now the largest party with about 8.53 crore members. BJP has now crossed the 8.8-crore mark and is expected to have 10 crore members by month-end ➤ BJP credits the missed call-based enrolment as a big improvement over earlier practices, as the party can now screen all registrations ➤ Drive will officially end on March 31 but it may be extended in some states SAFFRON SURGE A. RAMA NAYAK Born: 02.05.1902 Died: 30.03.1981 The man who brought Udipi to Mumbai. Remembered by: Late A. Rama Nayak's Family Matunga, Mumbai. DR. (MS.) Dhun S. Dastoor (Ex. Prof. of NITIE & SIMSIR), passed away on 28/03/2015 at Aurangabad DEATH ANNOUNCEMENTS DEATH ANNIVERSARY SAD DEMISE IN MEMORIAM REMEMBRANCES Indore: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Sunday said the punishment for cow slaughter should be the same as that for murder of human beings. “We already have a law against cow slaughter in MP. We need to give it more teeth to ensure that the punishment for killing a cow is equivalent to that for murder,” Chouhan said in his address at a Jain re- ligious conclave. Speaking at the same event, Union home minister Rajnath Singh said the NDA would work at building con- sensus in support of a na- tionwide ban on cow slaugh- ter. “Former PM Vajpayee had introduced a bill to ban cow slaughter, but it could not be passed. The bill can be intro- duced only after consensus,” he added. Equalize penalty for cow-killing & murder: MP CM TIMES NEWS NETWORK *
Transcript of TIMES NATION | Politics & Policy MONDAY, MARCH 30, 2015 … · 2016-08-06 · For those like...
‘CANNABIS BAN IS ELITIST. IT SHOULD GO’
You’ve admitted that you have smoked pot. Now, that’s a rare admission by an MP given that it’s a statutory offence to do so.I did it when I was young. I haven’t smoked pot for some time now. But I neither regret it nor have any remorse about it. I also don’t support the ban on cannabis con-sumption.Why do you think cannabis consumption was criminalized? Was it wrong to do so and attach such stigma to its use?Intoxication, in various forms, has been part of societies across the world. Shiva had some kind of ‘ras’ and Christ’s blood was wine. Since biblical times and even
prior to that, including the Romans and South Americans, people have been using intoxicants. Whether it’s part of Indian culture, I don’t know. But it’s definitely a way of life in India. In Odisha (where can-nabis consumption is not illegal), people smoking chillum is a common sight. It is not something you make note of just as you don’t notice someone drinking water or having tea. The only difference that I have experienced in life is whether you let an intoxicant overpower your life or you take it as a learning process, do some-thing and then get out of it.It has often been argued that it’s not the substance that makes you an addict...That’s correct. It’s not the substance but your character. People are addicted to sweets, salty food. It harms them as much.Do you think in the late ’80s when it was banned, we overreacted to a scare created by the US?Yes, I agree.Do you think it’s hypocritical of the Indian state to allow consumption of alcohol but not cannabis? It has been argued that alcohol is more harmful than cannabis.
We are the US of the ’50s and the ’60s. We are wannabes. The thinking is that if you hold a wine glass people will consider you belong to the upper class. You roll a joint and people will call you ‘charsi’. It is an elitist bias. It was during Rajiv Gandhi’s time that the Indian state was most elitist. A pilot married to a foreigner and forced into something he was not interested in. Indira Gandhi was not elitist in that man-ner. Cannabis suffered a ban because it was an intoxicant of the poor.Should India revisit the ban?While it should, I don’t think it can. Un-less there is some Act about medical us-
age of marijuana and then the civil soci-ety creates some kind of pressure to in-
sert the word “recreational”. And then we can also demand a change in the NDPS Act.If some day a debate comes
up on this issue in Parliament, would you stand up for decriminalization of cannabis?Of course I will. I will seek the permission of my party president. I will try to con-vince him of what I think and why I think so. Whether he agrees or not I can’t pre-dict. But if he is convinced, perhaps he will authorize me to officially support decriminalization of cannabis. After all, it is legal in our state.
SUNDAYINTERVIEW
You hold a wine glass, people think you belong to the upper class. You roll a joint and people call you ‘charsi’. Cannabis suffered a ban because it was an intoxicant of the poor
It’s not the substance but your character that matters. People are addicted to sweets, salty food. Itharms them as much
Times View
Since 1985, when the ill-conceived NDPS Act was enacted, this is the first time an Indian lawmaker has
shown the courage of conviction to speak out against the law and ask for legalizing use of cannabis — the plant from which marijuana (ganja), hashish (charas) and bhang are derived. The NDPS Act had outlawed a way of life in India by bracketing ganja and charas with killer drugs like smack and heroin and prescribing a minimum 10-year jail term for the sale or possession of these drugs. Government shops that sold ganja and charas shut down and the poor man’s intoxicant was made illegal. Meantime, informal trade moved from these soft drugs to killer smack because while the punishment was the same, the profit margin for smack was 10 times higher than for ganja. And for the first time, we witnessed a drugs problem in India with the emergence of the desperate “smackiya”.
