His relentless campaign brought about state-wide ban on tobacco….Ananya Banerjee
One truth Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi, associate professor at Tata Memorial Hospital, realised early in the battle against the tobacco lobby was, You can fight a statistic but you can never fight a patient.
So while gutkha and paan masala manufacturers showcased big investment numbers to justify their business, Chaturvedi who has been at the forefront of the anti-tobacco movement brought three strategically chosen persons to narrate their cancer stories before the state Assembly. They were Sonu Solanki, a minor when he became an addict; Sumitra Pednekar, the widow of tobacco addict and home and labour minister of Maharashtra Satish Pednekar, who died of oral cancer last year; and a retired government officer who has cancer.
Imagine an 18-year-old talking about living under the fear of cancer or a widow speaking of her tobacco addict husbands last few hours. It instilled fear in the MLAs. Here was a man who would sit among them a few months ago and was no more, Chaturvedi said of Pednekar.
Maharashtra has the largest number of smokeless tobacco users with every second person of the two lakh addicts suffering from cancer. One mans death is a story. Many deaths is a statistic, he added. For years, the thoracic surgeon has seen the numbers, studied them and grappled with the firm growth curve. Of patients dying from carcinogenic products and soon becoming a statistic in Global Adult Surveys and World Health Organisation reports.
On August 16, as five gutkha manufacturers challenge the ban in the High Court, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has called Chaturvedi to back them in court with medical academia as they justify their move. This hasnt been easy on Chaturvedi, who has been pushing advocacy for the past two years. Over the past six months, this advocacy initiated by Chaturvedi saw the FDA issue a notification on July 20 on behalf of the state government, prohibiting the sale of gutkha and paan masala. Advocacy has to be followed up on a daily basis till the message is delivered, he said.
Soon, MLAs, MPs, corporates, policemen, students, teachers, civilians and media inadvertently became a part of the movement. After two failed attempts at the ban in 2002 and 2005, the movement finally got what it really needed political will. Only political will can push a prohibition. Everything else fails. This political will we saw with the current chief minister and deputy chief minister, he said.
Every 15 days, Chaturvedi and his team would meet government officials to push for the ban. Just one World Tobacco Day cannot do anything. We used Independence Day to meet the CM. We told him we need freedom from cancer. Similarly, we used Childrens Day as a pretext to meet him. We needed to tell him that this issue is alive.
Maharashtra is one of the largest tobacco consumers in the country. According to the Million Death Study, which is a population-based study drawn from the Indian Sample Registration System, of the 18,000 male cancer deaths in the state in 2010, almost half, 9,500 deaths, were caused by tobacco.
With the ban now imposed in Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Kerala, the medical fraternity led by Chaturvedi is hoping Maharashtra sticks to its stand this time.