The Government of India launched the nationwide Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan as drug and alcohol addiction in India has long been a silent crisis, impacting individuals, families, and communities across both urban and rural landscapes. To combat this life threatening challenge, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched the Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyan (NMBA) on 15th August 2020 with a vision to make India drug-sensitized and resilient against substance abuse.
The word ‘abhiyan’ literally means a campaign, a mission, a drive etc. and its primary target is to involve stakeholders that might be directly or indirectly affected by substance abuse and who are vulnerable to it. The primary stakeholders and beneficiaries of the NMBA are youth, women, children, educational institutions, civil society, and the community at large. Since the abhiyan was undertaken, a wide range of activities have been conducted throughout the country that has fostered participation from all sections of society and stakeholders.
There has been a shift from an earlier approach of organizational involvement to community involvement in the issue of substance abuse. The states, districts, and other stakeholders have taken ownership of the Abhiyan, which has helped transform the Abhiyan into a mass movement. But the questions which need to be addressed by the policy makers are as:
Does conferences and events, speeches and symposiums, rallies and marathons, workshops and warnings and after all demolitions will bring the desired results which have been envisioned by the nation.
Can any epidemic be controlled with mere rallies and marathons and when it is the menace of the drug pandemic, will it be eradicated without any proper and robust system?
Have we the practical idea that the drug addiction which has become now a household crisis cannot be controlled by events and rallies?
Do we really mean that we can control this serious health crisis with conferences and events, speeches and symposiums, rallies and marathons, workshops and warnings and narrative cycles?
The questions need to be addressed by the people at the helm of affairs but it seems to the common masses that ‘we are not fighting drugs rather we are performing a fight against drugs’.
From school to colleges to universities, from teachers to doctors to advocates, from Panchs to Sarpanchs to BDCs and DDCs, from SHOs to SPs to SSPs, from Tehsildars to Sub Divisional Magistrates to Deputy Commissioners…we all are performing the acts.
Had we been fighting the menace tooth and nail with a proper and strategic system, the story would have been totally different. The number of addicts would have been drastically decreased but contrary the numbers are still increasing with an alarming rate despite these measures by the administration, spending crores of rupees from the public exchequer but all in vain. Pardon me, if I am wrong. But I call spade a spade…
Do we know that the world has already gone through this what we are going through now? Different nations of the world had already tried these rallies, events, symposiums, seminars, workshops etc. but nothing positive had been achieved despite using all the machinery of the administration. Then they switched to practical, pragmatic and viable measures which turned the tables.
Portugal, a European country changed its course. They treated addicts as patients not as criminals. They built counseling and rehabilitation centers. With the result, the numbers decreased drastically, deaths fell and lives were rebuilt.
Iceland, once worst hit by drugs, did not chase drugs. They devised methods and policies to combat it and it worked. They engaged people especially the youth in sports and structure and motivated them for the bigger purpose of life. The results changed the course of the history.
And ironically, we are still with rallies and marathons, events and workshops and we think that we will succeed in combating the life threatening challenge. Because, here, in this part of the world, unfortunately, the suffering has become a stage for image building and governance has turned into performance.
Now, the even bigger question is:
Millions of rupees of tax payer money are being used for what?
Has the graph been down?
Has the recovery improved?
If the answers are no, then please stop using rather wasting the public money for mere sloganeering and symposiums, rallies and marathons.
We need to introspect our policies and actions. We can arrest drug peddlers, we can demolish houses but we cannot hold hopelessness, tension and trauma, unemployment etc. without treating the root cause of this evil. We need to understand that these are the real causes of addiction.
And things become even worse when we shame and criminalize addiction. It is here, when people wear masks and hide. It is here, when families go silent. And with the result, the crises go deep and eventually it will soon shake the very foundations of a society.
The treatment and cure does not lie in rallies and marathons, symposiums and seminars. Rather, it needs counseling and mental health support, rehabilitation centers with workable systems, youth engagement and calculated and strategic policy to own the people and the community.
We must remember that ‘drugs are not the disease rather they are a symptom.
And unless we stop performing the crisis and start treating its symptoms and causes, nothing will change…
khandaybilal12@gmail.com