Several MPs knew what was happening, argued against the Act in private, but none spoke out against it. Some of it was because of American pressure (the US was losing patience with their pot-smoking flower children), but mostly because soft drugs like marijuana and hashish didn’t enjoy the respectability of alcohol with the upper classes. Since then, penalties for soft drugs have been made lesser than for hard drugs. But should there be a penalty at all on them? American research shows that marijuana is no more harmful to health than alcohol — in fact, some research suggests alcohol is worse. Several US states have legalized the medicinal use of marijuana and a growing number are legalizing it for recreational purposes too. And to think that it was India where marijuana and hashish were used as recreational drugs for as long as anyone can remember — our scriptures talk of Lord Shiva’s fondness for it.
Last year, the NDPS Act was amended to allow the medicinal use of narcotic drugs. However, we should go further and allow the use of soft drugs like marijuana and hashish for recreational use. That would usher in a rational approach towards intoxicants, and set right a historical wrong.
BJD chief whip in Lok Sabha Tathagata Satpathy re-cently admitted in a social media chat that he smoked pot (hashish and marijuana) in his younger days. To the pleasantly surprised Net audience, the four-time MP from Dhenkanal in Odisha even showed the way to legally score the stuff in his own state. The comments have since gone vi-ral, earning Satpathy many fans for his candid admission and frank opinion on what he says is an unfairly stigma-tized subject. In a conversation with Deeptiman Tiwary,he explains his opposition to the “elitist” ban on cannabis consumption in India and how given an opportunity he would stand up for its repeal in Parliament
TOIINTERVIEW
The unambiguous oppo-sition from BJP govern-ment is a sharp depar-
ture from the UPAgovernment’s strategy to buytime — in 2005, entrusting anational commission to studythe issue and in 2011, decidingto wait for ‘socio-economiccaste census’ for data to com-mission further studies.
As polarizing as it is com-plicated, the issue is rooted inthe reasoning that SC status-—limited to Hindus, Sikhsand Buddhists— should bemade religion-neutral, there-by opening it to Hindu “un-touchables” who converted toIslam and Christianity.
Strongly objecting to thedemand, the BJP governmentargues that untouchabilitywas a peculiar aspect of Hin-du religion that “denied todisadvantaged castes the fun-damentals of human dignity,human self-respect and evensome of the attributes of hu-man personality”. Linkingthis “evil practice” exclusive-ly to Hinduism, the govern-ment says mere social “back-wardness” cannot putconverts on a par with Dalitswhose backwardness arises
from the traditional practiceof “untouchability”.
The Centre argues thatrecognizing SC among follow-ers of Islam and Christianitywould amount to violation ofthe basic tenets of these reli-gions since they do not recog-nize the caste system.
Besides, stretching thequota frontiers to Christiani-ty and Islam would necessi-tate an increase in the quan-tum of reservation whichwould result in the upper ceil-ing of 50% being breached,the Centre argues.
According to the Centre,identifying Dalit converts isnot easy – since conversionshave been happening overseveral centuries, the caste ofan individual’s forefatherscannot be ascertained, espe-cially where the descendantshave left the original caste-re-lated occupation. On the con-trary, the government arguesthat Dalit converts form partof OBCs in states and at theCentre, benefitting from jobreservations and welfareschemes catering to back-wards as also religious mi-norities, adding it would be“iniquitous” to grant “converts” the benefits tar-geting SCs.
‘Christians andMuslims can’t be
on par with Dalits’ �From P 1
For those like NCP’s Su-nil Tatkare, EC’s orderof including photo of
candidates on EVMs, is a wel-come, if belated, move. “Dur-ing the Lok Sabha polls whenthere was a Narendra Modiwave across the country andseveral candidateslost with high mar-gins, I lost merely by2,100 votes simply be-cause an Independentwith my name wasfielded by my rivals.My followers got con-fused and voted for the dummycontestant who bagged 9,500votes. Names that are similarcreate confusion among vot-ers who are not political or areilliterate,” said Tatkare.
The practice of fieldingcandidates with similarnames is prevalent not just inMaharashtra but throughoutthe country. In fact, in many
parts of the country morethan one candidates with aname similar to that of astrong contestant are fielded.
For instance, BJP candi-date Chandu Lal Sahu whocontested from Mahasamundconstituency in Chhattisgarhagainst veteran Congressleader Ajit Jogi found that
there were 10 moreChandu Lal Sahu’s whowere contesting as Inde-pendents from the con-stituency.
Aruna Pendse, pro-fessor of political sci-ence, Mumbai Universi-
ty, said the EC step was a gooddecision. “A loop hole takestime to be removed from thesystem. It is a good decision bythe ECI to strengthen democ-racy. People use several tacticsto defeat a strong candidate.Using dummy name candi-dates is one of them. But ECIdecision would eliminate suchmalpractices,” said Pendse.
‘Dummy victim’ Tatkarewelcomes EC’s EVM move�From P 1
If there is a strong Con-gress government in Kar-nataka, it is not because
of Congress leadership butbecause of the honest actions I took as governor,”he said.
The claim is interestingas Karnataka provided therare breather for Congresswhen it was on a losing spreeacross the country. The victo-ry also allowed the Congressto counter-attack BJP overcorruption when the Manmohan Singh govern-ment was under fire for mega scams.
The former Gandhi fam-ily loyalist last week brokehis silence, slamming theCongress leadership for nottaking responsibility for thecontroversial decisions ofthe Manmohan Singh government.
Bhardwaj said, “I felt ve-ry sad when the former PMgot court summons in thecoal scam case. I went to meethim and expressed my sup-port, offered my services.”
According to him, cor-ruption in Congress wentout of control in UPA-2which resulted in its unprec-edented defeat in Lok Sabhaelections, winning just 44seats. “The nation assessedUPA-2. India Against Cor-ruption became the biggestmovement after JP Andolan(of 1975),” he said, addingthat the Congress should “in-trospect why it has gonedown so badly”.
Having been law ministerin UPA-1, Bhardwaj notedthat Congress woes startedwhen it was hauled beforethe judiciary over allegedscams, insinuating that thegovernment tried to get awayby influencing the courts.
‘My guv role helpedCong win in K’taka’
�From P 1
10 THE TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAIMONDAY, MARCH 30, 2015TIMES NATION | Politics & Policy
New Delhi: The BJP is set tobecome the world’s largestparty soon. However, scepticssay that while PM NarendraModi’s popularity and theparty’s current influence maydraw thousands into the fold,their loyalty will remain sus-pect and they might bolt whenthe going gets tough.
Sources in the party main-tain that the enrolmentthrough missed calls is a huge improvement over the old practice where block-levelfunctionaries would mentionnames of purported mem-bers to meet targets.
The leadership had noway of independently verify-ing these claims.
In the new scheme, theparty can scrutinize registra-tions by calling up numbersfrom where missed calls originated.
The membership drivewill officially come to an endon March 31 but there arechances it may be extended ina few states like Maharashtrawhere according to the party,a large number of people arestill calling to register them-
selves with the party. After UP,where it has set a target of 1.5crore, Maharashtra is expected to fetch the maxi-mum number of members forthe party.
For the full report, log onto www.timesofindia.com
After UP, M’rashtra may fetchmaximum members for BJP
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
➤ Communist Party of China was until now the largest party with about 8.53 crore members. BJP has now crossed the 8.8-crore mark and is expected to have 10 crore members by month-end
➤ BJP credits the missed call-based enrolment as a big improvement over earlier practices, as the party can now screen all registrations
➤ Drive will offi cially end on March 31 but it may be extended in some states
SAFFRON SURGE
A. RAMA NAYAK
Born: 02.05.1902Died: 30.03.1981
The man who broughtUdipi to Mumbai.Remembered by: Late A. Rama Nayak'sFamily
Matunga, Mumbai.
DR. (MS.) Dhun S. Dastoor (Ex. Prof. ofNITIE & SIMSIR), passedaway on 28/03/2015 at Aurangabad
DEATH ANNOUNCEMENTS
DEATH ANNIVERSARY SAD DEMISE IN MEMORIAMREMEMBRANCES
Indore: Madhya Pradeshchief minister Shivraj SinghChouhan on Sunday said thepunishment for cow slaughtershould be the same as that formurder of human beings.
“We already have a lawagainst cow slaughter in MP.We need to give it more teeth toensure that the punishmentfor killing a cow is equivalentto that for murder,” Chouhansaid in his address at a Jain re-ligious conclave.
Speaking at the sameevent, Union home ministerRajnath Singh said the NDAwould work at building con-sensus in support of a na-tionwide ban on cow slaugh-ter. “Former PM Vajpayee hadintroduced a bill to ban cowslaughter, but it could not bepassed. The bill can be intro-duced only after consensus,”he added.
Equalize penaltyfor cow-killing &murder: MP CM
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
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